Dino Party

Jude turned two about two weeks ago. I threw together this little birthday party for he and his cousin, Lincoln. His cousin was born almost exactly the year before. They love to play together and Lincoln was excited to celebrate his birthday party with Jude. Jude, on the other hand, doesn't know the difference.

In the last 6 months or so Jude started to give a good "ROAR" anytime he sees a dino or something similar. Uncle Cory originally taught him this skill and he hasn't given it up. I love it, so I decided to use it as our theme.

When I originally showed him these invitations he looked carefully, paused and let out a good "ROAR". It was so perfectly timed I wish I could have caught it on video.

I derived the front of the invitation from an etsy seller, but I can't seem to locate them again. It's simple and easy. I added the red and white stripes to the back to match a tablecloth I already had on hand.

Three balloons for Lincoln and two for Jude. I ran across these little dino sippy cups at Menards of all places. They worked perfectly with the theme so I couldn't resist!

The party hats and the cupcakes were ideas from this gal. Her party was WAY cuter than mine. Great ideas over there.  You can't really see Lincoln's hat very well, but it has spikes along the back. He really wanted to "smile" for me and wouldn't turn around completely for me to see his hat. Funny boy. Anyway, they turned out pretty cute.

I think the cupcakes were my favorite. I picked up the mini dinos at the dollar store and then just made cupcakes from box mix. It's funny how piping frosting on the top makes them look like I worked hours on them! I didn't.

The boys enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The party was a bit chaotic, but we had a good time.

Happy birthday to you, Mr. Jude. You make us SO happy!

Dirty Thirty

Last week Jesse turned the big 3 - 0!

Every year I make his favorite - homemade chocolate cake with homemade white frosting. It's a recipe from his mom or grandma - I can't remember where it originated exactly. It's not my favorite, but he loves it and that's all that matters. I made it into a 9" round double layer and took it to his mom's where we celebrated.

This cake really gave me a run for my money. It's only by the power of a praying wife that it came together in the end - seriously. Both cakes stuck to the bottom of their pans and broke in two. I had to pry them out and glue them back together. I'm tellin' ya . . . it didn't look good.

You can tell it turned out a bit lopsided, but all in all, not so bad especially considering the mess that was on my counter.

This is the very first time that I've decorated a cake - you know, like with a real pastry bag, decorating tips and such. And, surprisingly, it wasn't as hard as it seemed. I might just do it again sometime.

It was a really fun celebration that involved not only that beautiful lopsided cake, but also a surprise iPad 2. Very fun.

It's Christmas Time in the City

Christmas is shaping up around here. It's been a busy, overwhelming, and a kind-of fun season so far this year. Wow, is that scrooge-ish or what? I think the deal is . . . I started a new job right after Thanksgiving, and, my brain power for anything outside of work has significantly lowered in the last month making Christmas preparations far more overwhelming than usual. Anyway, I have been working on a few things, I promise - I just can't reveal a few of them until tomorrow, but I can show you the other things I've been up to.

I woke up on Saturday morning with what felt like a LONG to-do list. To be honest, it wasn't that bad. Nonetheless, I woke up, had some breakfast, was enjoying some time reading my Bible, and then out of nowhere got into one of those moods that was like "Ugh, my life is so hard. I need to take a nap because that sounds far more doable than my ever-growing to-do list." It was a very sad state, so I succumbed to it and I napped - at 10:00 AM!

Once I woke up, though, I had a come-to-Jesus moment, realized my life wasn't so bad and that I could carry on. Good grief! I hope other people do this kind of thing too. It's got to be normal, right?

First thing I did was finish up the Christmas cards. I really enjoyed that process this year. Here's all the different kinds that came off the assembly line:

Once again, Jesse wrote the recap of our year for the letter inside, which always makes me laugh. I love that man.

Later, I did a little baking. I started with molasses cookies. Yum! For some reason I was craving them last Christmas season, and I found a yummy recipe. Here it is:

Yummy Molasses Cookies (with icing)


Ingredients
3/4 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground ginger


Mix together butter, sugar and egg. Stir in molasses. Combine the last 6 ingredients in a separate bowl. Blend flour mixture into the molasses mixture. Cover and chill for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Roll dough into walnut sized balls, and roll them in a small bowl of white sugar. Place the cookies onto ungreased baking sheets - beware, they will grow! Bake for 8-10 minutes, until tops are cracked.

Once the cookies have cooled, make some icing.

Icing

Ingredients
1 egg white
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

Beat the egg white until frothy. Then, beat in the sugar and vanilla until thoroughly mixed. Spread onto cookies, wait for the icing to harden, and . . . enjoy!

Lastly, I got inspired by a friend to make some biscuits for the pups in the family. So, I did some baking and then sent some packages out to my sisters and their sweet dogs.




They also got some strawberry jam, which I had been promising to to Em for a long time now. Mom got a package too, but she got molasses cookies for her pup (Dad) instead of biscuits. It sounds like he's already enjoying them - having claimed the whole bag before Mom even saw them. Now, before you think I just left Ben and Ali out of this mix completely, you'll have to see what I made for the kiddos . . . but not until tomorrow!

The Joy of Meal Planning

I hate meal planning. The trouble is: I love to cook, and I love to have meals planned so that Jesse and I can eat together at home during the week. But, the idea of spending an hour on a Sunday afternoon flipping through cookbooks, coming up with recipes (preferably a combination of ones with similar ingredients . . . so that I don't end up with a full head of lettuce or a bunch of broccoli at the end of my week), and jotting down a grocery list sickens me. What a waste of time. Aren't Sundays for laying on the couch or enjoying a picnic outside? I think so.

So . . . being the planner that I am I created a lovely little system for our household. Here goes. (This could be a long one, so you must actually be interested in this topic to continue reading.) Consider yourself warned.


Step One
The first necessary item in this process was a new recipe organizer for all of the internet-found-and-printed recipes. See all of them to the left of the cookbooks? They are taking over my life.

For this I was inspired by someone who wrote a comment on one of my favorite blogs pinkpicketfence. The comment was left too long ago and I'm too lazy to find out who actually wrote it, but here is how she organized her recipes:

I have a 3-ring-notebook system. I actually have 2 notebooks, one for sweets/baked goods and one for more savory food. The savory one has the following categories: fruit/drinks, soups, salads, vegetables, sides, potatoes, pasta, misc. main dishes, chicken, pork, beef, ethnic, and seafood. The other notebook has: cookies, bar cookies/brownies, cakes, frozen desserts, pies, other misc. desserts, breakfast foods, breads, quick breads, biscuits. The way I organize: If I see a recipe I want to try, I print it or clip it and punch it with the 3-hole punch and put it in the front of the appropriate tabbed section. If I try the recipe and it's a keeper, I put it in a sheet protector in the back of that section (I put them back-to-back in the sheet protectors to save room). If it's not a keeper, it gets tossed. I LOVE my system! I plan my menu & grocery list each week and I try hard to include a variety of flavors. So maybe I'll do one soup, a chicken dish, a seafood dish, a casserole, etc. It's so easy to just look in each section of my book and decide if I want to try something new or make one of the repeaters. I love that the recipes are in plastic so that I can wipe them off. I love that recipes are now on full sheets--no more cramped handwriting on recipe cards, plus if it's from the internet I can often download a photo as well so I can see what my food is supposed to look like. Works for me! :)

I love it. So, into a 1.5" notebook went my recipes. Well, only the ones I use. The others went to recycling-land. I only bought one set of 8-tab dividers. These sections work for me: appetizers, soups & salads, sandwiches & sushi, sides, entrees, cookies & desserts, breads & breakfasts, and beverages. Each recipe is stored in a sheet protector too.

Step Two
Next, I had to conquer my meal-planning dilemma. I started by writing down the recipes that Jesse and I like and would eat regularly. I came up with 35 recipes and then chose 5 of those that I could repeat once - for a total of 40 recipes. That means that I can make 5 meals per week (which I rarely even make that many) for 8 weeks. I also wrote down some side dishes that we like off to the side of my paper.

Step Three
Then, I looked up each recipe (if necessary) and wrote down any ingredients that I would likely have to make sure that I had on hand or have to grocery shop for that week (i.e. broccoli, chicken, beef, cheddar cheese, cilantro, celery etc.).

Step Four
Then, (this is the hardest part) I began to group together the recipes into groups of 5 trying to find recipes that require similar ingredients. Therefore, if I was going to buy cilantro I would be using it for more than one meal that week. Or, if I was going to buy shredded parmesan I would also be using it for more than one meal (i.e. chicken cesar salad and spaghetti). In this step I also paired up some side dishes with the meals.

Step Five
Lastly, I drew up grocery lists for each of my weeks. In this step I compiled one list for each week. The list consisted of all the ingredients for each of the meals that I would likely have to make sure that I had on hand or have to grocery shop for that week (see step three). I also double checked the recipes to make sure that I hadn't forgotten anything important. I figured this would give me the basis for my grocery shopping each week. Then, I could always add the more obvious items like milk, bread, soda, etc. before I went to the store.


Here is a picture of the meal plans for each week on the left and the grocery lists on the right. We have gone through three weeks so far. We haven't eaten 5 meals in one week yet. But, that's okay. At the beginning of the week I see which nights we will likely be at home, I count them up and then I choose that number of meals from that week's list. Then, I just cross out any ingredients from the grocery list that don't apply to the meals that I chose.

It's working well so far! I'm already enjoying my Sundays without the nagging feeling of "meal planning".

It's My Party and I'll Cry If I Want To

It was a good birthday! I felt very loved and very special. I think that's what birthdays are for.

A friend of mine sent me these tulips at work. They are gorgeous on my dining room table right now:



Now that I work in an education setting I have found that the old kindergarten rule of "bring your own treats to share on your birthday" still stands. Of course, if I'm going to bring treats to share they should be really cute treats. Thankfully, Martha Stewart's February issue came just in time to give me some inspiration:


I'm finding that I love colors that are similar and used in the same design. Kind of the "tone on tone" look. So, that's what I tried to do. I picked three different cupcake recipes: vanilla, chocolate and strawberry and topped them with my mother-in-law's white frosting, which I carefully dyed three different colors with food coloring. Then, I pulled out my new platter (Merry Christmas to me from Jesse) and lined up all the cupcakes. Here's the final result:


Okay, there was more cupcakes - as this amount would not have satisfied my office friends. There were 40 in all. My orange frostings are a little too close in color, so I might be the only one who can tell the difference. Oh well . . . it was late when I was trying to make the colors and frost the cupcakes, so there was going to be no "do overs". The lightest orange(bottom) went on the vanilla cupcakes. The orange (middle) went on the chocolate cupcakes. And the pink (top) went on the strawberry cupcakes.

The chocolate and vanilla cupcakes were my favorite. The chocolate one was from the Martha Stewart Living magazine (Feb. 2009) and the vanilla one was from allrecipes.com. Great recipe website!