Chocolate Cake Taste Test

This taste test had been a brainchild of mine for some time. It sounded like a really good idea at first...but we were way wrong about it being a good idea...it was a very painful and overwhelming idea! I will explain how later.

Matt and his sister LOVE chocolate cake. When she was in Texas this past October around her birthday, we invited her down to celebrate by having a taste test of some of our favorite Chocolate cakes. Additionally we had wanted to try one of the chocolate cakes in town that we hadn't before and figured this might be a good time to do so. We chose three fancy places and one normal place that we knew had good chocolate cake as a "control". We had fancy score sheets and I made sure they didn't know where each slice was from so we could control as many variables as possible.



I will start with the worst...and boy was it bad.

We had heard amazing things about The Chocolate Bar here in Houston. They had been written up in several magazines for having wonderful chocolate desserts. Matt went down and asked for a slice for the most popular chocolate cake they had.



The scores for this ranged from 19 to 12 on a 30 point range. The icing was flat, the taste was "eh", and I wrote that "it left me wanting more from the cake, not more bites of cake". This was a really dry piece of cake too and we definitely expected more from a $11 piece of cake.

The next best (and nowhere near as bad as the previous) was the cake from Cheddar's. This was our control cake and we knew it would be good.



This cake exactly served it's purpose. It is a decent cake and one that you could see your mom or grandma serving to you. It is spongy, the icing and cake complement each other, and as Matt said it is "good, but not exceptional". It certainly knocked the socks of the previous cake with scores ranging from 18 to 26 and was nicely priced at around $6. It also gets brownie points (which is odd because it is chocolate cake) for being accessible in many places and for being served with ice cream.

The next two were a bit of a toss up. One we all decided was better as Chocolate CAKE, the other was better as a Chocolate DESSERT.

For the better cake we chose Taste of Texas.



This cake is amazing...as you can see in the picture there are Chocolate Straws that are usually acting as "flying buttresses" to hold the cake up on the plate. It tastes like cake, it is soft and moist, it has quality chocolate in that there are hints of fruity flavors, it has a good icing to cake ratio and the icing is good in and of itself. There was depth of flavor in the cake and you felt satisfied in looking for a good chocolate cake. The scores for this one were 28, 28, and 29. This cake puts you back almost $13.

The better of the desserts though was The Palm.



It is almost difficult to describe the cake from The Palm. The cake is so soft and the layers between cake and icing so thin that it really melds together. This is definitely a dark chocolate flavor so if you are not a dark chocolate fan, beware. A good amount of icing is concentrated on top which made it loose points with Matt and his sister because they like a lot of icing and they want it distributed through the cake. I am not as big of a fan of icing so it got extra points for this with me. This cake is so rich, so soft, and so intense that it almost hurts. Beware if you are prone to migraines triggered by chocolate...just smelling this cake could throw you overboard. McKay killed this one's ratings by giving it a 21 and Matt and I gave it a 26 and a 29 respectively. This one does cost you are pretty penny at $17.

All in all, if you had to ask us which one was best we would have to clarify what you are looking for...a crazy intense chocolate dessert points to The Palm. A really good piece of chocolate cake would mean a trip to Taste Of Texas. Either way...stay far, far away from The Chocolate Bar.

Why was this a bad idea you ask...this was way too much chocolate cake even for the three of us and we barely made a dent in it. All three of us felt very off the next day from trying bite after bite of our favorites. We needed at least three more people tasting with us and a little more self control. I am sure there are more good cakes to taste in Houston though, so I will keep you posted if we try again!

The Real Santa

Matt and I have been discussing a lot about the "Santa issue" in our house. We see many sides with whether to introduce him to the kids or not...we still have another year to finalize our stance because as far as MacKenzie is concerned, he is just a nice man (or woman) who gives her candy canes.

This post is not about us fleshing out our Christmas traditions so much as it is, for us, who Santa really should be in our lives...

Today my beloved Nana was doing some last minute shopping at her favorite store Palais Royal (she loves Hallmark too, maybe more so). She wanted to get some little gifts for the caretakers at her assisted living and extra items for her loved ones that she always spoils and dotes on throughout the year. As she was puttering around the store she came across a very nice sweater and one that she very much would have liked for herself. She saw no indication that it was included in any of the store sales so she added it to her items telling herself that she would only purchase it depending on how much her total was for the gifts for the other people in her life. When she was ready to checkout she told her checker that she wanted to see her grand total before she included the sweater in her purchases. A woman that was checking out next to her, but was almost done commented that she wanted to check the price of the sweater as well. My Nana obliged and carefully watched her total. As her transaction was complete, she didn't notice the sweater anywhere, but her checker handed her two bags. The items she had purchased was in one...and the sweater...purchased by the other woman for my grandmother was in the other! The checker next to her said the woman purchased it for my grandmother as part of her total so my grandmother could have something for herself too. Of course my grandmother burst into tears, the checker burst into tears, several other customers in line got weepy, and my uncle who had come into get my grandmother was moved by the generosity and compassion exhibited.

This is the Santa that we want to instill in our daughters hearts. We needed a bit of a reminder of it ourselves. Thank you to whoever that woman at the Palais Royal on Kingwood Drive is. Thank you for showing a bit of love to my Nana who deserves every bit of it.

Christmas Pictures

We took some pictures of the girls over the Thanksgiving break for our Christmas cards, we got better pictures of the girls separately than we did together, but wanted the together pictures for the cards. So you guys get to enjoy the individual pictures as a "preview".

Such a serious little Santa!

MacKenzie loves her reindeer

What a good little present...

...that sits under the tree!

Many Thanks

Our family has so much to be thankful for...our jobs, our home, an abundance of food, clothing, and entertainment. We have good family and good friends that we can rely on to meet our needs. We have the ability to lead and serve others. We have been blessed with good health. We live in a great country that allows us so many freedoms- freedom to work towards our goals and to achieve them, freedom to pursue happiness, freedom to live our lives in the way that we find pleasing, freedom to worship as we wish, openly and with others.

We have our wonderful family...

Our MacKenzie Grace who is so amazingly brilliant that it astounds me to think about how smart she is and what I can teach her and learn with her next...

Our Keegan Joy who is so amazingly passionate and has such feeling with the capabilities to express those feelings already...

That they have each other as sisters and will be able to always grow up with the closest of friends in each other and they can take comfort in their complementary natures...

Our Dada and my Mattie who takes care of us in the best ways he knows how and works hard everyday to achieve greatness...

We are so thankful, grateful, and humbled by what has been brought into our lives.

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours.

Keegan at 8 and 9 months

Keegan,

I feel terrible that I never got around to writing your 8 month post. While I have neglected your individual posts, I have not been neglecting you in the least and that is what is important right? I love you so much and cannot believe how quickly you are growing. It seems like you are growing up even faster than MacKenzie. I am not sure if you are trying to catch up to her or if that is just you and your personality (or maybe both), but either way I sure do wish life had a pause button!

You are eating like a champ, taking two full meals a day and sometimes a little snack too. You are eating table food most meals and if you eat something "baby-ish" it is us feeding you applesauce. You love to feed yourself and grab handfuls of raisins, cheerios, green beans, peas, corn, rice or anything else we put in front of you. This past weekend we gave you some of your sister's favorite food- Mac and Cheese! I think you love it even more than she does, which Mommy is very thankful because Mac and Cheese, sausage, and canned veggies are one of her stand by meals. You will nurse or take a bottle of pumped milk 4 to 5 times a day. Mommy is making plenty of milk for you along with a bit for the freezer and some for the milk bank. She is trying to finish up pumping for her last batch to send off in the next week or so. Thank you for all your help with that and for being so willing to share!

Your sleeping is long and consistent. Crystal loves watching you on her days because you sleep most of the time because we have to wake you up so early. You are barely dropping your evening nap and will still lay down for 20 minutes or so some evenings. This is on top of a 1-2 hour morning and 2-3 hour afternoon nap. You sleep soundly, on your tummy with your middle and ring finger in your mouth or close to your face. You like to be covered up, but have no preference for blankie or stuffed animal (which Mommy likes and will try to keep it that way). You have been sharing a room with your big sister for quite some time at night and that is going really well. You were a bit fussy the other night and we heard MacKenzie say over the monitor "No, no Nee-nan, Sleeeeep". There are many times that she will read to you or interact with you in the morning before we get you out of bed. I love that you two can happily share a room right now. Of course we let you nap separately because you are not in sync that way yet.

You are so active and so advanced physically. You had been wiggling yourself around the room quite well and were getting up on hands and knees and rocking for weeks. Finally, about three weeks ago, you got up and started really moving with a purpose. Now you are definitely crawling and moving around and being very independent. You will often lurch away from us so you can go explore your surroundings. You have also (this weekend at exactly 9 months) began officially pulling up on things. You had been trying very hard and would make your body into a bridge before, but now you will pull up on your crib or on the couch. I am sure you will be cruising very soon and may even be getting close to steps. You are starting to take interest in books, love to laugh and giggle when tickled or when we make funny faces, and love to bob to music.

You had a doctor visit on Friday and she said everything looked great. You weighed 19 pounds 4 ounces and were 28 inches long. That is in the mid 60 percentile for both. So taller and bigger than most your age, but not too tall or big. It has been fun picking out clothes for you that we think "look" like you. Our girlie clothing collection is growing! You officially said "Mama" this week. You were in despair that I walked away from you and let out a cry and a sad and pathetic "mama" as I walked away. You will still babble "Dadadadada", but we haven't decided if that "counts" or not. You are also consistently making the sign for "Milk" and will get excited if you are hungry and I make the sign for milk.

Thank you for not one, but the past two months. I appreciate you for who you are and how you fit into our family. I love everything about you and hope you feel it every day!

Love,

Mommy

Halloween 2011

This Halloween year went much like last years (except with double the children). We went to our church fall festival to play and hang out with friends for a few years. I love that they work hard to have an area with games and bounce houses for smaller children like MacKenzie (and next year Keegan too). MacKenzie loved trying to throw beanbags into various areas to win candy ("tan-dy") and once she had gotten two or three pieces she was more than happy to stop. She bounced like a wild animal in the bounce house, so much so that her unbuckled overalls fell to the ground so she took them all the way off and bounced with shirt and diaper only!

We also joined the Faulkners and some of our other friends for Halloween at their house. We all brought food to go along with Chili and enjoyed passing out candy to neighborhood children. Da-da got there a bit late so we were unable to trick or treat with MacKenzie's friends, but we figured this wouldn't be a problem. We made our way to the first house and she did fine saying thank you. At the next house all heck broke loose. There was nothing scary about the house and they were sitting by the sidewalk so she did not have to walk far so we are still unable to figure out why the massive meltdown. I like to say that she got one piece of candy for both hands and felt that was sufficient. The girls both dressed up as ballerinas because we had the outfits on hand.

We were also able to head over to the pumpkin patch this year near our house for a few pumpkin pictures. Keegan did great, MacKenzie was distracted. You may recognize the dresses from their wedding dresses!

Wedding Weekend!

A few weekends ago we went to College Station to celebrate the wedding of Matt's brother Martin to our new sister-in-law/sister-in-law/sister-out-law Erin. I love the chance to be a part of a wedding and it was nice to be involved in a wedding that did not involve me serving and picking up dishes (although I appreciate the extra money when I work the events for my mom). We have enjoyed watching Martin change over the past few years and especially since he has met Erin and we enjoy Erin for who she is (and how much she loves and dotes on our girls). It was a joyous occasion and it was nice to be with family for a long weekend.

Matt was honored to stand with Martin as one of his groomsmen and we loved MacKenzie's debut as a flower girl. While she did not throw any petals, she walked down the aisle just as she was supposed to and then sat with Mommy for the duration of the ceremony. While MacKenzie was too tired and hungry to be willing to take extra pictures from the photographer, I am hoping that some were gotten during the actual ceremony. Keegan slept through the ceremony and was able to enjoy the reception after.

I loved Erin's attention to fall details and thought the outside setting was simply beautiful. The ceremony itself had several touching parts, especially in the vows, but maybe that is just the old softy in me :) Regardless, welcome to the family Erin. Best Wishes and Congratulations to you both!