I love you baby.

Every morning I wake up and lay in bed for an extra ten minutes or so just so I can be still in total silence and feel my little baby move around.

I wake up and say "Good morning baby, I love you." And if Dashing Boy is still in bed (which he usually is not) sometimes he says I love you back. And I think how wonderful it is to have two different "babys" in my life.

My sister Juju is graduating this spring as an RN. She is going to be amazing.

Just the other day she said to me, "Jenny I honestly can't even imagine it, myself as an RN. I can't believe that I'm going to be one in just a few months." And I told her that was completely normal-that when something has been our focus and we've worked so hard at it for a big period of time, it is hard to grasp when suddenly it is almost here.

There are beautiful, exciting times when I can imagine myself as a mom, of course. But in general it is really hard for me to wrap my head around. The time is counting down, months are passing by, stomach growing. And soon I will have a baby. My baby.

I look at my breasts and think really? Really there will be milk flowing?

I walk by his room, becoming so bright and cheerful and think that soon his personality and brightness will fill it completely.

I dream of what he will look like (it is different every time) and I wake up and think with a rush of excitement, "Wow. I can't believe I am going to have a baby."

It is a wonderful cusp to be upon. One I am so, so grateful and awed by.

And so I'll keep imagining and daydreaming about our little family. Sometimes with painted daydreamed images, but mostly with abstract excitement and wonder. And love. Love for my baby laying next to me and love for our baby soon to be here on this earth with us.

Signs of Spring.

I always know the seasons are changing from fall to winter and winter to spring when I can either 1:break out the puffy down coat or 2: break out the chacos/crocs.

Man I love my crocs. They are the perfect spring/summer shoe. They can get all kinds of messy and then you just hose them off.

I got that first persimmon pair a few years ago so I could wear them gardening and such and then I loved them so much I pretty much wore them everyday that summer and the summer thereafter. Now those ones really are exclusively gardening and painting shoes as they are quite worn.

I thought crocs were a bit strange, you know like who really wears them. But I will tell you, get a bright, feminine pair and I promise they will grow on you. (hmmm you'd think I worked for crocs or something but no, they are just happy shoes)

Breaking out the spring shoes makes me feel like singing Paulo Nutini's New Shoes and dancing all around. Like I am light on my feet.

So welcome Spring!

Other signs of this most lovely season:

Cupcake egg pot holder made by Grandma.

Quilted carrot table topper made by Grandma.

Spring bulbs!

Amoeba Pizza and Artisan Bread!

Awhile back I had a lesson in artisan bread making. Finally, this week I put it to use!

I've been making a really big effort to be better about making meals every night. And as I've been planning and coming up with a system I thought: how easy dinners would be if we had fresh bread and salad as a fairly staple part of our meals each night.

This bread is a dream. Really, it is so much easier than I ever thought it would be.

So I do think the title: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day is really true. I think I just might have to buy the book now- or Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. That one sounds very nice too.

Here is my first humble little loaf:

One thing I was very excited about with this bread dough is that is can also be used for pizza. I love to make homemade pizza but all the rising steps and such make it something that takes a bit of planning.

Well, I rolled out some of this dough one night, threw some toppings on it and baked it in the oven- and really it was some of the best homemade pizza dough we've had.

Dashing Boy said my pizza looked like an amoeba.
Which sounded so cool that I instantly got images of us having amoeba pizza nights with our children. We're such nerds.

Reupholstered Glider

A couple of weeks ago Dashing Boy and I received a wonderful gift. A still-in-great condition Dutailier glider for our nursery. It is very nice to sit on and the only thing needing some udpdating were the cushions.

Well goodness me! after looking online for replacements I found that they were over $200 for our particular glider! And so I turned to the crafty people of the blogosphere and found this lovely blog and glider makeover- the same glider as ours!

Grandma and me have spent the last four days working on it!

Here is the before:
I searched all my favorite designers collections of home decorator fabric and really loved Amy Butlers August Fields Fresh Start fabric in seafoam. It is bright and gender neutral.

I was able to find it on etsy for half price so the total cost to reupholster this glider was under $40 including the extra fabric I have to do an ottoman too!

Here is the after:
Grandma is so talented and patient. She made sure we got all the beautiful little details right!

Each piece is removable so it can be washed easily. I am so excited about it. It looks happy in our baby's room.

Thank you grandma! I can't wait to rock and nurse our sweet baby in it. I know I'll be thinking of you often as I do!

Dainty Passion Fruit Macarons

I had so much fun on my first batch of macarons that I decided I would give it another go. This time, joining on the Mactweets challenge: spring fling, where I was encouraged to let my favorite springtime flowers influence me in the kitchen!

Also influencing me in the making/naming of these cookies was the conversation I had with Dashing Boy a couple of nights before these were made...

Sometimes Dashing Boy talks in his sleep. It doesn't happen very often but when it does it is very entertaining and usually he says a bunch of jibberish and stuff that makes no sense at all.

On this particular night Dashing Boy had already been soundly asleep for over an hour, while I had just gotten to bed. Suddenly, I sneezed.

Dashing Boy sweetly leaned over to me and said,

"It's ok. It's more for sauces. It's not really meant for dainty things."

The remainder of the night and many moments the next day were spent laughing and laughing at such randomness.

And so these macarons are appropriately named "dainty." Because if there is anything meant to be dainty, I believe it would be a macaron.


When I think of spring and all of the colorful, fresh flowers that introduce it I think of happiness and the sun. The arrival of spring makes me feel alive.

Passion fruit- both the taste and the color make me feel happy and alive.

I was thrilled that I was able to find both passion fruit concentrate and passion fruit pulp at the Mexican market.

So first I whipped up a batch of milk chocolate passion fruit ganache- yum! Then I did my best to color the macarons the same vibrant color of delicious passion fruit.

I was pretty happy with how these turned out. But they were still lopsided- need to work on my piping technique! My biggest problem of all though was that on both batches I made half of the macaron tops cracked!


Next time I'm going to double up my baking sheets and see if that helps... Luckily macarons still taste good even when they don't look as dainty and cute!