It's Love Day

What is Love??

Love is Laughter.  Belly Aching Laughter.

Love is 6:00 family dance time.  Music. Husband. Kids.  And lots of silly dancing.

Love is singing to your wife and kids (even when out of tune).

It's getting up in the night with a sick child to let the other one sleep.

Love is a phone call in the middle of the day just to see how you're doing.

It's a Sunday drive.  Coffee, music, and lots of conversation.

Love is having the ice scraped off your car on a cold Winter's day.

It's laughing when you feel like complete garbage.

Love is jumping on the bed.

Love is Sunday Banana pancakes.

It's taking a 15 hour flight to Hong Kong (for the weekend) to take your wife shopping, when you hate shopping.

Love is taste-testing one thousand recipes until you finally get it right.

 

What does Love mean to you?

Happy Love Day!

xo

Spreading Holiday Cheer (Flight Attendant Style)

Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome aboard.  

14 years ago, I started working as a Flight Attendant for Air Canada.  Amazing how fast the time has flown by.

During the holidays, I like to leave a little cookie "greeting" for my friends to find in their mail folders.  Something a little more edible than a Greeting card.  ...Although sometimes when you are stuck on an airplane, a greeting card can sound pretty delicious... :)

 This year they will be receiving a F/A Jen cookie.  (I promise I look more feminine in real life... Well, at least I hope I do.

For those of you traveling over the holidays, may you have safe travels!

For those staying close to home, may you enjoy your time with family and loved ones.

Happy Holidays! 

xo

Jen

Kookie. Kookie. Kookie.

The past couple of weeks, it feels as though our house has been filled with every germ imaginable.  

Fevers, Ear infections, Sinus infections, Laryngitis, Vomiting and Pneumonia.  And of course... Very. Little. Sleep.

I knew the kids were beginning to feel better when they started asking for cookies again... Or should I say, I realized how sick they were when they stopped asking for them in the first place.  

Either way... they were finally on the mend.  And I was overjoyed to fulfill their request for cookies.

I'm going to tell you a secret.

My two little Kidlets LOOOVE Cookies!


I am not sure if I should be proud, or embarrassed to tell you this, but the THIRD word my Son learned to say was Cookie.


Yes.  His third word...  

Our mornings usually commence something like this:

Sam wakes in the morning and runs out to the kitchen with a huge grin on his face.  He bends down in front of the oven, points to it and says Kookie.  Kookie.  Kookie.

One night after he realized I had turned on the oven to bake salmon (and not cookies), he dropped to the floor and cried. 


And I realized I may have a problem on my hands.

My Sister-in-Law {Zarine} said it best: 
"Jen, that boy may look like his Daddy, but the kid is all yours"  

She's right! 

I didn't tell her this, but after I pulled the salmon out of the oven that night, I dropped to the floor and cried too...  I also, really wanted cookies for dinner.

I love having freshly baked cookies in the house, but I can't bake an entire batch without having them disappear into my belly.


So, this is my solution. 


I make a batch cookies.  Portion it onto a cookie sheet.  Freeze for approximately 15 minutes until the cookies are semi-frozen.   Transfer the cookies into a Ziplock bag and return them to the freezer.

Bingo Bango.  


You can now have freshly baked cookies in no time.  They may still end up in  your tummy but just not all at once.


Unexpected guests?  No problem.  pull out half a dozen cookies.  Thaw for 15 minutes and bake. 

So go ahead.  Pour yourself a glass of milk.  Grab a cookie.  Eat.  Laugh.  Love.  And Enjoy!


Happy Tuesday!  :)  

Thanks for stopping by!

Reality check

Today I spent 10 minutes trying to wipe off hair dye from my face, only to realize it wasn't hair dye.  The marks were age spots... (I wish I were joking)

Before going back to work tomorrow, I was really, {REALLY} hoping to lose 10 pounds, but the extra month off, really wasn't good for my waistline.

Once I realized I couldn't lose 10 pounds overnight, I thought I would at least colour my hair.  Makes sense, right?

Now, I am not a hairdresser.  This was confirmed a couple of weeks ago when I tried to cut my Son's hair.  All I can say is thank goodness he is only one, and will not remember the whole ordeal. 

Now having made this confession, I would kindly ask that you please not tell my Grandmother.

Why the secret from my Grandma?  Well, I think she may believe I'm a hairdresser.

When I was a teenager, I took a semester off from High School and moved to Mexico to live with my Grandparents.  The plan was to brush up on my Spanish, (and learn to read and write) but when I arrived, my Grandma gave me two options.


Option #1) I could enroll in school as planned 
or 
Option #2) I could take private Spanish lessons and use the remaining time to travel. 

Duh... There was really, only one logical choice.   

I absolutely insisted I go to school.


Okay, that's a lie!  I chose option #2.  I figured I could practice my "Dos Cervezas Por Favor" at the resorts.

So, I got a tutor.  And my Spanish really suffered as I became good friends with my Spanish teacher.  We spent most of my class time at the local coffee house drinking coffee and chatting about her boyfriend.  (Come to think of it, maybe we weren't really good friends as I was still paying her for Spanish lessons and her coffee)..  Great.

Okay, back to my lack of hairdressing skills...  

My Grandmother thought it would be fun for me to join some classes in between our travel adventures so that I could make some friends and have some fun.  So I joined hair dressing school... (Why hairdressing and not baking you ask?  Because her Nephew owned a hairdressing school.)  So my hairdressing really suffered as I made some friends and we spent most of the class at the local coffee house drinking coffee and chatting about their boyfriends. 

Do you see a pattern?
I do like coffee.  

So, now you know.  I dye my hair and I have age spots.  I blog about hairdressing but throw in some baby shower cookies and cupcakes.

I am sitting in my kitchen eating a pear, pretending it's a cupcake.  Yet still, in all likely hood, my uniform still isn't going to fit me tomorrow. 


That's it.  End of Story.

Happy Grey's Anatomy night.  Do you watch?

When I Should be Studying...

In one short week, I will be returning to work as a Flight Attendant, and my year of Maternity leave will be OVER.  (Insert tears, here).

The last year at home has been incredible, and I have truly enjoyed every minute of being home with my kids.  

The thought of going back is difficult.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about my return.  

Nervous.  

Scared.  

Sad.  

Happy.  

Don't all Moms feel like that after maternity leave?

Nervous.  I have not worked a flight in nearly two years (I worked on the ground while pregnant).

Scared.  I may be spending too much time on the computer, and not enough time studying.  What if I don't pass my 6 days of exams? Isn't that right, Mom? :) 

Sad to be leaving my kids (although, they won't really notice because I will be flying while they are sleeping, and home by the time they are out of bed).  

Happy that I passed my medical exam and that I am allowed to return work... (that's a whole other story).

In preparation for my Flight Attendant Exams, I have a tremendous amount of reading to catch up on, along with a couple of work books to complete.  And for those of you with kids, you know how difficult it can be to read with 2 little ones running around...  (It took me nearly a week to get through one chapter of my manual).  

Then, when I do have some time to myself and should be reading, and studying, and preparing myself for my exams (such as right now), I am here.  Writing this post, and watching my kids in daycare from my computer.

And posting these little guys.

With short arms

And crazy hair.

And little air bubbles in their icing belly... see them?

(The quickest fix for removing the air bubbles, is to remove the belly cookie from the picture all together!)  :)

Happy Wednesday.  

I hope your day is a little more productive than mine!

Sock Monkey Cookies

My latest cookie adventure involved these Sock Monkey Cookies

Now, from this photo the little guys don't look that bad right?  

Well, unfortunately this Photo was taken before things went terribly wrong for us ("us" meaning me and the monkeys).  

The icing wasn't drying, and I was *running out of time*.

  

By Friday morning I was certain these little guys wouldn't be dry in time for delivery (They were for that evening), but I crossed my fingers and carried on.  By the afternoon, I thought things were looking up as they seemed dry enough to package... I mean they had been drying for a couple of days. 

I packaged all the cookies individually in cellophane bags and tied them with pretty ribbons, and I was pretty happy with them... until I looked down and noticed the red mouth was sweating and the black icing had smudged all over the place. 

They looked like The Joker... and I almost cried.

{insert word of choice here}... What. A. DISASTER!  

I found out afterwards that the cookies did not need to be packaged.  (I know... had I asked in the beginning, the joker face could have been avoided all together!)  

But, not having to re-package the monkeys, allowed me to carefully rub off the black and re-draw the mouth.

The bleeding red icing is a whole other story..  

Do you have any tricks for working with red icing, and icing that won't dry?

Learning from Mistakes

"The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing."  ~John Powell

You know you're having a bad day when...

You wonder if you added the cheese to the macaroni, when you are supposed to be making Royal Icing for your cookies.

I just had one of those days...

Suddenly, the amount of water I needed for that perfect Icing was accidentally doubled,  because what I thought was a 1/4 cup was actually a 1/2 cup... and by the time I realized it, it was too late.  

No problem, right?!  Just double the other ingredients?  

Sure.  

No big deal if you have more icing sugar, time and patience.  

Let's see.  

Icing sugar... check

Time... 1/2 check

Patience....I don't want to talk about it. 

A problem that could have easily been fixed turned into The Absolute Worst icing I have ever made in my life.  

It was actually inedible...  

(No it wasn't the extra water.. it was everything else I did afterwards to try to fix it.)

The icing was super duper gritty and the taste was dreadful.  (Sound appealing?) 

So, I was left with two options, as I was now completely out of icing sugar.  

1. Ditch the Valentine's cookies this year and use this icing as a cookie lesson.
2. Drop everything, bundle the kids up,  get in the car and run to the nearest grocery store for more icing sugar to start all over again.

Well...  I went with option one as it seemed like the most logical choice.  

But, instead of doing a cookie lesson myself, I gave it to my two and a half year old Daughter Amelia to (play with) do her own cookie Tutorial.

So, get ready to be inspired... because here are some of the most fabulous cookie decorating tips you could ever dream of.  :)

Start with some super gritty, inedible Royal icing 

Spoon some Royal Icing on the counter.  Use it as finger paint, and then put your cookies on top. 

Begin to Decorate

If you are unhappy with the design you have piped on your cookie, you simply wipe it off with a dish sponge.

Oops!  If it drops on the floor {the cookie or the sponge}, don't worry.  Just lick it off and continue

Add Green Colouring to your Icing, (Because green is such a lovely Valentine's colour) and spoon it on your cookie.  This method is so much quicker than flooding.

Cookies for her teacher. I know... you're totally wishing she was your student!!  

For more cookie decorating tips from Amelia click Here

Picture Perfect

"Buying a Canon doesn't make you a photographer.  It makes you a Canon owner".  ~Author Unknown

It has been a couple of years since I got my new camera, and since that day, the owners manual has remained closed... in a box... in the basement...


Truth be told, the basement is home to all of our owners manuals.  In a gargantuan box that's never opened.  


I may have a problem.


I am certain that in that box, there are manuals for items that I no longer even own.


Hmm... does that make me an owners manual hoarder??  


Back to my camera... 


As my camera is presently set to automatic (and I use it as a basic point and shoot), I figured now is as good a time as any to dust off the old instruction book and try to learn a thing or two.  


I mean, I am on vacation, relaxing at my Grandparent's house {Tehuacan, Mexico} without a whole heck of responsibility.


In the meantime... Here are some camera cookies for you!

Wish me luck!

Merry Christmas!

In Preparation for the arrival of Santa Claus, we had to bake him some cookies.

Perfection!

Let the festivities begin!  From our family to yours, we wish you a wonderful Christmas!

'Tis the Season...

...To be baking!

Although Christmas is fast approaching and I have yet to complete my Christmas shopping, I thought I would share some of the cookies I have been working on.

Tomorrow I shall put down the rolling pin temporarily to hit the mall.