Baking Inspiration

This week is our last Home Group for the season, and it happens to be at our home.  I wanted to make something special, but easy and impressive.  So I chose Madeleine Cookies.  And they turned out delightful!

Ok, so that isn't a picture of MY Madeleine cookies, but they look the same, I swear!

Then a couple other recipes I really want to try are a Puffed Pancake - I did one a couple weekends ago and I believe the recipe I used was missing some key ingredients, cause it was bland and flat.  Ugh.  

I WILL conquer the puffed pancake!

And another recipe I came across was the Ebelskivers!!  They are a traditional Danish round puffed pancake that is usually made on Christmas Eve - but I want to try them as soon as I get my hands on the Ebelskiver pan!  How amazing do these look?

You can also make them stuffed, using berries, apples, lemon curd, chocolate, cheese and on the list goes!! Yummy!!!  I'm totally going to do this!

I don't know why, but breakfast foods just sound totally good to me lately. 

Gloomy Days

If you didn't know any better, you would think this is Seattle.  It's been cold, rainy & gloomy around here these last few days.

As much as I love cold, gloomy & rainy days (what can I say, I'm true to my roots!), I'm looking forward to warmer days ahead!!

Little Nugget

Last week was long and exhausting.  I had something going every night and was ready to get some much needed rest over this weekend.  Sadly, I had to say goodbye to our friends Mandy & Shane who moved back to Arkansas, 9 hours away.  We had gone to their wedding last fall and have really enjoyed getting to know them better.  Mandy worked as a Legal Assistant in a law firm only a couple blocks from myself so we would get together for lunch fairly often and catch up.  They are the cutest, sweetest & most genuine couple ever. That's something about Nashville life, that I'm not sure I'll ever get used to - folks coming and going at a moment's notice. 

I will miss my country bumpkins more than they know. 

Thankfully, the week ended on a great note because I was able to be little nugget Kai's first official babysitter!  What a privilege!  This little man is only 7 weeks old and weighs in at 9 pounds of pure deliciousness.  I'm not sure if it curbed my craving in any way for a munchkin of my own or just made it worse!  It definitely took me back to days of snuggling my little Munch Addie back 18 years ago - gah! I'm so old!!!   

Just in case I got in over my head, I brought in reinforcements by having my MIL Sherry come over.  I mean do you see those cute little lips?! They kill me.  Something that was just too adorable was that every time Kai got hungry and would start to cry, Seven could hear him from the backyard and would start to howl.  And I know it was Seven, cause I recognize his howl.  It was so funny.  It was much like this video and I was laughing so hard to hear him in the back howling away with little Kai. 

Unfortunately the rest of the weekend was spent on the couch battling some of the worst allergies I've ever had. I used almost an entire box of kleenex, took 3 steaming, hot showers and slept an insane amount of hours.

Thankfully, I'm doing much better today and and am looking forward to a great week!

Larry & Seven

Our neighbor friend Larry has developed a special bond with our black lab Seven.  I truly believe that Seven has really helped to bring healing to Larry in the recent loss of his dad.  This last weekend, Larry came over to hang out with me while Jason was working.  As I lounged in the back yard in a lawn chair, Larry got out Jason's wheelbarrow & played with the pups.  It brought back memories of when I would take Wicket and put him in our empty swimming pool.

Banks And Her Lovin!

So there's this thing that Banks does that I'm always telling my friend Angela about, where after Jason takes his evening shower Banks will come running and rub her entire body all over the back of his head.  It's as though she's getting her own bath from the moisture left on his hair.  That and the fact that we use a mint shampoo and I think it kinda turns her on, like a sort of catnip!  haa!! 

The other night Jason got through with his shower and we were both reading our study books, when she came up behind him and started doing her thing.  I grabbed my phone and was able to catch her in the act so I could show Angela exactly what I had been talking about.

Now for your viewing pleasure:



Disclosure: Jason isn't a "cat person", but he tolerates Banks.  Whatever. He loves her :-)

Larry

 Last summer, Jason and I made a couple of friends from down the street. The first time they came over was taken at the time of this picture when Jason was working on the front sidewalk. Jonique is on the left and her cousin Larry is on the right. Since then, they have come over almost every weekend and either sat on the front porch with us sipping sweet tea, or played in the back yard with the pups, or even sat inside for some heart-to-heart conversations when the weather was too cold.  They are the sweetest kids with the best manners and though we come from extremely different backgrounds, we can hang out for hours having a blast and talking about school and life.  These sweet kids are 11 and 12 years old and live with their grandparents and several other relatives in a one bedroom house, just four homes down from us. 

Last Friday, I was leaving for work when I noticed an ambulance and fire truck in front of their home.  I unlocked our front door and yelled to Jason inside to keep an eye out.  Later that afternoon as Jason was out by his truck, Larry came walking up the street with his grandmother and mom following closely behind.  Jason asked him why he wasn't in school and he nonchalantly replied, "My dad died this morning." His dad was only 35 years old and sadly had a long history of being in and out of jail. Jason told me that Larry said it as if he'd gotten a B- on a school paper.  Sure enough, his grandmother and mom soon confirmed what Larry said with Jason, their eyes puffy and glazed over.  From what we know, and have been told, he died from chest pain.  I hate that Larry and Jonique witnessed this horrific incident in their tiny little home.  Jason called me at work to give me the news and the first thing I wanted to do was head home to be there for Larry. Jason assured me, he was ok and playing with the dogs in the backyard with some cousins. So I texted Larry from the office.

See that response?  "I miss you."  As soon as I got that text I completely broke down at work.  I was hurting so much for our little buddy, I could barely stand it. My heart completely broke for this boy. A couple hours later I called Jason to see how our friend was doing.  I could hear him in the background laughing and the boys were barking.  Jason put him on the phone and I made him promise to come see me the next day. 

 

Saturday was a bit surreal.  Larry and some of his cousins came to the house to play with the pups as relatives and family friends started filling up his front yard.  Larry has a HUGE family and they were pulling up in droves.  His mom happened to be at their house and I had yet to meet her.  She doesn't live with them but has an apartment in the projects with her boyfriend.  Larry asked if I would come with them to meet his mom.  Of course I wanted to and changed out of my sweats.  Jason and I headed over to the house and Grandma immediately came out to greet me.  I embraced her and she started to cry.  I met all kinds of family members and they welcomed us with open arms.  An uncle from Louisiana was frying up whiting (fish) dipped in cornbread meal and french fries over a propane deep fryer in the front yard.  If any of you know me, I HATE fish.  But because I love this kid and didn't want to offend anyone, I excitedly took that fried piece of cornmeal breaded whiting and chomped away with a big ol smile on my face!

 

Never would I have thought that 4 years after moving into our house I'd be eating fried whiting in our neighbors front yard down the railroad tracks with our little friends and their families.  But I was so blessed that God had truly answered a prayer of mine from when we first moved in - and that was that we could get to know the kids in this neighborhood and be an encouragement and safe place for them.  Larry has stayed home from school all week and every day makes a visit out to see Jason and the boys.  He's asked that we attend his father's funeral on Friday. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

News and Reviews

A couple quick updates!

Jason and I were given a beautiful bookcase from my in-laws for Christmas and just recently put it in our bedroom! I've featured pictures on my book blog of it.

Also - I've just finished reading Nobody's Child by Austin Boyd, which I was graciously given a copy to review! See my review here!

And finally - I'm super pumped to be spending an entire day with my man to celebrate our first actual Valentine's Day together!!  That's right - I'm taking the day off to celebrate!!  Since we've met, Jason has had to work at Morton's every year for Valentine's Day - it's mandatory of all employees.  And since I work days and he would work nights, we rarely saw each other more than maybe a coffee break or a quick lunch downtown.  But since he quit last March, this will be our first VDay together and I've got all kinds of things in mind for us to do! Hey! Get your mind out of the gutter ;-)

No but seriously, I'm thinking of breakfast in bed,

an afternoon trip to the theater to see The Vow

and Jason's special heart-shaped french toast for dinner. 

Restaurants are typically over-crowded on VDay, so I would much prefer a lovely afternoon out with maybe a scoop of Jenni's ice cream

and then home for a cozy evening with soft music and candlelight.

I wish you all a wonderful Valentine's with the ones you hold dear!

Etsy Dreaming

I've been mulling over Etsy ideas for the last several days and trying to come up with some small goals in order to open my own Esty shop by Christmas.  Ideally I would like to have about 15 products ready to sell in early November, some holiday themed & some not.  I've been doing the "office thang" now for 13 years and I'm getting weary of it.  I recently found out that I almost obtained yet another attorney to work for and I'm afraid that it won't be long before that actually happens and completely burns me out entirely.  I had 4 attorneys last Spring and I thought I was going to die from heart failure. I was so stressed out and having nightmares from all the additional work.  I'm now back down to 3 attorneys and love that I can accomplish what I need to get done every single day without leaving an evergrowing pile on my desk.  I like to excel in what I do and in my opinion, getting spread too thin is being set up for failure.

So back to Etsy.

My sister sent me this dishtowel from Anthropologie (I think), and I KNOW I could easily create something like this. 

The trick for me is to not copyright someone else's creation.  Ugh.  I lack so much in the creativity department, and I'm not an artist.  So I get stumped on where to go from there. 

Here's a few more cute little embroidered dishtowels from Anthropologie:

I have a few little projects I've already started that I think will be cute, its just being disciplined to make the time and actually work on them. AND these dishtowels are only $24 at Anthropologie which is a pretty good deal considering the amount of time it would take to hand-embroider these.  Good lord.  Where do I start?!

Do you Etsy?

Jack & White

I'm seriously hoping this song gets some airplay, cause I'm absolutely LOVING it!  There's just nothing better than some awesome harmony!  It's from thier new Winter EP and I just might need to pick myself up a copy!

What I've Been Working On...

I've been a bit overly consumed lately with planning one of my best friend's, Julie and her husband Dana Jorgensen's Baby Shower! I asked what colors and theme they wanted to go with, and from there everything else was a surprise.

She chose to go with the colors from the baby bedding she chose at Dwell Studio:

Isn't it precious? They're having a boy, but I didn't yet have a name to go with, so for the time being, the name was Baby J ;-)

I admit, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out ;-) My friends told me I'm "Pinterest Worthy" ;-) Quite the compliment, if you ask me!

Let's break down the dessert table, shall we?

 Here we have a dessert stand with cream puffs, homemade Nanaimo Bars (I realize I spelled the word incorrectly on the labels - dangit!) and homemade Sugar Cookies.

 Next up, I made sour cream vanilla mini cupcakes with a Swiss Buttercream. I know it looks like very little frosting, but trust me it was enough for these little guys!

 These glass jars might look a little familiar to some, because I had bought them for our wedding. From left to right, Cinnamon Kettle Corn, Root Beer Candy Sticks and Original Kettle Corn. 

 Here we have homemade Vanilla flavored Cream Cheese Butter Mints that were super tasty & super easy to make! Now if I can figure out what to do with all the leftovers?!

I got asked numerous times throughout the evening if I had made these Coconut Donuts, and as much as I wish I could take credit for them, no I did not.  These are Shipley's Donuts and probably one of my favorite things on earth. Holy Moley, they're so good.

 Two friends of ours Amy & her sister Jenni helped with the food and made these delicious Cucumber Sandwiches, Pimento Cheese Sandwiches and Veggie & Ranch Cups. So delish!

I found these adorable Mint Chocolate Chip Malt Balls online and they taste as good as they look!  

 Much like the other Vanilla Butter Mints, these are actually mint flavored.

 I had seen a paper tree on Pinterest and knew that would have to be the inspiration for the dessert table and bought some scrapbooking paper, cut some branches off our tree in the backyard and set to work. After the shower, I gave it to Julie to use for decorating in the nursery! It looks so cute in there!

 This idea is actually one of my own - or at least I didn't intentionally copy anyone, but thought of it on my own.  I thought instead of a guest book, guests could write on a pre-cut leaf one word of blessing over Baby J and then tape it the canvas. I'm definitely no artist, but I did my best painting out the tree. 

For party favors, again another Pinterest idea - felt owls glued onto Mason jars and filled with caramel corn. SO cute and so yummy!

 Here we have Dana trying on one of their gifts, a baby wrap.

 Dana & Julie next to their dessert table.

And finally, the ladies who all made it happen, Amy, Julie, Jenni, myself and Denise. 

It was SO much fun, but I am SO glad it's over so I can relax and catch up on some reading!!



Post Christmas Follow up

A little wrap up of Christmas -

I made white chocolate dipped candy canes and homemade vanilla marshmallows from for my friends at work and our home group - they turned out beautiful AND delicious!

Then I baked for 3 days straight making 6 different types of cookies & treats for gifts to family and neighbors.

Some of the neighborhood kids came to the house and baked some of their own Christmas Sugar Cookies as well. 

As soon as things were packed, baked, cleaned and the pups dropped off at Grandma & Grandpa Keiths, we took a flight back to Seattle to my family.  

We went to see Sherlock Holmes as a family (which was great!) and Kati snagged a picture of Jason in front of Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible poster.  He gets told he looks like him a lot.

There was a WHOLE lot of game playing and even more eating!!  I enjoyed Sequence so much, I think I'm going to have to grab us one for our own home!

My parents have started a new tradition since Jason & I got married, where they buy everyone a book for Christmas. So we headed off to The Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle for browsing and coffee

Our loot. See that gigantic one Moby-Dick?  Yeah, Jason picked that one up.  Any bets on how long that might take him to read????

Christmas Eve we went to Candlelight Service in honor of celebrating the true meaning of Christmas...the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Then back home we had a little family photo montage.

Sisters being sassy as usual.

What better way to wrap up the holidays than with a holiday tongue-licking for the Little One?!