Butter tarts!

This week's baking inspiration came from an outing with the regular mommy & baby crew (Di & Sue) when we went for a walk and stopped off at a bakery last week. Di ordered a butter tart and it was so good! I decided to try and attempt it. Although it doesn't look that great, they were pretty good. I only made a dozen of them, and by the end of the day.... Ron and I had eaten eight of them! And it tasted even better with vanilla ice cream on top... mmmm!

Lightning strikes!

We had quite a lightning storm tonight... but I loved it! It gave me the perfect opportunity to take the photos below:

Happy Birthday Ronald!

We just got back from a mini-getaway in honour of Ron's birthday! We stayed in the Buffalo side for two days so we could do some shopping. We also visited the American side of the Falls, which we had never been to.... definitely a nicer view on the Canadian side!! And, it wouldn't be a blog post without mentioning all the yummy food we ate: our hotel restaurant right by the water - an Italian feast we both enjoyed... IHOP breakfast, where we ended our meals with funnel cakes... Cheesecake Factory where we celebrated Ron's birthday dinner... YUM! Happy Birthday Ronald!!

Our Saturday in the West End!

Saturday for us was busy! We first headed out to Jack Darling park for Katrina's 1st Birthday party. Katrina is the daughter of one of Ron's old co-workers. She is half Filipino and half Swedish, and very cute! They were shocked to see Jacen (they never met him) and how BIG he was...

We then headed to Eswin & Shareen's place to pick up some items Ron had left behind at their house the last time he was there. We ended up hanging out with them and their kids for a bit, and it was fun! They have tons of toys for Jacen to play with, and we can just leave the kids in their living room (which is like a daycare) and then chat with each other in the dining room.

Next stop was dinner at the in-laws! They had spread out a nice feast in honour of Ron's birthday and a cake. They were amused at Jacen and his crawling abilities. It was a long day out in the west end of town, but it was nice to see everyone and catch up. Jacen was pooped by the time we got home!

Alone time!

Ahhh... alone time. It's been rare since Jacen was born but I've learned to cherish it every minute I can get it. I thought I'd blog about my perfect alone time today... I put Jacen down for his nap this morning, made myself a cup of tea, warmed up my chocolate chip scone and sat in front of the TV to watch the Cosby show! I've totally been enjoying watching the Cosby show again. I loved watching it as kid, and again as an adult! Still makes me laugh out loud and for a whole hour, I enjoyed it all by myself eating my scone and drinking my tea.

Jacen's still sleeping (almost 2 hours now... wow!), but I've washed the dishes, made the bed, and now just checking emails and facebook. Love it!

Scones!

I really enjoyed the scones from high tea, so I decided to try and make them! I looked for some recipes online and turns out - they're pretty easy to make. I ended up having all the ingredients already so I made them in half an hour total time (only takes 15 minutes in the oven). They smelled so good, but it didn't taste the same as the ones I had during high tea (of course). Ah well - that's what recipes are for right? It's just a base for what you need to make but then you tweak them and make them your own eventually.

gleeks!

After our high tea adventure, my sisters and I swapped kids for the rest of the afternoon - they took Jacen shopping, and I took their daughters to watch glee - the 3D concert movie! I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I'm a total gleek! I've watched all their episodes, and I have all their albums. I was sorry to have missed their actual concert, but when I heard that there was a movie.... I totally wanted to watch it!

The fact that the girls wanted to see it gave me the perfect excuse to go and watch it with them. It was also a nice change to watch a movie without any screaming babies in the theatre! hehe. The movie was like going to the concert - except it only cost me $12! And 3D has definitely come a long way... it was great! The girls and I enjoyed it very much - and it was cute to hear my niece Melia singing during the movie. (heck, I was singing too). :P

High tea!

We headed out to Brooklin, ON (a small town in Whitby) to meet up with my sisters and their daughters for high tea today. It was a very quaint area and the place we went to was called Remember When Tea House. All my nieces got dressed up in cute dresses, and I just realized that Jacen was the only boy there - what a ladies man! The scones were my favourite, but the mini sandwiches weren't enough to fill me up for lunch - I had to order a soup and sandwich as well (I skipped breakfast). My nieces didn't drink the tea (they don't like tea), so they ordered OJ and put it into their teacups so they could all drink from them. Aside from that, we all had a great time together!

Hanging with the girls...

I met Di, Marley, Sue & Sully today for lunch at Harbourfront! We ate on the patio at Il Fornello, and it was a beautiful day out to be by the water. My fellow moms will be heading back to work soon, so we have to take advantage of enjoying these types of days! Nothing beats sitting on a patio on a beautiful sunny day by the water! (well, maybe adding a beer in my hand)

After our lunch, we headed back to Di's place for a bit before taking a walk around her neighbourhood. We ended up near Saad's house so we called her up to meet us and I finally got a chance to see her beautiful baby bump! She looked great as always and Jacen was able to say hello to baby belly too. Can't wait to meet your little one Saads!

Cottage living...

The life of a cottager: eat, sleep, eat, play games, eat... and if the weather was warmer, there may have been some water activities included in that list! We celebrated two of my nieces birthdays at a rented cottage today. Happy Birthday to Aleenah (10 years old) and Melia (8 years old)!!

Chocolate cupcakes!

I attempted to bake cupcakes from scratch for the first time. The recipe wasn't very hard, but I didn't have unsweetened chocolate for the icing so I just used the chocolate that I had lying around. As a result, the icing is a bit too sweet! Oh well - next time I'll know to get the unsweetened stuff.