Wednesday, March 26, 2014

love texts: cookies

dear stuart,

i accidentally squirted lemon juice (for my hot lemon water) on your chocolate chip cookies.

sincerest apologies for ruining your afternoon snack/you're welcome for saving you 100 calories PER COOKIE (they're not even tate's*!)
lee

*have you ever had tate's cookies? they are amazing.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

love texts: dr. energy

dear stuart,

pretty sure dr. energy* just saw my nipple

love + slight embarrassment
lee


*dr.energy came to give us an estimate on insulating our attic + basement. we're still not sure if the 20% limited time discount is related to the accidental nursing nipple exposure.

Monday, March 24, 2014

love texts: sick

dear stuart,

thanks for getting me a glass of water and rubbing my back while i threw up last night. all 3 times.

love + dehydration,
lee

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

parenthood: coke (argentina) nails it!

this commercial came out a few months ago and INSTANTLY fell in love with it.  it is the most beautiful, hilarious and accurate depiction of parenthood jam-packed into one minute.


i cry every time. yup, every.single.time.

simple zucchini bread



i've never tried baking with zucchini before. i love making carrot cake, banana or pumpkin breads and have tried strawberry bread, but never zucchinis, so i was pretty excited to test it out for the first time.

these came out super delicious, light and just enough sweet (in fact, next time i might try with a little less sugar and using applesauce instead of some of the oil)

i loosely based my recipe on a combination of our family banana bread recipe, smittenkitchen zucchini bread and thekitchn zucchini bread recipes (both sites are pretty terrific resources for new, delicious and beautiful recipes)


zucchini bread
makes 24 muffins (or in our case, 12 muffins and a small heart cake pan)

ingredients

2 1/2 cups shredded zucchini 
3 c.  flour
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. salt
1 c. sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
1 c. olive oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. raisins, walnuts, chocolate chips, or mix (optional. i didn't use any additions as i wanted to test how the recipe came out as is, but after devouring 2 muffins in 10 minutes, i've decided walnuts would really make this bread perfect)

*preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease pans

*grate the zucchini (i don't recommend draining any of the excess water from the zucchini. i did originally and ended up needing to add a little extra water to my batter, which I'm sure i wouldn't have ended up needing if i just used the natural moisture from the zucchini)

*mix all dry ingredients in large mixing bowl; flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices + salt

* whisk all the wet ingredients; eggs, sugars, oil and vanilla in a separate bowl

*add the zucchini to the wet mixture

*stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until well combined
my batter looked the slightest bit dry, so don't hesitate to add a little extra oil, applesauce or water

*add any nuts or raisins and incorporate into mixture

*pour mixture into pans or muffin tins

*bake 35-40 minutes. a loaf or cake pan may take longer. and even though my testing knife came out clean after 25 minutes, the "tester" muffin looked a little too wet + dense in the middle. the extra 10 minutes made all the difference as they came out fluffy and perfect. our small cake pan stayed in for about 50 minutes. i really just waited till the top started to get a beautiful golden brown color.


 

note: sorry for the lame pictures. but in all honesty, the grated zucchini just looks more mushy than firm and beautiful and the batter just looks weird, so the end results are much more satisfying to post.



valentine paper hearts craft that made my heart melt






i know, i know, i'm about a month late posting a gorgeous, fun, easy and oh so fabulous valentine craft. better late than never though, right?

february is the time of year my cabin fever peaks and my craft ideas are dwindling, but i was determined to find something sweet and easy enough for a eager three year old crafter to be entertained. these paper hearts were the perfect valentine's day craft


you'll need:

- at least 10 sheets of paper
- scissors (or "snizzors" as we call them :)
- needle + thread
- tape

as i'm writing 'what you'll need' i'm realizing you could do a zillion variations of this. we used old maps, paper bags, scrap paper, envelopes and origami paper to make our hearts, but you could all different shades of colors, or do ombre (i might totally try that next!), or book paper sheets, etc. your possibilities are endless!

we used my favorite metallic thread to string them together, although you don't notice the shimmer as much as i was hoping, but you could use clear fishing wire to have them look like the hearts are floating in the air or a colored thread depending on the look you're going for.

and you could also mix it up by using fun washi tape instead of clear scotch tape.

step 1: cut out all of your hearts. we did a bunch of different sizes, but i think it could look really beautiful to have them the same size too.





step 2: i laid all of our hearts in rows as i wanted them to be strung up.






step 3: i single threaded my needle, but put a knot at the end of the string so your hearts don't fall off. i purposefully left a little string on the end of mine too because I'm never sure what i might morph them into in the future. i also had grand ideas of making little tails for each strand, but clearly ran out of time/effort. string your ideal rows of hearts and space them however you want. some of the hearts looked cute almost on top of one another.

step 4: be sure not to get them tangled.



step 5: have your oh-so-fabulous husband help tape them to the very high ceiling in the exact spot where you want them to cascade down and try not to be so picky down to the centimeter where you want them to be

step 6: keep them up for weeks to admire + enjoy your craftiness. we loved our valentine craft so much we kept the hearts up weeks later for cai's christening and they are still up. i'm not completely sure i ever want to take them down.