Memorial day weekend, birthday and family time

Hope your Memorial day weekend was a good one! I'm glad to be back
and writing again. It's been another couple of weeks and I hadn't planned
on being away so long. So what's new? For me, I've been trying to get in
as much time with my online courses learning more sewing and today...
gardening. I got paid today and said good-bye to most of my check as
they went to the utility bills, then I treated myself to a new online garden
ing course with Craftsy.com. The week before we celebrated Loni's 9th
birthday. He wanted coconut-cream cupcakes or cake and I made him a
Bakugan cake.

For Memorial day, we just spent family time in the back yard, cutting the
grass. The grass was so long it was up to our thighs, so Mel took to the
over-grown grass with the lawn edging machine or however you call it.
While I took over the bbq he started of Teriyaki chicken and hot dogs.
The kids had tons of fun running around the back-yard and helping rake
up the mounds of grass. 

Last week, I got caught up with making cupcakes with the kids. It was
fun, but after gaining an extra 8-9 pounds tasting and what not..it wasn't
so fun anymore. So I left cup-caking to another time where I'm more in
control of my will power. You can go here for the Hawaiian cupcakes 
recipe at Foodista, recipe by Leah Rodriguez. They're sooo yummy, you
have to stop yourself at one or else you'd eat the whole batch..hmm,
kinda sounds like what we did..

 Hawaiian Cupcakes with Coconut Cream

Cheese Frosting

Red Velvet cupcakes and Lemon Cupcakes 

with Lemon curd filling

Guava rose cupcakes with Guava buttercream

This week I started a welfare group with my friends, Umu and Ta. 

What we're doing is taking turns buying $50 worth of products for

the person of the week. So Umu is this week and Ta and I would 

buy her $50 worth of products that she wants for emergency stash. 

She's requested $50 worth of Scott's Toilet paper and cases of 

bottled water from Costco from me, Then she'd request something 

else from Ta, again $50 worth say, toothpaste, shampoo, etc. Next

week is Ta's turn and her requests, then my turn the week after. 

We're doing this every week until our stockpiles are full and set for

winter, when the guys aren't doing construction anymore.

So it works out for us. Other groups would have 9 women and do

$20 per person. So it depends on the group you're in and the women's

needs in the group. We do make sure that we only deal with women 

who won't flake out. So that's a quick look at what I've been up to 

for the past couple of weeks. Hope this week brings you and your 

family many blessings. I'd love to hear how your week is going!!