Banana Cream Cake & Frosting:

If you saw my post about Karley's Birthday Party, I mentioned that we had Banana Cream Cake.

It was so delicious, I think everyone (even Karley) enjoyed it! 

I even had a few people tell me that they don't like banana's or banana flavored things at all, but they totally enjoyed these!

To be honesty, I experimented with the recipe and took it to church one Sunday, to know whether I wanted to have them for the party or not.

And the preacher basically asked for the recipe from the pulpit! I was so embarrassed, but really flattered at the same time, I guess!!😂😂😂

So I'm very excited to be sharing the recipe!

I didn't come up with it, but I did tweak it, so I'm sharing my version. I've made it in cupcakes and a 9x13 cake pan, and both turned out great.

My very favorite gluten-free white cake mix, is from the Aldi grocery store.

Hope you enjoy!

Cake:

1 Box Gluten-Free White cake mix + ingredients listed 

(for best results, use milk in place of the water called for. 

And butter in place of the oil called for. 

And use one less egg than what the mix calls for)

2 ripe bananas

1 (3.5 oz) box instant Banana Cream Pudding mix

Frosting:

4 ounces Cream Cheese, room temperature

1 cup milk

1 (3.5 oz) box instant Banana Cream Pudding mix

1/3 cup powder sugar

1 (8 ounce) tub Cool Whip, thawed

Preheat your oven and prepare your pan, 

according to the cake mix directions.

Place all the cake ingredients, plus pudding mix and bananas in a large mixing bowl, and beat on low speed for 30 seconds to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat for 2 minutes on medium speed.

Pour into prepared pan. Bake according to package directions, until light golden brown, and toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven to cool completely before frosting.

Prepare the frosting by placing the cream cheese in a mixing bowl, and beating until smooth.

Add milk, pudding mix and powder sugar, and mix until smooth and creamy. Gently stir in Cool Whip until well combined.

Frost your cake or cupcakes as desired.

Chill for at least 2 hours for frosting to set.

Share and Enjoy!!!

Ranch Chex Mix:

I was looking for an easy, salty snack to serve as Karley's birthday party, that wasn't the usual potato chips.

I stumbled across a recipe similar to this, and to be honest, it looked easy, so I figured why not!

I was actually super shocked with how it turned out.

I really didn't have very high hopes for it, but it worked great, and I'll definitely be making it again!

Cheese balls being included in the ingredient list is really what drew me in, because I absolutely love those things.

But if you're not a fan, you could leave them out and use some other cheesy thing...Cheetos, CheezIt crackers (if you don't have to eat gluten-free), or another cheese cracker.

Sorry, this isn't the best picture, but it's the only one I have right now!

I hope you try it out!!

3 cups Corn Chex cereal

3 Cups Rice Chex cereal

2 cups gluten-free pretzel twists

1 stick butter

1 tablespoons dry ranch dressing mix

3 cups puffed cheese balls

Place cereals and pretzels in a large, microwave safe bowl.

In a small bowl, heat butter until melted. Add ranch mix, and stir until there are no lumps.

Pour butter mixture over cereal mixture, and stir until evenly coated and well combined.

Microwave for 4 minutes, pausing to stir ever minute.

Once the 4 minutes is up, stir in cheese balls.

Pour onto a cookie sheet and allow to cool completely.

Store in an airtight container at room temperate.

Enjoy!!!

Karley's First Birthday!!!

Wow! We're already here!!

Our First birthday party!!

I can't believe we basically have a toddler now, 
and not a baby.😂 
It's great because, of course, you want your kids to grow up, but it's sad because....well, they grow up!

And I know most people are gonna be like "whatever! It's just one year! In two seconds she's gonna be 20."

But I'm not there right now, so don't rain on my parade, lol!

Karley loves, loves, loves her Curious George, and she is very fascinated by balloons, so we went with that for our theme.

It worked great, she loved it, and I was super pleased with how everything turned out!

Her birthday was Tuesday, but we had her party on the Sunday afternoon before!

She was SO excited about the balloons!!!!

Party Time!!!

Guest Book

I made a slideshow of all the pictures we had taken from her birth up until now.

Someone got very, very spoiled!

Thank you for the cute cake and cupcakes, Mrs. Cathy!

We went with a Banana Cream Cake...it was very yummy!

(Recipe coming soon!)

Cake Time!!

She is very particular about textures and things on her hands. Plus it was nap time.

So I was very prepared for the fact that she might not touch the cake at all!

But she did great, and I think she liked it!!

She also liked the fact that everyone was singing right to her!

The presents were the same as the cake...I wasn't sure how that was going to go. But with a little help, she did fine!

I wanted to get her her first real baby doll, so we got her a set of twins. We should have had her open those last, because she was so happy with them, she didn't want to open anything else, lol!

FaceTiming with Kent and his family!

I tried to get her baby book completely finished by that party, but that didn't happen. It was still fun to look through, though.

She was absolutely exhausted, but she did sooooooo good the entire day! I was worried about a sugar rush, because she hasn't had any sweets up to this point, but she didn't eat that much, and she was way too tired for it to matter!

So thankful for all the people that got to come, and missed the ones that weren't able to!

Oh you know,just talking on her "phone" while eating some celery, and pacing back and forth!

Bob was having as much fun with the balloons as she was!

The Helmick's weren't able to make it to the party, but they gave her a present Sunday morning.

We love our adopted Grandparents!

She got to celebrate early with presents from Mammie and Rina & Shane on Saturday night.

~~~
Thank you to everyone who came, and helped us celebrate Karley!!!
And thank you to everyone who helped make the day (and year, actually) so great!

We love you, Karley!!!

Happy 1st Birthday!!!

Happy 1st Birthday,

Karley Maisyn!!!

We love you SO very much!

I don't know if I have ever explained on my blog where her name came from.

Most people probably already know, but just in case you don't, I'll tell you!

When we were looking through and trying to decide on baby names, we came to a conclusion really fast...Bradley and I agree on really most everything. 

Except baby names.

Particularly girl's names.

We settled on a boys name (first and middle) almost instantly. So then I started thinking we were probably having a girl, lol!

We had found Maisyn and really liked it, but I wasn't crazy about it for a first name. And we couldn't find a middle name that sounded right anyways.

Long story short, we settled on Karley.

The "Kar" being from beginning of my name, and the "ley" from the end of Bradley's name.

And then we like Maisyn for the middle name.

And that's how Karley got her name!