Kati's Corner

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

A Thanksgiving Book to Read

An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving by Louisa May Alcott is about the Basset children making Thanksgiving dinner when their parents go to take care of "Gran'ma" who is sick.

source

Do you have a Thanksgiving book that you like?

Monday, November 23, 2009

Fall Delights

Fall is such a wonderful time for...

...apple cake

...hay rides

...family game nights with coffee and pumpkin pie

Sunday, November 22, 2009

This Thursday is Thanksgiving. Every year we put a thankful tree up on our front door. All through the month of November we write what we are thankful for on leaves and hang them on the tree. The leaves have said things like a loving God, family, pets, God's protection on Poppop when he fell and broke his hip, family game nights, etc. I think it is a good way to "count your blessings" and we look back year to year to see what people were thankful for.

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

Johnson Oatman, Jr.

When upon life’s billows you are tempest tossed,

When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,

Count your many blessings, name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?

Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?

Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,

And you will keep singing as the days go by.

When you look at others with their lands and gold,

Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;

Count your many blessings. Wealth can never buy

Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,

Do not be disheartened, God is over all;

Count your many blessings, angels will attend,

Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Refrain:
Count your blessings, name them one by one,

Count your blessings, see what God hath done!

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.

~~~

“Blessings crown the head of the righteous.”

Proverbs 10:6

Sunday, November 15, 2009

For the Beauty of the Earth

by Folliot S. Pierpoint

For the beauty of the earth

For the glory of the skies,

For the love which from our birth

Over and around us lies.

Refrain
Lord of all, to Thee we raise,

This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour,

Of the day and of the night,

Hill and vale, and tree and flower,

Sun and moon, and stars of light.

Refrain

For the joy of ear and eye,

For the heart and mind’s delight,

For the mystic harmony

Linking sense to sound and sight.

Refrain

For the joy of human love,

Brother, sister, parent, child,

Friends on earth and friends above,

For all gentle thoughts and mild.

Refrain

For Thy Church, that evermore

Lifteth holy hands above,

Offering up on every shore

Her pure sacrifice of love.

Refrain

For the martyrs’ crown of light,

For Thy prophets’ eagle eye,

For Thy bold confessors’ might,

For the lips of infancy.

Refrain

For Thy virgins’ robes of snow,

For Thy maiden mother mild,

For Thyself, with hearts aglow,

Jesu, Victim undefiled.

Refrain

For each perfect gift of Thine,

To our race so freely given,

Graces human and divine,

Flowers of earth and buds of Heaven.

Refrain

***

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;

the whole earth is full of His glory.”

Isaiah 6:3

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Come, Ye Thankful People, Come

by Henry Alford

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;

All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.

God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;

Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;

Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.

First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;

Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;

From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,

Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;

But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;

Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,

There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;

Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

~~~

“Let us come before Him with thanksgiving,

and extol Him with music and song.”

Psalm 95:2

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Cake Decorating

Recently I was asked by Amanda, from i am baker and i am mommy, to share some pictures of cakes I decorated.

Last summer I took a cake decorating class at Michaels. It was four Tuesdays in June and we learned how to decorate cakes with roses, beach scenes, clowns, and different kinds of flowers and leaves. We took a cake each week to decorate in class.

In August, our family has a very busy birthday season. I made one or more cakes every week. I got to practice decorating cakes for my family, who didn’t care if I made a slight mistake. At the end of August, my friend and her father had a big joint birthday party and I was asked to do the cakes for the occasion. I was delighted to make the cakes but I knew that I was getting paid to do this and that it had better be perfect. Well, to make a long story short, I did the cakes, I was happy with them, I had a stressful car ride over to their house with the cakes on my lap in cake carriers cringing with every bump and turn in the road, and they LOVED them.

After the August birthday season, I took a break in making cakes. I was sick of eating so much cake. We made pies, cookies, and sweet breads for Sunday desserts for a while after that. For my birthday I made my own cake but I didn’t decorate it. I figured that pink decorators icing didn’t go with pumpkin layer cake. I enjoyed my cake after a break in eating it every day for a month. {Well, maybe I am exaggerating a little there. ;-)}

The first cake that I made at the cake decorating class...