Halloween with the Pacheco's - 10/31/09
The Pacheco's (Jordan, Nina and Macy) decided to join us for the Halloween festivities. They brought over some yummy dinner from Kinder and their pumpkins to carve. Jordan decided to carve a scary face, and I made a Hello Kitty for Miss Macy Mae. We had a great time "gutting" the pumpkins in our kitchen! (You all know how much of a neat freak I am... luckily we had covered our counter tops with trash bags for easy clean up - A must, I must add!) Anyways, we did a little bit of trick-or-treating in our neighborhood till Macy's pumpkin was full of candy. When we got back, Macy and I decided to make some chocolate-chip cookies (the first round I accidentally used powdered sugar instead of flour, the cookies were more like toffee... I must have been tired - but the second time around, I got it right!) Macy was the cutest little witch. Check out some of our Halloween pics below:
You can barely see them - but Will put up orange lights up on our house in celebration of Halloween!
My pumpkin on the left (Hello Kitty) and Jordan's pumpkin on the right (a scary face).
The cutest witch in the whole wide world - she even had a broom!It seems as you get older, the less and less you celebrate your actual birthday. 27 was definitely one of those years. Will and I had a pretty low key evening. We celebrated by having dinner at a restaurant in downtown Walnut Creek. It was nice to have both of us off of work early and just enjoying our evening together. He got me a new Coach purse, the Top Chef "Quickfire Cookbook", "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child, and a real red gumball machine (you might wonder "what the heck", but I've been wanting one for the longest time)! Hopefully I can try something out of my new cookbooks soon! Thanks again to everyone for the birthday wishes and gifts, too! :)
Nico's 1st Birthday Party - 11/14/09
I believe it was our first time attending a 1st birthday party since our childhood. But this birthday party was different than all of the rest, I was actually hired by Nico's mom, Jen, to make his first birthday cake. I was stressed out for a few weeks about it! Jen wanted me to make a rocket ship cake from the show "Little Einsteins". For those of you who do not know what this rocket ship looks like, check it out here. Pretty intense, right? Anyways, after researching a bit on Google, I was able to figure out how to start the cake. I managed to do two trial runs on the cake. Check out my creations below for the party:
Meet Nico, the birthday boy - check out his cute little overall train outfit that he had out grown since his Mom bought it for him!
Jen and I - we don't have enough pictures together! Great job on the party - everything turned out perfectly!
The final cake - Since they had so many people coming to the party, I asked her to order a half sheet cake decorated with white clouds. I even picked up the characters from The Disney Store! Note: the sides of the rocket ship are Twinkies with graham crackers, the front lights are gumdrops and the antenna is a tootsie pop! I would have to say the hardest part was getting the right color red - it took over a full container of red food coloring to make! Crazy! So what do you all think?Brunch with Carol & Jason - 11/21/09
Since we already had plans in San Jose, we decided to meet up Carol and Jason for brunch. Since Carol had heard about a lot of great things about Cafe San Jose through Yelp, we decided to meet up there. Carol and I both had corn beef hash benedict. It was good, but they managed to drop my egg twice on the way to the table. It was too funny. I swear that egg was cursed! The guys both got omelets. They really liked them. Anyways, it was nice being able to finally catch up with Carol and Jason. We hadn't seen each other in a very long time and it took us months to actually plan something. I promise that next year it won't be so long. Thanks again for treating us! It was definitely a pleasure - next time we need to get some pictures together!
Since we already had plans in San Jose, we decided to meet up Carol and Jason for brunch. Since Carol had heard about a lot of great things about Cafe San Jose through Yelp, we decided to meet up there. Carol and I both had corn beef hash benedict. It was good, but they managed to drop my egg twice on the way to the table. It was too funny. I swear that egg was cursed! The guys both got omelets. They really liked them. Anyways, it was nice being able to finally catch up with Carol and Jason. We hadn't seen each other in a very long time and it took us months to actually plan something. I promise that next year it won't be so long. Thanks again for treating us! It was definitely a pleasure - next time we need to get some pictures together!
We celebrated my birthday at one of my favorite restaurants in the South Bay. It is called California Cafe in downtown Los Gatos. I think their food is great, especially for the price! We really enjoyed lunch together - I had their fresh fish tacos. They were the best fish tacos I have ever had! YUM! Afterward we went back to their house and I opened all of my gifts. They are so generous! I scored tons of cool things for my Kitchen. It's amazing how many Kitchen Aid red gadgets I own. I think they should publish my Kitchen in a commercial or something! Thanks again for all of my wonderful gifts! I love them all and I especially can't wait to use my "Cake Bible" cookbook! They also sung "Happy Birthday" to me and got me a chocolate raspberry filled cake. It was very good!
Check out all of those fresh raspberries and chocolate shavings! But they tricked me... they used trick candles on me! I guess that means my wish doesn't come true if I can't blow out all of the candles? San Jose State University (SJSU) vs. University of Hawaii (UH) Football Game - 11/21/09
Ever since moving to NorCal, I had never been to a SJSU football game. I decided I wanted to go for my birthday. Since they were playing UH, I thought it would be a great opportunity - as I have to support my Hawaii family and friends, right? We ended up meeting up with Meris, a co-worker of mine, and her friends. They tailgated before and after the game - and managed to save us some of her homemade kahlua pig! It was so good! Will and I had it for dinner the next day. Thanks again for sharing all of your great food with us! By the way, UH won in overtime - it was a great game for those of you who missed it!
Meris and I at the game - GO HAWAII!!!! :)
I'm sad this picture came out blurry - but it's Will and I at the game! Check out my shirt that Meris got me!
We sat on the UH side - check out how many fans we had! (The opposite side is SJSU fans.)Baking Arts Pies & Pie Dough Class - 11/22/09
I finally had the opportunity to take a baking class with some friends of mine. Cheyenne and Rosanne ended up meeting me in San Francisco to learn how to make a homemade pie! The instructor was great - he made it feel like it was a one-on-one class. We we're all able to work at a decent portion of the table and bake our own mini pies! We had so much fun together! I highly recommend this for a great girl's get together. I even played around with the creation of my own Apple-Cranberry pie for Thanksgiving. Check out my mini pie below:
I made it just for my husband... do you like my heart? :) (PS: For those of you who don't know, you always have to vent fresh fruit pies, otherwise they will explode in your oven!)Thanksgiving - 11/26/09
We celebrated the holiday at Will's aunt and uncle's house in San Jose. It was nice to have fresh carved turkey, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and fresh vegetables. We had a nice meal with all of our relatives. My Apple-Cranberry Pie was a huge hit, as it was almost all gone by the end of the night. Thanks again for hosting, Carol and David. It turned out great and the table decorations were wonderful! Gwen and I even managed to step out for 30 minutes to go to Michael's. They were open for just a few hours on Thanksgiving Day. I had to go to get my Cricut cartridges that were 60% off! Afterward, everyone looked at my ads and made fun of me for loving to shop on Black Friday. How could one resist the sales?
The "adult" table centerpieces - tangerines and asparagus!
Our "kid" table centerpieces. I loved the use of the limes and asparagus!Black Friday - 11/27/09
5:30am, and Will and I were out of our house. This was the latest I had ever gotten up in many years for a Black Friday. First stop was Best Buy, then Sear's, then Macy's, then Sports Chalet, then Target, then Lowes, then Home Depot, and finally Ace Hardware. We were finally back in the house at 9:30pm. Somewhere during that time we managed to get our Christmas tree from Home Depot and I managed to wrap all of the gifts, too! Surprisingly, we are all done with our Christmas shopping - no last minute gifts or mall runs for us! :) Our house is beginning to look a lot like Christmas... check it out below! This Sunday hopefully we can get our light hung - if it's not raining!
Our Christmas tree and all our gifts!.jpg)
A homemade wreath given to us by Meris! Thanks again for the beautiful wreath! You are so creative!Lastly, a big happy 26th birthday to my brother, Craig! We hope you love your new shoes! Can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks!
Yay! It was good to see you too Janyce! Let's definitely get together again sooner rather than later. :D
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