Mother's Day Pictures

I have been wanting to get all of my mom's grandchildren and the mommies together for a picture session for some time now and finally, it happened this year and I am so happy with the results. Billy, a friend of ours, took the pictures, loaded them to a Shutterfly account and I ordered a book for my mom. One of my mom's biggest complains when we take pictures with our phones of digital cameras is that she never gets to see the pictures in print because we are so bad at actually printing them. Now, she will have this beautiful book to hold and cherish.  

Click here to view this photo book larger

Build your own high-quality photo books at Shutterfly.com.

Easter 2013

This is how we did Easter

There was the attempt to take some decent family portraits.  As you know, the kiddos in the family, big and small, cannot sit still to take a picture and no amount of bribery or threats help!

The Padilla's (David - Luc - Jeanette - Alec)

The Mercado's (Andy - Cari - Viviana - Nicolas - Ruben)

Us  (Mateo - Me - Mr. Casillas)

Mom and her grandbabies

We had food.  Lots of food.  It was all so yummy.  I made a rack of lamb for the first time and I was pretty pleased with the results.  I had always been under the impression that I didn't like lamb...until I tried it once by accident.  Now, if we can only get Luc to eat those colorful veggies by accident....

Doesn't that look good?  It was.  I used a recipe that I found on Youtube.  It is so amazingly simple!  

Basically you combine blanched mint leaves, bread crumbs, garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper in a food processor.  Add shredded parmigiano-reggiano cheese to the mixture and set aside.  

Brown the rack on a skillet for a few minutes on each side.

Combine dijon mustard with some honey and spread on the racks then spoon the crumbs over the top of the rack and press down so that the crumbs adhere.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until desired redness. 

Make a vinaigrette with extra virgin olive oil, honey, dijon mustard, rice vinegar and salt and pepper to drizzle over the lamb.  Enjoy!

Viviana made blueberry cupcakes with blueberry icing (from scratch!) which she decorated with edible "grass" made out of sour apple straws and peeps.  So darling and yummy!  She is after my very own heart!!

 

After dinner, we had a cookie decorating contest.  I baked sugar cookies and prepared the royal icing the day before which made this project so easy.  The kids and the kids-at-heart really got into it.

 

 These are some of the creations:

And, of course, we had an Easter egg hunt.  Fortunately for the hunters our back yard is still in the minimalist stage so there weren't a lot of good hiding places.

Then after all of the sugar highs and crashes then highs again, Viviana was able to settle them down with some crafts.  See?  When all else fails, craft!  Works every time.

 I hope you had a wonderful Easter.  May the blessing of our risen Lord be with you throughout the year!

XOXO
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Oh, Happy Days - Birthday Weekend!

Happy birthday to me!

We had a very small dinner party on Saturday for my birthday.  I roasted some chickens, Cari made a wonderful warm quinoa salad, my mom made mash potatoes and I baked my cake.  My sister Cari offered to bake my cake and Mr. H was wondering why I decided to bake my own cake this year.  I came across this recipe for old fashion cake and I wanted to try it.  Besides, baking is a treat for me and it felt good to bake my own cake.  This is a really easy cake and it uses only egg whites instead of the whole egg so it's a little healthy, right?  I love how it matches the colors of the tulips that I got from my dear friends, the Edlands.

On Sunday, Mr. H took me to the ballet.  This was our first professional ballet.  I have been to plenty of musicals and operas but I have never been to a real ballet so I was really excited.  The story was The Little Mermaid.  The interpretation was interesting, a bit darker and probably more close to the actual story than the Disney interpretation.  Now, I want to read the actual story by Hans Christian Andersen.

To cap the weekend, we had dinner at David and Jeanette's.  David made his wonderful Asian soup.  It hit the spot on such a cold night, and after a weekend of reckless eating, it was just the right thing.  Light and satisfying.

I am so grateful to all of the wonderful people in my life.  I feel truly lucky to be surrounded by such a caring and loving and thoughtful bunch!  God bless them all!

Chihuahua in Paris

The other day, I needed a last minute gift for a darling little girl who loves everything Paris.  I literally had 15 minutes to either go buy or make something.  The details of why I needed such a short order gift are not important.  Let's just say that in my circles, it is not uncommon....

So, I went into my craft closet and found this little chihuahua dog figurine and fire hydrant that I had picked up at a yard sale, drew a quick Eiffel Tower, and viola I had a gift.  It made me happy to finally use the little guy and to know that he went to a good home.

This can be a really fun craft to do with the kids.  You can use any little figurines that they already have, draw a backdrop and place in empty jar with a little moss.  So cute and fun! 

Adieu!
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Once upon a time, in a woodland far, far away...

 

The inspiration for my woodland themed cookies this year came from, you guessed it, Martha Stewart's Living December issue.  I used the cookie recipes featured in that story: Boiled Gingerbread, Honey Spice Gingerbread, and Chocolate Cut Out along with the ones I use every year; Sugar Cut Out (my friend, Shannon's recipe of The Misanthropic Hostess) and another MS recipe, my favorite; Spiced Cardamom. I don't think that I have ever made chocolate cut out cookies before but I am going to add them to my cookie repertoire, they were so easy to work with and yummy.

I also did things a little differently this year.  Since I only made one type of cookie, cut outs, instead of different variations, I prepared all of the cookie doughs at once, chilled them all, then leisurely cut them out and baked them as I went, and then decorated them.  This helped control the equipment and ingredients that tend to pile up when I am working on a big baking project like this.  In years past, I would work with one cookie recipe at a time and I feel that the plan for this year was a lot more efficient.  One of my favorite tricks is a trick I learned from Shannon (which you will see in her Sugar Cookie recipe post linked above), and that is to roll out the dough as soon as you have prepared it (skipping the making a flat disk and wrapping it in plastic and chill part), layer the rolled out dough between layers of parchment paper, place the stacks of rolled out dough on a cookie sheet or tray and put in refrigerator until you are ready to cut out.  This works really well with most of the doughs except for the Honey Spice Gingerbread.  This cookie dough was a little sticky and was really difficult to work with.  Not only did it stick to the parchment paper when layered but I found I had to add a lot of flour to it while cutting and re-rolling.  Another tip I learned along the way is to drape a dish towel over your mixer while you add the flour mixture to your wet mixture to avoid a flour storm.

I didn't have a toadstool cookie cutter so I improvised.  I cut out a circle with a round cutter, then traced the shape with a knife.  It was really easy and fun to do.  Next time you are looking for a specific shape and cannot find it, check your cookie cutter inventory and see what you can do with what you already have.

I was really pleased with the cookies this year.  I think that having a specific theme really helped me stay focused and took some of the pressure off.  I am already thinking of what theme I will do next year.  Suggestions are welcomed.  The picture below was my inspiration.

XOXO,

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