My Birthday

I had a great birthday. My friends Tina, Erin, & Kristi made me a breakfast on Saturday. Tina's daughter had her 6th birthday a couple of weeks ago, and I was lucky enough that she shared her Princess Tiana cups & balloons with me! I felt really special!

Jared did great this year for my birthday. He took me out on Saturday night. I had been craving a Nothing Bundt Cake chocolate bundtlet. We stopped by there before dinner to get some mini cakes for my actual birthday on Sunday.

We then went to down town Fort Worth to try a little Italian restaurant that got great reviews. We were disappointed when we got there to find the entire restaurant was the size of a walk-in closet, and their 8 skinny tables were filled with people that looked like they planned on being there for awhile. We asked about the wait, and they told us it would be an hour. There was no waiting area, and it was too cold to wait outside. We decided to leave them our phone number, but drive around to see if we could find anything that would let us get in faster.

We ended up finding another Italian place down the road. We got in quickly. The food was only okay, but the company was excellent! It was nice to have a dinner where we weren't rushed and got to enjoy ourselves. As we were paying the check, the other restaurant called. We were glad we didn't wait because it ended up really being an hour!

On Sunday, Jared & the kids gave me my presents. Jared picked out a beautiful silver necklace from the vintage pearl that had the kid's names engraved on it. I love it! It's exactly what I would have picked if I was shopping for myself. He also got me the fanciest pair of sewing scissors I'd ever seen. I made the mistake of taking my other fabric pair to a church craft day, and while I left them for the fabric craft, somewhere during the day they got moved to the cutting of the adhesive backed magnet strips and they got completely ruined. I needed those so much for all my sewing projects! I was so surprised, I had no idea. Good job Jared!

Cooking with Quinoa

My mom got me a Clean Eating magazine. I've enjoyed trying out different recipes & trying new ingredients. I've recently tried Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah). It's a small grain that is similar in size to couscous, although the flavor is different. It's extremely healthy and you can substitute in almost any recipe you'd use rice or couscous in.

I was inspired by this recipe to create our lunch today. I used some leftovers (chicken, corn, diced tomatoes) from last night's dinner and topped it over cooked quinoa. I also added some cilantro & feta cheese we had in the fridge. Lunch was ready in 15 minutes! Fast, easy, & healthy!

I was surprised to find quinoa at Walmart. I have also seen it at Kroger in their organics food section at the front of the store.

Christmas 2010

We spent a nice visit with Jared's parents, brother & their family for Christmas Eve lunch.

We had a special guest before our Christmas Eve dinner at Papaw & Grandma's house. It turns out Papaw is good friends with Santa, and he had just enough time to stop by for a visit before delivering toys Christmas Eve.

Hadley & Adam got new bikes!

Adam practiced his photography skills & did a fairly good job!

This is what we found when we checked on Hadley during her nap time. Busted!

Tomorrow morning the kids & I are driving to Georgia with my mom to spend the week with my sister & her family. We haven't spent a Christmas season together in 10 years so this is a real treat! I am double excited because I get to see my good friend Brandy who moved from Texas to 20 minutes from my sister's place earlier this year. If she had to move, I'm glad it somewhere I'm likely to visit...well you know every 10 years or so.

Ghiradelli Souffles - Repost

This is a repost from last year, but so good! I've updated the recipe since the chocolate from last year is no longer made. I suggest using both Ghirardelli chocolate chips, but I used what I had. Here's a tutorial. This would be great on Valentine's Day!

Image courtesy of Ghirardelli.com

What you need:

Ghiradelli Souffles

1/2 bag of Ghirardelli Semi Sweet Chocolate

1/2 bag of Ghiarardelli Milk Chocolate Chips

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar **

6 egg whites

4 egg yolks

2 Tbsp flour

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

2/3 cup sugar

2 Tbsp unsalted butter

ten 6 oz. ramekins (or eight 7 oz - pictured above)

Optional: Powdered sugar, Lightly sweetened whipped cream, Ice cream, raspberries or strawberries

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 375 with a rack in the lower 3rd. (These can be made ahead of time & refrigerated for up to two days.) Once cooked, serve immediately.

Butter & sugar your ramekins. Pour about a tspn. of sugar and dump the extra into the next buttered ramekin. Repeat until all are done. These came from Walmart.

Separate egg whites from egg yolks in two separate containers. Add vanilla in the yolks container. (No need to stir vanilla in.)
You have to work quickly when working with chocolate. Get everything ready like above.
In a large heavy saucepan, whisk butter and flour over medium heat until the butter melts and sizzles for about 1 minute. (You want a smoother texture, if butter & flour clump together, discard and start again)

Whisk in the milk. Turn off the heat, keep pan on burner, add chocolate chips & stir until melted. Stir in yolks & vanilla. Set aside off of heat.

- Beat egg whites with cream of tartar on high speed until they hold a soft shape. Add sugar gradually, beating until stiff and glossy. Scoop out 1/4 of the egg whites mixture and fold into the pan of melted chocolate.

Then fold the chocolate from the pan into the bowl of remaining egg whites.

Divide batter among the ramekins, filling each about 3/4 full or 1/2 cup worth of batter. Cook immediately, or cover and refrigerate up to two days before cooking.

Bake souffles on a cookie sheet until they rise and crack and a toothpick comes out with thick gooey crumbs, about 15-20 minutes. Previously refrigerated souffles may need to cook 3-5 minutes more. Sieve powdered sugar over souffles and serve immediately. Top with desired toppings.

To see original post click here.

Christmas Traditions

We always wait until after Thanksgiving to set up our tree. This year the kids, really got into putting on the ornaments, and cheerfully they did most of it. We actually only managed to get half our tree back in the attic with all the moving out and moving back in. We got it halfway up to find the top half was still in my parent's storage shed. Adam & I took a break to pick it up so we could finish setting it up. I made yummy caramel hot chocolate and Jared found the best Christmas songs for the evening.

Some of our Christmas Traditions:

- We read the Nativity story from Luke chapter 2 on Dec. 1 so we can remember the reason we celebrate Christmas. I let the kids put out each individual in our nativity as we read the scriptures together. This year, the kids were especially wild & bouncy...so I'm not sure how much got in, but hopefully with consistency & time they will grow to cherish this tradition. This is my favorite nativity set that Jared got me a few Christmas' ago. From time to time he adds another piece for me. I sure could use the stable animals next, hon!

- Service Candy Canes: I have a container filled with candy canes. Anytime one of us does a service for someone else we get to put a candy cane on the tree. Any candy canes that make it to the tree can be eaten, the ones in the cup are off limits. It's always fun to see the tree filled with candy canes.

- Family Christmas Light Night - About a week before Christmas we pile into the car and go out and look at Christmas Lights. We used to do this as a kid with my mom & grandparents. We'd sing Christmas carols and drink hot chocolate, it was always so fun to spend time together as family.

- The Christmas Puzzle - A few years back we got a Christmas puzzle from a student I taught. I'll be honest, I kind of thought it was lame! Jared lovingly insisted that we work the puzzle with his family when they came to visit. We had so much fun, that now we do a new one every year as a family. We stick to 500 piece puzzles the week before Christmas. We tell the kids that we can't open any presents until it's finished. It has always been finished by the big day!

I won!

One of my most favorite blogs I visit, www.themeanestmom.blogspot.com was doing a giveaway of a shabby apple dress...and I won! I'm so surprised and excited! I just hope the dress sizing is in the double digits because I don't look like this model! I'm going on a diet right now just in case! :)

Date Night

(Are you seeing a trend with the great photos Adam is taking? We must be in some weird awkward photo stage.)

Last night Jared & I went to see the free Stake Christmas Concert, "Sing Noel." They had a choir and an orchestra. I enjoyed it so much, I thought I would take Adam tonight for a mom & son date.

When I told Adam my plan, he said, "No thanks."

The lure of staying up past bedtime was tempting. Wearing church clothes in the evening was not as thrilling.

As I was getting him dressed, he told me, "...but we already had a date!"

I inquired when was this date? He replied, "When we went to Chuck E. Cheese together." That was last year. His poor future wife. I can only imagine. "...but honey, I just took you out on a date last year."

Overall, it was fun, but Adam may need to mature a little more before I have any more great ideas. In the second song he asked to go the bathroom, and then stepped on every member of the neighboring family's feet on the way out the aisle. (We did take a restroom break before we got in there.) By song number four, he was asking to go home. I found a piece of chewing gum in my pocket and that bought me 30 minutes. He was able to make it through the entire program. I'm not sure he enjoyed it as much as I did, but I'm glad we did it.

I'll just let him pick the location of the next date night. Sometime next year.