From scratch, with love

Tonight with a big television event occurring (all you Lost fans out there know what I am talking about....!) I decided to whip up a special dinner and dessert. My son has been begging me to make lasagna so I agreed to make lasagna but then also decided to make an apricot pie, my very favorite.

As I was rolling out the pie dough in my kitchen my mind wandered to all the pies I have seen my mother and grandmother make in my lifetime. My mom's mom has been gone now for eleven years but I cannot make a pie without thinking of her. Whenever I would go visit my grandmother she would have special treats waiting for me that she made from scratch. In an age where we all buy premade or dump a box of mix into a bowl, I really appreciate the love and time my grandmother put into her food.

My grandmother, the original pie master. One of my favorite treats she would make me was 'cozy pie.' It was basically left over pie dough that she rolled out, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and then cut into strips. I would sit in her kitchen eating cozy pie and talk with her while she cooked additional pies or dinner. My mom now carries on the tradition of making cozy pie for my kids and today I made sure to make some too.

Now, I am a bit anal retentive in my kitchen. Ask any of my family or hubby who cook with me. I hate messes and can never go to bed with a dirty kitchen. I get this from my father. However, when you make pie you just have to get messy. Flour is everywhere and pieces of pie dough manage to get all over the counter and floor. Oddly this doesn't bother me at all, it is all too familiar of a scene from my mother and grandmother's kitchen and it is just the way to make pie.

The pie dough ready to be rolled out....

In the pie plate....

Full of yummy apricot filling and ready for the oven after some more pie dough on top.

The cozy pie after baking...

The pie cooling, almost ready to be enjoyed.

I love that my grandma taught my mom to cook, who taught me to cook and at the age of 4 my son is already learning the ropes of the kitchen and my daughter isn't far behind. It has become rare people make anything from scratch and I am going to do my part to not let this die out, at least in my family. As my grandmother used to say, "if you can read, you can cook," so no excuse - go bake something!

My kids (the future bakers) enjoying their cozy pie.

Babies and Birthdays

We had a busy spring weekend these past few days full of babies and birthdays! It started off with a fun visit from Channone and Baby Noah. My kids are dying for a baby brother after playing with Noah for the afternoon (sorry kids, you are outta luck!) They were so loving towards him though and had so much fun reading to him, playing with him and rolling around the floor. At times they almost smothered him with their love!

After a fun day with Baby Noah we drove up to Sacramento to celebrate Livy's 2nd birthday with her!!!! We were glad to have Livy and Kim come visit us a few weeks ago for Amelia's birthday so we were happy to return the favor. Kim and I worked hard on getting cookies and decorations ready while the kids played and ran around on sugar highs all day Saturday. The results of our hard work were amazing, Kim pulled off such a great party for her baby girl!

Mine and Kim's cookie creations!

Amelia playing with one of Livy's new babies, rocking her to sleep!

Kim, my cousin Paul and I. Such a great reunion!

The birthday girl! Such a sweetie!

The birthday girl with her birthday cupcake!

My sweet boy enjoying his red velvet cupcake.

The beautiful goody table and party favors. Great job Kim, it was such a beautiful party!!

Paul was a great sport all weekend helping us out with the party and keeping an eye on the kids. I have such a great hubby. :)

I always love watching the girls play together and I see them being future best friends, or twin souls as I call my twinie.

A Pinkalicous Party

Amelia loves the book 'Pinkalicious' so I decided it would be a perfect theme for her 2nd birthday party. This theme is becoming quite popular and I was lucky to find so many wonderful ideas out on the web.

For those of you not familiar with the book it is about a little girl who eats too many pink cupcakes that her mother made and becomes pink herself. She loves the color pink so she is quite happy but eventually to go back to her regular self she must eat lots of green food, which she hates. It is such a cute little story and Amelia absolutely loves this book, and cupcakes so perfect fit for her!

The first thing I wanted was a pink table with lots of pink goodies. I had pink cupcakes, pink gum, pink cookies, oreos dipped in pink chocolate, lollipops and even pink marshmallows. The kids each could pick up a goody bag and fill it with yummy treats to take home (the parents didn't love this so much!)

For set up I had Paul build a huge backdrop that I hung pink fabric from (this is what is behind the goody table up above). For the guest's tables I had pink flowers in vases stuffed with pink tissue paper. Of course all plates, napkins and utensils were pink too.

We had lots of fun pink food as well. I made peanut butter and jelly sammies for the kids cut out in the shape of dresses, deviled eggs died pink and pink lemonade.

Keeping in tune with the book I had a table with green food. Nothing yucky though! Spinach dip, chips with guacamole, green lollipops, caesar salad and green jello salad made this table quite a hit.

The kids all seemed to have a blast. We had a big pink castle bounce house that the kids bounced in for hours! Amelia, Alex and Livy really got a ton of use out of it since we had it for well over 24 hours. All the kids slept well that night!

I managed to talk Paul into wearing a pink shirt but Alex wanted nothing to do with 'Pinkalicious' and wearing a pink shirt. I did talk him into at least wearing some green though!

Amelia had so much with Livy visiting and they were so cute during the party sharing their treats with each other. I love seeing them play and enjoying each other so much.

This was the first time I have not had an actual birthday cake for one of the kid's birthdays but Amelia seemed happy with her cupcakes and enjoyed them as did all the other kids.

This party was sooooo much work but I'm so glad I did it and that everyone enjoyed it, especially my darling girl.

The party came together very well and I am so thankful for everyone who helped out and made all my ideas come to life for Amelia and her friends to enjoy!

Happy Birthday my darling girl!

Happy Birthday my baby girl! I can't believe what a beautiful little girl you are turning into! The years are just flying by.

Last year on your birthday....look how much you have grown since last year!

Here you are at just a few days old, such a little peanut.

Your Mommy, Daddy and brother love you so much!!!!!

Easter 2010

We had a wonderful Easter weekend up in Chico. It was so much fun visiting with family and celebrating the holiday with them. Alex and Amelia had a blast with their cousins and slept very well while we were up there! As my cousin's husband said, "Chico is hard on little kids!" Now that we are home Alex is bored and wants to know where all the people are to play with! Amelia had so much fun running around after the boys too and cousin Jack is so sweet with her.

We stayed with my cousin Ann who is always so welcoming and accommodating to us. Amelia loved swimming in her spa and even learned how to blow bubbles. She looked pretty cute in her cousin's goggles.


On Easter Sunday mass amounts of sugar were consumed by everyone. My diet went out the window as I went into a sugar coma. Amelia was introduced to Peeps and loved them! She probably ate half a box yesterday.

My cousin had a great Easter egg hunt for all the kids and it was so much fun to watch all of them out hunting for eggs, despite it being so cold out!

Despite the cold and rainy weather we got some great family photos which is always a bonus! However as you can see in the photo below, Amelia refused to let go of the Peeps!

We traveled home yesterday and today the kids are home with Paul and I. Tomorrow things will be back to normal for everyone, including all this candy getting out of this house! I have no willpower against jelly beans and chocolate!

Spring is here

With all the beautiful spring weather lately I haven't had much time to blog but have lots of new photos to share.

Amelia has been steadily gaining lots of new words she can say and is quite the chatterbox lately. She also is developing into quite the fashionista just like her Mommy. She loves wearing my high heel sandals and one day put on quite the fashion show.

Daddy is going to be in trouble with both of us shopping.....uh oh.

Alex got a big boy bike, I can hardly believe that he is big enough to be on a bike with training wheels. It is a Spiderman bike so he is all decked out with his Spiderman helmet and bike. He is slowly adjusting to a big boy bike but is doing well. I have no photos of him on the bike because I have to be ready at any moment to push him or help him steer but soon I will have some photos.
Last weekend after a bike ride Alex decided he was really hot and kept begging me to go in the pool. I told him fine since I assumed he would put one toe in and change his mind, but no - he went swimming. Upon seeing him in the pool Amelia decided she needed in as well so both my kids went swimming that day for about 10 minutes. Alex has been taking swim lessons and got a little too brave at one point, jumping out into the middle of the pool and got scared. So guess who else ended up going in the pool that day? Yep, Mommy did with all her clothes.

The other big news is that Alex is all registered for kindergarten. It is hard to believe that this fall he will be attending school. What happened to my baby? We have been working on his letters and writing his name, but he is doing so well. I know he is ready for school but don't think I am ready for my baby to be so grown up.

Well more photos to come soon, we are excited for our Easter celebration this weekend. The kids will be darling with their Easter egg hunt and will have fun with all their cousins.

Time with the kids

These past two weeks I have gotten in a lot of quality time with the kids. Paul was gone for 5 days in Washington D.C. so I was single mom (with the help of Nana who came to visit thankfully!) for those 5 days. Alex really didn't do well having Paul gone, he kept asking when Paul would "be real again," because apparently phone calls aren't real enough for Alex!

Amelia continues to develop her personality which is quite funny. For the first 22 months of her life she despised TV of any kind but now has decided she loves Baby Einstein videos, but only if they feature babies and/or animals. She got a DVD player from her Aunt Cris for Christmas and it has been getting a lot of use lately (please no judging me! I've been a busy mommy lately and I promise I do lots of other things with her too!!!).

Amelia has also decided she enjoys Mommy's high heels and her Pinkalicious book. In fact she has been carrying that book around with her everywhere and will sit and listen to the whole book so well I have decided she is having a Pinkalicious birthday party. Darling!

Yep, that is her sitting in the middle of the kitchen table reading to Alex the other morning at home. Alex is still thrilled with his little sissy but they are starting to get to the age where they are fighting and bugging each other. And so it begins....

This weekend we also started doing some changes to our home. We are switching two of our rooms and have ordered a wall unit for our front room to act as a desk. Our current office is turning into a playroom/movie room. The first stage of this change was for Paul to paint three massive walls in our house but I am so thrilled with the way it turned out! Photos soon of the changes.

Meanwhile I am trying to stay current on the blog with new photos but (luckily) I have been quite busy with my private practice and teaching so it has been hard, but I will continue trying to be diligent about it! :)