Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Strawberry Cake

I love this strawberry cake recipe. Every time I make it before you know it, it will be all gone! (Sorry no pictures. I would take one, but I already ate half of it)

Ingredients:
half package of vanilla cake
1 package of cream cheese
1 tub of whip topping
1C powder sugar
1lb of fresh strawberry hulled
1tub of strawberry glaze

Bake cake according to package in a 13x9 pan (preferably glass)

Soften cream cheese and add in powder sugar. *Mix very well. Then add whip topping to the cream cheese mix

Chop strawberry to little pea size pieces

When the cake is cooled spread the cream cheese mixture on top and add the chopped strawberries (spread it around) then add the glaze (spread that too)

Refrigerate for a few hours and it is done!

I have made my own whipcream instead of buying the whip topping. It is still delish, but it does not firm up as well. You can also make your own strawberry glaze if you chose to.

Enjoy!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Photos

Yes I know I promised photos 2 posts or so ago and I still have not posted them. Well it is 8:33 at night and I am ready for bed. Lucky for you I just found my camera! I think I left it at my friend Megan's house. Anywho....this is what we have been up to the last week (I will back track a little later).

 We went to the Chinese New Year festival over at the Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix. Here are baby Tessa and Olive.

Here are the dads


Here is Ryan and I at the garden. There was tons of people there and it was a good time. 


Megan and I. 


We hung out later that eve as well with the Nelsons and our other neighbor the Ayers. So this is what happends when we get together. Everyone is just hanging out and Ryan is off by himself playing video games. Silly boy. 


This week we have nothing really going on, but I will for sure post more pictures now that I found my camera (Thanks Megan!). Will post updates soon of the house...

Friday, February 18, 2011

The best steak tacos

So as most of you know I have been married a little over 2 years now and for the last 2 years I have been perfecting my cooking skills. Poor people Chinese food is what I am actually pretty good at but it is not the most delish to the average people and it does not always look fantastic. So since I married Ryan I have been branching out to other things and making some yummy yummy delish food.

Steak Tacos (or whatever else you want to use the steak to make)

Story: My friend Emily posted on her blog about Backyard Mexican. BM is actually not a restaurant but a family cooking in their backyard every weekend and you can go and buy food and sit in their backyard to eat. Delish Mexican food might I add. Well, I learned how they cooked their meat and I have not been back since. They used just steak and salt, but I added a few other things. Here is my version.

Steak:
Thin sliced chuck
Sea salt
chili powder
garlic powder
cumin
smoking chips (I think mesquite is best but I use hickory cuz it was what I had)

Rub the chuck with sea salt, chili, garlic and cumin. I would go easy on the cumin because cumin is a really potent spice. Let it sit over night in the fridge.

BBQ the meat till the edges is a little brown and crispyish or to your liking. Remember the wood chips*

Chop up the meat to small pieces for serving and serve with pico, guac, chopped up cabbage, hot sauce, etc.

You can use this for tacos, steak salad, tostatas, I don't know...whatever you want.

My recommendation for tortilla is use the uncooked ones and cook them fresh when serving. It is totally worth the work!!!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Mommyhood and Why can't I see YOUR blog?

So I am trying to stalk blogs and I realized that I have now lost access to half of the blogs I stalked.Seriously? If you are on my list of blogs to stalk please add me on your private thing-a-ma-jig so I can stalk your blog!

So now about mommyhood, I love it! I love my little cheekers. Today I went on a date with Ryan for our little valentine outing and I miss that little bon bon like crazy. The way I describe it so Ryan would understand was to try and leave his iPhone at home for a couple of hours and tell me how you feel. Yeah, he would go absolutely insane. Not only does the child have to go through separation anxiety, but so does the parent(s).

There are so many little moments of joy with Tess I can't even count them. She is so amazing and learning so fast. Here is a list at no particular order:


  • I love the way she squeals
  • I love how strong she is (she was able to push herself up at 5 weeks?)
  • I love how she just learned to blow bubbles with her mouth
  • I love the way she tries to talk
  • I love it when she rubs her eyes when she is tired
  • I love it when she would laugh at the weirdest things...
    • Freedom makes her laugh
    • noise a paper makes sometimes makes her laugh
    • bouncing up and down makes her laugh
    • tickles
    • me laughing makes her laugh
    • oh there are so many things that makes her laugh
  • I love it when she tries to swim on the floor
  • Her smiles are heavenly :)
  • She will make funny faces before she starts to really cry
I can't even list everything there are so many. I love being Tessa's mom. She is so perfect!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Wow Long Time!!!

Seriously, how long has it been since I posted...yeah about 6 months ago. Where have I been? I have no idea. Can having a baby really take up all your time so you stop blogging? I will answer myself, that will be a NO. I just have not made blogging a priority.

As I was, and still, making dinner I came across a few thoughts that maybe someone as bored as you would like to read about. So there I was chopping cabbage for the mouthwatering Mexican meal that we will have tonight I noticed that my feet hurts standing there. Then I realized that I needed to balance my weight better and put more weight to the front of my feet so my heel will not hurt so bad. SO HERE WAS THE REAL THOUGHT. Old ladies all have the crusty heels...OMG I am getting old. I just thought that they get the crusty heels because they don't take care of their feet, but no, I take very good care of my feet and I can keep it up so it does not look absolutely gross. End of that thought.

Tessa is so old now, before I know it I will be helping her move to her first apartment and I will be heart broken that I can't keep my eyes on her 24 hours. I just love those chubby cheekies to pieces!! She is maybe 17lbs now and she is tall. I forget how tall she is but she is in the 85% tile for hight. Her favorite thing to do right now when she is bored is to blow bubbles with her spit. She can sit by herself and roll as she wishes and she LOVES Monkee see Monkee do.

We repainted our living room...yup it has only been a little over one year since we moved in and we are repainting. Ryan actually accidentally made a hole in the wall so I used that excuse to redecorate (shhhh... don't tell him). We also put up crown molding in our livingroom. I will post pictures...I am just too lazy to find the camera, go in my messy office that I have been putting off cleaning, and sit there. Tessa has issues with not seeing me and the office right now is no place for baby. :(

I love you guys and I have not stalk any blogs lately, I need to hop on that and see what everyone is up to.

More thoughts on motherhood in the next post, don't want to bore you with too much all at once. xoxo