Easter Day

For some reason this year's Easter celebration was especially fun: it was filled with good food, family and a lot of love. Oh, and desserts. Lots of desserts.   I think a lot of the reason this year was so special was because of Gia. She's at such a fun age. Everything is new and fun and wonderful to her. She loves and cherishes each experience and it's just so amazing to watch and be a part of.  Her happiness & enthusiasm are contagious and you can't help but smile with you're with her. Jon had to work on Easter from 8-4 so the Easter Bunny came to our house on Saturday. Gia was so excited to see her basket(s) filled with fun little toys and gifts.

She had a ball looking at every single item and then asking to eat it or play with it immediately.  

    We spent the rest of Saturday relaxing and baking a delicious carrot cake from scratch.     

On Easter, Gia and I had a leisurely morning. She played with more of her Easter toys and helped me put the finishing touches on the carrot cake. (Notice the not-quite-evenly placed carrots? That was courtesy of my 2 year old helper.) She really enjoyed carrying the basket around with her. And, although we didn't get her much candy at all, she asked me to eat some of it every two minutes. In the afternoon, we got dressed up and headed to Yadi & Joepa's house (my mom & stepdad).

 

At Yadi's house there were more Easter baskets & presents.

So many presents! She's squeezing a light up chick here, hence the odd face.

Gia & her Great Grandma

Kim, Gia and Mummum reading the book from Kim.

And of course it wouldn't be Easter without dancing... 

 

 ...and the singing of Happy Easter to You, sung only so Gia could blow out some candles. 

So, as Gia would say, "Happy Easter Day, everybody!"

Christmas Recap

Christmas 2012 was so very special for our family! Gia is at a really fun age this year and the magic of Christmas was alive and well in our house. Although she was a little scared of Santa, she was certainly excited to hear that when she was asleep Santa would come and leave her presents.    On Christmas Eve we went to my in-laws for a traditional Italian fish dinner. Gia had so much fun playing with her cousins and opening a ton of presents!

Cheese faces

She said "wooooow!" with each present. Here's the wow face!

  We came home and put on our pjs. (Dee-jamas as Gia says.) Then we put out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.  

  As soon as Gia went to bed it started to snow. It was a beautiful night and Jon and I sat by the fire and opened our gifts. I got an iPad from Jon and a photoline from Gia so that I can display her artwork in an attractive way. I gave Jon 3 pairs of his favorite sweatpants and a Brita water pitcher. (He's hard to buy for, ok?) Gia got him new slippers. (His old ones went in the garbage during our potty training days. Enough said.)   On Christmas morning, Gia woke up at 7, which is late for her (thank you sweet baby for letting us sleep a little bit). She was very excited to go downstairs to see if Santa came.

She was shocked when she saw all this:  

She was SO excited about the kitchen.

She played with the kitchen for a while before she opened the rest of her presents.  

  Before Christmas, I asked Gia several times what she wanted Santa to bring her. Every single time she'd tell me she wanted a donkey. Yes, a donkey. Some days it was a real donkey and other days it was a purple donkey. I searched high and low for a purple donkey and found a gorgeous one on Etsy for $65. The order time was 5 weeks, so that was out. Instead I got her a small stuffed donkey and a book called The Wonkey Donkey.    When she opened the donkey on Christmas morning she thought it was a baby horsey. I just about died laughing. After all that talk about a donkey she didn't even realize she got one. Once she realized what he was, she was thrilled and hugged him immediately.   

After a Christmas nap with Elfie...

...my family came over. We ate, and opened more presents & Gia wore her Christmas dress.

It was just a perfect two days. I can't wait to do it all again next year! Merry Christmas from my family to you and yours!

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies from a Cake Mix

I absolutely love all the baking that goes on around the holidays. Remember these and these?   Well, on Christmas Eve I was in charge of bringing a dessert to my in-law's house. I thought I'd make Pignoli Cookies like a good Italian daughter-in-law. But, one batch of Pignoli batter only makes about 2 dozen cookies, so I wanted to make something else.   I've always wanted to make whoopie pies. They're touted as being like cupcakes (which I happen to LOVE even more than cookies) but there's a better icing-to-cake ratio. YUM!    If you know me and my baking by now, you know I love to check out a dozen different recipes for the same thing and then take bits and pieces of each one to create the perfect recipe. The whoopie pies were no different. I wanted to make red velvet ones because they're red and I thought it would be cute for Christmas, and I wanted to start with a cake mix to make the whole thing a bit easier. I knew I'd do a homemade frosting though, to give it that "real" feel.   So, here's my awesome Red Velvet Whoopie Pies from a Cake Mix  

1 cake mix
3 eggs
1/2 cup of water
1/2 cup of vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a mixer, combine cake mix, eggs, water and oil.  Beat together for approx. 2 minutes.

On a parchment paper lined baking sheet, scoop out batter into round mounds.  I used a teaspoon and heaped my scoops.  Use the back of a spoon to round out scoops of batter into perfect circles.

Bake for 7 minutes.  Cool completely.

Icing 1 stick of butter, softened 8 oz of cream cheese, softened 2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract  

 For the icing, in your KitchenAid mixer with the paddle attachment, whip together butter and sugar (start with 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, then add more if necessary for thickness).  Whip for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy.  Scoop into a ziptop bag with the corner cut off to a 1/2 inch opening.

To fill, pipe icing onto the bottom cookie (wrong side up), then top with another cookie (right side up). Be generous with the frosting! It makes all the difference.

Thanksgiving Craft

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I'm so excited! It's our first holiday in our new house and we're hosting. I can't wait to make the mother of all meals in my brand new kitchen. (I know, I know, I still haven't posted the pictures of the remodel. I'll get there...I promise. First let me just feed 15 adult members of my family and 4 children.)

After a day of cleaning and prepping the house, I pulled out the art supplies and Gia and I did a quick Thanksgiving craft. I was reminded of this no-so-original, yet adorably cute idea on Pinterest and thought Gia is at the perfect age to do it.

We made hand print Turkeys to use as place cards tomorrow.

I was a little worried that it might not work out so well because Gia typically hates to get her hands dirty (kinda like her mommy). So, I told her what we were doing a few days ago and she warmed up to the idea. We got through ten hand prints before she said "Wipe my hand off Mommy!"  She took a little break to paint by herself (using her paintbrush) and then we cajoled her into finishing up the last 5 place cards.

So here's the step by step:

1. First I cut pieces of construction paper in half and then folded the halves in half. I stacked all the little cards so they were ready to go once Gia's hand was painted.

2. I painted her entire hand brown.

 3. I gently pushed her hand down onto the cards and then peeled the paper off her hand very carefully.

 4. While she was taking a break from the strenuous hand printing, I painted black eyes, yellow beaks, red wobbly necks and little legs onto the thumb print part of the turkey.

5. Lastly, after everything was dry, I wrote names on each place card. Some of the hand prints are a bit crooked, so I had to get creative to fit the names on the cards. But, ya know what? It adds character.

The finished product!

Gia and I were really happy with how they came out. I think my family is going LOVE them too!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!