We have a teenager in the house!

Hi there.

I know it's been a while.

I am bewildered by the fact that our son is now a bonafide teenager. Yikes!!! He is no longer a kid, no longer a tween, but a 13-year-old teenager. When did that happen? Oh the clues were all around me. Not in what was happening but more in what was lacking; no more hand holding, no more requests to be tucked in at night, no more spontaneous kisses and smooches, no more requests for outfits to be picked out, on and on. It didn't happen all at once but before I noticed, all of these things went away.

For those of you, that still have little ones, I know the days seem long and you wonder where you are going to muster all of the energy they seem to take from you, I have one word: Cherish. Cherish the sticky fingers, the untied laces, the crying, the neediness. Before you know it, you too will have a teenager in your house. I am somewhat relieved that I no longer seem to be needed as much but something tells me that my patience will again be called upon during the infamous tumultuous teenage years!

Anyway, enough of the drama and onto something more fun. For his birthday, Mateo wanted a Domo-themed sleepover (though I was not allowed to call it a sleepover or heaven forbid, a slumber party). Being the doting parents (suckers) that we are, we agreed to allow Mateo to invite his friends and some cousins for the shindig. We ended up with about 25 kids camped out in almost all of the rooms of the house! I fed them tons of chocolate and made breakfast for them next day. It was crazy but fun. I think I have finally recuperated!

The dessert table

Party favors

Chocolate rice crispy treats made with chocolate marshmallows
then dipped in milk chocolate

Oreo cookie cake

Mateo picked out a recipe for his cake months ago and didn't let me forget it. It is called Recipe 66 from Max Brenner's book, "Chocolate A Love Story". Cari gave me this book for Christmas. I absolutely adore this book and so far, every recipe I have made from it has been fabulous. This cake came out really moist and chocolaty delicious! I also made the chocolate pizza from this book but forgot to take a picture of it.

Mateo and his cake

I made him a Domo pillow and a helmet (pictured below).

For fun, I put out an assortment of mustaches and mouths for the kids to use for pictures. I made them out of felt then glued them to card stock paper and then glued them to bamboo skewer sticks.

I tried but couldn't get all of the kids in the picture!

The next morning. Are they still playing X-box?

Are they still playing DS?

Pals and cousins for ever!

Happy Birthday, Mateo.

We love you. May God fill you with His grace and lead you in your journey!
Mom and Dad

Overwhelmed With Gratitude

Praise be to God, I am extremely happy to report that our Fall Boutique was a great success. Beyond my wildest expectations! We raised $763.00 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation which will be contributed through Ederlen's walk team. I am so grateful to all of the vendors for their commitment and contribution to this cause and for sharing with us their talents. I am also extremely grateful to everyone who helped put this event together. And of course, I am exponentially grateful to you all who attended this event and opened your hearts and your wallets. Thank you!!! Words cannot describe how incredibly lucky I feel to have such a wonderful group of family and friends. I am truly blessed. Love is the best gift of all!

For those of you who could not make it, don't fret. We expect to make this a tradition so you will have an opportunity to shop and share in the future.

Also, the winner of the gift basket that was provided by my "sister" in-law, Iliana, is none other than Christian Burgors (Ederlen's boyfriend). What a coinkidinke! I promise this was not rigged.

Shoppers are happier when they are fed.

To see more pictures from this event, please check out my Flikr Photostream.

Pot Pie Thursday

I have been busily crocheting for this weekend's benefit boutique that I have not had time for much else. Let alone cook a meal for my family. Luckily for them, and me, we are blessed to have my mom so near by. On Tuesday she brought us dinner and we had that for two days.

I did unravel my fingers from my yarn last night to cook. I don't know why I chose this week to try to make Chicken Pot Pie. I've never made it before but I have been craving it. I scoured the Internet for an easy recipe but none of them were appealing to me. I finally ended up with Emeril Lagasse's recipe. It didn't seem too hard.....Let's just say, I started making them at 4 p.m. and we were eating dinner at 8 p.m. I don't know why it took so long. I was really enjoying the process of making them and I was intentionally taking my time -maybe I was subconsciously trying to get a breather from Mr. Hook for a while. Nah, I love him too much!

Anywho, everything was coming along beautifully. The chicken was moist and delicious and the filling was perfect. I was so happy and excited until I got to making the crust. Pies are not my thing. I will bake cookies, cakes, scones, muffins all day long but when it comes to pies, I choke. No punt intended. I don't know what went wrong with my crust. When it came time to roll it out, it was too dry and it kept cracking. I must have not added enough shortening or water. I did the best I could to get the cracking, breaking crust onto my dishes. Then it wouldn't brown in the oven so I had to take them out and brush some milk over them. While I was brushing, I noticed that the crusts were a bit soggy. So I raised the temperature in the oven and I baked them for about 20 minutes more. When they finally came out of the oven, they were so hot (of course), we had to wait another 30 minutes before we could eat them. When we finally sat down to eat, the pie crust was surprisingly good, after all of that....but....the filling was very dry. I think all of that extra baking time dried them out. All of that aside, they were actually very tasty. Next time they will be perfect.

Here is the play-by-play. It is really a lot of fun to make these.

For the filling: Cooked chicken, blanched potatoes and carrots, sweet peas, and celery and onions.

Lots of butter. I think that's what makes this dish so yummy.

The celery and onion are cooked in the butter until they are soft.

Flour is added to make a blond roux.

Chicken stock and cream (half & half) are added. It was already smelling so good.

The veggies and chicken go in and get mixed well.

My first mistake was to wait until I made the filling to start the crust, forgetting that it needed to be refrigerated for at least 30 minutes before you can roll it out.

The recipe is for one large pie but I decided to make individual pies instead. Here are the bowls haphazardly lined with the bottom crusts.

The filling goes into the bowls.

The top crust goes on. Poke holes to let the steam escape.

Dry. Dry. Dry. But good. But dry.

So I was saying that I was getting ready for my benefit boutique. Since October is breast cancer awareness month, I decided to host a boutique party to donate a portion of the proceeds to breast cancer research in honor of my sister-in-law, Ederlen. She was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, at the age of 29. She is doing well and has a great team of doctors at Cedars Sinai, but it is alarming at how pervasive this disease is. Not only is it attacking women (and men) at a younger age, the rates are scary. We have to spread awareness and find a cure. So I decided to crochet accessories and sell them at the boutique to donate a portion of the proceeds for research. We will also have other vendors at the event. Please pray that it will be a successful event.

Before I go, I wanted to share one more thing. This beautiful pillow that my mom made out of an old sweater and some crocheted flowers. I can't wait to make one myself.


Happy Friday,
SC
xoxo

Football Overload

Okay, it is not a secret, I am not athletically inclined nor am I a sports fanatic by any means. But I am married to an athlete (school days) and a fan of anything that can be labeled a "sport". I do consider myself an active person and I am working on becoming more fit through running and exercise, I realize that is not in the same realm of sportiness. I just don't understand all of the rules and complicated statistics that go along with being a fan. Furthermore, I would rather let my opponent win for the sake of peace than compete to the death. I always feel bad for the losing team and I loathe sports where injuries are the name of the game. But I do enjoy going to games. I like being with the crowd and feeling the excitement as the build up before the game starts. Don't even get me started about the food. I love to eat at sports events.

This weekend, I got my fill of football. Friday night we attended our local high school football game as it was Middle School Night and Mateo, alongside his band buddies, had the opportunity to play with the high school marching band. Our school won! Hooray! Mateo had a great time and this experience only enforced his commitment to becoming a better trumpet player.

The night sky looks so beautiful in this picture. I love the way the clouds look as though they were painted on to the sky.

Saturday morning we headed off to the Rosebowl to watch the UCLA vs. Washington State game. This is the second year we've attended this game. I like the tailgate part of it, of course. Oh man, but it was hot, hot hot at the game. There was a slight drizzle right before the game but then the sun broke through the clouds and decided to give us a little heat so that we don't forget about him through the dreary Winter. That made watching the game from the bleachers unbearable. We were dripping in sweat so some of us decided to head back out to the grassy area where we had our tailgate and let the kids get some reprieve from the heat.

There might be one or two college football players here.

My boys.

Football. The boys of Fall. All in all, I do get a bit of nostalgia when I hear the Monday Night football theme song emitting through the TV because it reminds me of Autumns past and the turn of the season. It makes me long for sweaters and hot cocoa and cuddling up on the couch. I guess sports are not that bad after all.

Perfect Day

It is raining here today. Very strange since on Monday we had record breaking heat at about 113 degrees in Downtown LA. The heat continued all week, but this morning it was gloomy and overcast, then thunder and lightning came, and then big fat drops of rain. A perfect day for curling up with Mr. Hook and a basket of skeins.




A not so perfect day for having just cleaned your windows! Harrumph!



Although now, as a write, the sun is peeking through the clouds and there is a beautiful glow coming through the french doors of the studio. But I can still hear thunder in the distance. Horacio says that it is pouring where he is just about 45 minutes away. What is going on? No, don't say it. I know what you're thinking. You are thinking what most Southern Californians think when we have hot and rain together. I had that thought too but I dare not utter the words. I'll just say this, it has to do with sudden movements of the earth. Yikes!

I just hope that the weather makes up its mind and stops raining so that we can go to tonight's football game. It is Middle School Night tonight and Mateo and some of his band buddies will be performing with the high school marching band. Can't wait!

Knittingly yours,
SC
xoxo