Pretty Camera

Thank you so much for all of your sweet notes and congratulations!! As if this could be any happier, all of the shared rejoicing by our friends here and far away is an added blessing.

Before this little blog gets inundated with wedding ideas and plans (or completely neglected), I'll share a few finished projects from over the past few weeks.

This one, a cover for my canon camera strap, was on my list for a long time and finally got stitched up - it was a really easy craft, using the strap itself as a pattern and cute fabric from Katie. It was a little hard to take pictures of though, being attached to the camera! This also meant I got to check off something on my '18 before 19' list - 'Make stationery case and camera strap cover.' Something else on the list also got checked off recently - can you guess what it was?

love,
Cait

the starry song that April sings

Lovelies, friends, bloggers,

I have an announcement to make, of the most glorious kind



because






I am getting married!!
Joel and I are engaged! Affianced! Espoused! To be wed!

I am dazed and joyful, and my heart is both stilled and dancing with happiness.
Joel proposed in a seaplane above Dubai, and I was completely surprised.
(My dad is an airline pilot, and I think this is the perfect 'transition' from one era to another, as it were. And it just makes a romantic and incredible story!)
It was quiet, and beautiful, and the little details are hidden away in my heart.

It was perfect.


I am overwhelmed with the blessed thought that I get to be his wife. That we're going to be married!
Oh, how God has been gracious to us.


love,
Cait

(photo from before the special flight)

heavenly cake.

A few weeks ago I decided to try this triple layer chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting, and that's when I decided anyone in the world who loves chocolate, or cake, or peanut butter, needs to make it. Oh, you will die. And it is so. easy.
This rich and chocolatey recipe is from Smitten Kitchen, phenomenal cake mistress.
There is moist, dark, flavorful, chocolate cake.
And thick, creamy, peanut butter cream cheese frosting and filling.
And gloriously dark ganache on top.
(Which I spread because it didn't drip over the sides very attractively)

Everyone could only eat a tiny sliver, but I seem to have an immunity to richness in cakes. I savor and savor but can still eat a whole piece. But, a rich cake can be stretched farther than anything, and it keeps very well if you can't finish it. As you can see, I didn't even get around to taking a picture til we'd been eating this for a week.
It takes a lot of ingredients, but they are fairly normal so you have no excuse for not trying it with a recipe as simple as this one.

Delicious. Make this cake.

Lebanon: cute kids and ancient buildings

Lebanon was beautiful. It was good to see old friends again (and to see children whose birthdays I remember!), joke about culture, remember stories, laugh at the kids faces and antics (that is a snail that Judson is kissing), see the rough beauty and ancient ruins in Byblos, Sidon, Tyre, Beirut, and southern villages. A soap factory, a hippodrome, harbors, ice cream, a circus troop, gorgeous little Jemmilie.

but I'm especially glad to be home again.
love,
cait