Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Cupcake Extravaganza

I know I brag on my friend Sara a lot, but seriously, that girl amazes me!  At 8 months pregnant, she is still a cupcake baking machine.  Our church just celebrated its 60th anniversary and Sara was asked to supply around 650 cupcakes for the event.  She rallied a group of ladies to help her out knowing that with two other big events booked for the same weekend, she couldn't do it all.

I of course jumped at the chance to help her out and maybe learn a trick or two about cupcake making! Sara is always super organized and had everything all printed out and bagged up in batches.  We started at 1, just the two of us! She and I were all on our own for the baking portion (there were a couple of ladies who bailed last minute, and a couple who showed up later once they got off work).

I had Bean with me, which made things twice as hard.  She didn't want to nap right away, and wasn't happy about playing in the play yard.  So for a little bit, I had to hold her AND make cupcakes.  I, of course, reminded Sara that this was just a glimpse into her future, ha!  Bean finally did nap, and we found a baking groove.

I stuck to mixing up the batches.  We had 4 Kitchen Aid mixers in use throughout the day.  I'd pick up a bag of a specified dry mix, follow the recipe to add in the wet ingredients, mix it up, and pass off to Sara.  She'd scoop into all the cupcake pans and bake.  When I was tending to Bean at times, she'd have to do double duty.  Just as the last batch was baking, the rest of our help arrived and we switched to icing mode.  Sara did a quick icing making lesson and let a couple of us make the icing while she iced all the cupcakes.  Another lady followed behind and added the toppings.  We all took turns on cleaning up the dishes!

(Sara trying to convince me that we can totally bake 630 cupcakes all by ourselves. And I'm pretty sure this picture was after she realized if she worked on the opposite side of the table, she could face me so that we could talk.  Only took about 30 minutes to figure out!)

(Look at all those mixers! Sara owns the two on the left, we borrowed the red in the middle from our friend Candace, and my orange one on the right!  We had all 4 going at one point  - but we had to move one due to it holding peanut butter and one of the ladies being allergic. ha.)

(I brought both the pack'n'play & playyard with me.  Bean napped in the pack'n'play for about an hour in the pantry room next to the kitchen.  Then when she woke up, she wanted to be in the kitchen with us, so I just pulled the pack'n'play in there.)

(More help arrived!)

There were 3 different icings being done, so we assigned a specific icing to each mixer.  Then, as Sara needed that icing, we'd just make more.  My favorite part of the day was when Sara said I made PERFECT icing.  Sara is a perfectionist and isn't one to give over control.  So her letting me just make the icing and not shadow over me was HUGE.  Haha!

(I had the playyard set up in the fellowship hall right outside the kitchen.  Bean played in there a little bit while the cupcakes were being iced, but then she wanted out of jail.  One of the ladies ended up playing with her for awhile until she had to leave. That's when daddy came to the rescue to take her home!)

Steve was able to cut out of work by 5, pick up dinner for a few of us, and take Bean home with him.  It's amazing how much easier it is to do things without her.  Just having to check on her, worry about her, etc takes up time and side tracks me easily.  We finally finished up all the cupcakes and cleaning around 6. Our goal was to be done by 7 - Awesome!  We could have done it all on our own, but so thankful for the other ladies who showed up and helped!  Definitely made things go quicker :)

I was able to take a few things that I learned from our huge cupcake day and cranked out some gluten free cupcakes on my own.  There are a few ladies in our church who are gluten free and one of them was supposed to supply cupcakes.  However, she got injured so I stepped in to help.  I first had to make sure to deep clean my kitchen (and mixer) to get rid of all the gluten and not cross contaminate.  It made for a stressful day, but in the end, I was pleased with the outcome!

(My gluten free cupcakes!  I borrowed an icing tip from Sara.  This was my first successful piping bag experience, haha!)

(Proof I had made and packaged the cupcakes.  The box was really big and wobbly when you picked it up.  So I wanted proof of perfect cupcakes before the "treacherous" ride to church.  Okay, really it wasn't treacherous but I may have panicked a little over some stops. Sorry Steve.)

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Church Search Update

Steve and I have had a slow going church search process.  It doesn't help that we travel a lot and have been gone a lot of weekends this summer.  In Tennessee, our search went pretty quick and we settled on the 4th church we visited.  The first time we went to Fellowship Bible Church in Jackson, we immediately fell in love and new it was the right church for us.

Our story here in Lima has been a lot different.  We've gone to 8+ churches, but we think we've found one.  We have attended Lima Baptist Temple 6 or 7 times, and are growing more attached to it.  The style is much more traditional -- sing primarily hymns, lots of amens from the crowd, and the music is primarily soundtracks or piano/guitar.  Our church in Tennessee matched our desires so perfectly, that we kept comparing the Lima churches to it.  Now, we've accepted we won't find what we had in Tennessee and are learning to appreciate the differences.

We are growing particularly fond of the pastor's teachings.  We decided a strong teacher outweighed the worship portion and LBT has just that.  We especially like the pastor's hand raising (can I get an amen?).  He has a laid back personality, young, and is pretty relatable.  Another perk is the fact that it is broadcast on the tv every Sunday!  There have been a few Sunday's when one of us was feeling the greatest and we were still able to enjoy the church on television (although the tv sermon is from the previous week).

This past Sunday, we visited the Sunday School hour.  We had previously filled out a visitor card and a pastor contacted us with the information for the class after college - 30 class.  It was a pretty good size 25+ people, and a good mix.  There was probably only 2 other couples around our age, leaving the majority closer to 30 and with kids.  We sat next to another couple that was visiting for the first time, and they were newlyweds (a little younger than us).  The leader of the class also happened to be the music pastor.  It was neat getting to see him on a more personal level and then watch him lead the worship in the next hour.  When we were sharing where we were fun, the leader shared with Steve that he too used to live in Colorado.  He prefaced it with "I don't remember exactly where other than that it was South of Denver in a place called -- The Pinery!"  Ha ha -- for those of you who don't know much about Steve, he grew up in the next subdivision in the South Pinery -- what are the odds??  The leader lived there 35+ years ago and remembers the area being very wooded and secluded -- now it's all houses and subdivisions.

Steve and I left the church feeling much better about where God is leading us.  We even sat next to the other new couple in the worship service and got to talk with them a little more.  We are looking forward to next week's church visit instead of cringing and worrying about not meeting people we can call friends.  We are even excited to get to go to a "date night" class event next week!  Thanks for all the prayers about us finding a new church home and creating deeper roots in Lima.  We are finally starting to feel more and more at home in Lima and are excited to get involved more into the community.