Twelve dates of Christmas: On our eighth and ninth dates of Christmas...

On our eighth date of Christmas we baked cut-out cookies with Emily. I grew up baking these cookies with my mom every holiday season and I am so happy I get to continue the tradition with my little New York City family. Emily did an awesome job rolling out the dough and we were able to decorate several dozen cookies! I can't wait to eat my mom's batch of cookies when I fly home to Minnesota in a few days; I am already having withdrawals from our batch last week! 

On our ninth date of Christmas we ate dinner from Hinomaru Ko Ramen, one of our favorite new neighborhood spots. Their Cha shu Don is so delicious! After dinner we watched Christmas Vacation. I kept my own little tradition going strong of falling asleep halfway through the movie. I have such a difficult time staying awake these days! We hope to watch it again before Christmas and I swear this time I will not miss the ending! Christmas Vacation and Scrooged are our two favorite date night Christmas movies, although I have many more that I love and try to watch during the holidays. What are your favorites?

Twelve dates of Christmas: On our twelfth date of Christmas...

...we had a holiday-filled day with Emily. 

We baked and frosted cookies, watched Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, decorated our tree at Brian's apartment, and concluded the evening with the movie Santa Claus. 

Trooper the Elf heard we were baking cookies, so he lined up all of our supplies the night before! He is a sneaky little elf! 

Our 12 dates of Christmas were a blast this year. I hope you enjoyed following along! You can see all 24 of our Christmas dates from the past two years here. I am looking forward to continuing this tradition next year, and for many years to come! 

Merry Christmas! 

Twelve dates of Christmas: On our eighth date of Christmas...

...we baked milk chocolate chip gingersnap cookies and watched Christmas Vacation (again). I may have fallen asleep about thirty minutes in the first time we watched it last week... 

Sometimes there's nothing better than a comfy, cozy night in with the one you love. 

Twelve dates of Christmas: On our sixth date of Christmas...

... we ordered in, watched The Sopranos, and baked and frosted ginger cookies. It was so relaxing and perfect. I am grateful to be with a man who will happily cut out cookies with me, not because he especially likes to, but because he knows how happy it makes me. I am a lucky girl.

Mint Chip Cookies

After months of traveling and busy weekends, I have seriously missed baking. Baking has always been a way for me to relax. I take comfort in the precision of baking; the recipes to follow and the exactness of the directions and measurements. I think that is why I dislike cooking so much. I just don't have the natural ability to throw ingredients together and make something edible. There is too much freedom in cooking and I happily take the backseat as Brian prepares our meals when we are together.

I have several go-to baking recipes that I crave and make frequently: snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin bread, and banana muffins to name a few. But, Pinterest has opened my eyes to the hundreds to recipes I need to try. So, this week, one night after a long day at work, I tried my first pinned recipe: mint chip cookies. You can find the recipe here.

I love that the recipe called for Andes mints. My great grandmother filled her candy dishes with these every time my family went to visit with her, and they will forever remind me of her grace, properness, and sophisticated style. She was always such a put-together woman. Are they really a fancy candy? Probably not. But they always will be in my mind.

I am not sure if they sell Andes baking chips in grocery stores, but I know my store in Astoria did not carry them. Either way, I think the chopped up bars are the way to go. I love how the little stripes of mint popped out in the baked cookies.

In the recipe I followed, the woman's cookies looked much thinner and crispier. Mine were a little more soft in the middle and did not bake as thinly, but still tasted delicious. My first pinned recipe was a success! I am looking forward to trying many more recipes over the summer and finally filling my recipes tab with links to my favorite treats! 

Be My Valentine

In honor of Valentine's Day, one of my favorite holidays, I invited Brian and Emily over today to make frosted heart cookies. I called my mom this morning for a last minute recipe question, and she happened to be doing the exact same thing in Minnesota. I guess great minds think alike. I prepped the dough and frosting before Brian and Emily arrived around noon.

We wanted to get the cookies in the oven before lunch so they could cool and be ready to decorate before Brian and Emily had to leave around 3. So we tied on our aprons and got down to business.

I told Emily about my family's sugar cookie recipe, and how my mom got it from my grandma and then passed it on to me. We worked together to roll out batch after batch of dough and carefully cut out cute little hearts.

While the cookies cooled, we watched The Little Mermaid as we ate Brian's homemade chicken fingers and baked fries (yum). True to form, Emily laced up my old point shoes and danced around the room as the movie played.

Finally, the cookies were cool and ready to be iced and sprinkled. We had fun picking out our icing and sprinkles and writing little love notes on our sweet treats. Brian even got in on the action, and as always, made my heart melt.

Emily made both of us cookies: I love Dad and I love Daina. So cute.

After they were frosted to perfection, the only thing left to do was to enjoy them! And they were delicious.

It was a perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon on Valentine's weekend. I can't wait to spend tomorrow night staying in and relaxing with my love. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

I can almost taste the turkey...

The final Thanksgiving countdown is here, and we are hours away from the parade, cooking, board games, and some serious eating. And, more important than any of that, being incredibly grateful for all that we have. I am eagerly awaiting the holiday tomorrow.

This afternoon, I got to work in the kitchen baking the desserts for tomorrow's meal. The pumpkin pie looks delicious and the pecan pie looks a little burnt (fingers crossed the inside tastes alright), but that's okay. I have some back-up chocolate chip cookies just in case. I have to admit, I opted for the pre-made pie crusts this year. I feel like I am seriously cheating by not mixing flour, Crisco, and ice cold water like my Grandma Carter taught me when I was a little girl. But, let's face it, I don't even have enough counter space in my kitchen to roll out dough without having to move every appliance I own. Maybe next year I will be able to make a true, 100% homemade pie. In the meantime, homemade fillings will have to do. There is still a lot of love in those pies, even if a little bit of that love is from Pillsbury.

While I baked, sang to my favorite songs, I danced by myself in my apartment with my Ipod blasting, my little hunter sat at the window chattering away at pigeons. She is such a good little companion to have around the apartment. I am thankful for Boo.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve everyone! Best of luck in the kitchen; don't leave your pies in the oven too long! (said the girl with the burnt pecan pie...)

Thankful Thursday

So, I am loving this whole blog thing. I feel like I am part of a new world of writers and photographers, and I am constantly being inspired by the posts I read and see. I truly enjoy trying to capture my life in new ways and sharing it with others. But, sometimes I find myself at a loss during the week. On the weekends, I am able to wander and explore the city, see friends, reflect on my week, and think about the week ahead. And I usually have an abundance of words and photos to show for it. But during the week, when I get home from work I barely having time to go to the gym for a quick cardio workout, let alone sit down and thoughtfully craft a new post. But I still want to be able to. So, I decided to create a way to post, reflect, and still sneak in that cardio. Every Thursday, I want to think about three things that I am thankful for. Some might be small and even silly at times, and some might be monumentally important. But I think both are important to remind myself of. Hopefully reminding myself of how fortunate I am during my hectic and exhausting work weeks will keep me a little more sane. So here it goes, three things that I am thankful for this Thursday.

1. Sugar. For the past few days, I have had a serious craving for Twinkies. Last night while I was asleep on the couch, Brian headed out to the deli to pick one up for me. Apparently, every deli near my apartment stopped carrying Hostess products and replaced them with the slightly less delicious Drake's cakes. Boo. So, he went to the Brazilian grocery store instead and picked up a few of our favorite desserts. I woke up to my favorite pastry- a pie crust cup filled with custard, similar in taste to creme brulee. Yum.

Then today, I made my second batch of pumpkin cupcakes in one week. Lindsey and I had a couple while we chatted at my apartment this afternoon, and I brought the rest over to Brian's apartment for him and Nestor to enjoy while watching the fight during their guys' night. I am convinced that anything would taste good with a thick layer of cream cheese icing on it. But a pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese icing is pure perfection. (Oh, and when I said I brought the rest over to Brian's house, what I really meant was that I kept two for myself in my cup-a-cake containers)

2. Splendor being tugged to shore. Today, my dad, along with the rest of the Splendor crew and 4,500 passengers, returned to San Diego after being stranded at sea for the past few days. It was very strange to hear about an accident on a cruise ship on the news, and then find out that of all the cruise ships out there it turned out to be the ship my dad works on. My dad has worked for Carnival for many years, and nothing like this has happened before. He said that it was a very strange few days with no power and limited bathrooms, but that everyone was in good spirits and tried to make the best of it. My dad and the other musicians threw together some performances for the guests, and he said that people would sit at the pianos and entertain throughout the day. I am thankful that no one was hurt, and that my dad is safe and sound on land!

3. Veterans. Thank you to all who have served and who are serving our country. Your courage and dedication should be recognized each and every day, especially on this Veteran's Day. Thank you!

What are three things that you are thankful for today?

Refueling

This past week was tough. On Monday, after a long day with my kids I decided to stay until 8 pm to work on my reports and get my lessons ready for Wednesday. This would have been fine, except my one hour commute turned into a two hour commute due to a broken track on the Q line. After riding four different trains without making back to my neighborhood, I opted for a cab. This should have been the light at the end of the tunnel, but with traffic and a wrong turn it ended up being a kind of expensive light that put me right over the edge. That's right folks, I cried in a cab due to commuter frustration. Thankfully, I had a Gossip Girl episode taped and ready to watch when I walked in the door (yes, I watch Gossip Girl weekly and I love it...). It also was quite a relief to have Tuesday off to work from home, which meant sleeping in later than my usual 5 am alarm. My late nights continued on Wednesday and Thursday, and by Friday afternoon I had put in a four day, 54 hour work week. Needless to say, I was in dyer need of pajamas, sleep, and lounging around my apartment today.

I woke up fairly early with plans to go to the gym, get ready, and treat myself to a day of walking around the city and shopping. But as the hours passed and the pajamas stayed on, my plans changed to watching a week's worth of Chelsea Lately and taking a three hour nap on the couch. When I woke up from my nap, I instantly felt guilty about wasting the day. But as I slowly started moving and getting ready for my much anticipated return to the gym after a week off, I realized that sometimes it is okay to waste a day. Necessary even. I needed today to relax and breathe, and my body needed sleep. Rather than feeling sad or guilty about my Saturday afternoon being consumed with napping, I reminded myself of the wonderful things that can happen when you have a day with no real plans or obligations. Here are a few things I love about lazy Saturdays around my apartment...

Purposefully leaving my bed unmade, with the hopes of crawling back into it mid-morning after my first round of coffee and peanut butter toast.

My apartment smelling of  homemade cookies, without even having to preheat an oven.

My empty, but super clean, fridge pre-restock. 

Cleaning out my fridge Monica Geller style- throwing out spoiled leftovers and expired condiments, vacuuming the shelves, and spraying every surface with cleaner. And then realizing that aside water, milk, and yogurt, the only real contents of my refrigerator were beer, cider, and pecans. This might not be quite as serious of a problem if I drank beer or ate pecans, but I do not do either. So, I made a hefty grocery list and restocked. And it felt good.

Trying out another recipe from my Hummingbird Bakery cookbook- pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese icing. And then watching Brian eat four of them in one sitting (the picture on the bottom right is of his second and third). There is nothing more gratifying than baking up a treat that someone else enjoys and finds comforting. I heart baking.

I am thankful that I had a day to refuel, excited to set all of my clocks back an hour, and ready to have a more eventful Sunday. Cheers to weekends.