Category Archives: Uncategorized

New Featured Baby and Kid’s Brand: Tea Collection

Posted on April 22, 2014 | Leave a comment

Tea Collection’s Friends & Family Sale: 20% Off Everything
**This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

I have recently added a few affiliate partnerships to this site. You can see their banner ads to the left. –> One that I am excited about is Tea Collection. They make super cute clothing that my daughter loves. She has worn her favorite mermaid shirt from 12 months old and continues to wear it (although it is a little shorter in the middrift.)

And there couldn’t be better timing, as Tea Collection is letting me spread the love to friends and family and with a discount code! For just two days only (4/22 and 4/23) you can receive 20% off everything on Tea Collection during their Friends & Family Sale.

From Tea Collection: “Take advantage of the sale and pick up twirly dresses, colorful Tees and sweet baby items for summer. Also check out Tea’s new sporty selection of swimsuits for your little water bug. Feel free to tell your friends and family, because there is always enough Tea Collection love to go around.”

Baking Pie with Little Bird

Posted on November 23, 2013 | 3 comments

Happy weekend, friends! Here is a sneak peak of our pumpkin pie. Little Bird is cutting cookies out of the pie dough scraps. I found some mini cookie cutters of leafs and pumpkins. Naturally, no kid can resist.

She was also a natural at rolling dough and measuring cups of flour. She even came up with an innovation I will copy! I instructed her to sprinkle the little leaf cookies with cinnamon and sugar, but instead she picked up and pressed each cookie into the bowl of sugar and spice. It stuck better and was distributed better. Love that!

We are making pumpkin, but used the same all butter crust recipe from my chocolate espresso pecan pie post here.

My only lament is that her cookies will not make it to the top of the pie. Little Bird and Papa finished them off while I was taking a nap with Baby. I don’t know what we are having for dinner, but I am off to finish dessert.

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Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged cooking with kids, pies

My “Lucy in the Chocolate Factory” Moment

Posted on September 6, 2013 | 8 comments

As I shared last month, I’ve really enjoyed the past year of blogging. One of the pleasant surprises has been finding a community online of other (mostly female) bloggers. Even though most of them are in the same town as me, I haven’t had much opportunity to meet anyone in real life. So tonight has been an extra treat, to meet some online friends in person, and to preview the opening of a new See’s Candy!

Here I am meeting “Mama Maggie” of In Mama Maggie’s Kitchen, a super sweet food blogger and recipe developer who posts some amazing looking food.

See’s Candy just opened a new location at Fashion Valley in San Diego. Tomorrow (Friday) is their grand opening. Tonight they had a special preview night for local bloggers. See’s is known for passing out yummy free samples (they give away one BILLION, with a “B”, pounds of chocolate each year) and tonight was no exception. Another piece of trivia I learned: the classic “Lucy in the Chocolate Factory” scene was filmed in See’s chocolate factory in San Francisco.

Several years ago I had a similar “Lucy” moment when visiting my best friend, Brooke, and her family’s vineyard, Parsonage Valley Vineyard. It was bottling time and I hopped on the assembly line to help bottle their Cabernet Sauvignon. My job was to put the foil over the cork and then pull a lever that tightened it. It was fun just being there as part of the process. There was a cool spinning wheel that filled up each bottle with a strong spout of wine. Then the bottler asked me, “Do you like wine?” “Um, yeah, especially Parsonage wine.” He then held an empty water bottle up to the spigot and gave it to me. My assembly line duty then became: place the foil, pull the lever, sip the wine. :)

Tonight, See’s challenged us bloggers to another Lucy moment in a contest to see who could pack a box of chocolates the fastest. They invited us behind the counter to race in heats. It was harder than it looked to get each truffle in the little paper cup! I may not have had the fastest time, but I got to take home my box. Winning!

If you are in San Diego, check out the grand opening at Fashion Valley tomorrow. They have a lot of fun activities and giveaways planned. And for everyone, everywhere, check out this round up of my favorite chocolate recipes!