Yo Ho Ho and Once Upon a Time

We rang in Amelia's 3rd birthday with a fun fairy and pirate's theme! Amelia loves Tinkerbell but lots of boys were attending the party as well so I threw in some pirates to balance things out.

I was extra lucky this year to have my friend and neighbor, Melissa Garcia, take all of these beautiful photos! She did a great job capturing this fun day and my darling girl enjoying her special party.

Instead of a bounce house this year I decided to try out the company A Wish Your Heart Makes. This company has characters you can hire for your party so of course I had to get a Tinkerbell and Pirate. I was very happy with the characters and the kids loved them! They told a story, sprinkled fairy dust on the kids, played games and face painted. So much fun!

I made Amelia's cake for the party and was thrilled with how great it turned out! It also tasted delicious!


In addition to the cake I made lemon fairy cupcakes and chocolate pirate cupcakes.

I sent all the boy's home with pirate goodies (pirate hook hands, eye patches and suckers) and the girl's went home with wands, crowns and Tinkerbell crayons and notepads. I made some beautiful rose flower balls (that I discovered on the blog House of Smith) and I attached the silhouette's of some fairies to them and hung over the goody table. I also added a Tinkerbell centerpiece I crafted using my Cricut machine.






As usual I went over the top for this party and always have to thank those that support my often overly ambitious ideas. My mom came down early to help decorate and contributed some amazing food, as did my wonderful mother in law. My favorite girls came over the night before to help with the cupcakes and set up. My sister wife Erin especially was a help in keeping my head screwed on straight and did the amazing fairy wands! My cousin Sarah assisted with the banner and of course my loving husband supported me the entire way. Thank you to everyone who helped!

And a happy, happy birthday to my princess! We love you so much!

A colorful birthday celebration

My baby girl turned 3 this past Saturday and even though her big party (which of course I'm going over the top for) is this coming Saturday, I had to mark her big day with some fun.

I saw this beautiful rainbow cake on several blogs and Martha Stewart's website and I knew my princess would love it! Turned out to be quite a hit and was actually pretty easy!

To start, I took the easy way out and just bought some white cake mix. I bought two boxes knowing this would be a six layer cake to represent each color of the rainbow.

I made the mix according to the box and then divided it into six bowls, coloring each bowl a different color. I baked them for about 10 minutes, and presto - had my layers!



After letting them cool I made a lemon buttercream frosting and started stacking my cakes, putting a layer of frosting between each layer. I don't recommend this cake if you are watching your sugar, fat or carb intake.



After frosting the entire cake I decorated it with some rainbow sprinkles on top and around the bottom. It looked quite large and exciting!



Slicing it was so beautiful. The cake looked amazing when sliced and looked beautiful on each plate. My beautiful baby girl just loved it.






Happy birthday my darling girl!

The magic of spring....

Every year when springtime rolls around I am still amazed by the beauty of mother nature. This photo is a tree in our backyard that seemed to just bloom overnight and waking up to it was a special treat.



Keeping with the magic of spring time, lollipops are in bloom at the Soares household! We were so excited to wake up this past weekend and find the Easter bunny had paid us a visit.

Our kids had a sleepover so we had extra kids to enjoy the Easter magic.




The kids have been keeping busy enjoying the beautiful weather. They have been riding bikes and even talked me into taking a quick dip into our freezing cold pool!





With Amelia's birthday just days away I have lots of fun crafts and treats planned for her birthday! I've been busy making hanging flower balls, rainbow cakes and Tinkerbell centerpieces. I will be sharing all of those very soon!

Planting Jelly Beans

Easter is finally getting close so what is it time to do....? Plant jelly beans of course! Get them in the ground now so you sprout lollipops by Easter!

If you plant some jelly beans in the ground (or in our case a bucket) and leave it outside, the Easter Bunny will come by and sprinkle some magic on the dirt for the jelly beans to grow into lollipops. My kids had a great time putting the jelly beans into dirt yesterday, they didn't even eat them all!



After the jelly beans were planted we waited....and we were lucky enough to be visited by the Easter Bunny today! We didn't actually see him but know he was here since he pooped jelly beans near the bucket. He also sprinkled some of his magic on the dirt so the lollipops will grow.



Can't wait to see some 'buds' in the near future!

Low Fat Lemon Creme Pie

Wondering what to do with all those beautiful lemons? Well instead of making lemonade, I say make lemon creme pie! Due to my obsession with Pioneer Woman I've had to re-join Weight Watchers to shed a few (10) pounds. This recipe was featured in their Weekly brochure they give you at your weekly meeting. I love a nice lemon pie so I of course ran home and made it right away! For any other Weight Watcher enthusiasts out there - each slice is only 4 points!

The recipe is very simple! Here it is:

6 reduced fat graham crackers
2 tablespoons of butter
11 ounces of non fat sweetened condensed cream
2 eggs
the juice of one lemon
lemon zest of that lemon

That is it! Can you believe it??! And the results are delicious! Here's how to make you own lemon creme pie.

Crush up the graham crackers either in a Cuisinart or by a rolling pin and then mix with the melted 2 tablespoons of butter. Spread it out into your pie pan and set aside.


In a bowl pour the condensed cream and whisk in the two eggs into mixed completely.



Next zest your lemon. When zesting a lemon, stop when you get to the white of the lemon as the white part is bitter. Then roll the lemon gently on your counter to get the juices flowing and juice the lemon into the bowl.



Pour this mixture into the pie pan and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.



After the pie cools from the oven, chill it completely in your fridge. I topped mine with some fat free cool whip and strawberries. A great spring or summer treat!!!

Pasta time!

Do you ever have those recipes that you find very daunting? I have always been very hesistant to make bread or homemade pasta. I have witnessed my friend Debbie making homemade pasta, and even assisted a bit, but had never done it myself....until this weekend.

My great friend Erin & I were watching Eat, Pray, Love and during the Italy section of the movie we started craving pasta and decided we would have to make it that night as a homecoming meal for Paul who had been out of town for work all week. And of course we couldn't make just one dish, we had to make multiple dishes of pasta. What else are you going to do on a rainy day???

We decided on three pasta dishes: pasta with pesto, linguine with shrimp, garlic & lemon and butternut squash chicken ravioli. Rather ambitious but we are both pretty competant in the kitchen and decided we could do it! After drinking a glass of red wine (for courage of course) we got on our way with our 5 little sous chefs. I just did a very simple recipe for the pasta of 6 cups of flour, 6 eggs and a bit of olive oil. In hindsight some salt would have been good as well. You mix that together and then add water until it gets until the right consistency. After kneading it and letting it set for 30 minutes it was ready to get rolled out. My friend Debbie let me borrow her Kitchen Aid pasta maker attachment and it is amazing! It makes rolling out pasta so easy! The kids were fascinated at what Erin & I were doing and quickly got on in the action. After rolling it out we cut it into strips and let it dry. This is so it doesn't all stick together when you throw it into boiling water. For the ravioli we just put the filling in, folded the pasta over and cut it with a pasta cutter that makes the wiggly edges we all think of with ravioli. Very easy and we were happy how professional they looked! With fresh pasta you only have to boil it for a few minutes and for extra flavor I boiled it in 1/2 chicken stock and 1/2 water with some olive oil. As my friend Melissa would say 'Yummers!' By the time Paul arrived home from the airport (at 10:30pm, we were very European eating so late that night) we had 3 amazing pasta dishes waiting for him, along with his wife and friends who had missed him so much! I discovered this weekend that with a great friend (love you my sister wife!), some wine and a leap of faith you can tackle those 'scarier' recipes you've been avoiding. Take a deep breath and just cook it, the results are worth it!

Busy bees

We've been a busy bunch in our household, which is a small reason for my slacking. Alex is plugging along in school, bringing home a great report card. He also has his first tooth loose! Very excited to have a visit from the Tooth Fairy! Amelia is doing great too and in fact I am getting ready to enroll her in preschool for next year! Where does the time go???!!!

We have been spending a lot of time out at our friend's, The Ramos Family, new home. They live on several acres and the kids LOVE to be out in the country. Our kids are the same age so it has been instant close friendship across the board.



Paul and I also enjoyed an amazing getaway to Pebble Beach in February. The coast was beautiful that weekend and Paul had a great time golfing the course. My cousin joined us out there and golfed with Paul. I met them on the 18th hold and got a few great photos.



We have lots to look forward to this month! Paul & I are going to Vegas and then the whole family is taking a trip up to Chico to visit family for spring break. I'm hoping for more sunny days. The kids are already anxious to get in the swimming pool! I'm trying to explain that sunny skies don't equal pool weather necessarily!

I will keep on cooking my way through the Pioneer Woman cookbook, although it isn't helping my waistline. I've yet to find a recipe I don't totally love. If you haven't checked her out yet be sure to do so! Click here for her blog.