This week’s photography challenge for Theme Thursday is Growing. Since Matthew’s 2nd birthday is tomorrow I have been thinking a lot about how fast he is growing. Here are some photos showing his growth. (The last one is today’s shot.)
One day old.
2 months old
6 months old
8 months old
10 months old
1 year old
15 months old
18 months old
20 months old
Happy 2nd birthday, Matty!!
Tanks to Cari for being a fabulous host!
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Flor Larios
One of my favorite etsy artists is Flor Larios. I love her colorful, Mexican style. I have this cross hanging up in my kitchen. I wanted to get my newly engaged sister one for the kitchen of her future home so I bought her this one since she and her fiance have a devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Here is some of her other artwork I’ve purchased.
(Photo Credits: Flor Larios.)
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Crunchmaster Multi-Grain Crackers
I picked up a box of these crackers at Costco on a whim and the family and I fell in love with them. Even my picky Andrew enjoys them. Add a little hummus or slice of low-fat cheese and you have snacking deliciousness. Plus, they also happen to be Gluten -free if that is a concern for you.
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The Voice
While I am snacking on my cracker goodness, I like to watch The Voice. In the past I have watched two or three seasons of American Idol but it got old, especially after Simon left. And now that Nicki Minaj is on it, I certainly won’t watch. (I like to relax in the evening, not be annoyed.) I saw the first season of The Voice but let the other seasons pass. Then the other night I was came upon the show again and was hooked. All the singers are actually talented. I like the two new judges and the playful banter between all the judges is fun to watch. It’s a nice little diversion from the busyness of life.
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Inside Out Bag
I saw this bag being modeled on Instagram by Karianna over at CaffeinatedCatholicMama.com (who sells Thirty-One Products) and I couldn’t wait to order one. I had been looking for a simple bag that size and the colors are so spring-ish, it’s perfect. The fact that it is reversible is an added bonus!
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Succulent Plants
I love that we live in such a green area. I love taking photos of gorgeous spring flowers. I’d also love to plant flowers and herbs in the spring. What I don’t love? That I forget to water my plants and garden every freakin year and my lovely flowers die and my luscious herb garden soon becomes a bed of dried herbs. I finally gave up the gardens for now and instead invest in nice succulent plants that are forgiving of my forgetful nature. I just picked these three up at Trader Joe today. Score one for Bobbi Green Black Thumb.
Thanks to Hallie and sweet Baby Charlie for hosting!
Welcome to the new RoL Pinterest Party (formerly Making It Count.) Join me every 2nd and 4th Tuesday as we link up and share how we made, cooked, baked, crafted, did, or created one of the pins on our Pinterest boards.
Not on Pinterest? No problem. Link-up your own creation to inspire us so we can pin in to our own boards. It can be a recipe, sewing project, Catholic craft, homeschool project, organizing/ homemaking tip, themed birthday party, whatever you’d like.
Don’t have a post ready? The link-up will be open for a week so there’s still time. Plus, feel free to link up a new post or an older post that hasn’t had much traffic lately. 🙂
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For my contribution this week I wanted to make the family a dessert where I wasn’t worried about calories or fat content. I wanted to make something to celebrate Easter and the warmth of spring and give them a special treat. My father-in-law always goes to to the Farmer’s Market on the weekend and brings us back a big bag of fruit and veggies. This weekend he brought us three containers of fresh strawberries and I knew which pinned recipe I would try to make. It was the Strawberry Coconut Cake I had on my “What’s Baking” Board. The recipe is originally from Candy Jammies and I followed Michele’s recipe, except that I did not have any coconut extract so I just used extra vanilla.
Michelle lists the following Ingredients & Directions.
1 (18.5 ounce) box white cake mix
4 T. strawberry gelatin powder
2 T. all-purpose flour
1 t. baking powder
2 T. granulated sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/4 c. water
1/2 c. pureed strawberries
1 t. vanilla
1/2 t. coconut extract
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, finely diced
1 c. coconut, finely shredded in food processor
several strawberries to fill cake and garnish
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine dry ingredients in mixer bowl and stir together. Beat in oil, eggs, water, strawberry puree, vanilla, and coconut extract. Mix well. Stir in diced strawberries and coconut. Pour into two 8- or 9-inch round pans, greased and floured. Bake for 25-35 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean and the cakes are pulling away from the sides of the pans.
Put pans on wire racks and cool for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and leave on racks to cool completely. While cooling, make icing.
Spread some icing on first layer, then top with sliced strawberries. Place second layer on top and ice the rest of the cake. Cover entire cake in shredded coconut and garnish with fresh strawberries. I don’t tint my coconut pink like in the original recipe, because I think it’s so pretty to cut into the white cake and have the surprise of bright pink inside. I like the contrast of the white icing/coconut and pink cake.
The first time I made this, I did cupcakes. They’re really pretty with a small strawberry on each one.
Cream Cheese Frosting
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
2 16-oz. boxes powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Beat butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add vanilla. Slowly beat in powdered sugar until desired consistency. Add a tablespoon or so of milk if icing is too thick.
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Originally I was going to make a sheet cake or cupcakes like Michelle mentioned because the one time I tried a two layer cake it was so bad, I had to erase it from my memory. I didn’t want my debut post to be a total flop but I figured heck, go big or go home. So I went big. I got my first layer done.
And my second layer done.
It was very amateur, somewhat sloppy and looked nothing like Michelle’s fabulous photo but if you took a few steps back and squinted it didn’t look half bad for a rookie. Best of all, it tasted delicious.
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Now it’s your turn.
1. Choose your creation, share about it and snap a photo if you can.
2. In your post, link back the original blogger/idea, rather than your Pinterest pin. That way credit goes to the proper person. 🙂 (But feel free to add your Pinterest profile link so we can follow you!)
3. Add a link back here so others can play along. Here is the html code:
<a href=”http://www.revolutionoflove.com/blog/?p=2157″><img title=”Revolution of Love Blog – Pinterest Party & Link-up” src=”http://www.revolutionoflove.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/pinterest_2_medW32-300×240.jpg” alt=”” width=”300″ height=”240″ /></a>
4. Link up below. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address.
You have a week to post your link, so if you can’t get things done by Tuesday, no worries, put it up when you can. We’ll be here. Have fun!
Brian just left for work after a week long vacation. I was spoiled having him at home and now I am slightly depressed that he is back at work. Sigh. So to get my mind off of it I am linking up with Jen for 7 Quick Takes while the kids are playing outside. (They don’t return to school until Monday.)
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After two years of waiting and saving I finally got my new camera! So far I had been using my iphone or my old point and shoot camera but I wanted a big girl camera. With the help of my bro Rob (he’s the one that took my main blog banner photo of the bee and red flowers), I finally narrowed down my choices and picked the Nikon 5100. As soon as I got it out of the box (and charged the battery) I started snapping photos of kids in their pajamas and random things around the house. Of course Brian and the kids thought I was crazy but they’ve learned to live with it by now. Here are the first shots I took using the basic autofocus.
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Because I am such a newbie and have so much to learn, I seriously need to read up on some of the basics of photography. (I only recently found out that raw has nothing to do with how to cook a steak.) I know I can go online and read stuff (I’ve been viewing a few You Tube tutorials) but I want a physical book that I can mark with notes and dog ear pages. Any suggestions? Remember the key word is NEWBIE. I’m thinking a “Photography for Dummies” kind of book.
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Speaking of the You Tube, right now the boys are obsessed with Star Wars and particularly Star Wars Legos videos. These two are their current favorites.
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In the evenings Brian and the boys turn off all the lights in the house and take out their glow in the dark light sabers for grand battles. It is hilarious. Meanwhile, Bella and I have our own bonding time after we put the Jedis to bed. She stays up for an extra ½ hour and we watch a movie together while I straighten her hair or fold clothes etc. I recently introduced her to Anne of Green Gables and she was reluctant to watch something so old but she agreed since it was at least in color. (And not the dreaded black and white, or worse, a British period drama like Downton Abbey. Ah, the folly of youth. ;-)) Well, long story short. She fell in love with Anne of Green Gables and dusted off the book set I gave her last Christmas. We’ve gone through Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel and last night we started the old TV show Road to Avonlea. (Was anyone else in love with Gus?)
I know they are also remaking Anne of Green Gables into a 13 part TV series by Breakthrough Entertainment and it was slated to be made in the summer of 2013 but I haven’t heard any other news since last year.
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Speaking of movies, for Easter Brian requested a copy of the movie Milagro De Marcelino Pan Y Vino (2010). It is a remake of the movie the 1955 Miracle of Marcelino. He really loved that 1955 movie, and in fact, when we were trying to decide on a boy’s name while I was pregnant with Andrew, Marcelino was one of the top names on the list. It didn’t make it as a first name but it made it as a second middle name. (All the kids have two middle names.) So our first son’s full name is Andrew Joseph Marcelino. 🙂 Anyway, back to the movie. Here is the synopsis from Amazon:
Friars of a poor war-ravaged monastery find an infant abandoned on their doorstep. Having nowhere to turn in the wake of the war they decide to raise him in the monastery. The child grows into a rambunctious boy fond of playing jokes on the friars with his best friend Eleuterio. Marcelino yearns for a mother as he observes the deep bond Eleuterio shares with his mother. Marcelino’s curiosity leads him to the attic of the monastery: the one place he was warned never go to. While there he is drawn to a statue with a face so full of love that he is compelled to visit it often. Marcelino is too young to realize that it is a statue of Jesus. Thinking the statue looks hungry he sneaks bread and wine into the attic and offers it to the statue. Because of the faith of the child an unexpected miracle occurs.
Brian started watching it and said it was good so far. This weekend, we’ll watch it together after the kids go to sleep (it’s in Spanish with English subtitles so we have to be able to read in peace. 😉 I’ll let you know what I think. In the meantime, here’s the trailer.
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Don’t forget that next week on Tuesday (4/9/13) is the first RoL Pinterest Party Link-Up. You can share a post where you take one of your Pinterest pins and actually make/ create/ cook/ bake it. Not on Pinterest? No problem! Link up your original idea so we can pin it to our boards. It can be a recipe, a craft, a home school project, a themed party etc. Don’t have time to write a post by Tuesday? Feel free to link up an older post of something you’ve already done. It will be a great way to share some of your old posts that haven’t gotten much traffic lately. I hope to see you there!
Oh, and by the way, on Wednesday I shared the two logos I made.
Logo 1
Logo 2
So far the second one has received the most votes. Leave a comment if you want to let me know which you prefer. 🙂
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The kids are coming inside so I better wrap things up. I’ll leave you with one last photo.
Okay, okay kid. I’ll put the camera away. 😉
Today I am linking up with Cari for Theme Thursday: Funny and I’m linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter for {pretty, happy, funny, real}. 🙂
{pretty}
(These three photos were taken with my new Nikon camera. Happy dance, even though I am still getting used to it.) 😉
On Tuesday we went on a nature walk at Point Lobos National Park, CA.
Honeysuckle
After you cleared out of the forest, you could see the ocean below.
{happy}
These will be a little boring unless you are family but my mom will enjoy these Easter pics. 🙂
Andrew
John-Paul
Matthew
Bella
Looking for Easter eggs at Oma and Opa’s house.
My Easter treasures.
{funny & real}
These photos were snapped with my iphone showing that I either don’t feed my kids enough, or they just eat too much.
Where’s that box of cookies I’m supposed to bring to school? Uh oh.
Where’s that pack of cheese I had on the kitchen counter?
It is too quiet. What are the kids up to now?
