THUNDER CAKE!!!

I remember when I was in the third grade we read a book called 'Thunder Cake' by Patricia Polacco. The book talks about a girl and her grandmother making a cake when their is a thunder storm. The girl is afraid of the thunder and her grandmother soothes her by telling her to count after their is lightning and stop counting when the thunder booms and then they will know how many miles away the storm is. The grandmother's goal is to eat the cake by the time the storm is overhead. They have to go out into the farm and collect the ingredients to make the cake. At the end of the story is a recipe for thunder cake, the cake the girl and her grandmother made. (Note: you do not need to make this cake when there is a thunderstorm ;P)

Thunder Cake

Sift together:

Cream together, one at a time 2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup shortening or butter 1/2 cup dry cocoa

1 3/4 cups sugar 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp salt

3 eggs, separated

(Blend in the yolks.

Beat whites until stiff, then fold in)

1 cup cold water

1/3 cup pureed tomatoes

Mix dry mixture into creamy mixture. Bake in two greased and floured 81/2 inch round pans at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.

Frost with chocolate butter frosting. Top with strawberries.

Richnigthder and Jerome said they wouldn't like the cake because it has tomatoes in it. Honestly, you dont even taste the tomatoes. We have been trying to figure out what purpose they serve in the cake. We did notice though that they made the cake a little red on the inside.. hmm... It is a really reallly reallllly goood cake though! :) I used vanilla frosting and no strawberries. I don't think that made much of a difference though :p

PROM!?!? Or Freak Show??

I know I was turning this into a recipe blog but mom insited I post this. Last night one of my best friends wanted me to go and watch 'the Grand March' at her prom. I thought that meant we would go to her school, stand there, and watch everyone walk into the school for prom, then leave. Boy, was I wrong. She also invited another friend of ours whom I am going to ask later today what she thought about it. This is how it all went down....... We got to the school and tons of people were already there, practically the whole darn school. We went into the gym (The gym? What? Why would prom be in a GYM?) and sat in the stands with the tons of other peoples. It was caous for a while! Everyone was yelling and running around and going to see who was there and wearing what and who they were with ect ect ect. . . Finally things calmed down when the annoucer started talking. She was listing sponsors and events going on. Then she said 'And remember, the prom party will be held at Midway Lanes (Our local BOWLING ALLEY!)! The busses will load up as soon as we are all through here.' So, the took busses to the bowling alley for prom, classy. Did they exchange their high-heels for the bowling clown shoes? After that interesting announcement we got to watch the kids walk, no joke, we watched them parade around in their dresses and suits. The announcer would call the girl's name and she would walk out from behind this curtain thingy and then the announcer would call the guy's name and he would come out from behind a curtain on the opposite side of the gym area they decorated. They would meet in the middle and the guy would give a flower to the girl and they would walk down this decorated runway thing and have pictures taken then walk away together. As soon as they got through everyone, everybody joked around by doing odd things like one group of boys carried on girl out who held a sign that said 'CAN WE WEAR SHORTS YET?' and all the boys carrying her had shorts on. Or another example was one boy walked out with two girls and they kissed him on each cheek and he stuck his tongue out to which the old ladies sitting behind said was way to provocative for prom. Hah hah hah hah! Then everyone got up and left. Just left, went home so the kids could get on the BUS and go to the BOWLING ALLEY! Oh, and to top it off, WE PAID TO WATCH THIS!! WE PAID! MONEY, REAL MONEY! NOT MONOPOLY DOLLARS! HAHA! I thought you would enjoy a good laugh!

PB Blondies (OKay is this a dessert blog?)

I have been loooking and loooooking and loooooooooooking for recipes and I finally found this one! I found it in the First magazine and thought I would try... it is goooooooood!!!

1 1/2 sticks butter, room temp
1 cup, plus 2 tbs. peanut butter, divided
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 tsp. each vanilla and baking powder
1/2 cup chopped peanuts, divided
1 cup vanilla frosting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In mixer on medium, beat butter, 1 cup peanut butter, and sugar for 2 minutes. Beat in egg, flour, vanilla, and baking powder. Stir in half of the peanuts; pour into greased foil-lined 9" square pan. Bake 30 minutes; let cool. In bowl, mix frosting and remaining peanut butter; spread over bars. Sprinkle with remaining nuts.

Supposedly it will serve 12, I can't remember how many bars we were able to cut, but I know it wasnt 12! It is delicous, especially if you love goodies with Peanut Butter!

No-bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Sorry I didn't get this up sooner but here it is. I found this on cooks.com and here is the link so you can check it out yourself : http://www. cooks.com/rec/veiw/0,2310,154177-234202,00.html.
Recipe:
2 cups sugar 1tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa 3 cups oatmeal
1 stick butter 1/2 cup Peanut Butter (optional)
1/2 cup milk

1. Combine sugar, cocoa, butter, and milk in a sauce pan. On medium heat, bring to a boil for ONE FULL MINUTE. Remove from heat. Stir in Peanut Butter (if you want it), vanilla and oatmeal.
2. Drop by spoonful onto wax or parchment paper. Let cool for at least 30 minutes.

Now, I suggest adding the peanut butter because they harden faster with it in the mix. They also don't take a full 30 minutes to cool, maybe more like 15-20 minutes. You can you cooking oats if you want, because that is what it calls for but, I just use regular old oatmeal. Anyways this made tons of cookies but I am not sure how many exactly because before I could count them they were gone! Enjoy!
Maddie!

A change!

Okay, so Maddies Mocha Talk has had a change! It is NO LONGER Maddies Mocha Talk but now Maddies Recipe Talk. I have found GREAT recipes lately and I want to share them with you, if you have any great recipes you want to share with me comment with what it is and I will post it. I will post the first recipe after this post!
Maddie!
P.S. I really LOVE twilight hence the background lol!

Animals

Hiya everyone!
Sorry I haven't posted for so long I have just been so busy! I am going to post about our animals. Today after this post I will post about our dogs, then tomorrow about the horses, and saturday about the cats and bunnies. I will tell a little story about each dog, horse, cat, and bunny. I will bost pics I took the day of the post! (Sorry Erin I don't mean to copy your Tucker post!)
TTYL,
Maddie

Jerome's Dance..... And other odds and ends

So just a couple of minutes ago i started filming Jerome with our built in web cam on our computer. When he finally realized I was filming he started jumping and dancing all over the place. Then I remembered he had a dance the he showed us last night which outta the ordinary. I had him do his "dance" on the video. All I can say now is watch and laugh!

This upcoming Saturday is a birthday party for Richnigthder (he was also in the vid). We invited our friends The Watkins' who also adopted 2 lil' ones from the same orphanage as our boys were from. I would like to see Jerome teach them his dance... We could put all the little Haitians in grass hula skirts and coconut bras when they do the dance. Now that is what I call, video worthy, CUTE!!

*Sigh*

So right now I am downstairs escaping chaos.... a.k.a Patty is here. :( yup that is right Patty Robinson our social worker for the adoption she is sooo anoying and she called mom one dad to tellher about her cucumbers and that was the complete point of the phone call. So she now has the nickname "Pickle Patty" haha!! I call her "Patty Le Peu" I don't know why but I do though. In other "Laurie News" I got new shoes and my HUGE feet measured and turns out in ND you cant get a size 11 1/2 womens in sneakers. So I went over to the mens section and found a nice pair of white and blue sneaks and they are like monsters! The didn't have 10 1/2 but like they did have 9 1/2 that work but not for to long!!! So and when I put them on the boys the looked like Steve Urkle LOL!!!!!!! Now this morning we all woke up to a fresh blanket of snow! YEAH (NOT)!!!!It is like all gone now BOOO HOOO:( (YES(:) lol well I have to go I will talk and post later bye bye!!!

So do you like it?? ~Maddie

Hi, It is me Maddie and I was wondering if you all liked the completely new look?? It, suprisingly enough, only took me about an hour to create and stuff so I mean it wasn't nesarry to take all that time but it is open and everything is new. So I hope you like it!!!
Love,
Maddie

Check it out!

Hey, This is actually maddie but I am to lazy to sign into my own account! Anyways I want you all to see this site and sign this petition and please sign it for me and all the horses out there they need your help and all you have to do is sign. We need your help to reach the goal of 100,000 signs and we only have 70,000+ help and sign sign sign sign!!! Talk to you later!!!!
Love,
Maddiehttp://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/campaign.faces?siteId=3&campaign=ASPCAHorsePetition

Construction

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to post and ask if you could not visit my blog between 9-19-09 and 9-21-09. I will be completly changing it and I want it to be a suprise it should be finished by 3 pm on the 21st But I want it to suprise you all and It wont be a suprise if you come while I am changing it. I hope you all like it see on the 21st!!
~Madison ~~Maddie~~

An earing!!!

So today mom went into town and when they came home Richnigthder had a huge suprise!!! HE GOT 1 EAR PEIRCED!!!! Here is a pic of it:

Isn't he sooooo cute with that earing!! He was soo excited to get that! J man chickened out on mom. He was afraid it was like a shot. :c At least Rich got his done!!!

I am sincerely sorry!!!!

Hi everyone I wanted to post and say SOOO SOORRRRYYY!!! I haven't posted in such a long time!! But I will tell all about what has gone on in a long time. Here are some pics for you!!!

Jerome ate a hamburger shirt less!!!! HE IS A HOOT!

MOOO.... or whatever noise a buffalo makes!!! a rest stop on the way back home from Billings... J and I had to fe pepe so this is where we stopped we both said no fe pepe la! (no go pee here)

when we finally pulled over j had wet the carseat!!!

HEYY LOOK!! Its Tiffani Watkins carring a stroller down the stairs with Alder at the airport in billings!!!!

We went to Theodore Roosevelt National Park on our way to Billings, MT to greet the Watkins bringing their kids home!

We watched a crop duster fly over head and if you think those little things are trees then you are right!

We all went to this place in bismarck, I think it was designed especially for boys!!!!

The boys got baptized on Fathers Day!

Jerome figured out how to jump on the trampoline avec dloh!!! He and R always chant Jump on trampoline when they are jumping on the trampoline.

And I do not have pictures but... Our 2 sheltie puppies turned 1 yr on august 5th and pebbles our 5 yr old rotti mix is dying of lymphoma cancer! :c She will be missed severely!!! I have to go and feed the horses now but I will post soon!!

Hi (again)

Ok so the other day I told you I got braces June 3rd well I didn't. My brother did, I get mine July 21st.

In my last post i told you about the closet and boys well I have some pics now so here they are they are cute:

Jerome decided to not want a picture at all. He thought i was going to scare him!!!

I wish I had a pic on the computer

The other day I was walking through our entry way to the front door to grab somthing I had left by the door on our little bench there and boy was I in for a shock! There I was minding my own buisness and diggin through a bunch of stuff and all of the sudden the closet doors started to shake and move, I shot up and nearly had a heartattack and of course you couldnt hear anyone talking and I am ust scared to death at this point not knowing what to do and thinking "Should I go and grab that old baseball bat the boys found or the 2 by 4 in the garage?" and then just I decided it would be best to just do nothing the thing(s) jumped out on me.......... Turns out it was just the boys playing in the closet. I do not know exactly what was going through their minds when they climbed in there. I did take some pics of them and Thomas in the closet but hey at least we can say they finaly came out of the closet! Sometimes they are just sooo silly. I also took some pics of Jerome (Sammy) after he got out of the tub he was just soo jumpy it was worth taking a picture. He was standing in his room with only a towel around him screaming at the tod of his lungs FRET FRET FRET FRET FRET FRET FRET FRET!!!!!! For those of who don't know what FRET is, It is cold in creole. He was shivering but still soooo jumpy! He is hilarious. I also have a pic of ME:

June 6th: Snow and rain at one time and me not so happy about it.... considering I was supposed to be at the water park! YEA RIGHT!

Yup SNOW in the middle of summer!

But anyways the boys are fine and hate this loverly spring weather and everyone else is THRILLED that it snows in summer, cinsidering we just got off of a really harsh winter. Well better JET! Bye

HEY PEOPLE!!

Hi I am soooo excited and like CRAZZY! and don't really know why I am though. It is so weird. In my last post I said I was going to the orthodontist, and I did he said i will need 12 months in braces and 18 months in a retainer starting on June 3rd. I am nervous but excited at the same time for that.

While we were on our trip I found out something about one of my pictures on my blog I didn't know about....

In this picture of Jerome his lady was Miss Asderlene Schminke who had gotten sick and about 10 minutes after this picture was taken she threw-up! BLUGH! So that is what I found out about that.

The other night I was bored so I was online tricking out my blog and if you scroll down to the very bottom you will see a really cute hit counter which I think is pretty cool. I better go both boys are in my room wanting food and to play on the computer. (Trust me I have no idea why they are asking me for food not that maid whoops mom!!) LOL

WOWZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I haven't posted in such a long time. We have been so busy lately that it is crazy. We finally got to go to haiti and pick those boys! YAY! But first of all HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!(ok to be honest I am not the best typer so I looked away from my computer and continued talking with some on and that sentence came out But first if akk GAOOT NITHERS DAY!!LOL) Anyways life has been hectic around here and tomorrow I go to the orthodontist so he can tell me what the heck I need to have done with my crooked teeth! I say I have crooked teeth but everyone thinks they are perfect. I DON'T! Now lets see what the orthodontist says? HMMMM... well i need to go now the boys are up talk to you l8er!!!

So like I said....

we took the horse out this morning to work with him. Last time we did this he walked over the tarp and let us drag the wally world bags all over his back and body. SO this time he did the same except for he would copy me, I would kinda paw the tarp so it made noise and then he would, I would walk over and he would to so we did this like 5 times and then we took his halter off to let him run and guess where he went? THE DOOR! He already was done and wanted to leave so we did. But I think he is making sweet, sweet progress with this already! YA! Hopefully he will do well in the rodeo! I just thought I would update you with that but now I have to go! TALK TO YOU LATER!! BYE!!!

If I could be anywhere it would be...

In the Caribbean on the beach sipping on a virgin margarita with sunglasses and a swimsuit on lounging around!

I soooo wish summer would come sooo much sooner I HATE WINTER! I wish it was warm and sunny and warm and fun! I can't wait to go to Haiti so it can be nice and sunny and WARM! YAY! When summer comes I will be outside 24/7 doing anything and everything!

So this summer I am going to try for the Miss Mandan Rodeo Princess '09! For that I need a horse which is okay with crowds and flags waving. My show horse, Tommy, is okay with crowds but not so much with flags and so we have to work with him and flags. Everyday we are trying to take him to the indoor riding arena and putting tarps and shaking Wal-mart bags at him and he is doing GREAT with that! He walked over the tarp and let us drag the bags on his back and body which for him is incredible for the fact that he is terrified of stuff like that so hopefully he will do great with me at the rodeo!

I love this horse but he has his disadvantages and this is one we are going to get on top of A.S.A.P. if that is even possible! He is a fabulous horse to rein on but other subjects (rodeos) he is not so perfect he is like on a 1 to 10 scale a 2 which is horrible! Luckily it is a work in progress! Tomorrow, early in the morning, I'll go back to working with Tommy, so I have to go to bed so I am AWAKE!! Talk to you later! BYE!

WAAAAAHOOOO CELEBRATE WITH US!

OH YOU NEED TO CELEBRATE!!! WE ARE IN USCIS AND HAVE BEEN THEIR SINCE THURSDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mom just got off of the phone with Vivian, our case-worker in OR!!!!!! SOOOOO celebrate! Kids go have some mocktails or shirley temples and adults go have a drink!! yayayyayayayay I AM SOOOOOOOO EXCITED ONLY BOUT A MONTH! WOA hang on that meanz wow uh-oh!!! STILL YOU NEED TO CELEBRATE!! Oh and by the way Mom I am logged in on your comuter still so don't try to leave a comment! LOL!! Ok gotta go celebrate YAYA!! ok BYE!! (CELEBRATE)!!!!!!!

YAY!!! 2 PASSPORTS HERE WE COME USCIS (1 week!!)

YEP THAT IS RIGHT!! Both boys have passports and will be onto USCIS! YAY! Not much left only about a month until we travel to get them. SO about end of April beginning of May! YAY! I am sooo happy! I was kinda POed when Mom said a month ago they would be coming home on my b-day :( !!! But now it will be LATER! WOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO THEY ARE COMING ON HOME TO ME MADDIE AND MOM AND TOM AND DAD!! Oh Thomas and I ARE going on the pick up trip which will be fun to see my brothers at their home! YAY!!!! I also need to put pics I can't have a post about them without their pictures!

Christmas time! Jerome


Richnigthder doing his own donkey trip to Jeremie!!!