Build a Better Burger

If you've ever watched the Food Network then you might have seen Sutter Homes Winery - Build a Better Burger contest. We saw it early in the summer and were inspired to try and build our own burger for the contest. We tried to have a mix of Turkish and American blend by putting pureed eggplant, bacon and caramelized onions on the burger. I have to say it was pretty good. And so did the guinea pigs, I mean friends, that tried the burger a couple of different times. Well I'm sad to say but our burger did not make the cut. But we hope to improve it and try again next year! Today was the contest so we decided to make one of the burgers to see what did make the cut. We chose the New York Steakhouse burger. It was pretty good but wasn't today's contest winner. So as we try the rest we'll let you know how they are.

This was the burger. The recipe called for a brioche bun but all Kroger had was mini brioche buns. I wanted to try the burger exactly as it was in written in the recipe so this is what my burger looked like! I did get it in my small mouth! no comments on the my mouth.

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Cake #1

Well this is my cake. It is a lot of work to make the icing and then decorate it! I thought icing wouldn't take that long to make but I was wrong - two hours later! Trying to get the right color takes quite a while. KB, my friend, who is taking the class with me, helped me get the colors just right. My hand hurt so bad after only doing 4 leaves! It's hard to make those little squeezes while making sure your hand is steady and making sure you are doing it right! Anyway it was fun. Bailey loved seeing the cake and kept saying "Happy Birthday cake, Mommy!

KB and I were definitely the over achievers in our class. We were suppose to do a rainbow but I did fall leaves and KB made a fleur-de-lis. The teacher told us we didn't have to do the rainbow so we didn't.

Well it's just the first but I thought it turned out pretty good. I'm not ready for Charm City Cakes yet but I've got two more classes and then here I come! Watch out Chef Duff! Right.

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Lovebugs

Well it's that time of year for lovebugs in Louisiana. If you've never seen them they are these little black bugs that stick together and fly. Here's what wikipedia has to say about them - "Upon reaching maturity the lovebug spends almost the entirety of its remaining life copulating with its mate, hence its numerous romantic nicknames. The male and female attach themselves at the rear of the abdomen and remain that way at all times, even in flight. In fact, after mating, the male dies and is dragged around by the female until she lays her eggs. Females lay up to 350 eggs in debris, and about 20 days later the eggs hatch into larvae. The larval stage may last up to nine months."

So why am I posting about this? Because they are everywhere! You go outside and they attack you. I can't stand it. I try to stay out as long as I can so Bailey can play but I don't last too long. Thankfully they are almost gone. As Bailey says, "go away lovebugs!"


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Feeling more like home

Well we've been living in our house for 5 months now and I finally have curtains up! Before you panic I did put curtains or blinds in the bedrooms to have privacy but just couldn't find what I wanted for the kitchen and living room. But a few months ago I found the material and my KeKe made them for me! They are beautiful and exactly what I wanted! She did a great job, wouldn't you say?! Thanks KeKe! You can go on dropshots to see the rest - door, Bailey's room and Jesse's room.

I love the kitchen "cafe" style curtains. She even made me matching place mats.

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These curtains have a big red band at the bottom but you can't see it because of the chairs. But trust me it looks good.

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Jesse's swing

Here's Jesse's new swing. He loves it. He did have a mishap the other night when his sister accidentally pushed the other swing right into his cheek. So now he's got a good little bruise. Poor guy. It will only be the first of many I'm sure!


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warning this video might make you a little sick from the swinging!

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this was right before she smacked him in the side of the face with the swing

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Sweet Surprise

The other day my husband surprised me with some beautiful fall flowers. They remind that fall is coming or (is here) even though the weather outside doesn't feel like it's here!


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Ace of Cakes

Last night I started taking my first cake decorating class. With Jesse's birthday coming up I thought I should learn a little more about how to decorate a cake because I really want to make it since I made and decorated Bailey's first birthday cake. In Turkey we didn't have any classes so I just had to do it by looking at the picture. It turned out ok for my first time. So over the next few weeks you will see if I get any better. The bad side is I have to make a cake every week! I'll need to find someone to give it to so we don't eat a whole cake every week for the next four weeks! And I don't like icing so I won't be tempted to eat all my mistakes!

this was Bailey's cake so we'll see how much I progress. The colors aren't so good but all I had was Turkish food coloring so that's my excuse!

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Just a swangin'!

Bailey and Jesse got a new swing set. They both love it! We need to get Jesse a swing because he is a handful to try and hold!


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Why buy toys?

Why do we buy all these toys when kids are perfectly fine to play with boxes!

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Little Red Wagon

Jesse got a wagon for Christmas from his Granny Juanita and we are just now putting it together. Well I started putting it together a few months ago but came to a place where I couldn't do it by myself and just put it up. But yesterday I got it back out and finished it off by myself! It wasn't that hard so I'm not sure why I couldn't figure it out a few months back. oh well it's done now. So we went for a ride down the street and both kids loved it! Jesse would get made if you stopped to take his picture. So we tried to keep moving.

picture #1 - We had already been down the street once and I just stopped to take a few pictures

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picture #2 - still happy...checking out the wagon

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picture #3 - not so happy that I was not pulling the wagon!

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The Jump Place

This week we went with some friends again to the "jump place" as Bailey calls it. She was so excited to go that is all she talked about Wednesday morning. She and Allie played so well together. Jesse and Anna Grace had a good time as well scooting around on the floor. Neither of them crawl but they both sit on their bottom and drag themselves to were they want to go. It's so funny to watch them both do it! Jesse has a small burn on his leg from were he does it so much!

Jesse and Anna Grace

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Bailey and Allie

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Hurricane Gustav

Well I know it's been over a week since the hurricane was here but I'm just now getting around to blogging about it because we were out of town and then did not have electricity for a few days. But everything is back to normal now. I left with the kids and went with a friend, Angie, to her parents house and another friend, Rebecca, who came to visit for the weekend. Needless to say it was not the weekend Rebecca had planned for Labor Day. Billy stayed and helped at the college. I also need to mention we still had our exchange student, Amazigh. The one who was suppose to be with us only two weeks but ended up being three and probably still would be with us if it weren't for the hurricane. I did not want to have to take care of him when we left and he didn't need to stay with Billy, so Billy had to drive him to Meridian, MS on Saturday night. He ended up leaving after 10:30pm to get him with some of the people from the exchange program. He got home at 8am! long night but thankful he had friends to make the drive with him. Anyway Saturday night was very long because our student did not want to leave and was basically refusing to go. Billy had to talk with his mom in Tunisia to finally get him to leave! We had other people at our house and they didn't want to leave because it was like a soap opera with this student! And the funny thing is he ended up with a family in Caplin, LA which is 2 hours south of Pineville! what?! We drove to Meridian for nothing! oh well. Ok now back to the rest of the story. We loved staying at Mr. George and Mrs. Ann's house. It was like a bed and breakfast. Mr George made us breakfast every morning. And someone was always bringing us supper because we were the poor refugees. It was great! Of course now we are back to cereal for breakfast! Everything was fine at our house no damage except for a tree in our back yard that was uprooted. So it will need to be cut down. We are glad to be home and thankful to all those who helped us!

Mr. George and Mrs. Ann

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Bailey chillin' with Mr. George - I think they were watching Dora

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Angie and Rebecca

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this house is just two houses down from us and had two huge trees uprooted!

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our uprooted tree and the top of it snapped off and which you can see in the picture

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