Cranberry Sangria

Here is the Cranberry Sangria recipe I made for Jaime's shower. It was adapted from THIS Bobby Flay pomegranate sangria recipe. Lucky for me, there was a bit left over by the end of the shower, and I finished that off last night. Mmm. :)



Ingredients:

- 1 bottle fruity red wine (I used Crane Lake Cabernet-- it's $3 a bottle at Winco)

- 1 1/2 cups Trader Joe's Sparking Pomegranate juice

- 1/2 cup cranberry juice
- 1/2 cup brandy (VSOP was quite tasty)
- 1/2 cup Triple Sec
- 1/4 cup simple syrup (equal amounts sugar and water, heated until sugar dissolves, cooled)
- 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
- 2 Mandarin oranges, thinly sliced
- 1 green apple, cored, halved and thinly sliced

Directions:
Combine all ingredients except for the Sparkling Pomegranate juice in a pitcher, cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 48 hours before serving. Immediately before serving, add the Sparkling Pomegranate juice and serve over ice.

I doubled the recipe for a shower of about 12 and it was so yummy, I will definitely make this again. In fact, Mason's birthday is next weekend... I could work that into a "One Fish Two Fish" theme, right? :)

Sprinkled

Sunday we celebrated Jaime's 2nd son, "Baby G" with a baby sprinkle. How good does she look for having a due date of February 11??? Craziness.

Some of the girls drove up from the bay area for the occassion. This is Laura, Lindsey, Jaime, me and Heidi...

We all happened to be wearing boots, a la Jaime. Funny! :)

The menu:

Three Cheese Hot Artichoke Dip

Roasted Cinnamon Almonds

Smoked Salmon Gaufrettes

Bruchetta with Goat Cheese, Pears & Honey

Mini Cheddar Herb muffins

Brie en Croute (thank you, Laura!)

Red Velvet mini cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting

Cranberry Sangria (which was by far my favorite part... mmm...)

Heidi brought the cupcakes, courtesy of bay area baker Sinful Bliss. They were little bites of heaven. Mmm...

After such a full day, I was in bed by 8pm. So there are already two posts covering this shower, HERE and HERE. Thank you for taking pictures, Heidi! I will definitely share that sangria recipe soon. It was SO good.

Congratulations, Jaimes! We can't wait to meet Baby G!!!

Three Days of Christmas

Finally, some Christmas pictures!

Our church had a kids Christmas service on the morning of Christmas Eve. Mase lasted about half an hour, which I thought was pretty good! He has been singing "Jingle Bells" ever since.

After church we came home and Mase took a nap while Matt and I packed up our cars. We headed over to Grandma Pete's and Matt let Mason open one of his gifts. A Transformer! The boys looked like this for about a half hour...

Family picture time

Around 8pm, Mason started to wind down... (and wanted to snuggle with his new baby)...

That is, until his Christmas jammies gave him a second wind!

Christmas Day I drove up to Redding to meet Matt at his mom's house. What did he find? His old letterman's jacket. Yep, it still fits. And looks pretty adorable.

Matt absolutely loves Christmas and wanted to play Santa.

Here are Matt and Jon, his brother, being goofy and reenacting our engagement, which I'll save for another post (on THIS blog-- if you want to read that one, send me your email address).

The day after Christmas we had my mom's side of the family over for dinner. Mom got Matt an ice chest... which my brother let Mason crawl into and then pushed him around the house in it. I guess that's better than last year where he carried him around in a paper bag?

Mason got a harmonica, which he has already figured out how to play! Other favorite gifts were a farm set, a fire house, cars and musical instruments (which I may or may not keep out of his reach...)

We were all so amazingly blessed this Christmas and it truly couldn't have been better. We are already looking forward to next year!

Favorites List 2010

In general, I'm not all about "stuff". I've become a little green in my old age (haha) and have adopted the recycle/repurpose/reinvent motto that has become so popular. I try to be conservative with my purchases and if I see something I can't live without, I usually try to either create it myself (which doesn't always work out) or find it second-hand. Now, don't get me wrong, I have my fair share of designer jeans and Coach bags-- there are things even this thrifty girl won't compromise on. So in the spirit of "sometimes you just need cool stuff", here are a few of my favorite things from the past year. If you're really interested (and I don't know why you would be), here is the list from 2009. Now then, my 2010 Favorites List!

Etsy (Specifically: Jewelry on Etsy)

More specifically: Stella Jade, Fancybelle Boutique, and Simple Serendipity. Sarah, of Stella Jade, is a blog friend of mine who actually lives half a country away and is one of the sweetest people I know (but don't really know). She saw a book on my wish list on my blog's side bar and offered to send me her copy when she was done-- then she ended up buying me a copy from Amazon. So thoughtful! Her jewelry is super cute and SUPER affordable and more than once I've ordered gifts and *almost* kept them for myself.

Hand stamped jewelry has been really popular for a while and I've wanted a necklace every since I was pregnant with Mason. After losing the baby in October I finally ordered a simple disc from Fancybelle Boutique with my favorite verse, Jeremiah 29:11, and one birthstone for Mason and one for the other baby on it. I wear it every day and is the (second) most meaningful piece of jewelry I own. Love.

Finally, Simple Serendipity just has some fun pieces that are WAY cheap. You can totally justify buying several items because they are so cute and inexpensive.

The moral of the story? Shop Etsy. Support handmade and small business. Maybe make a friend or two along the way.

Gap's Real Straight denim

These are the skinny jeans for those of us who have resisted the skinny jean craze because we think you have to be skinny to wear skinny jeans. (Can I fit the word "skinny" in there one more time? Skinny skinny skinny.) Ain't No Mom Jeans suggested the Gap Real Straight jean and I pretty much bought them immediately. Side note: If you don't already read ANMJ, you're missing out. Unless you have fashion sense (unlike me), then you could probably be a contributor for ANMJ. Or start your own fashion blog (Heidi).

Shutterfly
Besides the free photo storage, Shutterfly is constantly offering me free stuff. My 2010 Christmas cards were free, thanks to a blog promo. Then, for sharing my Christmas card on this blog, they gave me $25 to spend on other Shutterfly stuff. I've gotten free photo books (which made awesome grandparent gifts last year) and you can always find promos going on. Thanks, Shutterfly.

Bikram Yoga
Hot yoga. As in, yoga done in an extremely HOT room. Like over 100 degrees. It's sweaty. It's intense. It's an hour and a half class at the studio I go to. Bikram yoga is very challenging but so amazingly cleansing-- physically and mentally. You can burn up to 800 calories per class and I swear you sweat out every single toxin in your body. I think everyone should try it. (Full disclosure: I have no sense of smell, so a bunch of sweaty people in close proximity in a non-ventilated room does not bother me. Just sayin'. Consider that.)

Trader Joe's Well Red Organic Wine
There had to be something TJ's in my list, since that is where I can be found twice a week. Matt recently warned a friend of his who was rummaging through our refrigerator that, "Everything in there is healthy and from Trader Joe's". Anyway, the Well Red is about $6 a bottle and is sulfite-free. I'm totally a sucker for clever-- and the name "Well Red" appeals to my nerdy appreciation for vocabulary and a play on words. Aside from that, it's the perfect wine for a mild, it's-been-a-long day glass at the end of the night. Add to that a packet of their dark chocolate peppermints and O.M.G. Heaven.

So there you go. I hope you found something new or will commit to trying something new in the next year. Now, do tell: What are a few of your favorite things?

Mason's take on Christmas decor

"Santa, get up."

You know, it's one of those inflatable lawn characters. Deflated. Mason was pretty concerned about Santa's well being on our front lawn. So funny.

Saturday Smile

Freeze!

When I wasn't looking, Mason peeled off his church bag tag and stuck it over his mouth last weekend. In an effort to snap a picture before he took it off, I told him to put his hands up.

I almost made this a "You caption" post, but the look on his face suggested it would be a good idea to explain. I wasn't holding my child hostage. At least in this photo...

Hide and Seek

I've got to say, that is the cutest thing I think I've ever found under the bed.