We started the day with red velvet pancakes, whipped cream and blueberries. Patriotic before 9am! The girls picked some festive dresses and immediately played in the backyard until they were covered in dirt. Naturally.

I attempted to make fireworks on our Cherry Jerry’s by soaking sugar cubes in rum and lighting them. I was even going to toss a little cinnamon on top for a spark. Total fail. The drinks themselves were good though! 1 oz Sailor Jerry spiced rum, 4oz cherry juice, splash ginger ale, lemon slice and a pinch of cinnamon.

The kids had strawberry jello, whipped cream and blueberries for dessert. They may have also had some red, white and blue pudding pops much later for dessert.

My girl Jillian made two kick ass salads. One was an epically creamy potato salad that I had to share with neighbors to stop myself from eating it all, and the other was a fresh green salad with strawberries, feta cheese, walnuts and blueberries. I have already polished off the leftovers.

We had a lovely holiday with friends and broke in our new barbecue by filling it with 4 different meats! Haha, happy America day!

Yup, that’s right. Patriotic jello. Anyone who knows me at all, knows that I do whatever I do with both feet. I’m either out or I’m all in. Sometimes this is not such a great trait to have, but in terms of moving stateside, I think it’s hilarious and super fun. This year for the 4th, I will wear my ridic American flag Abby Dawn heels (in red, duh), I will barbecue epic burgers, I will bake an apple pie and I will make this jello flag dessert. That’s what happened last year (aside from the shoes, those were bought for Memorial Day this year), and it’s what I intend to do every year that we are here. Thanks for having us, America. 😉

I’m sure a lot of my American friends grew up with a red, white and blue loving mother or grandmother that used to make this every year. I totally love it, it’s so so silly but not like when you make something silly that is borderline wasteful because it’s mostly decorative. It’s jello! And whipped cream! And blueberries! What’s not to like?!

It is a little labor intensive and it does require a special mold, but look at this thing, epic and totally appropriate for the 4th.

4 1/2 cups boiling water (total, not all at once)
2 packages berry blue jello (3 oz boxes)
2 packages any red jello (3 oz boxes) I used strawberry
3 1/2 cups cold water (total, not all at once)
2 packages plain gelatin
1/2 cup cool whip
1 can sweetened condensed milk
homemade whipped cream (a carton of heavy cream, sugar and a mixer)
blueberries

You have to make this upside down, so even if your first inclination is to make the blue first, don’t! Prep the red jello first, I think it’s safe to assume you can handle that, but just in case you need a reminder it’s 1 1/2 cups of boiling water poured over the jello powder, then 1 1/2 cups cold water and mix till all the powder is dissolved. Pour this in the mold first and chill for about an hour.

Then make the white jello by mixing 1/2 cup of cool water and two packets of plain gelatin, let sit for about 5 minutes before adding 1/2 cup hot water and stir until the gelatin has dissolved. Then add the sweetened condensed milk and stir, pour this over the red jello layer. Chill this another hour or so.

Now make the blue jello (1 1/2 cups hot water plus the powder, plus 1 1/2 cups cold water, duh) and pour that over the red layer. Chill this another hour.

Fill a larger pan with hot water and set the mold in it to loosen it up, then say a little prayer and flip it over onto a flat board or cookie sheet or whatever.

Now, make some whipped cream (or use the rest of the cool whip), and wash some blueberries. Plunk the blueberries in place of stars and pipe the whipped cream for the stripes! Voila!!

Isn’t she beautiful?

Last summer, I fell madly in love with the Torrance Farmer’s Market. I love it because it’s big so there is a lot of selection, but not so big that you can’t get to know the vendors. I looooove that it’s a year-round market (since you know, 2 weeks of rain is ‘winter’ down here) and most of all I think that the concept of local citrus, and local avocado and omg local dragonfruit (whaaaat) is so so otherworldly. It is very temping to walk through your local farmer’s market and buy healthy, delicious produce at random. If you eat a lot of raw fruits and veggies that can probably work for you, but if you’re aiming to make meals from as much of your haul as possible, it’s generally wise to show up with a list.

Yeah, I know. But I’m making lists again!

This is what I brought home with me this week…

Beets, carrots, kale, cucumbers, lemons, limes, oranges, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, ginger, shallots, garlic, onions, white peaches, white ‘donut’ peaches, apricots, grapefruit, purple grapes and avocados. Not pictured whole wheat pita bread, whole wheat pita chips, jalapeño feta (I know right??), a layered feta / sundried tomato / pesto dip, artichoke hummus and beet hummus.

Of course, the very first few recipes that run through my mind when I stood back to look at my loot were from Peas and Thank You, a few Deceptively Delicious recipes came to mind too and naturally, Undressed Skeleton. Here are some things I’ve already posted about that will end up happening this week here, and I’ll follow it up with a loose plan for the week.

blackberries, limes, ginger	kale	strawberries
carrots	carrots	dip for everything
avocado	strawberries	grapefruit
strawberry	all berries	lemon, lime, ginger, kale, cucumber

Ideas for this week’s meals and snacks! I will take pictures and post about them next week!

Adding beet puree to whole wheat pancakes (made with flax and almond milk instead of eggs and cow milk) for breakfast is a hit with all of us!
Dressing up rice cakes or flatbread with non dairy ‘cream cheese’ and fruit
Dressing up rice cakes or flatbread with smashed avocado and nuts
Dressing up rice cakes or flatbread with jam and berries
I’m going to swap my berry smoothie for some fresh beet / carrot / apple juice – apparently, it’s amazing (and amazingly healthy, natch)
Whole wheat (from scratch) garlic bread.
Frozen grape skewers topped with non dairy vanilla pudding and dates or prunes or raisins (I haven’t decided yet) 😉
Chick pea and kale falafels
Red velvet cupcakes with beets and non dairy ‘cream cheese’ frosting
I will also make some candied carrots for the kids as a side for dinner and mix some beets into mashed potatoes for pink potatoes!
Oh and pies!! I promised my husband pies!
Lemon meringue pie!
Cherry pie!
Blueberry tarts!
Maybe a peach pie too, we’ll see!

Today, I am linking up with Keeping it Simple, Skip to My Lou, Boogieboard Cottage, Craft-o-Matic, Making the World Cuter and C.R.A.F.T. There are so many creative and fun projects in these link ups!

I have a soft spot for old school birthday parties at home. I mean, yeah we have had a few Chuck E Cheese parties in our day and it’s always really temping to just throw a few hundred dollars at an indoor playspace and hit the bakery but you know me. I … just … can’t. I really love the feeling of a houseful of kids, homemade decorations and a crazy towering homemade cake. Originally, we had planned a party in Santa Monica at Pacific Park and we ended up getting passes for the girls and doing that as a family, and throwing an old school party at home instead.

Wee One #3 invited her little posse of four year olds and when I asked her to pick a color she picked ‘rainbows’ so I went with a mix of mostly primary colors.

These puffs were originally inspired by Martha’s puffs, but these are so much cheaper and so so easy!

Total cost for each puff was only slightly over $1, and these made really big puffs. All you need is a package of tissue paper, a pipe cleaner and a length of ribbon to hang it from. There were 20 pipe cleaners in the package and about 15 yards of ribbon on the spool!

For each:
1 package tisse paper
1 pipe cleaner
1 length ribbon
scissors

First flatten out the tissue paper and then accordion fold it until it’s all folded. Secure it in the middle with a pipe cleaner.

Cut points at each edge and then separate all of the layers of tissue paper. This is the most tedious part and it’s not really all that tedious.

These last two were made with solid sets of paper and the same method as the multicolored ones with the points. So cute!

Today, I’m linking up with Keeping it Simple, Skip to My Lou, Boogieboard Cottage, Craft-o-Matic, Making the World Cuter, Sumo’s Sweet Stuff, and C.R.A.F.T. There are so many amazing projects in these links ups!

My girls love to get fancy, and this is no surprise to anyone who reads this blog, but in the last year or so, they’ve been reading a lot of Fancy Nancy books. A lot. If you’re not familiar, Fancy Nancy is a sweet character in a series of books (there’s over 50 of them) revolving around her life. She’s a young girl who loves to dress up, she takes ballet, loves butterflies, French words and all things fancy! The illustrations in the books are so full of whimsy, with random feather plumes sticking out of vases and lace trim on almost everything and glitter and cute buttons and and and….all the details are so wonderful.

So now two of my littles are bent on having an uber fancy room with a zillion fancy details. Since their hairbands were living in a cute little basket on a dresser I decided to start there. I was initially just going to spice up the basket they were already using, but we can use baskets for so many other fancy things, right?! I think the best way to go about creating a fancy room is to display as many of their fancy objects (like their crazy cute hairbands) as possible while still storing them in an organized way. I think this nailed it, it’s copied from all the tween shops we have bought these girlie accessories in. So cute!

You’ll need…

a cannister large enough so the hairbands don’t slip down, but small enough that you’re not stretching out the bands!
glue gun
decorative paper
sparkly things
whatever cute glittery things you want to add!

First I covered my cannister with plain construction paper to make a plain background to work from. I cut some glittery scrapbooking paper into medium and smallish pieces and hot glued them all over it like a patchwork quilt. Cute!!

Then I dug through my crafty box for some lace and flowers and sparkly things and attacked it with the glue gun. I had Wee One #3 coaching me the whole time on how much of what I should be attaching where. It was hilarious how specific she was!

Here is the finished project with some of their hairband collection on display! So sweet and now when someone needs a giant blue bow to go with their outfit we’ll know exactly where it is!

The short week after a holiday weekend is usually pretty laid back, but I’m hyped for Friday anyway. This week started off really slow, spending Monday with my husband and our littles in our new backyard plotting what we want to plant and what else we want to do with the space. Tuesday my homie Jillian and I packed up our littles and hit the thrift shop. I swear on a stack of Teen Vogues that when we got in her car, this song was playing. Obvy, the universe wanted us to go thrifting. It was an excellent trip! Wee One #2 got 3 dresses and a pair of pink camo pj pants and Wee One #3 found 4 adorable dresses (2 even had sparkles). We also ended up with a hysterical purple piggy bank that I hope we keep forever (read: Dear Wee One #3, please don’t break this epic find), some cute glasses and a crazy noisy car toy they both love. Of course they love it. Why wouldn’t they? I was a little bummed to not find any sweet ironic tshirts for Wee One #1 and though I did find some really silly sleepwear to scare my husband with, in the end closet space for clothes I will actually wear won and I didn’t buy it – though I did get a photie of it! It’s a pink zebra adult sized onesie! There are even little hearts on it! Look!! Now that I see it on the blog, it looks like the girl version of the Batman onesie in the Macklemore / Ryan Lewis video and I regret not buying it, if not for me then for my girl Vanessa. If you’re reading this Nessa, I’m going back for it! <3

Wednesday we ditched our plans to go out in favor of hanging out at the pool and making these ice pops (and a few other recipes we froze and ate in record time thanks to my Fastpop Popsicle Maker). It’s so rad. I just store it in my freezer, so when I want to use it, it’s ready for me. Usually, ice pops are ready in less than 10 minutes with this, but dairy-based ice pops take a bit longer, which is kind of a no brainer if you’ve ever made ice pops before.

This recipe isn’t even a recipe really. It was just 1 cup of milk and 1/3 cup Nutella. Blend till totally combined and pour into your ice pop molds. Or you can even use Dixie cups and just peel the paper off when they’re frozen and ready to serve.

Another variation we had luck with was 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup Cool Whip and 1/3 cup Nutella. Equally amazing.

After we devoured these, we made a bunch of fruity ones! I will post last day of school pictures of all of them next week even though technically today was Wee One #1’s last day. Today was also officially the last dance class for the Tiny Tots team for their month-long summer break and my girls were pretty hyped about it. I mean Wee One #3 was rocking 3 ponytails and one stemmed from a french braid. During class today, she was hilariously distracted and really highlighted her kitten-like attention span. I found myself saying things like ‘you have to listen to Miss Alex, come on point your toes / spin / open your arms’ etc. So I asked her if she wanted to come back to the class and she said she just wanted to watch her sister or go home and be with Daddy. Ok so, this is when I step back and remember that no matter how adorable she is in a tutu, she’s 4 years old and that if she isn’t into it, she isn’t into it and I will not push her to do something just because it’s cute. Truthfully, she’s into dancing around in her outfit and she likes the studio because the music is loud and there is so much more space – she’s just not big on the whole ‘class’ aspect of it. 😉 I think we’ll take a break for six months and see what happens.

My littles love to tear it up in the kitchen, and I love to watch them. Sometimes their creations are a little sketchy but they are usually pretty good when they follow a recipe! This recipe is in one of their favorite library books, The Little Bitty Bakery by Leslie Muir and Betsy Lewin.

Essentially, this book is about an elephant baker who bakes all kinds of sweet treats but doesn’t realize until the day is done that she baked right through her birthday and didn’t celebrate it! The mice in her bakery all pitch in and gather crumbs and bits of treats to make her a birthday cake (hilarious how something so unsanitary is adorable in a children’s book). I can’t say for sure if it’s the glitter on the cover, or the sing-song rhyme of the text (here’s an adorable example ‘they scuttled to a huddle / prepared a secret plan / & launched a luscious mission / inside a brioche pan’), but my girls love this book. We first took it out of the library one day last fall when we were exploring libraries outside of our district and we ended up getting library cards in that district that day to take it out (the way the library system is down here is so weird that we actually have library cards in three different districts, even though they are all super close to us).

Since then, we have taken the book out three more times in the other two districts – and renewed again this week. Clearly, I need to just buy this book for them! The recipe for the crumble jumble cake is at the back of the book and was so weird I wasn’t sure it was actually going to work. There are a few mismeasured ingredients (duh, the bakers are 7 and 4), but really, it came out pretty well.

Crumble Jumble Cake via The Little Bitty Bakery 1 stick unsalted butter 3/4 cup sugar 5 large eggs 1 cup chocolate syrup 1 teaspoon pure vanilla 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon pinch salt 1 cup flour

Moonlight Frosting via The Little Bitty Bakery 1 stick salted butter 3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar 6 tablespoons marshmallow fluff 1 teaspoon vanilla 1-2 tablespoons half and half

The cake is fairly simple, first cream the butter and sugar and then beat in the eggs one at a time. Slowly add the chocolate syrup (this is when I stopped and checked the book again because I just couldn’t believe it), vanilla, cinnamon and salt. Bake at 325 for 45 minutes and voila!

The frosting is crazy simple too and it’s especially cute if you’ve read the book. <3 Just whip it all together in your stand up mixer and you're good to go. Once the cake has been baked, cooled and frosted, the real fun begins! This is where the ‘crumble jumble’ aspect comes in.

The real beauty is you can use whatever you know your friends and family will love! I chopped up a few Twix bars, some Butterfinger Bites, M&Ms, mini chocolate chips, broken cookies, jellybeans and chopped walnuts. When I showed up at my girl Jillian’s house with this (and another epic cake I’ll post about tomorrow) her response was ‘omg what are you doing?!’, of course I just replied, ‘I know, right?’ Don’t worry, we didn’t eat it all!

 

This is technically our second Memorial Day stateside but it’s our first time actually celebrating it. Last year we were just mostly confused by it because the long weekend in May in Canada is the weekend before. Totally cruel, but this year we were ready! We even wore patriotic colors and the girls and I had patriotic manicures aaaaaand I wore my ridic new Abby Dawn shoes from Just Fab! It also helped that we celebrated with amazing new friends and helped them break in their new BBQ!

 

Our littles had a dance party (as is the usual when we get together) and they got really into it (which is also the usual when we get together). I’m happy I managed to capture a pigtail action shot!

We baked two cakes for the occasion, which should surprise exactly no one, (both recipes coming atcha this week). A Crumble Jumble Cake made by the girls and a Chocolate Peanut Butter cake made by yours truly. I’m a big fan of letting my kids play around in the kitchen with recipes and ideas when inspiration strikes. The recipe the girls used for the cake they made came from a favorite library book, we’re going to have to get them a copy they take it out so often! I will go into it more when I post about it but the recipe was so weird I wasn’t sure it was going to hold together! They are as insane as they look, def must be shared. We each had a piece and then we shared our half of the leftovers with neighbors and they shared their half with grandma!

 

The rest of my Saturday went the way I love my Saturday nights to go – watching bad tv with my homie Vanessa and soaking up all the tiny-dog love. Vanessa probably has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known, and thus her house is full of animals. <3 This weekend was even more full than usual because she also boards dogs while their owners are out of town. Busy!

 

Do I just gloss over the five weeks I’ve been absent from the blog? Please? No?

Two super exciting things have happened since I last posted (and a whole bunch of other amazing but less newsworthy things)! First, we moved into the bigger, better, all-we-need-in-an-apartment apartment and a little while after that, one of the besties came down for a visit! We stayed within the same apartment complex, we had been literally waiting for this apartment to become available since we decided to stay past our initial plan of six months. Moving to a tiny apartment from our house in the woods was a serious adjustment and while we are still nowhere close to what we had, this is much, much better and is perfect for us right now. The second bathroom and the backyard really put it over for us. Happy campers over here!

Miss Talea visiting was a glorious and way too fast 5 days. We managed to squeeze a whole lot into those five days though! We did the Aquarium of the Pacific, Hollywood, The Le Brea Tar Pits, Santa Monica, Pacific Park, Redondo Pier, Hermosa Pier and a little Corner Bakery and In n Out for good measure. 😉 We also watched some bad tv, drank some local wine and knitted some puffs. A lovely visit, but of course, too short.

The littles and I have been up to all kinds of hilarity with their buddies. In these last five weeks we have celebrated a friend’s 2nd birthday, made sand castles at Redondo Beach, went out for a mama’s night with some of my ladies, celebrated a friend’s 4th birthday, broke in my girl Jennifer’s Slip n Slide, went adventuring with Talea, finally celebrated Wee One #3’s 4th birthday, celebrated Children’s Book Day at our local library, celebrated a friend’s 3rd birthday, checked out a new (to us) park or two, celebrated a friend’s 1st birthday and prepared for Wee One #2’s first big dance show! I’m pooped!!

Much cooking and baking and knitting and crafting and homeschooling have been going on as well! Tomorrow, back to as close to usual as I can get – with some Red Velvet Cookies!

Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows that I adore holidays. I was going to say especially ones where the kids have some magic like the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus but I also really love holidays that bring people together like Thanksgiving and the 4th. So, yeah, just about every holiday is awesome as far as I’m concerned. So we’ve been doing it up with the kids with crafts and baking and celebrating with friends. With just two more sleeps to go, the littlest ones are hyped for the hunt and since Wee One #1 is turning 13 this year instead of subjecting him to the standard-issue egg hunt, we are doing up a treasure hunt for him where he’ll find things along the way with clues for what’s next and then at the end his basket of mostly non-sugary items. I can hardly wait.

The other exciting news is that we are moving to a bigger place on Monday – within the same complex! So we get the upgrade of more space and a yard and a bigger kitchen, and we don’t have to lose the pool or this amazing location where all the essentials (and so much fun) are a short walk away. I’m packing up soooome things, since everyone keeps reminding me that I can literally just walk all of our stuff over to the new place in just a few hours. I also don’t want to turn the place upside down before Easter, but a little chaos is pretty natural for the 5 of us. 😉

After posting all of our Easter fun this week, it occurred to me that some people may like to make actual Easter bread for their families this weekend, not sweet bread stuffed with cheese and made to look like bunnies and not Greek Easter bread, but you know, standard old school straight up Easter bread. Like your granny probably made, in a braid, with dyed eggs on top.

Standard Easter Bread – I’ve been using this recipe forever

2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (1 pkg)
2/3 cup warm milk
2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs

PLUS:
4 or 5 whole, dyed eggs (they don’t need to be hard boiled first since they’ll cook in the oven with the bread)
2 tablespoons butter (to brush over dough before baking)

Pretty standard bread dough. Mix 1 cup of the flour with the sugar, salt and yeast. Then warm the milk and butter in a small saucepan and mix this in with the flour mixture.

Let it set for about 10 minutes, then add the eggs and another 1/2 cup of the flour and mix until it’s fully incorporated. Slowly add the rest of the flour 1/2 cup at a time. Now turn out the dough and knead it for about 8 minutes.

Spray a large bowl with cooking spray and put the dough in. I usually use the same bowl I mixed it in. Cover it with a damp cloth in a warm place and let it rise for about an hour. It should be double the size.

Punch down the dough and divide into three pieces. Let them rest 10 minutes.

Roll out each piece into about a 36″ strip and loosely braid them, then join the ends. Or don’t, some people make it a ring and some don’t. Delish, either way. My recipe card says ‘lay eggs’! Haha, place the eggs around the braid, brush with butter and bake for about 50 minutes at 350.

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baking, bread, Easter, Easter braided bread, egg bread