Spoiled

I was going to write the long-winded story of how we ended up buying all new appliances for our kitchen during this insane and crazy week but it got sort of way-too-detailed.  Short story is that our oven finally died at the beginning of the week.  Our dishwasher has been broken for months.  The refrigerator was working fine but we were hoping to replace it with something that would fit our family more and would match the other things eventually.  The dishwasher I can live without but an oven, not so much.  Did you know bread will not bake when your oven will not go above 210 degrees?  True.

I said a prayer one lovely morning (after scrolling through current store prices for stoves) that I could at least get a quality stove so I could be able to cook for my family.  That afternoon, I scored some amazing deals through Ebay from a scratch-and-dent place that's only about 20 minutes from us (hooray for no shipping!).  Add in the most hard-working man I've ever met (that would be my husband) and you get three new appliances brought home one lovely afternoon.  Then you go to sleep one night, hear lots of strange noises during the night and you wake up on your birthday to this:

and this:
oh, and this:


Insane, right?  Sorry for the dark pics.  I'm not a great photographer and it was early morning...and our kitchen is just plain dark!  My husband stayed up until 4:30 a.m. installing new plumbing, a water line, a new gas line and fixing a plug so that I could wake up on my birthday to these space-age new appliances in my kitchen.  He is so good to me.  I won't even scare you with the pictures of our old ones.  I'm afraid someone would call social services because of the amount of broken shards of glass from our cooktop that sat there for months and exposed electrical wiring of our dishwasher all just begging for an accident to happen.

I feel so spoiled now.  We got amazing deals (like 80% of for the refrigerator and 60% off the other appliances) because of a few scratches.  And I got a completely unexpected amazing awesome birthday morning playing with all my new machines!  And all I had asked for was a few books and maybe some money for new underwear.

John Paul had been sad because he had really wanted to bake me a cake for my birthday and once the oven died, it wasn't going to happen.  I have never baked a cake for my own birthday but when your sweet little boy needs help baking you a birthday cake AND you get to inaugurate your brand new fancy oven, I happily obliged.  I got this recipe through Charlotte who got it from here.  It is absolutely decadent and delicious.  I left out a full cup of sugar and it was still sweet enough for us.  I subbed in carob powder for the cocoa and left off the chocolate glaze because apparently any amount of chocolate during pregnancy and my body decides it doesn't need to sleep for hours at a time that night. The carob is kinda meh in its attempts to be a chocolate substitute.

I didn't even frost the sides because I could tell from some little taste tests that it would be perfectly fine as is and might be a bit overload with any more of that peanut butter frosting!  And now I have some extra frosting waiting in my new freezer for some perfect late night craving creation...


The boys also spent a long time working on something in the library and I was NOT allowed to go in.  My mom stopped by to bring me some wonderful gifts (a new Fulton Sheen book, a bathrobe, AND she ordered me a Liturgy of the Hours book that I need - thank you, Mom!).  During that time, John Paul brought out this:

"It's to hold your knitting."  He had sewn a felt bag completely on his own so that I could have a place to store my current knitting project!

Michael then came over after working very very hard on something and handed me this:
"It's a black-eyed susan because you love black-eyed susans."  Oh, sweetheart, I do.  I very much do.

And now today, again, I am feeling completely and totally spoiled and very much in love.  And also very eager to play with my new toys...


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