Avery's 2nd Birthday Party

I'm a bit late in posting this, but better late than never, I guess. We had Avery's 2nd Birthday party last Sunday, and I just wanted to post a few pictures from the day.

I made giant cupcake as her main cake, with a doctored up Devils Food cake mix recipe called "Too Much Chocolate Cake." It was good, but very very rich.

Then I made those yellow cupcakes that I posted about a few weeks back.

Here's a picture of Avery opening her presents. This was the first gift she opened, and we quickly learned that we should have saved it for last. It was a Fur Real Pup, that she just absolutely adored. She unfortunately didn't have much interest in the rest of her presents after that. But she got a lot of great stuff and has been playing with ALL of it since :)



A picture of her blowing out the candles. Next year I'll be sure to put her on a chair on her own while we sing to her and have her blow out the candles so I can get some better pictures :)



And finally, a pic of her swinging with her friend Grace.


We had a great day, and got lucky with some great weather. Thanks to all of our family who drove a few hours to come to the party. We really appreciate it!!!

I Made the Marinated Flank Steak

And it was good! I thought I had soy sauce in my cabinet, but it turns out...not so much. I did have three packets of soy sauce from our last Chinese takeout night though, so I used those. But that left me more than 1/4 cup short. So, I substituted with Worchestershire sauce. Is that an adequate substitution? I don't know, but it was in my cabinet, and it's the same color, and I know it's often paired with soy sauce in other recipes. So I went for it. And it actually turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself :)

I grilled the steak, for about four minutes or so on each side. It turned out a little more pink inside than Abe and I prefer, so next time I make it I'll be sure to cook it for just a bit longer. Oh, and I did boil the marinade in a pot while the steak was cooking on the grill, as Ree suggested doing, and I really think this is a must. Really, really good.

Avery likes to dip her food, any kind of food really, so this was a hit with her. She would dip, and then say "Mmmmm."

Pioneer Woman Recipes

Lately I've been getting a little more into cooking. It's not always something I want to do (OK, sometimes I just flat out DREAD it), but if I'm gonna do it, I like to do it from scratch. I can't remember who first pointed me to the Pioneer Woman blog , but they mentioned it as a great site for photography tips. This is true, but what I've found that I really love about her site is the Cooking section.

My favorite part about the recipes that Ree Drummond (the Pioneer Woman) puts on her blog, is that she lays out the whole thing step by step, with pictures! I LOVE that. I like to see what each step is supposed to look like so I know if I'm doing things right. Her pictures are beautiful too, which makes you want to eat the stuff even more (don't you hate cookbooks that don't have pictures? What's the point?). She also uses really good ingredients, like heavy cream and butter...right up my alley.

So I've been on quite the kick lately making a bunch of her dishes. I may just try to make it through all of her recipes. Like that movie "Julie and Julia"...instead it's "Jamie and Ree." Hmmm...doesn't have the same ring to it, huh?

This is her Ranch Style Chicken recipe, along with Fresh Green Beans, One Way . The green beans have the best flavor of any green bean side dish I've ever had, and the chicken is really juicy and I really like the marinade on this one (I left out the bacon this time because I forgot to buy it at the grocery store...oops). Also, this picture was taken before I got the great tip on her website to never use the flash when photographing food. I've found that this is so true...a flash really makes the food look unnatural, or something.

This is her Fettuccine Alfredo recipe. TO DIE FOR!!!! This was so good, I couldn't stop eating it. Very simple recipe too, the way fettuccine alfredo is supposed to be. Not good for the waistline though...probably shouldn't make this one too often.


These Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Icing are what I'm making for Avery's birthday party this weekend. I had to practice before the big day to make sure they were up to par, of course :) Let me tell you, I'm not really a fan of icing...I usually take it off and just eat the cake...but this icing is GOOOOD.

Last night I was feeling like a casserole for dinner, so I decided to make this one , and it did not dissapoint. It was creamy and had just a touch of spiciness. I think next time I might add a few more veggies...maybe some peas or some carrots. I used one of those whole roasted chickens you can get at the grocery store, which made it really easy to put this together. I think this recipe's a keeper!

The next one I'm going to try is Marinated Flank Steak - got the steak in the fridge right now ready for me to stick it in the marinade. I'll let you know how it turns out. In the meantime, I beg you to take a look at her site and try out a few recipes for yourself (and then tell me which one you made and if I should put it next on my list!).

Project 365

When I started this blog I thought it would be a great place to share all of my photos from the Project 365 that I'm doing (which is basically taking a picture every day for a year and journaling about each photo in an album). I also thought, when I started this blog, that I would post to it more than just once a month, but who needs that kind of pressure? Stop pressuring me!

Well, I don't think I've shared any pictures from the project, although I am still taking the pictures (almost every day, but not quite). I thought I'd share my week of photos from last week. As you can imagine, most of the album has become pictures of Avery, and has captured her in her worst of "bad hair days", but....well, that's life I guess :)

And so we begin...


July 6 : This is Avery sitting at Abe's desk watching a Sesame Street video on his computer, while scribbling on a piece of paper. I think she looks like a little executive...so serious.


July 7 : We went out for some ice cream at Jenny's in Dublin. Found a little picnic table a couple doors down and ate while Avery ran around.

July 8 : Avery loves to "help" clean. Here she's helping Abe sweep up some food he spilled on our patio. She's starting to smile for the camera again, which is nice. I got a whole bunch of photos on this day because she was really hamming it up. For a while there she wouldn't even look at the camera when I brought it out.

July 9 : One of those "bad hair days" I was talking about. This was in the morning right when she woke up, so cut me some slack all right? I think we were making pancakes that morning.

July 10 : I'm really loving the town that we moved to. There's so much to do for families, and it's all right around the corner. I no longer have to drive 20-30 minutes to go someplace fun! This was a "Lolli-Pops Concert" that the city of Powell was putting on. It's less than 5 minutes from my house, which is just so nice. We went in the morning with Holly and the kids. Avery danced a little bit, but we quickly got very hot and moved over to the splash pad, which is also in this park, to try to cool down.

July 11 : My tutorial for making paper flowers went up on the Jillibean Soup blog today!

July 12 : We're researching playsets right now...where to buy one and which one to buy. We went to the local Rainbow store which has a bunch of them set up inside along with trampolines, basketball nets, and other toys. I hope when we get one she plays on it all the time, because WOW those things are not cheap!

Father's Day

Today we spent the afternoon at the Gahanna Creekside Jazz and Blues Festival.

The festival is mostly about eating, and of course listening to jazz music. I had to have my usual festival treat, which is the Schmidt's cream puff (forgot to take a picture of this). It was great, as always.

We spent some time lounging around the fountain area.

And dipping our feet in the water.

Avery saw some other kids start wading in the water and of course tried her best to join them. A security officer quickly came down to get everyone out of the water though and ruined the fun :)

So we found another fountain that Avery could get wet in (it was HOT outside), and she had a good ol' time there and proceeded to get her entire outfit soaking wet. Oh well! A little water never hurt anyone.

We spent the rest of the day like this:

Looking at the back of Avery as we chased her around the festival. Our little track star. That girl loves to run!

Here's the only picture I got of Abe and Avery for father's day. She's not one for posing these days, so it's as good as we could manage :)

Bean Talk

I am so happy to have been picked as a guest designer for Jillibean Soup products. Today is my day on the blog...pretty cool to see my picture and my work up there with so many designers whose work I admire (I only wish I could pull off some of the stuff they come up with!).

The Jillibean Soup blog is called Bean Talk . If you haven't checked out the site before, there's lots of inspiring projects on there and more than a few giveaways/challenges (in fact, they're running a Sprout contest now and the winner gets $100! Deadline is June 15th).

Back from Paradise!

Literally :) We went to Paradise Island, in the Bahamas. We were there for a week, and it was such a great vacation (minus the plane ride with Avery, which was an unbelievable nightmare). We had great weather (although very very hot, but it only rained once, overnight, which helped to make things less muggy). Joining us was my sister, brother-in-law, and their son. We had a three bedroom lock-off condo at the Harborside Resort at Atlantis. The living arrangements were absolutely perfect, and allowed Avery to sleep just as well as if she were at home. We were able to go to the grocery store and get lots of food since the condo had a full kitchen, so we saved a whole lot of money on food by doing that.

Here are some photos from the trip:

This is a picture of Harborside, which is set right next to the marina, with some amazing yachts.

Atlantis has a huge aquarium on site:

Seven years ago Abe and I went to the Bahamas and stayed at the Radisson (which is no longer a Radisson). We visited Atlantis for dinner one night, and that was the night Abe proposed! We found the exact spot that he proposed when we went back, and of course had to take a picture :0)

This is one of the kid's pools at Atlantis. It has this huge bucket at the top that fills up with water and pours out every ten minutes or so. It's pretty crazy. There are lots of water slides for the kids too (not Avery's size, but my nephew Ben LOVED the blue slide...said it was his favorite part of vacation):

Avery and Ben playing in the sand at the Lagoon Beach:

And here's a picture that depicts what much of the vacation was all about...Avery running and us chasing after her :)

I have about 300 more pictures from the vacation but I think this is a good enough representation :)