artisan bread in my new dutch oven!

isn't it a beaut?!

the mister gave me this sweet enamel covered dutch oven for my birthday.  he knows what I love.

now I can make this recipe as much as I want with many variations!

flour, yeast, salt and water.

yep.

that's it.

look at that pretty pot.

pretty bread.

so very pretty.

DIY: fabric bunting

my sweet sweet niece's birthday party was the other weekend and she asked me to help with decorations.  I'm really loving bunting right now (well, really for the last few years) so I figured I'd do a tutorial on how to make a fabric bunting (so it will last and she can hang it in her room after the party)

I gathered up some fabric scraps, cut a triangle template out of card stock, grabbed a spool of ribbon (not shown) and pulled out the old sewing machine (also not shown)

ignore the glue gun... he's such a ham trying to get in all my crafting pictures.

using the card stock template, I cut out 18 triangles.  If you want it to look really super awesome and nice, iron your fabric.  I hate ironing so I just let it be wrinkled and called it rustic.

See it's easy to call things rustic or organic just by being lazy!!

pulled out a couple of feet of ribbon and then started folding it in half over the top of the triangles and sewing it.  If you're not a sewing kind of person, I suppose you could give the glue gun a little action.  Just be careful!!  Depending on your fabric and your tolerance for pain, the heat may burn you!!!

beauty!

popsicles + purple cake = my birthday!

Today is my birthday.  Mondays are not the best days to have a birthday so I'll share with you my birthday weekend...

my cute mister and me!  he's the best. can't wait to hang with him tonight.

it's always hot around my birthday, but holy crap.  110?  Really?  Thank goodness it's raining today.

Friday evening, my sweet friend Amanda made me some rosemary lavender salt scrub... the best part about this?  the yoga poses shrinky dinks!  Makes me want to time travel to 1986 for a few hours and play shrinky dinks with my 8 year old self.

after we had dinner with our favorite couple, we drove over to this new popsicle joint in town called Steel City Pops.  They have some pretty great flavors.  I got banana, which had cinnamon in it, which was amazing.

We went back on Sunday and I got pineapple jalapeño.  Equally amazing.

let's just skip over to Sunday.

I made my own cake (I always do... I like baking my own birthday cake)

My sister-in-law, her boyfriend and his roommate (formerly my husband's roommate) made dinner for us.  I bet you think we had Mexican... nope.  Pizza.

John and me.  Ready to do the birthday cake thing.

Ellen and me.  Let's blow out these candles.

Purple hombre cake?  yes!

and yes.

it's just boxed cake and food coloring.

no fancy instructions.

yay for happy birthdays!!

and feeling pudgy on Mondays!!

rainbow cake!

I have been wanting to make one of these for quite a while.  I've seen many different versions on Pinterest and all recipes.  I was excited to try it out for my sister-in-law's birthday.

it was the perfect crowd... no one knew what was underneath that white icing.

when out came a rainbow, there was a lot of oohs and aahs.  It made me feel so happy and excited!

beautiful and delicious!

Oscar loves birthdays!

especially his own!!  It's been a busy week but I can't forget to post about my little man's 9th birthday!!

made a little special tuna birthday treat by adding bread crumbs.

we were singing to him at this point.  he loved it.

yum yum yum yum

he loves his tuna birthday treat!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OSCAR!!

2011 memories.

January - a special party just for my man and me.

these girls are the most incredible hostesses anyone could ask for!

February - lots of wedding prep.  Don't know how I could have gotten it all done without my friend Bethany.  This is not Oscar, by the way.  Her kitty is his doppelgänger.

March - the most amazing day of my life.  I got married to my best friend.

April - I got chosen to be the page turner for Pete the Cat, a book reading and signing that my brother and I took my nieces to.  This is my awkward face.

May - we were kinda boring during May.  However, we did make it to a party.  So here we are with our friend Burgin.

June - at the park picnicking and listening to the symphony.  Ah.  We're so cultured... haha.

July - I got a stress fracture.  Rocked the boot the best I could.

August - hit lots of rocks floating down the river.  

September - the mister's birthday... his cake ended up looking like a glowing orb.

October - cheeky pumpkin month.

November - I took some fun pictures of the mister.  He started a blog.  AND he got a real grown up job!  It was a good month.

December - my family.  I love them.  I especially love cooking with them.  

It's been a spectacular year filled with love, new beginnings and great experiences.  I hope you have a really wonderful New Year filled with light and love.  Happy 2012!

mummies!!

okay so Halloween's over... but I wanted to squeeze this post in.

My sweet little niece turned 5 yesterday and she had a Halloween birthday party.  My sister-in-law asked me, the vegetarian, to make these pig in a blanket mummies.  So here's my meat post.  The easy part was not eating them as I made them ;)  

uncooked mummies.

has this ever happened to you?  it just exploded out of the end!

snuggle bunny mummies.

leftover dough... it looked like a scary Halloween face, so I snapped a pic!

blue cake

we had a party last night.

oscar kinda likes birthdays.

...but he won't be still enough for me to take his pic... he'd rather go sit by the door and meow all day.

sweet little zoe loves birthdays for sure!!  She was happy to celebrate.

Happy Birthday David (again)!

it's someone's birthday today... let's have ice cream cake!

today is my husband's birthday.

happy birthday, David... the best husband ever (seriously.  Other people just think they have the best husband ever)!

David loves this picture of himself.  That is why I chose it.

My husband's favorite cake is ice cream cake.  I usually spend way too much purchasing one, but last year I made ice cream cupcakes and they were delicious. So this year??  We're turning those cupcakes into a cake.  Let's see how it turned out...

I baked a chocolate cake in a springform pan.

scraps from leveling it off... tasty and dangerous.

melty ice cream (my husband would give his right arm for this)

melty ice cream spread on top of leveled cake.

now for the most frustrating cake frosting ever..

don't judge.  it's hard to frost melty ice cream... even after I let it harden in the freezer over night.

he loves chocolate... it's gonna be a happy birthday!!