new focus

i have officially changed my blog to focus on my baking!  i think it will do me some good to talk about all the joys and frustrations of my baking business.  i will still add in some family antidotes from time to time but mostly i will talk about my cakes from the week.  the reason it is called "kakes by holly" is because my 3 kids and my 2 nephews and niece's names start with "k" so i thought it was fitting and plus i cant think of anything else! i am going to try to get more pictures of my specialty items for examples.  anyway hope you all will enjoy it and continue to check out my new blog!

my husband, my inspiration

it all started a little over a year ago when abram made a decision.  he made the decision to lose weight and be healthy.  from the time we got married to a year ago he had put on some weight.  it was that "i'm married and comfortable" weight.  most people are familiar with that.  you get married and you feel like you don't have anyone to impress anymore and i didn't help matters much.  i felt like "wow i have a husband now let me show him how much i love him by cooking and baking things for him"  its an evil cycle!  we had decided last year that our summer vacation would be going to south padre island.  he did not want to look the way he looked when we were going to be going to the beach.  so he got to work.  we already owned a bowflex and it was rarely used but then we bought a cheap eliptical machine.  with the two and his new state of mind he really started making progress.  his goal for vacation was to be around 220 and i felt like that was a good goal and not unattainable.  i really tried to be as supportive as possible...i never wanted him to feel like i would love him more if he lost weight because i will always love him regardless.  it was really hard for him at first but he kept working at it and he did more than i thought was possible and by the time we went on vacation in july he had reached his goal of 220.  i was really proud of him and he was so happy with himself.  that is really the key.  it doesn't matter what others think of you if you are happy with yourself you can accomplish most anything.  another thing is diet.  he is not afraid to splurge and eat things that aren't so good for you every once in a while.  i think thats ok you know its all about moderation!  i think he deals with that well.  so now approximately a year later he is under 200 and looking and feeling awesome!  i am still so proud of him and his accomplishments!  we have now started working out together.  i have never been thrilled with sweating or being sore but it has been so much fun to go workout with him that i don't even think about the negative!  he works so much that there isn't much time for us to do things together and this is something that i think will bring us much closer!  here are some pictures of his progress.  he started at around 280 and his final goal is 180.  he is soo close!

                  this was his birthday in july of 2008, a whole year before our south padre vacation

this was a few weeks before we left for our vacation almost a year after the previous picture

                                         this was on our vacation, lookin pretty good!

                                  this was kamryns first day of school hes still working on it!

and here he is today!  lookin so hot!

he did all this with diet and hard, hard work.  he works from 8a.m. to 9:30 at night.  he gets a 2 hour break in the afternoon.  so he doesn't have much time for working out but he makes the time.  it would be easy to say oh i don't have the time but he doesn't.  he always says you can do anything if you want it bad enough and he wants it.  he is an inspiration!

valentines

i think only in the texas panhandle it can snow one day and be 60 degrees and sunny the very next day.  life as we know it.....  since the weather was so nice i decided to get some pictures of the kids outside in their valentine shirts.  we also had school valentine parties of which i got no pictures :( 

around valentines day people always ask "what are you and your husband doing for valentines day?" and i always get funny looks when i tell them "nothing".  we are not "gift givers" or "dinner aloners" we never have been.  i told him a loong time ago to never buy me flowers.  what good is a $100 worth of roses when they just die later.  i am a necessity minded person.  i dont see it as a bad thing and its not like our relationship suffers because of it.  some people like to do the whole "buy a gift and have a nice quiet dinner" thing but we would rather have a family dinner.  we rarely do anything without our kids.  i do believe that you need breaks from your kids and i should probably have more than i do but thats just not the way it is and i/we are totally ok with that.  i would like to say Happy Valentine's Day to all of you who are doing something special!

kids

kollin, kynlee, kamryn, alexis, kaden, karter and kar'leigh

this picture is too good not to post somewhere! all 7 kids sitting still, all of them looking at the camera, and all except one(kynlee of course) smiling!

the best christmas weekend ever!

well i hope everyone had as good of a christmas as i did! the week leading up to christmas i was very busy with cakes and cookies and i was getting the feeling that i was in need of a break. i knew we were leaving on christmas day to go to my grandparents so that kept me going! we got a lot of snow which was wonderful for the whole 'white christmas' thing but not so good when it came to traveling! but we were going to be going north and the roads weren't so bad that direction thank goodness! we left after lunch on christmas day myself, my husband, my mom and 7 kids! we had the 5 oldest kids in our suburban so they could watch movies and my mom had the 2 youngest.....its only a 3 hour trip but with 7 kids ages 7 and under it could get a little hairy..lol!

my grandparents have an old farmhouse out in the country and the kids love it there. i love it there because you don't have to do anything but sit around in pjs and enjoy it...and of course EAT!!

this picture of the house is a couple of years old i don't have a current one but this is the house! i absolutely love it here! and then here's a pic of karter and kar'leigh helping my gran wash dishes...all the kids were great helpers while we were there! anytime we were in the kitchen there was at least one kid wanting to help!





here's some pictures of the kids in there pjs...we had 3 RC trucks and 3 boys but the signals got all mixed up and they were controlling each others trucks! and kynlee as you can see is carrying a box which she carried all weekend...i guess it was her way of keeping all the stuff she wanted to play with away from everybody else!

there were in all 7 kids and 7 adults and as you can imagine sleeping arrangments were crazy....my grandparents and aunt and uncle slept downstairs and we took over the upstairs! the 3 boys slept in one bed and 3 girls slept in another and princess kynlee got to sleep with mom and dad! my mom had to sleep in a twin bed in the dreaded west room the coldest room in the house and the room that i call the vortex where the ghosts come in! lol!



thank goodness my grandparents have a huge table and can fit all of us around it....that means no kids table everybody gets to eat together! every meal was like this breakfast, lunch and dinner....the best times of the day!

here's all the kids around the tree and then with my grandparents and as you can see the "princess" is throwing a fit because she didn't want to take anymore pictures... :/





the kids finally got to go outside on sunday and they went to play in the barn and just run around...i think they were getting a little stir crazy! here they are running around in the barn which my grandparents use for actual "barn dances"! i love it! kollin is smiling and can you believe it....kynlee is crying!! i know not her right!! lol she said 'its too freezing mama!' and 'its too windy mama!' but she has to look good while throwing a fit! lol

nothin like a good cup of hot chocolate with 'smarsh mellows' as they call it after running around in the cold!

and now we are on the road again to come home! very bittersweet....we all had a great time and thats what matters! count your blessings everyday!

what a weekend!

so this weekend i did a really huge wedding cake and grooms cake! very nerve racking! i have only done one other wedding cake but this one was twice the size and covered in fondant! anyway everything went well and the cake turned out to be beautiful and it was much easier than i had imagined....on the other hand after i did the wedding cake i was up until 3 a.m sunday morning doing a sesame street cake with cookies.......that was way more difficult than the 4 tier wedding cake!

also can't believe it is only 9 days until christmas! i'm just ready for the kids to be done with school for a while! since i'm the stay at home mom i run my kids my little sister and my niece and nephews around to all of their activities. i'm so ready to have a break from that. :)

the kids are on extra good behavior because we have snowy the snowman watching them lol....i move it from room to room and they are like 'he really is watching us!' its so funny!

really looking forward to leaving town christmas day for my grandparents house. there will be no cell phone service and certainly no internet. YAY!!! we always think what would i do without my cell phone or computer.....well enjoy time with family uninterrupted thats what!

thats all for now ttys!

busy i guess.....?

i can't believe its the 2nd week of december already! i check my blog almost everyday and read others and i keep telling myself i need to do a new post.... i don't know it just hit me today that it's december 8th and i still have a thanksgiving background up and my last post was on thanksgiving day?! i've just been busy i guess :) not too much going on here normal happenings with the moya children. this weather is not my favorite i think i would be a good candidate for hibernation. i would much prefer to never have to leave the house when it's this cold outside. thank goodness for my honey who takes kamryn to school every morning :) i love that! getting up early in the morning is not my favorite either!

this week i am making a wedding and a grooms cake...O.M.G. i am quietly having panic attacks everytime i think about it. i have only made one wedding cake in my life and it was covered with flowers so you could not see all the mess ups. this one will be all me and much larger than the previous......i also have 4 other cakes for this weekend all of which are super easy so maybe that will help. anyway...

on a happy note, abram finally shot a deer! we were both excited but for different reasons i'm sure. he was happy that he got one with a good rack and i was excited that he would not be going hunting at 5:30 every morning. i was tired of waking up to an empty bed. and that on his only day off(sunday) he will be here instead of hunting. call me selfish if you want but when he works 12 hours everyday and is only home a full day on sunday it gets hard. i miss him. ugh enough of that mushy stuff....heres the deer!

yes gross i know but he is very proud and i am very proud of him!