And when all the details come together....

you have a great time! This Christmas was really special for many different reasons; one of the main reasons was for the first time in a while Fernando's whole side of the family was together and wanted to all come and spend the holidays in our new home. We really had a nice holiday and are truly blessed.

we EVEN had some snow, just to add to the magic of the whole holiday weekend.

and hey what's Christmas without a pirate in the mix. LOL

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday this year and many happy ones to come. That concludes the Christmas 2010 portion of my blog.

Now onto the NEW YEAR!!!

Project Wednesday: Picture Wall Reveal

Finally my picture wall project is complete and I have photographed it to post here. I was totally inspired by this post by Ali proabably a year ago, so when Fer said he wanted more pictures of our families around the house I jumped on the opportunity to create this "headboard" of photos above our bed. Of course you can expect more of these type of photo walls to pop up around the aparment for sure.

I bought all the frames from Ikea (disregard the fire alarm above the photos) and printed them out on my home printer using Picasa - I printed them all in Sepia tone to go along with the tones of our room.

I love ALL of these photos and they make us smile everytime we look at them!

Art, Love, Family, Happiness.... I can go on and on.

Happy Wednesday. I hope this project inspires you to do something similar in your home.

uncorked the Quote

Here's another quote from a bottle of Robert Mondavi wine.

took a little trip to Savannah

I know another trip to Savannah, we can't help ourselves. My uncle was visiting Savannah for a seminar and Fer's sister and brother-in-law were there for Valentine's weekend so we made the 4 hour drive to see everyone. It was a fast little getaway and a lot of fun. We can't get enough of that city. As usual we ate at the Olde Pink House - love it and so did everyone else. Other than that we walked around City Market and River Street and that was about it.

Here's some pics:

Thanksgiving/November Mini Album

I'm really into all these mini albums lately and here's what I created for Thanksgiving this year and also the month of November. Since we had so much going on with my parents coming here and then us going there I wanted to make sure that I captured as much as I could so months (or days) and years from now we could remember what we had done.

Here's what I created:

this is the cover

This first picture is of a man hole cover in Branford, CT I think it came out great and I like to take pictures of signs or some kind of marker of where we are as almost like a label in the flow of pictures.

I'm not posting all the pages but a sample of the general idea of the book. I printed out a photo of the bread that my Mom taught me to make and also some of the recipes that we made over this thanksgiving and included some of my favorite recipes for Thanksgiving since I will probably refer to this book for years to come on what I've done for prior turkey days.
of course having a scrapbook for November I had to include something about the election and the Obama being elected president. This picture is a scanned copy of a bumper sticker I received from moveon.org. It think it's awesome but I didn't want to punch holes in the actual bumper sticker so I scanned it.
page on the left is the back of the scanned bumper sticker and what's in between the two pages is a coaster from a restaurant, they are great but they are like chipboard material - so I collect them whenever we go out.
I cut a few pieces of the map we used for our trip to CT one showing Branford, CT and the other showing Atlanta, GA - our two destinations.

some of the pictures I have journalling next to, like this one. The journalling frame is from Ali Edwards Collection at Designer Digitals, they come with lines also.

It's a simple little book, but I love it and know these are moments that we need to remember forever so journals like this will help do that.

Pitty Pat's Porch Restaurant

Another place we checked out while my parents were visiting was a restaurant called Pitty Pat's Porch. It was great, I've been looking for a restaurant here in Atlanta that serves up Southern Cuisine. I know there must be more out there but this was the first one and I'm sure Fer and I will be going back there from time to time.

My Dad had Fried Chicken which was delicious, I had Savannah crab cakes and grits and my Mom had Rhett's Mixed Grill. This restaurant is "based" on a character from the story Gone with the Wind so it was very appropriate to visit and dine at the restaurant the same day we went to see Margaret Mitchell's home.

This is the upstairs bar area where you can sip on a mint julep and rock in the rocking chairs while you wait for your table.



before the meal you'll be served some southern biscuits and cornbread.

this was my meal.

this is what I had for dessert, it was so good. A peach cobbler with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream served on top, did I already mention it was good. I'm definitely going to try to make this cinnamon ice cream at home. YUMMY

Mom's Bread Recipe

While my parents were here a few weeks ago I finally went to work with my Mom on learning how to make her delicous homemade bread. Usually when they come to visit Fer and I ask her to make a few loaves for us so we can have them (at least for a few days) after they go home. Well enough of that now I can make it MYSELF whenever I want. Yeah! It wasn't to hard either but I'm always freaked out by making anything with yeast. No more fears. Here's how the process went and also the family recipe.

mix the warm water and yeast until the yeast gets bubbly or changes in appearance

using the dough hook add the flour until it all comes together

then knead

it has to go thru a few rising process - one all together in a greased bowl and the second rising in the loaf pans they will bake in


and VOILA! Ta da - YUMMOOOOOOO

Here's the recipe, my Mom makes four loaves at a time I only made two (to comfortably fit in the kitchen aid mixer bowl)

Country Crust Bread - Serves 4 Loaves
Recipe from the Kitchen of MOM

4 Packages of yeast, 4 eggs, 1 cup of sugar
4 cups of warm water, 1/2 cup olive oil,
2 tsp. of salt, 12 – 12 1/2 cups of flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water.

Stir in eggs, oil, sugar, salt and 6 cups of flour.

Beat until smooth,
Mix in the rest of the flour to make dough easy to handle.
Knead dough 8-10 minutes. Let rise 1 hour.
Punch down dough, divide into loaves.
Put in pans and let rise 1 hour.

Heat oven to 375
Bake 30 – 35 minutes


ENJOY!

some more sightseeing in Atlanta

Working my way backwards now in the month (last month) and sprinkling in current events of December here I go trying to catch up on my blogging. November was a very busy month with my parents coming to visit us in Atlanta and then Fer and I heading to Connecticut for Thanksgiving I hardly had any time to keep up with all we did and I don't think December will be any less busy.

One of the places I had been waiting to visit until my parents were here (especially my Mom) was the Margaret Mitchell House (author of Gone with the Wind). She wrote the book while living right here in Atlanta and you can now go tour where she lived while she wrote it and also a museum dedicated to the movie. It's definitely a must see while here in Atlanta and you'll be surprised that the "house" you see when you drive by and think ohh that's so Gone with the Wind was actually a house with 10 apartments in it and she lived in ONE of them in the basement, but it is still worth seeing.

She was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal Constitution before she wrote the book.

Here's her house/apartment:

inside her apartment, one of the desks where she sat while writing the book:

inside the film museum:



there was also in the house an exhibit of photos from a photographer that followed Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movements

Thankful for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, I love it for many reasons, first it seems to make us all slow down if for only a day and reflect on all we have to be grateful for in our lives. I have many reasons to be thankful and they begin with my husband, my family and my friends. I could go on and on from there. I also enjoy thanksgiving because I love to cook and it gives me a chance to try out some new recipes or whip up my annual favorites.

This year (at least menu wise) was a simple Thanksgiving, we were fortunate enough to go up to Connecticut and spend the holiday with my family which has grown by one this year and be there with them for a good amount of time. We didn't do many fancy activities but spent a lot of quality time together and that's what matters the most.

The menu was fairly simple it was all about getting good food on the table and then enjoying the rest of the day with the family.

Here's our menu from Turkey Day:

Thanksgiving Day Menu
Connecticut ~ 2008


Deviled Eggs
Green Salad
No-Knead Rolls
Cornbread

Roasted Turkey
Cranberry Sauce
Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Whipped Sweet Potatoes
Caramelized Onion and Cornbread Stuffing
Green Bean Casserole

Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie

My Mom painted this platter years ago, isn't it beautiful.and my blue ribbon award winning pie, more on that later:

went home for vacation

This summer we went home to Connecticut on our vacation to visit the family. My brother and sister-in-law just had a baby and one of my friends got married while we were up there so we were on the go the whole time. As usual whenever you go home you have to catch up with friends and family and indulge in all the awesome things you remember from when you lived there.... like PIZZA! New Haven, Connecticut is famous for it's pizza YUMMOOO. Here' some pics from the trip:

There are many many MANY more pictures but this will do for now. I'll have to get creative with the rest.