The Bigger Gun from Neely Team on Vimeo.

Well, the cake was in the oven, and everything seemed to be going very well. The aroma of a cake baking in the oven is something that I find hard to compare to anything else. Its just so, ummm, inviting… and it smells so good…nay, scrumptious. Anyway, I continued following the recipe. Now was the time to mix up the pudding. Put the pudding in the pot, pour in the milk, add the butter, stir in the vanilla… the project was going very well. But, then I realized that the pudding wasn’t thickening, and I wanted to use it as a frosting, not a glaze. Some observers came in about then, and willingly offered to taste-test it for me, just in case I had forgotten anything. (We even thought about adding cornstarch to it, but I guess if we had, it wouldn’t have produced quite the same memory, so I’m glad we didn’t.) But the good news was that the general vote was that it was really good.

So, the cake came out of the oven, and after it cooled, I layered it with the pudding mixture. Cake, pudding, cake, pudding, cake, pudding… it was all on… temporarily… that’s when the sliding began. There’s nothing quite like seeing a freshly baked cake sliding all over a plate while you’re trying to assemble it. We did our best to get it to “stand” still long enough to put it in the fridge.

Upon delivering it to the table after a delicious supper, it looked rather interesting, to say the least. I think Daddy was expecting it to be a normal birthday cake… but no, it definitely was not. If I recall correctly, it was still slipping and sliding around on the plate, pudding and bananas oozing out the sides, requiring extra caution, especially during transport.

It was dished up, and there was quite the discussion going on over this new invention, and it was an invention, because I’m sure no one had ever done this recipe that way before. It was a humorous desert to behold, that’s for sure. Daddy affectionately called it “Banana Flop Cake” – that gives an idea of what it looked like. Thankfully,it tasted really good, and ever since that night, there has been a frequent request to make it again. It turned out to be one of the most wonderful tasting messes ever imaginable!

Finally, we made it again today; this time we did it according to the recipe and made it in a 13×9 pan. Everything was going really well. And once again the wonderful aroma was filling the kitchen. Ahhhh, it smelled so good! Then, Beep, Beep, Beep… the timer was ringing, so I opened the oven, and to my surprise, the cake had risen over the edge of the pan! How was I supposed to put the pudding mixture on top of that, especially with it runny enough to get all over the counter?!?! I ended up dumping it, upside down, into a 15×11 pan, and then drizzling the pudding over it. It was delicious, and thoroughly enjoyed. And, even though this time it looked nice, it still will always have the name of “Banana Flop Cake.”  Ahhhh, memories!

Sometimes God gives us something to do and we just make a total mess of it. However, “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” He can take our mess and turn it into something desirable – a ministry opportunity, a life lesson, an example or encouragement to others – which shows His sovereignty and grace, making something beautiful out of our disaster and bringing glory to Himself!!

Lessons to be learned:

• Be careful when altering recipes – you never know what may happen!
• Don’t give up, even when you make a mess twice!
• Make sure you laugh when life sends cake in unusual ways!

Oh… I guess you were probably waiting for the recipe. So, here it is… and think about us if you make it… and enjoy!

Banana Pudding Cake (aka “Banana Flop Cake”)

Cake:

• 1 yellow cake mix
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 cup whole milk
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease 15×11 baking dish; set aside.

Place all ingredients in large mixing bowl. Blend with electric mixer on low for 1 minute. Stop mixer, scrape sides of bowl, then continue mixing on medium speed for 2 minutes. Batter should be thick and well-blended. Pour batter into prepared pan, smoothing it out with rubber spatula. Bake for 30-33 minutes, or until golden brown and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Remove pan from oven and place it on wire rack to cool.

• 1 large package  vanilla instant pudding mix
• 3 cups whole milk
• 1/2 stick butter, cut up
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 4 cups sliced bananas (about 3 large)

While cake is baking, prepare the pudding. Place pudding mix and milk in a medium saucepan. Fold in butter and vanilla. Cook over low heat, stirring, until butter melts (about 3-4 minutes).Remove pan from heat and let cool for about 5 minutes. Fold in banana slices.

To prepare cake, spoon pudding over cooled cake, making sure all edges are covered. Optional: Serve with whipped topping and/or crushed vanilla wafer cookies sprinkled over the top. Refrigerate cake, loosely covered for up to 3 days.

Jessi’s version:

• Use two small boxes pudding mix instead of 1 large – makes it a little bit thicker, and I used 1 vanilla and 1 banana cream.
• We think its best served cold, but the recipe says to serve at room temperature. Follow your taste buds.
• You could try it in a 13×9, or in 3  9-inch round cake pans; I personally think it would do best in the 15×11. *grin*
• We didn’t have any whipped topping, so we just served it with a can of whipped cream, which is Dad’s personal favorite.

Rules for Travel

If you wish to take a journey

In this family van of ours,

You must memorize these principles

To preserve the happy hours:

1. If you spill crumbs on the floor-board

You must brush them all away

In consideration of the ones

Who cleaned it yesterday.

2. Be sure you never touch the windows

With a sticky, greasy finger

Because the nasty stain you leave

Will always seem to linger.

3. If you want some entertainment

As we travel the world around

You must put it in a tidy bag

Not exceeding twenty pounds.

4. When you wish for something to eat or drink

Don’t ask in a whiny way.

Take a moment to stop and think

What you are going to say.

5. The secret for a peaceful van

Is “Never scream or yell.”

Be sure to consider others’ ears

When you have something to tell.

6. The last rule (certainly not least)

When you board this van of brown

Is put on your best smile

And leave behind your frown.

I suppose the whole thing began when our adventurous cousin, Taylor (age 15), told everyone that he wanted to enter the greased pig chase contest. I began to envision a big stadium-like place without any grass – just mud—where there would be a well greased, rather large oinker, running terrified from dozens- maybe hundreds- of kids that were chasing him. Then I thought about how much fun and excitement it would bring to chase the greased pig with Taylor. I don’t know what got into me that day, but the more I thought about it, the better the escapade sounded. I asked another cousin, Austin (age 17), if he had been planning to do it. He hadn’t really been extremely attracted to it, but said that if I was going to do it, he had to do it. (Peer pressure.) All of a sudden, I realized what was rapidly happening. As soon as I said I wanted to do it, Neali (age 19) said she would do it if Austin and I did. (Peer pressure.) Then Kathryn joined, then Amanda, Victoria, and everybody else. Before I could say “lickety-split,” all of us wanted to go to the pig pen. (Peer pressure.)

A few hours later we finally arrived at Swine Time. We soon learned that the contest was for kids ages 5-12. We older cousins not-so-graciously accepted the fact that we were too old. Well, I personally wasn’t that disappointed, and after watching all the little piglets in the trailer, I determined that I was glad that it wasn’t going to work out. All those stinky, grunting, noisy, smelly, dirty, snorting, squealing pigs… it really would be very gross to try to catch one, especially a greasy one. A man told us that they grease the pigs with hydraulic oil so that the pigs wouldn’t so feel bad about getting rubbed down with Uncle Porky’s lard. We got to watch them cover each pig in hydraulic oil, and boy, did those pigs squeal!

We thoroughly enjoyed watching the younger kids chase the first little greasy animal. The poor thing was running frantically back and forth, squealing the whole time. It was hysterical! The kids were divided into groups of 10 kids, according to age, and each division was assigned an even larger pig. When they would catch it, sometimes you could see it panting, while it was squealing. (By the way, I had never heard a pig squeal in real life… it is quite a horrendous noise! It puts a whole new meaning to the term “squealing like a stuck pig!”)

Well, it was over, and the large crowd encircling the pen quickly diminished. Aunt Miriam wasn’t going to give up yet, though. Taylor still wanted to have a chance at catching the squirmy little pig. Aunt Miriam asked one of the men that was helping if we could have an unofficial contest. At first, I think he said no, but she persisted. He was quite friendly, and she told him that we had about thirteen cousins who wanted to chase the little oinker. He agreed, and we happily entered the pig pen and waited while they re-greased the pig.

The incredible moment had arrived. We had looked forward to it, but thought that it wasn’t going to work out. Before we knew it, there we were, standing in the pig pen, and by the way, it wasn’t all mud. Actually, it was mostly grass, thankfully. I heard several people say in amazement, “They’re all cousins?!” Finally, someone said, “On your mark, get set…” and everyone was off. The pig started running and squealing. I personally didn’t want to touch it, so I just chased it to keep it moving. Picture it and get your imagination going. There are thirteen different sized people, ranging in age from five to nineteen and in height from 3’6” to about 6’ 1”, chasing a pig in a circular pen that is probably about fifty feet in diameter. Several people slipped and landed on their face on the ground. Others only landed on their knees, some fell on their backs, but it was a lot of fun, and the intense action continued. Arms and legs were flying every direction. Everyone was racing to try to catch the little ham. Kathryn was one of the  ones who landed on their face, and when she landed, she lunged for the pig, grabbed it, and was able to slow it down, despite a minor injury that occurred in the process. Austin came to her rescue and grabbed the legs of the pig, and everyone cheered! It was lots of fun, and the memories that were made are irreplaceable. Some of the parents are scheming about next time we get together. It has been mentioned that it would be fun to get our own pig and chase it around Grandmama’s house… we’ll see about that. (And to think that it all began with a small amount of peer pressure.)

We were finally judging the captions for the photo caption contest of a few weeks ago! Each person was handed a piece of paper which had all the entries typed on it (without the names of the submitters), and we were to mark our three favorites. When we finally managed to narrow down the list to our top three (or four ) favorites, we tallied the votes to find out which captions seemed to fit the picture the best. After seeing some very interesting results, we took the four finalists, and voted again. Then, when it was obvious which one had won the contest, there was a moment of breathless anticipation as we waited to hear who had submitted the winning caption! A drum-roll was called for, the winner was announced, and the room instantly burst into cheers! So, for those of you who submitted captions and are just dying to know who won , here are the results. The winning caption was:

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue with baby toys?” , submitted by Michael S.

The other three finalists were:

“Where are all the boys???” by Uncle Jim

“Oh my! The Bb in measure seven was a bit sharp again – one more time girls…” by Joshua

“Did you see what I just did?? … Sometimes I even amaze myself!” by Aunt Lisa

One that we really liked when we had our personal family contest a few weeks ago was the one that Mom came up with: “Where’s my binki?” Another favorite was Dad’s “Why wouldn’t my sisters adore me??”

So a great big THANK YOU to all who participated!! We GREATLY enjoyed receiving and reviewing all the comments – please visit again soon!!!!!

So anyway, what does your family say when its picture time and you’re trying to get everyone to not only look at the camera, but with a pleasant expression (like, you know, a smile or something nice like that?!)? I’ll be honest… you have to be creative. Think about what your family likes the most. The thing that makes them smile to think about. Then make them say it out loud to produce the smile. That’s what we want, isn’t it?

The “normal” picture-taking sayings are, “Smile!” “Say, ‘Cheese!’”, and other stuff like that. But… wait a minute… what is the standard for “normal” if everyone is different?! Hmmmmm…

Well, I have to admit that sometimes it’s a real struggle to get a good family picture. It takes an extra amount of cooperation and patience. This past March, we were trying to get a really good one for the cover photo on our new CD. Ummm… well…. we all got dressed up in our “Sunday clothes” and headed  out to the garage where we set up our portrait studio. Titus was only about a week old, so Mommy was coming off bed rest to do this. Remember, it was March, so we had a heater going in the garage, which we ended up shutting off, because when you have twelve people squished into an approximately 5’x5’ area, no one gets extremely cold. (Actually, you’re more likely to get extremely hot.) About  two hours and eighty pictures later, we concluded that we probably had one picture that would work, so we went inside and got little ones ready for bed. Most of us had ice cream (to help us cool down ) while Daddy was browsing through the pictures.  We then realized that we didn’t have one picture that we could even “cut and paste.” Back to the garage… side note: we had to redress six people and redo hair. It was now about 10:30 pm. We were all getting kind-of tired. After about twenty or thirty more, finally, we got one that we could “cut this and paste that,” and it would work. That night, we tried several different ways to try to get the effect we wanted, which included laughing uncontrollably, instead of just smiling at the camera.

Oh, I guess this post is supposed to be about what people say when they are  waiting for that little clicking sound, which confirms in our mind that the picture has been captured by the incredible device known as a camera. We use the common words like “Smile!”, “Say, ‘Cheese!’”, and “Look at the camera!”. But we also say probably not-so-common things, too. “Laugh uncontrollably!” “Pretend like you’re comfortable!” “Relax… just be yourself.” “Smile anyway!” “Be happy!” “Don’t wrinkle your nose when you smile.” “Umm… it just took…. my eyes were shut.” “Let me take it! You always ‘cut off’ your head!!” “Make your eyes smile.” “Ooops… I wasn’t looking.” “Well, let’s try that again.” “Open your eyes a little wider.” “Are we having fun yet?” “Just one more.” “Take off the sunglasses – we want to see your eyes.” “Hurry… I can’t stand like this much longer!” “Don’t pick your nose!” “Hundreds of people will see this.” “You sit right there.” “The sun is in my eyes.” “Run… the timer’s going!” “Everyone hold still.” “Ouch… you stepped on my foot!” “_________ was looking the other way.” “Watch out! Don’t fall off!” “My legs are falling asleep.” “Call the dog.” “Everybody open your eyes.” “Put your hand down.” “Nobody move until after the ‘click’.” “Quick! Run into the picture before the time is up!” “Hopefully there will be one good one out of all these.”

So, go take some family pictures. Enjoy time together. Cooperate. Work together as a team to get it done. And, most importantly, laugh. It adds “spice” and will help to make the process more enjoyable.

Leave a comment and tell us what you think Titus is saying in this picture. We will judge the comments in about two weeks, and the winner will receive a free copy of our newest CD, Let the Joy Begin: Christmas with the Neely Team.

*Special thanks to Tim Hynes for taking the picture!!

It’s still dark outside. The whole world is asleep, except for us, because we are getting ready to go to our first violin lesson with a new teacher, at a new time, and, of course, in a new place. Everything thing is still, there are a few sounds like the squirt of a not-so-new hairspray bottle, the whispering sound of a hairbrush through bed-head (or maybe you should multiply that times ten), the running of water as people attempt to get ready to go……then, it happened. The sound of two feet running up two flights of stairs, and one mouth screaming (it sounded like a dozen, by the way), “Amanda! Amanda! Amanda! There’s an egg on the nest!!!!!!” (That one person was Jessi. I think it scared her. ) This one egg has multiplied itself by three in the past week, and it has been very interesting to see the parents interact with the shells that we’re not sure are fertile…

How It All Began

Just in case you didn’t know, last spring (2008), Amanda stole two baby mourning doves right out of their nest. Little did we know that this would lead us to where we are now. After four additional birds and lots of fun and trauma, we were left with one lone mourning dove from the original pair (all the others died, including one of the original two), which was a plus for some and a minus for others. A friend, hearing of our “woe”, gave Amanda two ring-necked doves. We certainly were not expecting to become dove breeders, but it seems that that is what we have become (I think…).

Moral:

Never tamper with the wild,

Or you may end up with a child.

But not a child that you’d expect,

And not a child from the elect.

But this one child comes from a shell,

Of which there’s no more need to tell…

One evening a few months ago, we were sitting around the table, enjoying the remains of a wonderful meal, and doing what we do best: talking. The topic of our conversation was one that we had discussed many times before, needing a solution to a certain problem, always thinking of solutions, and never succeeding in following up on the solutions we came up with, because we didn’t know if they were really good solutions after all. It was a persistent problem, which got more frustrating the longer we waited to follow up on a solution. (It was a lesson in patience. ) The topic: our website/blog.

So there we were, trying to figure out what in the world we were going to do about our pitiful “website”: how we were going to update it, who we were going to get to help us update it, what we were going to put on it, how we would keep up with a blog…

“WHAT is a BLOG?” someone suddenly asked. “Who in the world came up with the name “blog” and what made them do it?” Dad explained that the word “blog” is actually an abbreviation of “web-log” – in other words, a record or journal that is posted on the web. That drew everyone’s attention, and we all began to ponder the meanings of different computer terms.

“How did we come up with a “cursor”?” someone else asked with a laugh. “A “curser” used to be someone who cursed!”

“And if you think about what a “laptop” is, it’s kinda funny. A laptop used to be a place for children to snuggle with their mothers; now it’s a flat, rectangular box with buttons and lights, with a lot of wires and stuff on the inside!”

“What about a mouse?” another person volunteered. “A mouse is a four-footed little varmint with a long tail that runs around in people’s houses and makes them scream.”

“And how ‘bout RAM? A ram is a male sheep, like the ones that they used to sacrifice in Bible days.”

“OR,” some mischievous personality added, using the unfortunate sibling beside them for a demo, “it could be when I RAM into you all of a sudden!!”

Of course, everyone had to laugh at that! It became a very intriguing conversation as we discussed how confused someone could become with all the double terms. We laughed at the very SOUND of names like “floppy disk”, “JPEG”, and “thumb drive”, and debated the origins and meanings of other terms, such as “hard drive”, “cd-rom”, and “software.” (For instance, “hardware” means tools for manual labor, but “software” is a kind of – what? A series of ones and zeros that tells a computer what to do. Huh??) Take this for an example of multiple meanings: I asked a few different people what a “bit” is. Mom’s definition was “a small piece of a yummy chocolate dessert.”  Victoria said a “bit” is “a steel bar that goes into a horse’s mouth to control it.” Kathryn’s idea was a “small piece of metal that you use with a drill to bore holes.” However, according to the Daddy Dictionary of Technology, a “bit” is “the smallest increment of electronic data: a one or a zero.”  Then I asked about a “byte.” Mom’s answer could be expected: “the first taste of the yummy bit!” Jessi’s immediate thought was “what a bug does to you!” Kathryn said that a “bite” is “what the teething infant does to your shoulder.” And, last but not least, the Daddy Dictionary of Technology explained  that a “byte” REALLY is “a collection of bits that form one character.” Whew! If that’s not enough to make one flumbuzzled! We could go on and on; I wanted to ask about a megabyte… but lets just say that that’s one monster mouth! 

So, the next time you decide to get technical, you could think about the OTHER definitions of your technological terminology!!! Anyone have any other terms to define?

P.S. Using all of these terms makes ME feel kinda strange; I wonder what it feels like to be a REAL techno-geek??