Pink Hello Kitty

The Lovely Day Of Love That I Love

Seriously, how cute are these???  Bryan got them for me at the Co-Op and I really cannot bring myself to eat them because they are so darn CUTE!!

And seriously, how beautiful are these???  Remember #2 from this post from around this same time last year?  This could not be more perfect!  I LOVE them, and they just scream that Spring is drawing near!!

Okay and seriously, how great is it that Valentine's Day fell on a Sunday this year so that we were fortunate enough to be able to do our Sunday Brunch with heart shaped pancakes and enjoy it with all that were able to join us???  It cannot get more fun than THAT!  On the menu, in case you were wondering, Sweet potato hashbrowns, left over ham butt, whole wheat/buttermilk pancakes, and mixed berry compote.  You can find the recipes on my Crafty Blog when I get them posted in the next day or two.

And for the dinner, our new tradition of heart-shaped pizza!  The kids love it, we love it, we can all make exactly what we like!  YAY!!!  We did the same thing last year and it was a hit, of course!  And don't you just love the plate? VERY Valentine-y! 

Hope everyone had a day filled with love all around them, like I was so lucky to have!

Steak And Lobster Fest...That's Right!

Way back in October Bryan went on his 3rd trip to the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, California to travel on a boat for 5 days and dive for lobster.  This picture here is some of the result of his night dive where he brought in 3 of the 9 total lobster he caught on the trip.  These suckers are BIG!!  He made 22 dives, the most of anyone on the boat, and doubled his catch from last year's trip, still managing to come home alive despite some crazy stories!

This is what it looks like during and after preparation...YUMMMMMY!  He soaked them in lemon water after taking them out of the freezer, now that we were ready to get the family all together and share!  He boiled the 7 smaller tails for about 10-12 minutes, (and smaller is relative, folks!) and aren't they BEA-U-TI-FUL??? 

And then he cut up the 2 largest ones using this recipe for a tempura and deep frying it.  I am not joking when I tell you this was AMAZING!

And then we had a little Shish Kebob of veggies and tri-tip steak with a Baja Citrus Lime marinade.

And these are the onion rings he made from scratch using the same tempura batter recipe as he did for the lobster.

The fact that we could share this delicious food and fun time with our family was what I consider the BEST part of the whole thing, though.  What a huge blessing all the way around!  I sure hope Bryan gets to go again this year!  Maybe he will double his catch again!  Sure would be nice to be able to share with even more people!

I Am Grateful To Be So Loved

February is one of my FAVORITE months!  Not just because it is my birthday month, (and was my dad's too) but because well, I guess I have always been a hopeless romantic!  I love the colors of pink and red and I love hearts, and sparkly things, and I love, "LOVE" itself!  I wrote this post last year in February.  I re-read it again just now and it made me smile, because evidently, I feel pretty much the same way this year...haha!

I am so grateful to be surrounded by such AMAZING and loving people.  I am grateful to have so much love in my life.  Love makes the world go round!

Garden Fresh Goodness With A Pinch Of Family Bonding

I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to sit down with my family and eat an amazing dinner like this which we have prepared and cooked together using all of the veggies fresh from our garden!  The kids were marveling at the richness of their color and Bryan and I explained to them how they were supposed to look like that!  Tomatoes really are red and cucumbers really are green!  I love to cook, as does Bryan, and it makes us super proud that our kids are learning to not only to cook themselves, but love it as well!  You will recall this post where my girls lovingly cooked a "real" breakfast in bed for our anniversary.  Bella can even make a hollandaise sauce from scratch without "breaking" it!  We have been cooking and baking quite a bit over the last few weeks and we always do the most about harvest time and blackberry picking time because we have to deal with all of that produce in a timely fashion.  I think it is like the jumpstart for me.  I am always quite motivated to cook up a storm with what I have gotten.  I did 64 jars of blackberry jam with the help of the kids of course, so many loaves of zucchini/carrot bread I have lost count, and then just basic dinner with all of our veggies!  My boss from California has kept me supplied with all of the fresh lemons I could need this summer from her tree so the marinades and salad dressings have been made with generous amounts of lemon juice, in addition a lot of my recipes calling for it.  My friends whose blogs I read enjoy cooking too and I am always reading about things they are making.  I love that!  I thought I could talk a little about my stuff too, especially since it is such a family affair here and that's the main reason I blog in the first place!  I truly hope that my kids remember that about us as a family; being in the kitchen together, preparing, laughing, bonding.  That is one of the main reasons I don't work a full time job because I love that part of being a mom and being with my family together in the kitchen during the preparation and sitting down at the table.  I consider myself very blessed to be able to do that while a lot of families have the need for 2 incomes, or rarely get to sit down together as a family.  I consider that one of the best things about my life right now.  We may not live in a big fancy house, but we have a lot of close knit family time and for that I am very grateful.