Sunday, January 29, 2012

Key Lime Cupcakes

I found this recipe for Key Lime cupcakes. They looked so yummy and seeing as how much I love lime, I just had to try them! They were jut as good as they looked.

CAKE
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter - room temperature
1 & 1/4 cup sugar
*cream these together for 4 minutes

2 eggs - add one at a time
2 & 1/2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon lime zest
1 drop green food coloring paste
*Add to butter sugar mixture. It will looked curdled.

1 & 3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
*Mix together in a separate bowl

3/4 buttermilk
*Add some flour mixture to the butter, sugar mixture. Then add some buttermilk, then some flour mixture, then buttermilk, repeat.

Bake on 350 for 20 to 25 minutes

ICING
1 stick butter at room temp.
8 ounces cream cheese at room temp.
2 & 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon lime zest

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Costa Rica

Last week Jeff and I were in Costa Rica for his company's big annual trip. It was so much fun!!! By far my most favorite thing about Costa Rica were all the monkeys. I have never seen a monkey outside of a zoo. There were monkey's, monkeys' everywhere! Everyday we would see at least one monkey. Maybe we would see 6 monkey's in a day. It was something that I never got bored of.


They were SO LOUD and they would wake us up every morning around 5:00am. They had a sound that was between a dog's bark and a gorilla's "ooooo, oooo, oooo" sound.

It was the cutest when you could see a mother monkey with a baby on her back. I saw that a couple of times and it was sooo cute! The monkey's would climb up in these Buttercup trees and eat the flower blossoms.




There were white face monkey's and black face monkey's. I took this picture of this monkey right off my rooms balcony.


And I took this picture right on the beach. There were six of them in the trees above us.


We stayed at the Four Seasons Resort in Papagayo. This resort was HUGE! Really, truly huge. Remember the TV show Fantasy Island? "Da plane, da plane!" Remember how they drove golf carts around? Well I felt like I was on Fantasy Island. Every time we went somewhere, to breakfast, the pool, the beach, or back to our room, we rode in a golf cart.




I loved our hotel room!

We had a super deep tub...... one that I never got in. Not even once. And we had a nice shower too. But if I didn't want to shower in my hotel room....

Then I could use my outdoor shower!

And have this view from my shower!


We had our own private little pool outside our door.

And this was the view from our private pool. Everyday we would all sit in it at sunset and tell stories and laugh.


The thing that I liked LEAST was by far the grasshoppers! They were humongous! They absolutely creeped us all out. Just look at how big this thing is next to the phone! Thankfully we only saw them OUTSIDE!

Another view of one with a pencil. Oooh! They were creepy!




On one of the days, we went to a local village and painted their school inside and out. It was mint green. Before that it had been pink and before that it had been white. The color they chose was a limey yellow. Hummm...

I had to take pictures of the desks and chairs so that the next time my kids said something like, "I hate school!" or "I don't want to go to school today. School sucks!" I will just pull out these pictures and remind them of just how good their school is and how fortunate they are!





Sam & Whitney, Alli & Mark and Jeff and I with some of the school kids.


Most days we spent our time on this beach.

Jeff, Mark & Ryan B. and his brother in law rented a catamaran one day and went deep sea fishing. They saw humpback whales, pilot whales and caught a rooster fish. I couldn't find where I had put my camera that morning so Jeff went without one. Sadly I don't have any pictures of it.


We rented jet skis a couple different days.




We would have lunch either pool side or on the beach. I know I know, this really is the life!


Loved, loved, loved my trip!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Chili Toast

This morning Caden got up for school and made himself some cinnamon toast for breakfast. He took one bite and said,"Eeeww! I don't think this is cinnamon..." I smelled his toast and sure enough, it was not cinnamon!



You can totally see why he got confused and put chili powder on instead!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Say hello to my new favorite lemon cookie!
I have three other lemon cookie recipes and this one is my new favorite. It has a light lemon taste and it bakes up so moist. If you like the taste of lemon, you've gotta try this recipe. It won the LDS Living cookie cook off contest.

2 sticks (1 cup) butter
2 cups sugar
*Cream these two ingredients together until light colored and fluffy.

2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
*Add to butter/sugar mixture and beat in well

3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
*Add to mixture until just combined

1 cup powdered sugar - in a separate bowl
*Roll dough into 2 inch balls, then roll the dough ball in the powdered sugar. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake on 350 degrees for about 9 - 11 minutes.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Merry Christmas 2011

Christmas this year seemed to come and go in a flash. It didn't even seem like Christmas this year to us because it has been sunny, nice temperatures and NO snow. Nevertheless, it was Christmas and Santa did deliver.

Miss Molly was hoping and hoping for red Tom shoes.
She was completely delighted to get them!
She was also hap hap happy to get a new American Girl doll.
And the Lalaloopsy Tree House she wanted.

Four years ago I bought some Hot Wheels cars for one of Jens' birthday party's. One of them looked like a shark car. Cade wanted that car sooo bad but I had only bought just enough cars for Jensy's friends. Cade has never forgotten that "shark" car and we have looked and looked and looked in every store every time we went shopping. We have never been able to find one. Finally Caden just decided to have Santa make one so he FINALLY got a shark car. He was so happy!!!

He saved one of his best presents for last, a Red Rider BB Gun. He is so happy and feels like a big kid with his new gun.

Like Molly, Sidney also wanted red Tom's so desperately. But sadly Santa couldn't find red ones in her size anywhere. So she ended up with turquoise ones instead. She liked them just as much.
She got her own Ed Hardy perfume.
(Now hopefully she will leave MY Ed Hardy perfume alone)
Toward the end of the kids opening their presents everyone heard some weird ringing sound coming from Sidney's stocking.........
It was a new cell phone!
She was so happy that she started to cry.
Which made me cry too.

Jens got the XBox that he wanted.

And the Skull Candy Skull Crusher headphones that he wanted.

After everyone had finished opening their presents I had them all sit down while Jeff went upstairs for one last present.
This cute little cocker spaniel came to live with my two boys who have asked for a puppy for several years. I am NOT a dog lover, but I finally gave in and let them have one. They were so happy to finally get a dog!!!! Jens gets up in the night with him to let him out to potty and the boys take care of all the feedings and walking. Even though they are the ones taking care of him I am still not completely on board with the whole dog thing. Hopefully I will warm up to the idea soon!