UPDATED - Original New York Cheesecake Recipe

I don't know what happened, I am loosing my mind. If you checked this post before 3:00 pm on Wednesday, I had the COMPLETELY WRONG recipe up. I had a cheesecake recipe, but not the super yummy and creamy Junior's Original New York Cheesecake recipe. SORRY! The recipe is now correct!

Here is the recipe for the YUMMY Original New York Cheesecake I made for Ed's birthday. I got the recipe out of my fabulous Junior's Cheesecake cookbook. Ed REALLY liked this cheesecake! And the way Junior has you bake his cheesecakes, they don't crack and they are so creamy. Just make sure you do at least a double layer of aluminum foil around your springform pan to make sure NO water gets in.

Enjoy! It really is YUMMY!

More Treats for Ed's Birthday!

Every year I take cheesecake to Ed's work to celebrate his birthday. Last year I added in some individually wrapped treats and did that again this year. It was fun to go with just the twins (the others were all in school). This year I made and took:

* a Layered Turtle Cheesecake (recipe coming soon)

* a Triple Chocolate Cheesecake (click here for recipe already posted)

* an Original New York Cheesecake (recipe coming soon)

* Fancy Toffee Brownies (click here for recipe already posted)

* Mint Rice Krispy Treats (click here for recipe already posted)

* Chocolate Caramel Rice Krispy Treats (click here for recipe already posted)

From what I can tell (and the little I tasted), it all turned out great! Everyone seemed happy with the yummy treats! And the twins LOVED getting to see daddy at work in the middle of the day. It was a fun afternoon!

Ed's Birthday

This year for Ed's birthday, we just had a little party with our little family (we had a party before Thanksgiving with our friends that I still need to blog about). Since Ed is a "healthy" eater (unlike me), we had a healthy dinner. I made homemade tomato soup, broccoli and asparagus for dinner and then zucchini cake (see post below) for dessert. Surprisingly, the boys really liked the cake (that is except for Gavin). Ed taught the boys how to play chess over Thanksgiving so they gave him a chess set for his birthday and then spent the rest of the night playing chess. Happy Birthday Ed!

Zucchini Cake Recipe

For Ed's birthday earlier this week, I wanted to make a "healthier" cake (since Ed is a healthy eater, unlike me). So, I made him a zucchini cake - of course, if you look at what is in the cake you will see it isn't "healthy", but it did have ZUCCHINI in it. Anyway, the boys did NOT want to try it but once they did, they liked it - well, Gavin didn't but the others did. Luckily, Ed really liked it. He said it is better than carrot cake (which he loves).

FYI - I found this recipe at www.allrecipes.com

Happy Birthday Ed!

Happy Birthday (2 days ago) Ed! We didn't do anything huge that day at home but we had a party for Ed and 2 of our friends before Thanksgiving (still need to blog about that) and I took lots of yummy treats to work that day for Ed's birthday (3 cheesecakes, fancy toffee brownies, fancy caramel rice krispy treats, and fancy mint rice krispy treats) - which is part of why I haven't had a second to scrapbook/blog lately. For his birthday at home, we had a HEALTHY dinner (homemade tomato soup and veggies - some of Ed's favorites) and a ZUCCHINI cake (yes I said zucchini). The kids even liked the cake! Hopefully I will have time to put some of the recipes up here soon. All in all, it was a fun day - at least we had lots of yummy treats!

Cameron Walking

Okay - so these pages are a couple of months old.

Cameron took his own sweet time walking - he didn't walk until he was 15-months old - but that was almost 3 months ago. Anyway - I haven't had time to scrapbook or blog so I thought I would put these pages up real quick so you know I am still around. Hopefully one of these days I will find time to scrapbook about New York, Thanksgiving in AZ, and a million other things.

Ed on David Letterman!

I keep hoping I will have time to scrapbook our trip to New York or at least our surprise appearance on David Letterman. But, no such luck. So, this will have to do for now since if you did happen to see the show last Monday night (November 15), and saw Ed, it probably didn't make sense. Here is the story:

Ed, me, Angie H., and Jared H. were sitting at a table ON Time Square (they have closed part of the street) killing a little time before Jared had to leave for the airport when a lady came up to us and asked us if we wanted to go to the Late Show with David Letterman. Of course we did - what a silly question. I will try to make my long story short - we went and picked up our tickets and got an "audience upgrade" (because Angie and I were very excited and we are "young") which meant we got to sit in the front two rows. We got to the studio at our scheduled time and went through the whole pre-show pep talk, etc. and got our seats in the second row.

Finally, Letterman came out to talk to the audience for just a few minutes before the actual show. Immediately he noticed Ed (we were told that Letterman watches the audience before he comes out) and pointed to Ed and asked "Sir, what's that on your shirt?" Ed looked down at his shirt and read it "Aero NY". Letterman asked Ed where he got the shirt. Ed responded saying, "I don't know, my wife bought it." I said it was from Aeropostatle. Letterman said he thought maybe it was Air Force or something about building an airplane in his basement - then it would be okay. Then Letterman asked Ed if his wife bought all his clothes for his and Ed said yes. Letterman asked me how much I paid for the shirt. I said I got it 50% off so I paid around $20 for it. Letterman said that that sounded about right. Then Letterman said he couldn't do his show while looking at Ed's shirt and yelled to someone off stage and said "See if we have something here to help this guy out." They brought out a sweatshirt and Letterman asked Ed what size he wore and then said it didn't matter. They threw the sweatshirt to Ed and Letterman told him to put it on and then had him show the audience. I really wish we had that interaction recorded - I don't remember exactly what happened but that is basically what happened.

Here is the shirt Ed wore to the show (not knowing he was going to even be in the audience). People that saw the show keep asking what he was wearing - it wasn't the Late Show sweatshirt.

Now, go to the Late Show website and watch what happened when Letterman came out and did his monologue. CLICK HERE TO WATCH ED ON LETTERMAN. You don't have to watch for long but watch until after Letterman asks Ed if he feels better. Ed's response is hard to hear but he said, "I feel like a new man".

What an experience!

Corn Belly's 2010

No New York yet - instead you get our annual visit to Corn Belly's back in October. I had a hard time doing these pages and finally did them on the airplane going to New York (don't love them but they are done).

The boys LOVE going to Corn Belly's every year before Halloween. Of course, we usually pick a day that is FREEZING and bad weather - which we did again this year (but luckily we had a babysitter for the twins). The boys still had fun - especially since Richard (his girlfriend) and his 2 kids came with us. Brecken LOVED the little playhouse they had there. I couldn't get him to leave it. So, he we took turns hanging out with him there. Richard was finally able to get him to leave the playhouse and go through the corn maze with us - which was a little muddy. I think one of the boys favorite part is still the Corn Box. They love playing in the corn! Hopefully we will pick a warmer day to go on next year!

Fall Decorations

I realized that I should post my Fall Decorations before I take them down (which hopefully is going to happen soon) and that when I posted my Fall Decorations back in October, they were mostly Halloween decorations. So, I redid that page to be Halloween and made a new page for my Fall Decorations (not that anyone cares but I do) - when you look at the pages you will notice that some of the decorations are the same. Anyway, I made these pages before we went to New York and I have been doing laundry all day and playing catch-up, so I haven't had time to scrapbook/blog about New York - but hopefully that will happen soon.

Got Milk?

Yes - we go through a LOT of milk! That is what our frig looked like Thursday night before Ed and I left a New York (that is why I haven't been blogging but I am sitting in our hotel waiting to go to breakfast). We go through at LEAST ONE GALLON of milk a day at our house! So I had to make sure to have one gallon for each day we were going to be gone, one for the day before we left, one for the day after we got back (so I don't have to run to the store), and an extra. We are so lucky to have a frig big enough to hold 8 gallons of milk (7 for the kids and one skim for me). Hopefully when we get back I will have time to blog about our FABULOUS trip to New York (Ed had work today and tomorrow in New York and I was lucky enough to get to come along for the ride).

Rich Chocolate Truffle Pie Recipe

Here is the recipe I promised - Rich Chocolate Truffle Pie! It is so so yummy and so so easy to make. And the ingredients aren't strange. I found this recipe on www.allrecipes.com as well - I have found a lot of good recipes there lately (I like that there are tons of reviews so you have an idea if you will like it or not). Anyway - if you want a RICH, YUMMY, CREAMY chocolate pie, this is a GREAT one to try! I also made a Chocolate French Silk pie for Family Pie Night but this was the favorite by far (even though the french silk was very good as well). ENJOY!

Calm Cameron

Calm little Cameron is a very good balance to his very active sister. Unless he sees a bottle, he is very calm and quiet. He does like to explore but he doesn't climb on anything but the ottoman and couch and he LOVES to climb in the kitchen drawer with all the plastic dishes - for some reason that is one of his favorite places (which means there are almost always plastic dishes all over the kitchen floor). He is usually so quiet (especially compared to Kesley) that we "forget" he is there (which makes me feel bad at times but he is the youngest of 6). It really isn't that we forget he is there, we just don't have to worry about him. He totally entertains himself. His smile makes me smile! His giggle (even when zipping up his pjs) makes me giggle. He really is such a sweetheart!