Ava's Birthday Celebration

She turned 3 on January 11, but today was the day to celebrate Ava♥! Ashley set up a wonderful Strawberry Shortcake themed party with plans for the kiddos to decorate their own mini-strawberry cupcakes. Chaos shortly ensued! What happens when you give bags full of pink frosting to a bunch of 1-7 year old kids? The pictures tell the story and it was a fun-filled afternoon with the little girl I have come to love as one of my own! I love you Ava! Happy 3rd Birthday Cupcake Princess!

A New Journal

My love surprised me with a new leather bound journal this morning :) He is always encouraging me to "just write". I look forward to filling it up with thoughts & memories. It's fun to blog but there is just something extra special about the written words in your own handwriting forever captured in a journal.

Cinnamon Toast Review

 

My review: I heart ANYTHING cinnamon so this was easy to love, but 15 minutes to prepare cinnamon toast is a bit much for me :) I am still partial to the "gross" approach to making cinnamon toast! Anyway, if you toast your bread just right, cover it in softened (real) butter and sprinkle on that cinnamon-sugar GENEROUSLY, it's still pretty wonderful.

Also, I'm thinking I just like the butter-sugar-cinnamon-vanilla mixture to spread on pancakes! I'll try it and let you know :)

I'm Addicted

And THIS is why I'm addicted to blog surfing! I have been making cinnamon toast ALL wrong for like 30 years! Eeeks, I had no idea! But now I know and I can't go back lol...and now YOU know too :) ...you're welcome very much!

Cinnamon Toast the Right Way!

Loving the Pioneer Woman's blog right now!

American Idol = Awesome

Well it looks like it's going to be a fun season after all! I love the Steven & Jennifer vibe :) Here is a photo that I expect will be repeated every Wednesday & Thursday night for the next four months...

 

One More Day

Looking forward to enjoying the new season OR talking crap about it. Hehe.

Oh The Sunshine!

The beautiful weather is making me happy! I want to pull off my thick wintry socks, put on my flip-flops and paint my toenails! I have lived in So Cal all my life and I am still in awe of the spring-like winter days we get blessed with so often.

~Smiles~

Spontaneous Beach Trip

We got a text from Kayla saying, "bonfire tonight at the beach?:) leaving around 5" I just happened to have the night off work so we said yes. First a stop at The Hat for some grub. Yum. Quick freeway drive to Huntington Beach where M. Steele happily takes our $15 to enter the state park. Found a pit with hot embers...we have FIRE! Run to the water to see if it's warm enough for skinny dipping (luckily it's not!). It's already a Full Moon anyway! The camera reflects the moisture in the air so it looks like it's snowing at the beach. Kayla's middle name should be JOY. Lions, "Tig-ons", & Bears Oh My! I only had one drink, really :). Cold Feet. Hot Fire. Smoky Kisses. And of course, S'MORES! 

...and here is the story as told by the camera :)

The End. A wonderful night.

I used PSP Photo X2 - Time Machine/Cross Process filter on all of the photos :)

Bobbing Eyebrows And A Cheshire Grin

My note from the universe today...

Always speak of the past gratefully,
Of the future, excitedly.
And of the present, with bobbing eyebrows & a cheshire grin!

That sounds like me :) I'll do it!

Yummy-ness

I think I'm hooked :)

Cinna-butts

Homemade cinnamon roll fail...

I call them...CINNA-BUTTS!

Great News

...that we hope gets better! The amazing boyfriend had an interview today that went VERY well. Hoping to hear the words, "You got the job, when can you start?" by early next week!! Lots of changes in store for the future...

Dinner at Linko to celebrate the "almost got the job" news

Later... because this is a well paying job, he says..

"I need to look for exemptions" 

She says...

"Is that some sort of lame marriage proposal??"

Sugar Cookies

I found this icing recipe that looked like so much fun, so I decided that if I was going to play with this wonderful icing then I needed to make some sugar cookies. This special icing deserved better than the cut & bake cookies from the grocery store so I set out to make something homemade. I used the cookie recipe from the same blogger that I found the icing recipe. Here are the results...

As you can see it took me a few tries to get the icing just right but I love the way it looks shiny and hard but is still soft when you bite into the cookies. My next adventure will be to do some piping and flooding (words that were foreign to me). I am armed with 101 cookie cutters & a plethora of squeeze bottles for the task. Valentine's Day is just a month away!

~Smiles~

Update: In Maggie's blog she says,

"That shiny icing dries up nice but not hard and rock-like!  

 You can stack those babies as high as you'd like."

 

This is true, EXCEPT, I baked, iced and packaged within 3 hours and the icing wasn't quite ready to be stacked (I squished the icing a bit but they were still yummy) ...but the cookies that I had left over the next day are PERFECTLY hardened for packaging and still soft when you bite into them! Yay :)

Lucille's & Victoria Gardens

We had already used our gift card from Brandin & Kayla to go to Lucille's with Chad & Gabi last week, but B & K invited us to go again! This time we didn't over-indulge in the goodness! After dinner we strolled through Victoria Gardens. I bought some really cute cupcake cookie cutters at Crate & Barrel :) and here is a funny sign I saw in the Hollister store. Good times!

Thinking About Hoopiness

I'm toying around with the idea of making more hoops & selling them at the farmers market this year.

 

I miss the hoops. It made me happy to spread hoopiness :)

Happy New Year!

I don't make resolutions...BUT...if I was going to make one, it would be to write more. We'll see how I do in the coming months...