Can't Wait for Spring

yay for blooming flower pics!

-jill

Until I find a scanner or something...

Hey ladies!

I just had a really rad idea. (Yeah, I said rad. what?)

I was reading the Valentines day post/comment and realized I have an old valentine that I gave to jill when I was little. It has Astro, the dog from the Jetsons, on it. I found it in a box.

Anyway, I realized that I bet I have a bunch of pictures of you guys (and us as kids or mom and dad) that you don't have. I bet you have a bunch too. Maybe we can make copies and send them to eachother? Or even post a few gems online.

Chelsea, I would love the pic of dad in costume with all the lace. Jill, I have some of you and me that are freaking adorable. I also have a few great pics of mom laughing.

What do you think? Picture swap?

I love you both.
xoxo
Sarah

Cake Bites = Yum

We made these last night and they are very yummy. They could have a bit less chocolate on them as the chocolate is very over-powering... but who am I to complain about too much chocolate?!

The one with a bite taken out of it and the one in the background are orange in dark chocolate and the one with white chocolate decorations is strawberry in dark chocolate. That little fleck of orange color in the bitten one is a piece of orange peel from the marmalade we used. The pen is just for size reference - the first pic I took made them look huge :) (please excuse the quality, my phone takes crappy pics)

It was very hard to chocolate dip them. I guess we're just not very skilled chocolate-dippers. I'm glad we practiced though. We have some ideas to try on the next batch for mom's bday.

-jill

Mom's Birthday Cake

here is the recipe i found for the cake bites (posted here for easier access). sarah, we were gonna try to make them with orange marmalade and orange extract so they would be more up moms alley. thought it would be a nice change from cake, of which there is always a bunch left over and i dont know that mom ever eats it afterward.

cajones

_____________________________________________

Strawberry Vanilla Cake Bites

For the Cake

1 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick (4 Tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg white, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup whole milk

For the Strawberry Binding

1/3 cup strawberry preserves
2 heaping Tablespoons of marshmallow Jef Puff
14 ounces milk chocolate for dipping.

To Prepare the Cake

Put a rack in the middle of oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour one 8-inch round baking pan, knocking out excess flour.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.

Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer, on medium high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time, then beat in vanilla, and beat until thoroughly blended, about 5 minutes. Reduce speed and add flour mixture and milk, alternately in 3 batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture, and mix until batter is just smooth, do not overmix. Batter will seem loose.

Spread batter evenly into pan. Bake until cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cake will still be pale in color, not golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan on a rack, then invert on a rack to cool completely.

While Cake cools, mix together the strawberry preserves and Jef Puff.

When cake is completely cool, crumble into a large mixing bowl. Add the strawberry mixture and mix together with hands This will be messy. Mix until the cake and preserves are thoroughly incorporated.

Shape cake mixture into 1 inch balls or squares by pressing the cake mixture together with your fingers and rolling in the palms of your hand. Place the shaped cake bites on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Once all the bites have been rolled, cover and place in the fridge for 20 minutes (I left mine overnight, no problem).

Melt milk chocolate in the microwave, or over a double boiler. Dip chilled cake bites into the melted chocolate and place back onto the baking sheet. Once all balls are dipped, place in the fridge for 20 minutes to harden the chocolate.

Happy Valentine's Day

i hope you both have a lovely day. this little puppy is my valentine for you, since the only ones at the drug store were hannah montana and super hero valentines. those just didnt seem right to actually send out to people. what ever happened to the good valentines? peanuts characters or looney tunes. i remember having chip and dale rescue rangers valentines in kindergarten and giving them out randomly to everyone, except for my favorite one in the box, which i only gave to the boy i liked. i think i threw the other copies of that one away. it had that girl mouse on it... or was she a chipmunk too...


<3

cajones

Ah life.

Sorry I haven't posted in ages. Life got kind of busy around here. Natalie and I both got sick, my work is skidding out from under me like a sled after you fly over a big bump and land funny, and I have about a million deadlines that I can't imagine making.

It has been gorgeous here the last 2 days. Yesterday I wore shorts. I was wicked cold (nod to my roots) by nightfall, but it was totally worth it.

I am working with lemurs now who are crazy crazy cute. Like this sassy fellow:


I have to go run monkeys today and I would much rather sit on my ass and work on homework and analyze data. The monkeys are high maintenance. I hope we get a new grad student soon so I can pawn off some of the monkey running on someone else.

I miss you both terribly.

Speaking of birthdays and mom, I want to send Jill my contribution to her present. Let me know how much and whether i should send it via check in the mail or what.

I love you all. I will post more when I can. Be good to eachother and give eachother a big hug for me. Wish I could be there.

xoxo
Sarah

Mom's Bday

Our ticker says mom's bday is 16 days away. What are we doing for it? I haven't talked to mom for a while, so I guess I'll call her and ask.

Sarah - Chels and I bought her a Keurig coffee maker, some coffee and accessories. I'm still under the impression you want to go in on this gift with us. Let me know one way or the other.

So anyway, Chels, what should we do? Should we suggest taking her out to eat somewhere or maybe going to her house and cooking her dinner? chinese food? watching a movie? I don't really care. If I ask Rich to go, he probably will, but if I tell him it's only "the girls" then he'll be more than happy to stay home. What're your thoughts?

~~~***~~~***~~~***~~~

On other fronts, the basement reno is coming along. I'm so antsy for it to be done now though. We have all the paint colors decided and bought and now I need to get my butt in there and do some serious amount of painting. Though some I can't do yet because our contractor is dragging his feet with the finishing touches on what's been done so far. So annoying.

I'm taking River to beginner agility class every thurs night. It's really far away (read: an hour+ each way) but it's fun and he seems to like it ok - he needs more activity. I'm such a bad dog owner activity-wise. I need a really active friend to drag me out of the house every evening for a run or something.

I'm all out of dark chocolate covered pretzels and I'm trying to convince myself not to buy more...

loves to you both
jill

New Haircut

does it look ok?