Your Upper Lip

I wish mustaches were hip and trendy back in the 80's.

Like when I was in the fourth grade.

That way when Randy Josue asked, "Nicolette, why do you have a mustache?"  I could have come up with a snappy comeback like "Ugh, my esthetician had to cancel my appointment, but it doesn't matter because I'm totally trendy with it anyway!"

For those of you who don't grow a mustache naturally...

I found a variety of mustache items you can buy on Etsy.

Top row: Mini Mustache stamps, Vinyl Macbook decals, Mustache Keyring

Middle row: Button/Magnet, Mustache Mug, Mustache Pacifiers

Bottom row: Mustache necklace, Wall light, Mustache on a stick

Wii-itis

Davis and I played a tournament of sorts yesterday on the Wii.  Basically we challenged each other at four different sports.  I was doing really well, and Davis got defensive about his skills.  I dumbed down my game and had to let him win.  Sorry son, but it's the truth.  

Last night when I was going to bed, I couldn't figure out why my arm hurt so bad.  It wasn't until this morning that I remembered I was working my butt off at boxing Davis.  Maybe I should box my kid more often, then I'd get a little muscle on these mommy arms.

Puerto Vallarta

We are officially back from vacation.  I'll be honest, I didn't want to come home.  

The weather was beautiful.

Food was awesome.

Kids fell asleep super easily every night.  

Did I mention how good the food was?  

I have one word: chilaquiles.

I snapped only a handful of photos, and thought I needed to share them.

So I seriously only have a few other photos besides these.  We were having so much fun in the pool, there was no time to snap pictures.  Puerto Vallarta is beautiful and the people are very friendly.  Well, all except one taxi driver we had.  Most of our time was spent floating around the pool, eating nachos, and then watching Nick Jr in Spanish at night.  Throw in some ice cream, lots of sunscreen, fresh fruit juice, practicing our Español and that was our vacation in a nutshell.  

I can't wait to go back.

Salty Pineapple's 2nd Birthday

It's my blog anniversary today, Hooray!

This is what I posted last year.  

I thought I would do a little year in review this time.

These are a few of my favorite family images from the last year.

Most popular post :

Grow a garden on your wrist!

Biggest accomplishment:

The Beehive Bazaar

My first guest post:

S-E-I Lifestyle

I am a procrastinator

I like working under pressure:

Preparing for house guests

I started a collaborative blog with my sisters:

Photo Frenzy

(two of the four sisters are slacking, but you didn't hear it from me)

What have I learned in the last year?

1.  Parties are only worth throwing if you are having fun.

2.  Don't go to craft fairs to rip off other people's ideas.  So, you're crafty?  That's great, but show a little respect.  Somebody worked really hard making their junk and probably neglected their families in the process (not me, I would never do that).

3. Putting together tutorials is a lot of work, but it's worth it when someone uses it and enjoys what you make.

4.  My kids are growing up too quickly.  Taking photos and writing down little snippets is a great way to remember life as it passes us by.

5.  I love that people around the world can read my blog, people that I don't know.  It's really cool to connect with someone I would never have met if I hadn't started this blog.

Thank you for reading.  Thank you for subscribing.  Thank you for being my friend.

It being my blog birthday and all, a gift is in order.

I am giving myself the gift of a family vacation.  

See you later next week.

RECIPE: CREPES

When I was a kid, I ate pancakes with lost of butter and powdered sugar every morning for breakfast.  True story.

The closest thing I have had to a real French crepe, was at the Paris Hotel in LasVegas.  I don't know if this truly qualifies, but let's just say I am enamored with them now.  Move over pancakes, I'm having some crepes.

Last weekend when I made these I doubled the recipe.  The left over batter went into a container in the fridge.  Now in the morning, I can make myself a quick crepe or six, fold it up into a triangle and eat it as I drive the kids to school.  Hello, this is wonderful!

Basic Crepe:

makes about 12 crepes

from How To Boil Water

1 C all-purpose flour

2 T sugar

1/8 t fine salt

1 C milk

1/4 C water

3 large eggs

1 t pure vanilla extract

4 T unsalted butter

Toppings - Nutella, Cookie Butter, peanut butter, buttermilk syrup, or crème fraîche. Oh yeah, fruit is good too.

The first time I heard of Nutella was when I was in college.  What's up with that? Do they even sell that stuff in Hawaii?  Mother, why did I not know about this chocolatey goodness sooner?  

1. Into a blender add flour, sugar, and salt; blend.  Gradually add in the milk water, eggs and vanilla extract; blend until smooth.  Set aside for at least 30 minutes.

2. Melt butter in saucepan, or microwave and add to the batter.  Get your plates ready because this is quick and easy.

3. Heat a medium nonstick skillet (I use a small 7 inch pan from Ikea) over medium heat until a drop of water bounces and sizzles in the pan.  Pour a little less than 1/4 cup of crepe batter into your skillet and quickly swirl it around to coat the pan evenly.  Cook about 1 and a half minutes or until the edges get crisp and the middle with bubble.  Carefully flip the crepe over and cook the second side for about 30 seconds.  Repeat with remaining batter.  Stack the crepes to keep them warm.

4.  Serve those tasty babies with the Nutella slathered all over them.  You can roll them up like a burrito or fold them in half and then half again to make little triangles.  

Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

My grandma didn't cook a lot, but what she did make we loved.  One of our favorites was her lemon cake with zesty lemon frosting.  This weekend it occurred to me this was the perfect recipe for some pink lemonade cupcakes.

Ingredients:

1 Lemon cake mix and all the ingredients it calls for

6 to 8 cups of powdered sugar

1 to 2 lemons 

4 ounces of softened cream cheese

2 Tablespoons of butter

Pink food coloring

1.  Prepare your cake batter according to the mix directions.  I made 12 cupcakes and left them yellow, to the remaining batter I added some pink food coloring and poured it into a greased 9 inch round pan so I could make some cake balls too.

2.  Bake your cakes and set aside to cool.

3.  While the cakes are cooling make your frosting.  In a large bowl add 6 cups of powdered sugar.

4. My cream cheese was soft, but I only had frozen butter on hand.  Instead of melting the butter in the microwave, I used a fine cheese grater and grated my butter into the bowl of cream cheese.  Use a fork to mix them together.

5.  Zest one whole lemon into the bowl with the powdered sugar.  Slice open that zested lemon and squeeze all the juice into the bowl.  With a hand mixer mix the powdered sugar and lemon juice together.

6.  Now add your cream cheese/butter mixture, and pink food coloring to the powdered sugar.  Depending on how much frosting you like, or the kind of consistency you want, you can add more powdered sugar and lemon juice.  

7. When you are happy with your frosting slather it on to your cupcakes (leave a cup or so in the bowl if your making cake balls).  If you didn't bake all your batter into cupcakes, and you wanted to make some cake balls keeping reading.

1. When your cake is completely cooled, use a fork to crumble it all up.  Add your cake crumbs to the reserved pink lemon frosting.  Mix it all around until it is well combined.  I thought about adding more cream cheese but decided not to in the end.  Roll the mixture into balls and place on parchment lined cookie sheet.  Set your cookie sheet in the fridge or freezer for a couple of hours.  My cake balls ended up in the freezer over night and they were fine.  

2.  I melted some white candy coating and drizzled it over the tops of the cake balls then set them in little candy papers.  

So pretty and lemony!  I hope you enjoy some for yourself.

Foodie Foodie

1.  I did it!  I conquered the kettle corn.  It wasn't a big deal, I don't know why I couldn't do it the first time.  I used my pot with a glass lid so I could watch the sugar, and kept my heat a little lower than last time.  Perfecto!

2. The chocolate peanut butter hearts  from Diane were so easy and quick.  These are a great alternative to peanut butter cups.  Plastic cookie cutters work a lot better than metal ones.

3.  Last week was a busy one and I never picked up any mascarpone cheese for these crepes.  I really wanted to try the recipe, but we had to settle for crepes filled with bananas, nutella and chunky peanut butter.  Yeah, they were really good.  One of these days when I come across mascarpone we will have to try this recipe again.

Last minute Valentine's

I needed to put together a few little goodie bags for a get together on Monday.  I had some ideas of how I was going to put them together, but things turned out totally different.

But I am really happy with the results.

My little brown paper packages

Supplies:

Scissors and paper cutter

candy

lace

heart cut outs

12 inch wide brown craft paper from the paint section at Home Depot

sewing machine

1. Cut your paper into 4.5 inch strips.

2. Place the strip in front of you, long side to your belly.  Fold the left edge in like you were folding the paper into thirds, now take the right side and fold it to the half way point.

3. Sew one edge closed with a 1/4 inch straight stitch.

4.  Fill with your goodies.

5.  Sew the open edge closed.

Eat a piece of candy now.

Cut out some heart shapes, or what ever your like.

A heart and key would have been really cute too.

6.  Cut your lace into 14 inch strips.  Thread a couple of your cut outs on to the lace.

Eat another piece of candy.

Tie a knot and your done!

While my creative cap was on, I come up with something for the boys.

Boys give girls flowers, but what do girls give boys on Valentine's Day?

A bouquet of Cupid's arrows of course!

Supplies:

White card stock (1.5 by 3 inches)

wooden chopsticks pulled apart

hot glue gun

solid heart cut outs

scissors

Can you make these following the pictures above?

Your really smart, I think so.

Make a dozen.

Are you liking these as much as I am?

Set your arrows in a jar and find a boy to give them to.

A little love

My kids had their Valentine parties this past week at school.

In the craziness of it all, I didn't photograph the goodies.  I remembered as I was taking Davis to school, so we have a couple of cell phone pictures.

I ran out of cellophane bags for our teacher gift.  So, I grabbed a roll of brown craft paper and sewed one up.  We topped it off with a little heart love cut out with the Silhouette.

Not too shabby if I do say so myself.

The kids passed out baking cup flower lollipops.

Here is the tutorial from Skip To My Lou.

I used mini cup liners from Wilton, and wrapped the stick with a little Washi tape.

Too cute.  

I'm off to plan our special Valentine's Day dinner.  I'm thinking tomato soup, pizza with heart shape pepperonis, a pink drink.

Check back a little later for a last minute craft.

Warning: pictures and content may be upsetting ;)

Just an ordinary cute kids shoe.

Playdough stuck to the bottom of the cute shoe.

Result:  Bits of playdough all over my house.

Have you

been loving all the Valentine ideas floating around the world wide web?

I can't get enough.  

Here are a few things I am digging right now:

~heart shaped buckeyes on Hip Hip Hooray

~post it love notes from Eat Drink Chic

~Tiffany's accordion envelope on Simply Modern Mom

Have a lovely Friday.