Sharing the Love

We needed a Valentine tradition.  We found one and we shared it.  Rest a assured, we didn’t share this one.

Unfortunately, they look better than they tasted.  We have already found a different recipe to try for next year.

Valentine’s in a Hat or Two…

We enjoyed Valentine’s Day a little early and on Coronado Island this year.  Ironically, I bought Will a hat as one of his Valentine’s Day presents this year and as we wandered in and out of all the little shops along the beach, I bought him another hat for the occasion.  I didn’t mean for it to happen that way – it just did.  We did Candelas for dinner.  It’s a great restaurant as far as ambiance is concerned.  It’s right on the water and has a breathtaking view of the cityscape – especially for sunset.  The food left something to be desired, but that could be because I ordered a chicken entree at a seafood restaurant.  You seafood lovers out there will have to try it and let me know what you think.  The waiter was pretty efficient with his ipad so it just made ordering that much tougher after seeing all our different options.  I think Will found it quite entertaining though.

The Lady Trapped in My Head

So I had one of those days piled high with errands and other odds and ends that had to get done.  And I caught myself spitting in the face of my schedule.  You know, you have a list of 50 things and instead of doing #1 because it’s most important you decide to do #48 because that’s what you feel like doing.  I have no idea why, but for a reason unbeknownst to me, I thought it was a good idea to make blueberry bran muffins.  Then Annie saw the pumpkin in the freezer and wanted cookies so I thought, sure why not?!  Let’s make pumpkin cookies.  Then the little lady, who happens to be insanely type A, trapped inside my head, reminded me that I needed to have dinner ready tonight since I had scheduled back to back piano lessons from 2:00 until 7:30 this evening – not to mention the T-ball meeting and baby shower(which I was totally excited for and didn’t get to go to) I needed to squeeze in.  At this point,  any rational person would kick it into gear and get things done.  I’m guessing I can’t be counted as a rational person because I thought stuffing 40ish rigatoni pasta noodles, manicotti style, was a good idea for dinner.  The kids will love cheese-stuffed noodles, right?  Don’t get me wrong, it was great fun stuffing the noodles and quite relaxing.  Sometimes I step back from my life and think, “WHY?!  How did I think this was a good idea?”  Cleaning my bathrooms would have been way more productive, but definitely NOT as fun!

From the Isle of Corinth

Somehow the memo about this month being an unofficial, family history month slipped past my mind and settled nicely on my tastebuds.  Yes, I’m Greek and more specifically, from the Isle of Corinth.  I’m pretty sure that makes me Corinthian – just like the columns you see on some of the old buildings downtown.  I digress.  I should have read the signs.  Will has been working night and day on his family history website project…really, mostly just nights due to Grace’s extreme bout with colic.  And then a few days ago, I get my Ensign in the mail and it has a featured article about family history.  Now today,  I’m craving Spanikopita and gyros.  So that’s what I made for dinner tonight – gyros and spanikopita.  I always accidentally make way too much spanikopita.  With it’s intense feta flavors, you can only eat so much of it before your tongue goes numb and the neighbors all go running for cover when you try to say, hello.  In this case, it’s well worth the sacrifice.

Hexen Haus

This is the night we’ve waited for.  Always a treat we have in store.  We love each other more and more with every family night...sure looks like it, right?  We did some gingerbread house constructing for Family Home Evening.  It’s actually a Hexen Haus from Germany.  The whole process was actually very nostalgic for me and boy did the frosting hold.  You could repair a leaky boat with it.  I think in the end we all had fun.  What do you think?  The house has since been ravaged, deconstructed and consumed.