Happy Valentines Day Everyone!
Valentine
From my Valentine, he's always the best at finding the perfect cards for me! Love you Hasani :)
Happy Valentines Day Everyone!
Happy Valentines Day Everyone!
Family Dining
We recently added a new piece of 'furniture' to our dining room, which now allows for family to all dine together. I'm in love with our newly bought highchair! Remember when I was thinking about looking for a vintage highchair on Craigslist? Well after looking for a few weeks, we decided to buy the Ikea Blames highchair. Before we got the highchair, we would put Avery in his Bumbo, on-top of our dining room table { carefully supervised at all times } and feed him there Due to having the Bumbo on the table we hardly ate together as a family, we dined in shifts. First Hasani and Tabari would eat, then I'd feed Avery and then I would finally eat. Our little guy, in his Bumbo.
We bought the the highchair a few weeks ago, and it was super easy to put together. I put it together while Hasani was doing a Starbucks run for me! I must have a vanilla latte at least once a week, lol. You may remember when we were originally considering spraying painting the highchair grey, but after building it we soon realized it looked so good as is. The dark highchair, works perfectly with the dark legs of our dining room chairs and our walnut stained dining room table.
Our little guy is growing so fast.
Have you bought anything recently that makes you smile?
PS Don't forget to enter the Kirkland's Decorative Keys Giveaway
We bought the the highchair a few weeks ago, and it was super easy to put together. I put it together while Hasani was doing a Starbucks run for me! I must have a vanilla latte at least once a week, lol. You may remember when we were originally considering spraying painting the highchair grey, but after building it we soon realized it looked so good as is. The dark highchair, works perfectly with the dark legs of our dining room chairs and our walnut stained dining room table.
I love how the highchair has a small footprint in our already small dining room.
It doesn't overwhelm our space at all. I also like the tray it wipes clean super easy and its not big and bulky.The smooth finish on the highchair also wipes clean. We also bought the little cushion insert for the chair, it was super affordable only $ 5 bucks. I'm planning on recovering the cushion with fabric from my stash so it blends better in our dining room. When the highchair is not bring used we place it in the corner of our dining room, I'm glad t takes up such little space.
As Avery gets older and we no longer need to use the tray, the high chair pulls up nicely to the table, not perfect but nicely.
Avery also loves his highchair and knows when I put him in it, its time to eat.
Our little guy is growing so fast.
Have you bought anything recently that makes you smile?
PS Don't forget to enter the Kirkland's Decorative Keys Giveaway
Giveaway: Kirkland's Decorative Keys
** This Giveaway is Now Closed ** The winner is Lauren via Myers Mason Blog ** Thanks to Everyone for Entering **
Do you love the look of vintage style keys? But they are super hard to find, right? I've been on the lookout for quite sometime. Well, Kirkland's has teamed up with CLH to Giveaway a Decorative Key Set to one lucky reader!
Decorative Keys
I've read about Kirkland's on other peoples blogs, but was disappointed they didn't have a store near me. Well I'm excited to announce, Kirkland's just opened a store in the Greater Sacramento Area, Folsom to be exact! There're also opening a store in Vacaville, for all you locals. Click here to find a store near you, you can also shop them online. This weekend I'll be shopping at Kirkland's to check out their lamps! They have amazing lamp collection online. As you know i'm looking for a pair of lamps for my living room, can't wait to see what they have.
Giveaway Details
Prize: Decorative Keys Set
How to Enter: Post a comment my blog, and share where the decorative keys will hangout in your home. Please click here for additional fine print
Giveaway Starts: Thursday 2/9/12
Giveaway Ends: Thursday 2/16/12 (at midnight PST)
Number of Winners: One
Prize Ships in US (Open to only US Residents)
Good Luck to everyone that enters the Giveaway!! PS Do you have a Kirkland's store near you? If so do you like it?
** Please include your email address in your comment, so I can contact you faster if your the winner!! **
Be Mine: Sweets Done
Last Wednesday I shared the Valentines Day projects I planned on making. today I'm sharing the my Sweets Project. I decided to make to sweet deserts. First up a spin on Cake Pops the easy way a mix of store bought and homemade. Here's how I 'made' my cake pops. I bought Entenmann's donut holes and lollipop sticks from the store. You can buy donut holes at in any grocery store or better yet buy them from a mom and pop donut store. I didn't want to make two stops that morning, so just bought those.
I made homemade vanilla glaze using this recipe, the glaze is super sweet and yummy. I rolled each cake ball into the glaze, then sprinkled the sprinkles on top and then added the lollipop stick. I placed the cake pops in the fridge for about an hour to allow the glaze to firm up.
The result very yummy and super sweet cake pops, they are so sweet so having one is perfect! I enjoyed my cake pop with a cup of coffee, mmm mmm
Next I made for the very first time I made homemade sugar cookies cut into shapes. I bought a bag of cookie cutters from Target and ended up only using the large heart. I made a few cookies with the x and o's but they were so tiny, we made the rest all heats. I used Martha Stewart's sugar cookie recipe and my cookies came out so nice!
As a first time cookie baker using cookie cutters, I never knew how involved the whole process is!! Make the dough, chill the dough, let the dough stand, roll the dough cut, re-roll the dough. Let the cut cookies chill in the freeze, line the cookie sheets with parchment paper and on and on! Most of my Sunday was consumed with following all the steps Martha gave. As a result my cookies tasted so good and held their shape, some edges weren't perfect but that's OK.
Next I made my own white royal icing, which is super simple to make and again crazy sweet all sugar, a little water and egg whites, click here for the recipe. I bought some gel frosting for the outline and to decorate the inside, here's where I went WRONG. I didn't know at the time, gel frosting doesn't harden. It stays 'wet' which sucks when your filling the inside of your cookies with royal icing that does harden (but stays yummy) So when I went to fill the inside it got tricky and things ran and I ran out of the gel frosting. I just had enough to outline all the cookies, so wasn't able to decorate the inside of the cookies. Here are my cookies, sorry for the bad lighting it was late and they were so tasty { all gone } I was unable to take better pics.
Next time I make sugar cookies, I plan to using Royal icing again and have food coloring on had to make pretty colorful outlines and decorate the inside. The cookies are lot of work! I learned some much making this batch of cookies, and I hope I keep improving. I'm anxious do decorate some more, its all trial and error for sure!
Have you made the any treats for valentines day? Or are you a cookie pro, would love to know your icing tips and secrets :)
PS. Dont forget to hop over to Summer's Blog and see what treats she made
