Amara's 2nd Bday!

This girl loves loves the Disney Princesses! Can you tell? Asa put up with all the pink for a HUGE piece of cake!

Snorkeling Maui

We rented snorkel gear and an underwater camera and went a few times! This turtle was HUGE - honestly as long as Naphtali!

Hawaiian State fish Humuhumublahblahblah...?

(It's really hard/impossible to enter the water gracefully with flippers on and a pregnant stomach!)

Amara's Bday!

Mike put these together on the spot with his iphone.

Mama's Fish House

If you ever go to Maui you must go to Mama's Fish House!!  We've had loads of people tell us this and we see why!!  The wall of fame features people from Frank Sinatra to current Food Network Stars and celebrities.  It was quite a drive from our hotel so we went on our last night before our red eye flight.

Mike has pictures of all our food on his iphone - so I can post those later.  But we all (with the exception of Seth) got fish caught fresh that day somewhere around the islands.  And the menu even listed what fisherman caught the fish and the exact location (mine was caught off the coast of Molokai...!)  Delish!!

Here we all are!

Good Morning Maui!

After flying in the night before we woke up to gorgeous blue skies and 80 degree weather! Ahhh....

Giveaway!!

Head on over to my design blog and enter the giveaway!!  The more the merrier!

Bunco Cookies

Our neighborhood has a bunco group and it was our turn to host. I thought it'd be appropriate to have "dice" cookies so I took the recipe below for linzer cookies and used a square cookie cutter to make dice. I used my thermometer cover to cut out the holes. Simple dice - and very tasty! Here's the link to the original recipe. My changes are in italics below.

Ingredients

• 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup plus 3 Tbsp. confectioners' sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup raspberry jam
• 2 teaspoons some berry liqueur - I added this

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325°F; line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla, then flour and salt. Shape dough into 2 disks; wrap 1 in plastic and refrigerate.

On a floured surface, roll out remaining disk to about a 1/8-inch thickness. Cut out cookies with a 2 1/2-inch heart-shaped cutter. Use a smaller heart cutter to cut a window out of half of cookies. With a spatula, carefully transfer cookies to prepared baking sheets. Repeat with remaining dough. Gather scraps and roll out again to make more cookies.

Bake cookies in batches until edges of cookies are just golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes, then transfer cookies onto wire racks to let cool completely.

Stir liqueur into the jam.

Spread 3/4 tsp. jam over flat side of each cookie that doesn't have a window. Top with remaining cookies, flat side down, so that jam shows through windows. Carefully sift 3 Tbsp. confectioners' sugar over cookies. (I skipped the pwd sugar since it covered up the holes.)

Think Pink!

IT'S A GIRL!

We found out today that Asa's going to have a little sister! Everything is right on track (we're about 22 weeks), she's healthy and due May 16th (give or take).

Recipe Review: Chicken Chimichangas

I don't have any pictures but I tried out this recipe (along with a bunch of other new ones) for our neighborhood bunco group last night.  This was easy and delicious- definitely plan on making it again!  I made changes to the original which I put in italics.
(from Southern Living, original here)

Ingredients

• 1  (16-ounce) jar picante sauce or salsa, divided  (I added more than this till it looked moist but not too saucy)
• 7  cups  chopped cooked chicken  (I briefly marinated the chicken breasts in olive oil, garlic, and pepper before adding salt and baking at 350 for 35min)
• 1  small onion, diced
• 2  to 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin (cut this down to 1 teaspoon and that was plenty)
• 1 1/2  teaspoons  dried oregano
• 1  teaspoon  salt (cut this down to just a pinch - with the well-seasoned chicken, the salsa, and cheese it was plenty salty)
• 20  (8-inch) flour tortillas
• 3  cups  (12 ounces) shredded Cheddar cheese  (I used pepper-jack for extra kick)
• Toppings: guacamole, sour cream, shredded lettuce, diced tomato

Preparation

Combine 1 1/2 cups picante sauce and next 5 ingredients in a Dutch oven; cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, 25 minutes or until most of liquid evaporates. I stirred in the cheese at this point - adding a little extra.  Spoon 1/3 cup mixture below center of each tortilla.

Fold in 2 sides of tortillas to enclose filling. Fold over top and bottom edges of tortillas, making rectangles. Secure with wooden picks. Place, folded side down, on greased baking sheets. Brush with olive oil.

Bake at 425° for 8 minutes; turn and bake 5 more minutes. I sprinkled a little cheese on the tops for looks and put them in for a second to melt it.  Remove picks; top with remaining picante sauce and desired toppings.

Southern Living, APRIL 1998

Christmas with the Churches/Owens

Christmas with the Garfields