Don’t ya love an easy birthday cake?? I find the fuss of a birthday party a lot of stress, so if I can afford one, I buy the cake and whatever else I can too! Or - have it somewhere else! Ie: the theatre, bowling alley, swimming pool, local gym, McDonalds.

And another easy - peasy birthday cake for a 2 year old: ONE 9″ round cake plus cupcakes for more guests.

Cut the cake like so:

And place the pieces like this:

Easy peasy!

In case you need them, I have a Yellow Cake, Divine Carrot Cake, Ice Cream Cake - gluten free & easy!!! that are all gluten free (and a chocolate cake that is coming soon) posted in the recipes section.

Happy birthday to your little one!

Take care,

Cathy

• 1 egg
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of smooth peanut butter

Mix together. Drop by teaspoonfuls. Flatten with fork. Bake 350°F for 8 minutes.

Yummmy!

Having a beautiful background on my desktop if sure motivation to keep all those icons in check.  And every month Shabby Princess releases one of these for FREE!!  They are bmp or png format.  So you just open with any desktop publisher program and insert your own pictures.  Most of the scrappers that I’ve been reading use Adobe or Photoshop.  Or Corel software.  But I use Publisher and it works just fine!  Just select all the images, <group objects>, right click and select <save as image>.  Voila!  You have a new image to put as your wallpaper.

Enjoy!

Click here for the January desktop from Shabby Princess.

Hello Mommies,

Well, I finally got around to jumping around a bit to a rocking CD.   30 minutes of jumping around.  Not too intense.  And I feel great!!  Coincidence?  Uh, I don’t know.  It has also been sunny around here for a couple days - I think that really helps too.

Blessings,

Cathy

One thing that I find relaxing is meditating on a picture. A scene. A place that would capture my imagination. If any of the pics below catch you, click on them for a larger image for you to download. All images are courtesy of www.sxc.hu.

I did this exercise with a counselor that I saw last year. Put yourself in the picture, and stop your mind from working so hard. Just observe. Some questions to ask yourself are - where am I in the scene? What temperature is it? What does it smell like? What kinds of sounds and sights are there? What emotions do I experience here? Time doesn’t matter. You are in the photo. And spend some good 10 minutes at least in there. Optimally, you can work up to 30 minutes or so. Enjoy!

Take care, Mommies,

Cathy