This bread would be great for the holidays, to give as a gift, or to serve at a wedding or baby shower brunch:

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/2 Tablespoon poppy seed
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring
• 1 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

INGREDIENTS FOR ORANGE GLAZE:

• 1 cup sifted powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon almond flavoring
• 1/4 teaspoon butter flavoring

Combine the first 11 ingredients in a large bowl.  Beat 2 minutes at medium speed.  Spoon batter into 2 greased and floured loaf pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool loaves in the pan for 10 minutes.  Remove and let cool completely on a rack.

For glaze, mix the remaining ingredients thoroughly.  Drizzle on top of the cooled loaf of poppy seed bread.

This makes a delicious tea!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 quarts water
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 sliced lemon
• 2 cups strong tea
• Juice of 3 lemons
  
• Juice of 2 oranges
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Boil water, sugar, and sliced lemon for five minutes.  Add remaining ingredients.  Chill.   (also good served warm)

FormalTux.com offers new tuxedos and accessories from the top designers as well as discounted new tuxedo jackets and pants.  They carry a great selection perfect for weddings and formal occasions and offer name brands such as:

• Perry Ellis
• Ralph Lauren
• Lord West
• Geoffrey Beene.
  

Women’s formalwear and a large line of career apparel are also offered as well.  They offer just about any tuxedo style, have been in business for over 70 years, and offer great customer service.

What girl doesn’t like a pretty piece of jewelry to accent her outfit?  Some may want just one piece of jewelry such as a bracelet for their accent, while others may want a matching set of necklace, bracelet, and earrings.  Whether one wants diamonds or colored gemstones, Reeds Jewelers has been serving customers since 1946.

Customers can design their own jewelry such as a custom made diamond engagement ring, or they can choose from a great selection of engagement rings as well as wedding bands and wedding gifts.  This family-owned company wants to help plan a perfect wedding!

This is a gift we gave our daughter last year when she graduated with her master’s degree.  I wanted her gift to look extra special, so I wrapped it a lot fancier than I usually do.  Most of the time, I put gifts in a gift bag with tissue paper; however, I usually do wrap half the gifts at Christmas…but they’re not fancy.

With springtime here, there are going to be a lot of bridal showers and graduation gifts.  If you need some fancier gift wrap but don’t want to pay for expensive gift wrapping, you can do it yourself and save money.

Now that a lot of us are trying to save money, here are some ideas for even greater savings on gift wrapping:

• Look for nice gift wrap at places like Ross Stores and Tuesday Morning.
• Use coupons from craft stores such as Michael’s and Jo-Ann Fabrics to buy nice gift wrap, nice sheer ribbon, and silk flowers.

Wrapping a gift yourself for that special person is worth the effort, plus it’s fun to be creative!

A lot of people are planning weddings this time of year.  Actually it’s a year-round thing because when our daughter got married, we started planning over a year in advance.  Crazy, isn’t it?!!  Anyway, I just wanted to share this picture of a groom’s cake where the groom, who is an avid fan of …hmmm…I wonder what  , had his ideal groom’s cake complete with a puzzle he put together himself.   Pretty creative!  Just put the cake on a pretty silver tray surrounded with greenery and baby’s breathe, and it looks elegant!

We attended an outside wedding located in the garden area of a bed and breakfast.  It was beautiful, like in a storybook.  However, it started to mist at the beginning of the wedding.  Mist was tolerable, and everyone got out their umbrellas.  But just when it was time for the bride to walk down the aisle, it started to rain hard.  Everyone had to head inside at the bed and breakfast, where the reception was to be held, until the rain subsided.  Soon, it did, and the gathering of people went back to their seats outside, armed with towels to dry them off first.  The wedding began again with the bride coming down the aisle.

If you are planning an outside wedding, be sure to have a back-up plan so the guests will have a place to wait until it stops raining, or if it doesn’t stop raining, a place to perform the wedding.

For those of you who are or have been looking at tuxedos, FormalTux.com has a great selection and also has a line of discounted tuxedo jackets and pants.  Whether a tuxedo is needed for a wedding, formal event, or concert, it is great to own a tuxedo for whatever event requires formal attire.  My husband owns his own tux because he plays in an orchestra, and it is definitely worth the investment.

I have been to several weddings that took place during the winter, but I don’t remember ever receiving wedding invitations that looked like a winter invitation. The one pictured with the snowflake is an example of a beautiful winter wedding invitation. Invitation Consultants has many beautiful invitations from which to choose for any time of year plus a good selection for themed weddings.

Are you thinking about engagement rings or maybe anniversary rings? Seems like a lot of people are right now.

Our son-in-law is so creative (I guess that’s the graphic design artist in him) when it comes to giving our daughter rings.  When he proposed at their favorite coffee shop several years ago, he had previously been there and bought one of their chocolate candy eggs, taken it home and carefully opened it so he could place an engagement ring inside, and then closed it up so that it looked like new.  Our daughter, knowing nothing about this, opened the candy egg at the coffee shop thinking that our s-i-l had just purchased the candy.  When she saw the ring, he got down on one knee and proposed to her.  So sweet!

Well, recently they celebrated their five year anniversary, and so our s-i-l being the creative person that he is, bought a book and cut out a section in the middle of it so that he could place an anniversary ring inside of it.  You can imagine our daughter’s complete surprise when she opened the book!

I don’t think I need to tell you what a great s-i-l we have!!