Pie Crust Failure

For the record, store bought or homemade, I suck at making pie crust.

Orange blueberry muffins

I had some oranges from my Full Circle box that needed to be used and for whatever reason, my boys do not eat oranges. They would rather drink orange juice and I didn't have that many oranges, so I always exercise the option of baking with them.

I have a blueberry muffin recipe I have used for years that was in issue 77 of Fine Cooking magazine. It is one of those gives you the base recipe and then you can add different flavorings, fruits and glazes to suit what you have on had or what is in season or frozen in your freezer. While I normally make the lemon blueberry muffins, today I mixed it up and used orange zest in the batter and the juice in the glaze.

As always, a big hit in my house and devoured by the end of the day by my boys. My oldest loves his muffins and is usually the one who will eat about half the pan. I love baking for my guys.

New summer hat

I was out shopping with two of my favorite boys and had a gift certificate that I decided to spend on me, not house stuff. This sassy hat was something that won my heart over. I have a great summer hat, but this is a little smaller and will work for those summer days when my big beach hat is just a bit much.

I was able to wear it to the park Monday afternoon as the weather forecast was correct and it was a beautiful weekend and Monday too.  The boys were thrilled to skip their normal schedule and play in the sunshine.  Momma was thankful for the natural Vitamin D.

Dog smell be gone

I just happened to see this on the bottom shelf at Target the other day and thought for $1.94, it was worth trying. I'm SOLD! It works great, gets rid of the dog smell and leaves my house smelling nice, not sickeningly sweet or obnoxious.

Disclaimer- this is my total and complete opinion. Arm and Hammer and Target have absolutely no clue who I am or that I exist.

Good times sunshine

This makes me happy. I could use a weekend of sunshine and shorts.

Purple flowers

I feel like shouting, I made something, I made something!! It has been forever since I have had the opportunity to create, start to finish, a piece of jewelry. I recently placed an order at The Beadin Path for some components to make a pair of earrings.  I have been dying to try out the plastic filigree lace components and the vintage metal flowers.

I L.O.V.E how these earrings turned out. I cannot wait to wear them. It's amazing how truly light weight they are. I might just have to order more components to make a few for my etsy shop.

50 pounds of what?!

Yes, that is a 50 lb bag of bread flour. I took a class on making Top Pot doughnuts back in February and they use bread flour to make their doughnuts. Since I enjoy baking, I stocked up at Costco and will now hopefully be baking more bread and maybe doughnuts. 

Good thing we got a dog since I'm gonna need all the walking.

Birthdays and Friends

What a great day!!! Thank you Jesus for a gorgeous Seattle Saturday and friends to celebrate life with.

This morning I went out to brunch at Salty's on Aliki Beach with two of my best friends to celebrate Dana's birthday and mine. Our birthdays are a month apart so we found a Saturday that would work for all of use to go celebrate. Brunch was AMAZING. It's an all you can eat buffet so you go hungry and leave stuffed. They had an omelet bar, pasta bar, crepes, waffles, crab, shrimp, eggs Benedict, smoked salmon, sausages, bacon, deserts galore, chocolate AND caramel fountains. It was really yummy. We had a great time eating but also just being able to chat with one another without our kiddos running around. God has truly blessed me with some great friends here.

Then, after stuffing myself silly, I met a friend from high school who was in town with her husbands' high school yearbook team. Scholastic had an awards ceremony in Seattle this year and their yearbook team was up for some rewards, so she came with one of her daughters to sight see and luckily we were able to get together. I hadn't seen Harmony since a couple years after high school after she got married and before I was married. Thanks to the lovely Facebook, we have gotten back in touch and had a chance to catch up for a couple of hours. It was so good to see her, find out what each has been up to the last 14 years and chat about old classmates too. I was glad to have the chance to see her and hopefully make it to Texas someday to see her again.

Looking back, it's amazing how God takes us through different experiences and friendships through our lives. I am thankful to have known Harmony since kindergarten and grow up with her and I'm also thankful as I have moved away that God placed Dana and Crystal in my life as well. My friends mean a lot to me and I would do almost anything for them if they needed something. I hope you have dear friends in your life as well. Friends are blessings from the Lord.

Our newest member

A few weeks ago we added a new member to the family. Lucky for me, I didn't have to go through any weight gain, hips hurting and labor again. Nope, this time we went the adoption route and welcomed an almost 2 year old black lab into our family.

Oreo was adopted from another couple who had decided their 15 hour days were not kind to him being stuck at home alone and wanted a family to take care of him. My oldest son was completely ecstatic about getting a dog while the youngest was on the opposite end of the spectrum and freaked out by the dog. Fast forward a couple of weeks and the oldest doesn't like Oreo anymore while the youngest is in love. Go figure. 

 For me it's like having a 4th child. Mom is the one who wakes up in the morning and walks him, plays ball with him during the day and of course sweeps up all the black dog hair that floats around my house now. (sigh) The boys do feed him for which I am thankful. Oreo is a sweet dog but needs some training so the hubby signed up for obedience school. It's more like training the whole family, but overall, another adventure to go through together.

Orange Cardamon bread

It was my responsibility to bring the sweet bread for Easter brunch. I found a fantastic recipe for sticky lemon buns but not everyone is a fan of lemon items, so I kept searching for another option. I follow lafujimama on instagram and remembered her picture of Orange Cardamon bread. I found her blog, discovered how easy it was to make and was happy to have my choices decided. Bonus was I had all the ingredients on hand, too.

This bread is out of this world delicious, but I have no idea why mine seemed to have expanded into holy huge batman loaf o' bread. It was a hit at the family brunch and then I spent two days toasting the leftovers and slathering with butter before taking the remainder over to some friends house for a dinner party and for someone else to eat all that bread because I certainly didn't need to eat it all.

Spring time color

The other day I was at Target blowing my $100 purchasing the household necessities and discovered that Essie nail polish is now being sold at the ol' Tar-jay.  There went $8 out of the budget super fast.  I picked up Navigate Her which is so different from the normal pinks, purples and oranges I normally gravitate towards.  It was fun to paint my nails since I don't normally take that much time for myself to make my nails all pretty for just a day.

It's a Kona coffee kinda morning

The weather is grey, cloudy, rainy and I'm really missing Hawaii this morning. Thankfully, a dear friend just returned from Kona and brought me back a pound of full on, no blend here, Kona coffee. I pulled out my French press, freshly ground myself some beans, and enjoyed a yummy cup of coffee in my Hawaii mug. It sure makes my Seattle Monday not seem so dreary.

Messianic Passover Seder

Friday evening, Mike and I had the privilege of attending a Messianic Passover Seder with some friends from our bible study group.  One of the gals in our study knew someone from our church who knows the Jewish couple who started the Messianic church.  I only heard bits and pieces of the testimony of the couple, but wow.  Brought up in Jewish traditions, culture and way and then in the 60s during the time of discovery for most people, this adorable couple found Jesus as they were searching.

I wish I could tell you in great detail what everything means, but I'll give you my cliff notes version and hope I don't get it all wrong.  From the very beginning, God had a plan for salvation for mankind.  The Jews celebrate Passover as a remembrance of God delivering the Jews from the land of Egypt.  Each step in the celebration represents life, both the sweet and the bitter, the harshness but also our salvation through Christ.  The Jews of course do not believe that Jesus was/is the Messiah, so they will refute my last statement, but all I have to say is I would love to experience the Seder again in a more intimate setting than a hall with almost 300 people.  I want my boys to experience it and to be able to grasp what Christ did for us.

*my little side note* Because the Seder was at a school, we couldn't drink wine and I've had my fill of grape juice for a very, very, very long time.  Let's just say, I can deal with the shot of juice once a month for communion, but 4 glasses of it was a bit much.

Searching and DIY

So life happens and I just pick up as I can.  Lately, I have been wanting, trying and failing it seems to create anything.  I have sketches of new earrings, a clutch plus all my other UFO projects that sit and whisper out to me, finish me, work on me, love me.  The same thing my boys say to me in their own way.

I am thankful for Google and all the other bloggers out there who post wonderful tutorials that inspire me to spend more time creating and also add to my long list of things I would love to make.  Maybe someday I will be able to find a little time to make something beautiful for myself, but for awhile, it's me, 3 boys ages 6 & under and a new black lab.

Maybe I'll also learn how to use the blogger app for my iPhone and post from there ;)