These are rather unfortunately called Raspberry Strippers but they are surprisingly easy and quick to make, they look elegant, and man are they ever delicious. They have been one of my go-to cookies for years now. I made them one rainy afternoon at my parents’ house when my mom needed a dessert for a dinner she was taking to someone from their church who’d recently had surgery.

We usually have lunch at OJ’s, a Mexican restaurant near my parents’ house, with my mom and her friend Donelle (whom I’ve known my entire life and is like an honorary aunt—she occasionally comments on this site as “Aunt B”) when we’re in Omaha.

When we visit Troy’s stepmom, almost the first thing Annalie asks is, “Can I play with your jewelry?”

This is Kailyn. She’s one of the Kay girls, the closest to Annalie in age, and they’re good buddies. She usually sits with us in church and invites Annalie to come to Sunday school with her. This visit was the first time that Annalie went to Sunday school not once, but twice. Now that she likes Sunday school, we should probably work on actually getting ourselves to church on a regular basis when we’re at home, eh?

Kailyn went with us to see the stage version of High School Musical at the Rose Blumkin Performing Arts Center. The Rose is the home of the Omaha Theater Company, one of the oldest children’s theater companies in the nation.

When I was growing up, the Omaha Theater Company’s home was the Emmy Gifford Children’s Theater. I saw dozens of plays there over the course of my childhood, some on school field trips and many more with my mom and brother. From an early age, The Emmy Gifford instilled in me a love and respect for live theater, and I have extremely fond memories of it. The best thing was how, after every single performance, the cast invited the audience to stick around and ask any questions they might have about the play. Can you think of anything cooler than that!?

In the late 1990s, the Rose (which was formerly the Astro Theater) was donated by the Blumkin family to the Omaha Theater Company, and renovated with a multi-million dollar donation from the same family. Since the Rose opened, the Omaha Ballet Company has been established and performs in the same theater.

I was very excited to take Annalie to her second play here. She loves the movie version of High School Musical this play was pretty good. Annalie LOVED it. I think I’m going to have to make it a tradition to try to get tickets to a show each time we’re in Omaha from now on.

Annalie drew this picture in the car, on the way to Leslie & Ed’s house. I asked her to tell me about it. “This is a picture of me coming up to your bedroom because I had a nightmare. See, here’s my bed, downstairs in my bedroom, and here’s me on the stairs. I’m going up to ask you if I can sleep with you and Daddy. These are the stars and moon outside, because it’s night. Oh, and that’s the door the garage, down there. I didn’t go down there but I drew it because that’s where it is.”

Troy took this photo of me getting my hair done. In the background on the right, my mom is talking to Trace, who has been my mom’s (and my occasional) stylist for 15 years. We share a love of the movie That Thing You Do! and its music, and have awesome conversations about movies and TV every time he cuts my hair.

In the background on my left, you can see Annalie and her cousin FJ watching a movie on the DVD player. FJ’s mom, my cousin Tressa, just happened to have a hair appointment at the same salon at the same time as my mom and me. So we got to see Tressa one more time, and Annalie and FJ got to hang out with each other one more time. Very cool.

Troy’s stepmom gave us this photo of Troy and his dad petting a goat at a park in California. It was taken when Troy was about 2 1/2, in 1972. On the back Troy’s mom wrote, “Troy, Keith, and friend.” I love her inscription, and also Troy’s seventies-licious sandals and Keith’s plaid-tastic pants.

Annalie took this photo of me when we were visiting my Gramma. I don’t post photos of my Gramma here because the internet makes her nervous and she doesn’t like her picture to be online where just anyone can see it. If you’re a Flickr friend, you can see the pictures there.

Rachel and Jeff invited us and my parents over for dinner, which was really nice. I love to eat out, but when we’re traveling we eat out SO MUCH that we always especially appreciate when someone invites us into their home and cooks for us.

The path to Rachel’s backyard garden (which is set down from the main part of the backyard) looks rather enchanted, don’t you think?

It’s working well for growing peas, anyway! Annalie was quite excited when I asked her what kind of plant this was, and she immediately recognized the peapods.

Hills are great for running down. Don’t you wish you had the energy of a five-year-old?

Annalie and Gramaw Debbie didn’t plan to wear matching outfits that day. Honest.

Two extremely random photos. We were in the parking lot of a movie theater when I glanced over and saw the antennae all lined up. I just liked it. If you’re from Omaha, you probably know where these antennae are. Any guesses?

Driving down the main street in my parents’ neighborhood, I cracked up when I saw the BK sign and made Troy go back later so I could take a photo. I was tempted to photoshop out the ‘G’ so it would be even funnier…but I refrained.

I have a lot of cousins in Omaha. My cousins in Omaha have a lot of kids. Therefore, Annalie has a lot of cousins in Omaha! Yeah, most of them are second cousins or first cousins once-removed, but we just call ‘em cousins. Most people don’t even know the difference between a second cousin and a first cousin twice-removed anyway. (I do. I will bore you to death with the explanation if you want.)

Annalie is blessed with quite a few cousins close to her in age. Not only cousins close to her in age…but several girl cousins close to her in age! That’s not something I ever had. I used to be jealous of my friend Kara because her cousin Kelly was only a few months older than she was, and they were really close friends as well as relatives.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my boy cousins too. And I’ve always been close to my cousin Tressa, even though she’s eight years older than I am. I’ve often described her as the closest thing I have to a big sister, because that’s what she is. She’s even one of Annalie’s godparents.

It’s just fun for Annalie to have girl cousins close to her in age. I hope she manages to stay close to them as they all grow up, and that they stay good friends. I’m doing my part by making sure she gets to spend time with as many cousins as possible whenever we go to Omaha.

Note that one of Annalie’s girl cousins close to her in age, Madison, isn’t pictured because while we were in Omaha her mom, my cousin Amanda, gave birth to Madison’s little sister Makenzie a few weeks prematurely. So they were busy and we didn’t get the chance to visit them this time, but next time we’ll get to see them AND meet our newest cousin. And hey, did I mention that my brother and his fiancee are expecting a baby GIRL in November? Bring on the pink!

As I mentioned the other day, Lindsey saw the beach girl plate that Brenda and I collaborated on and asked if we could do a beach boy plate. We could, and did, and now it’s in my Etsy shop.

I started painting this mug almost a month ago, just for something to do while I was supervising Annalie painting her pink kitty (of which I still have not taken any photos). Brenda’s mom has this IKEA lampshade and I’ve been eyeing it for a while. This mug doesn’t really look much like the lampshade but I did use it for inspiration.

When I took the half-painted mug back to the studio to finish it, I had planned to add a few more flowers and leaves. But Brenda said she thought it looked finished already. I trust Brenda’s eye, so I looked at the mug again and reconsidered. I decided to just outline the flowers and add some whimsical stems. I’m glad that’s all I did because I love it this way. I think I might just keep this one for myself.

Speaking of knowing when to stop painting, do you guys remember that tree love mug/pencil holder that I made for Kerri a while back? Here, let me refresh your memory.

I don’t hate it, but…it’s definitely not my best work. I should have left more white space around the trees and I don’t like the dotty pine tree on one side (you can see that side on the Etsy listing), which quite honestly was the result of me trying to fix a mistake. I knew as soon as I picked up the finished piece from the studio that I wanted to try again. It took me a couple of months, but I finally did.

I’m much, MUCH happier with take 2 of the tree love pencil holder. I’ll let Kerri decide which of the two she wants, and maybe I’ll eventually put the other one in my shop.

While I was finishing up the funky flower mug and take 2 of the tree love pencil holder, Annalie was painting something for Troy. We happened to be painting on Father’s Day, and Annalie took it upon herself to choose a piece she thought Troy would like and paint it specifically for him, which I thought was quite sweet. And I’m impressed with the finished product too! It actually has a sort of pattern to it, which is a fairly new skill for Annalie.

She signed her name on the back and drew the sun, a flower, and the moon. She actually painted all of this, by the way. In the past she’s drawn with a pencil and I’ve painted over that, but this was all Annalie’s handiwork. I love that she’s getting better and better at painting, and look hopefully forward to the day when she’s old enough for us to go spend an afternoon painting together without her getting bored and demanding to go walk a puppy.

Annalie also painted a little heart for Troy, which we made into a magnet after it was fired. I don’t have any photos of it, but I have a funny story related to it. Annalie painted one side blue and scratched her name and drawings of herself and Troy into it with a toothpick. The other side she painted red and then added pink dots all over that side. She asked me what I thought, and I said I loved it. She replied in this world-weary tone of voice, “Of course you love it, it’s polka dots.” She might as well have rolled her eyes and added, “DUH.” Kid has my number. I sort of love that about her.

I’ve been thinking about a recipe I read a few days ago in Catherine Newman’s cooking blog for Donut Cake. Catherine says her family’s name for this classic cake came about because the combination of nutmeg and vanilla really tastes like donuts. Hilariously, she adds that they also renamed it Donut cake “so that Homer Simpson might stumble on it via Google.”

Catherine says in the post that she likes her cakes plain, or maybe with a little fresh fruit and whipped cream, but I kept thinking about this cake covered in a thick white glaze and sprinkles, like my favorite cake doughnuts. Tonight while I was writing this post it kept coming to mind. Finally I told Troy was going downstairs to make a quick Donut Cake, at which Troy let out a very Homer-Simpsonesque “Woohoo!”

The cake was quite easy to make. When it was done and cooling on a rack I stirred together 3 c. powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, and equal parts lemon juice and water added a teaspoon at a time till it was the right consistency. I took the cake out of the pan and spooned the glaze over the still-warm cake so that it dripped just a little over the sides. I added some sprinkles before the glaze had a chance to set.

A slice of this cake and a glass of milk made an excellent bedtime snack. I bet it makes a good breakfast too…I’ll let you know tomorrow!