Snooze

I met my friend, Carissa the other day at Snooze.  If you live in Denver or you are in town for a visit you must eat here.  Snooze is primarily a breakfast/brunch eatery.  It’s a super cute, retro, hip and trendy little place downtown near Coors Field. 

Doesn’t this pancake just make your mouth water?  It was the pancake of the day and honestly I can’t remember the name of it because I was laughing at Carissa when it was brought out.  It was so good though.  You take a little bite and you think it’s the greatest pancake ever.  Then you get a small surprise in your mouth-little white chocolate chips!  It was the perfect amount of sweetness.  We shared this pancake and devoured it in just minutes. Now this was Carissa’s tomato soup.  She gets this soup every time she comes here.  I didn’t try it.  It was only 85 degrees that day.  A little too hot for soup for me.  I may have to try it next time though because it looks really good.We also split this Vanilla Almond Oatmeal Brulee.  Isn’t it pretty?   The fruit medley was perfectly ripe and the oatmeal had a sweet little crunch on top from the brown sugar brulee.  There couldn’t have been a better meal or place to dine.

 

And look!  Isn’t that the cutest booth seat ever?  So retro, yet hip at the same time.  I love this place.  Thanks for introducing me to this place, Carissa, and for all the skin care stuff-tips and products.  It was a good time.  Carissa is one of Denver’s best make up artists, so if you have any make up or skin care questions just email her.  She’s tried everything.

Tomatoes and Mozzarella

I know.  I’ve posted this before.  This time I made them with fresh mozzarella which tastes even better than a block.  The little mozzarella balls made these appetizers even easier to make.  I didn’t have to cut anything up.  Just start threading grape tomatoes and mozzarella balls onto skewers.  Next take your basil, olive oil, and a little salt and pepper and blend it together.  Finally drizzle it over the top of the skewers and enjoy!

How can you not enjoy something so pretty?

 

I Heart Faces

This week’s theme at I Heart Faces is “At the Beach.”  Here is my entry.  Living in Colorado this is probably the closest thing we have to a beach compared to the beaches and shores I grew up with in Washington.  Check out some more entries, or enter for yourself by clicking on the button below.

Eleven Months

Elizabeth is now eleven months old.  Like I’ve said before, the time just seems to fly by.  It appears as though she has mastered climbing up the stairs, but hasn’t quite figured out how to get down.  She thoroughly enjoys trying to mess with her brothers while they build train tracks.  Blowing raspberries and yelling have become some other favorite things to do.

Wipes!

Here’s Elizabeth. I think she and David may get into mischief together someday. She is extremely mobile and I am getting extremely fat! I can hardly keep up with her anymore. She makes a bee line for the stairs and off she goes. When I finally found her she was in the boys’ room doing something she really loves-pulling wipes out. “Hurry! Maybe I can empty this thing out before mom finds me!” She was close. So Adriane, you know that nanny you keep speaking of? I need her NOW!

My Ladybugs

Last week when I entered the I Heart Faces contest I was awarded sixth place. I’m still in shock. There were 211 entries and many were far better than my photos. I guess it makes me feel like I kind of know what I’m doing. All of my reading and photo snapping may be paying off. If you’d like to see other winners click on the button above. Below is another ladybug shot that I just love. I found this bug on one of our lettuce leaves.

Too Quiet

This is David.  Most of you know him as our little clown.  Most of you with lots of little children also know that you can’t watch all of your kids every minute of every day.  Our kids are pretty good at entertaining themselves and each other.  However, when I don’t hear or see David for awhile I know that he is usually up to something.  Besides being a clown he’s also an escape artist.  He’ll figure out how to escape out of the house and he either goes to the neighbor’s house or walks the street.  When he isn’t trying to escape, most likely he is into something he shouldn’t be.  For example, here below, he decided to wash his hair with the conditioner in the girls’ bathroom.  It is conveniently in a massive bottle with a pump.  All he has to do is push down on the pump and voila’!  Conditioner everywhere.

  

My Girls

Do you remember way back when, when I entered that sewing contest?  Well, I didn’t win, but there was fun ruffled top tutorial and I decided to make tops for the girls.  I’ve had these done for awhile and keep forgetting to post them.  It was a pretty easy pattern to follow although I think it is meant for women, so I made some adjustments for the girls.  I think they turned out pretty cute.  What do you think?

I Heart Faces

Here is my entry for I Heart Faces.  This week it’s “Feet Week" instead of faces.  I’m not normally one for liking feet, but I do have a thing for baby feet.  I love baby feet.  When Elizabeth was still a newborn she slept all the time, anywhere at any time.  I just love her little toes and peeling skin. It’s so cute!   Check out some more entries by clicking on the button below.

Blueberry Crumble Bars

I made these bars a couple weeks ago. They were really easy. I think I even had everything I needed at home and didn’t even have to run to the store. That makes these even more worth it. The bars were pretty scrumptious almost like blueberry pie, but with less mess. Try it. You’ll like them unless you don’t like blueberries.

Blueberry Crumb Bars

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup cold butter
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Zest and juice of one lemon
• 4 cups fresh blueberries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 teaspoons of cornstarch

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375°. Grease a 9×13” pan.

In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, flour and baking powder. Mix in salt and lemon zest. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. The dough will be crumbly. Pat half of the dough into the prepared pan.

In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.

Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

I found this on one of my new favorite cooking sites called Annie’s Eats. She has some great recipes!

Salad

There’s something to be said for being able to go to your backyard and pick a fresh salad for dinner. We have lettuce growing out of our ears and our peas are finally coming around. They took quite a beating with all the hail storms we had this spring. We may have to plant another crop in the late summer.

‘Shrooms

We had a really wet spring that was beginning to turn into a wet summer.  Although as of late we haven’t had much rain and the temperatures have been sweltering hot.  All the wetness caused these little mushrooms to grow in our lawn.  The kids think they’re cute.  I think they’ve been fun to photograph with my macro lens!

Mini Reunion

Last week we enjoyed a few days with Jared’s family at his Aunt Laurel and Uncle Mike’s home in Elizabeth, Colorado.  I think everyone had a great time.  We hardly saw the kids, except when we were watching them play.  Thank you Mike and Laurel for hosting everyone!

  

There was plenty of food and fun to go around.  Ethan really loved all the food.  I think he could have eaten the entire time we were there.  Catching grasshoppers became one of Thomas and Adrien’s favorite things to do. 

 

 

The neighbor even brought her mini over for the kids to go on buggy rides.

   

Then came the slip ‘n slide.  The kids spent an entire afternoon perfecting their slides. 

Thomas didn’t really enjoy the slip ‘n slide.  We thought that if we forced him down a few times he would like it.  That didn’t happen.  He just got really mad.

Y0u probably can’t tell from these photos, but David is mocking Thomas all the way down the slide.  He ran down the hill as Thomas was sliding down the slide.  It’s kind of funny because David didn’t like the slip ‘n slide either, but he sure had fun watching Thomas.

  

I think this was the ride of the day.  Go Mike!  I forgot to ask how he was feeling the next day.  Hopefully he wasn’t too sore.  He made it all the way off the tarp!