Julie Gumm - Author

WFMW: Easy Way to Frost Cupcakes

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You know how you can never accomplish those picture-perfect cupcakes with the cute swirl of frosting. While going through some old cake decorating books I found this awesome tip.

Use a container of whipped frosting in a bowl and give it an extra whip with your mixer. (I do this anyways cuz it fluffs up the frosting and makes it go further.)

Then take the cupcake in your hand, turn it upside down. Put it in the frosting bowl, turn and pull it out. It works great and is much neater than trying to use a knife. Even my kids can do it.

Head back to Shannon’s for more WFMW ideas.

Shower of Blessings

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The adoption shower last night was so much fun and we are so blessed by the friends and family that came. A HUGE thank you to Stacey for doing this for us. This is the second time she’s done such a shindig for me – she threw me a surprise shower when I was pregnant for Natalie. She’s had a crazy week with sick kids, dr. appts, and getting ready to go on the high school mission trip but she still found time to put this together. Her mom opened up their beautiful home for the night and we had a blast.

We ate yummy food and then quizzed all the ladies on their Ethiopian Trivia Knowledge. I was pretty impressed that both Grandmas got 6 out of 8 questions right! (Although MeeMaw cheated and asked Natalie the answer to one of them. Lucky for her Natalie is a good guesser.) 🙂

Jen’s surprise was AWESOME! There is an African tradition called Blessing Cards. She handed each of the ladies rwo 4×6 sized card w/ a hole punched in one corner and they each wrote a special prayer or verse or blessing – one for W-boy and one for B-girl. Then, for each child, they chose two matching beads. One bead is attached to the card and then the other bead is strung on a string for the child. How cool is that? There’s a picture in the video below.

The cake was beautiful and yummy as I knew it would be. I asked for chocolate and said “Can you work peanut butter in there somehow?” So Michelle did a peanut butter mousse in the middle and some peanut butter in the frosting. It was delicious! (Hm, I’m thinking I’ll head to the refrigerator for some leftovers after this.)

We were totally blessed by all the gifts we received – bikes, scooters and helmets for both kids, clothes, pajamas, socks, sheets, games and coloring stuff to do on the plane, books, CD players, hair stuff (yeah!), a Frog Pod, wallets for the boys and purses for the girls and tons of gift cards. I am amazed and forever grateful.

So here’s some pictures from our fun night.


Song “Swept Away” by Geoff Moore

Missing Them

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It is difficult to explain, but sometimes I am overcome with waves of emotion when it comes to our new kids. Sunday morning we went off to church, got the kids checked in to their classes and came in to the service as worship was starting. I think the song we were singing was “Happy Day” and as I stood there singing and clapping I was suddenly overwhelmed with just the strongest wave of missing my kids and wanting them there for that moment.

It was a family day, they are our family and yet they are not here with us and at times it seems unbearable. My comfort comes in knowing that they are being well cared for and are with their grandmother and that our time will come soon enough.