baking baking

i've been trying to bake more lately since the kids are getting older and i'd rather they snacked on things that i know the exact ingredients for rather than preservative packed store bought crap. my first attempt was a blueberry muffin with a struesel topping, which i thought was delicious! but it was too sweet for almost everyone else. whatever though i'll probably make it again since the presentation was pretty and it was simple to make. the picture to the right was a raspberry white chocolate muffin. it turned out alright but wasn't really that great or popular in the household as none of us really like raspberries or white chocolate. i'm still feeling out the new camera and the manual focus so the picture is a lil bit out of focus but i'll figure it out sooner or later.

this was my very first try at baking fresh bread and the end result was very monet. it was really nice from far away but once you get up close it turned into a big ol' mess. never again will i follow a recipe from a skeezy looking guy from youtube. also, no knead bread will probably end up being no eat bread as well. well at least now i know that if i want to make bread properly you MUST knead the crap out of it and let it RISE!! i'm gonna try this bread thing again later this week before i head back to vancouver cause my baby boy will not eat anything but carbs.

oli's 1st birthday

here's my baby girl from a few months ago, i love how she's sitting i the trunk space of the wagon which is now her designated spot when we go for park outtings. she's 1 year old already and it kinda makes me sad to think about how fast the past year went by. we didn't really do much for her birthday this year and just kept it a low key family event since her uncle and future aunt were in town visiting. i did manage to bake her a cake which was my very first successful attempt at baking. can you see the heart on top of the circular cake. i know the colors are so fourth of july but these were the sweetest freshest fruits i could find in the garbage they call supermarkets here in montreal. she was a little apprehensive about destroying it at first cause i'm pretty sure she thought she would get in big trouble but after feeling it out a bit she destroyed this sucker. none of the adults ate any of this cake though and we bought a mediocre strawberry cheesecake from a once delicious bakery later that night. no pictures of that thing but it was pretty not special so it did not deserve a picture.


here she is destroying the cake and at the same time her pretty new dress. don't worry! someone is sitting behind her and she didn't fall off the table. later that night came birthday presents which ended up being more fun for her brother and uncle. i don't think there are any pictures of the present opening but she got a bunch of new clothes, a hello kitty beauty salon, a dora/diego bath toy and this baby thing that balls go through tubes and bounce on things. i loooove birthdays especially baby ones cause they're just so happy and innocent and not greedy for more presents. i'm gonna enjoy these moments cause i'm not really looking forward to getting presents for ungrateful teenagers in about 10 years.



on a more beauty related note, body shop is offering a 10 dollar off coupon for any purchase over 10 dollars. however in redflagdeals.com someone posted that they bought something for 4.50 with the coupons with no questions asked. it may have just been an oblivious sales girl but either way if you're looking for something at body shop here's your chance to save some money.

i really don't remember how to post the link using HTML so you're gonna have to copy and paste this if you're interested:

http://p.p0.com/YesConnect/HtmlMessagePreview?a=4h0uRerHYxqjMrYTcHcgH