Christmas 2011 Baking

As I mentioned in a previous post, I did a bit of baking over the days leading up to Christmas and things turned out pretty good. I made Magic Cookie Bars, a chocolate cheesecake, and a red velvet cake.

Everything did taste good, however the Magic Cookie Bars got a bit toasty around the edges ;-) Surprisingly though, the toasty bits were kind of the best part. Who knew???? Here's a picture of my result:



Next, I baked the chocolate cheesecake. It turned out pretty good. It's very rich, and I would definitely make it again. Here's my attempt:



And my last bit of baking for Christmas 2011 was a red velvet cake. I usually make red velvet cupcakes, but this year I decided to bake a full size cake. And in order to add a bit of festive fun, I planted a Christmas tree and let Santa and the Snowman hang out in my cream cheese flavored snow ;-) It got all winter wonderland around the Yellow House.



And our old friend Trevor just had to horn into this last washed out photo. Lol. He loves making his way into the spotlight during the holidays!



It was fun to do a bit of holiday baking. I wonder what I'll bake next year???? Who knows...but watch this space. And as always, I'll be baking and cooking throughout the year, so please stop by again to see how it all turns out :-)

Until next time...

Happy 4th!!!

Hello all! I wanted to take time to send out Happy 4th of July greetings to all of my family and friends back home and to all my fellow Americans! Brit Boy and I had our BBQ celebration and fun yesterday, since he had to go to work today and it isn't a holiday here for obvious reasons :)

So today it's just Trevor and me around the Yellow House and Trevor wanted his picture taken so here he is showing his patriotic spirit ;-) For those of you who are new here and don't know who Trevor is, check out these previous posts here and here.



Also, I've been a bit under the weather lately so I haven't had a chance to do a post with my Wimbledon pictures, but it's coming in the next couple of days. In the meantime, check out Brit Boy's post about it on his sports blog, The Sports Ground!

Have a wonderful day!

Snow Day 2009

As some of you may have heard, we had snow here in the UK yesterday and it was really lovely. I wanted to share some of my photos with all of you. I went out with my hubby to keep him company on his ride to see a client, and as always, I took my camera along. Here’s what it looked like around Wiltshire, from the car and on foot and Trevor got in on the fun too. I hope you enjoy the photos :)

Christmas Around the Yellow House

As we are drawing closer to Christmas (it’s eight days away, can you believe it?), I decided to share a bit of what the Christmas vibe around our house is like in the decorations department. We sort of throw tinsel or garland or ribbon on most things because we get kind of drunk with excitement :-) So my first photo is of our lucky bamboo plant. It never had a chance to escape…so now it is draped with ribbons for the next few days. This happened during a gift wrapping session ;-) Next we have “The Christmas Kids”, yet another set of mascots, like Trevor, except they only come out at Christmas. We named them that because we couldn't think of anything else to call them when we bought them a couple of years ago. We have Santa, who is a bit off to the side in this photo, and a reindeer, a happy little penguin, the snowman, and a perky Christmas tree. Fun bunch, huh? :-) The best part is that they sort of dance around…well they sway mostly, but it’s fun when they do it in a line like they’re in a musical or something. Here they are: The other day, Brit Boy and I were in town and we saw that they had poinsettias. They had big ones and they had tiny single ones. We opted for the tiny one in a tiny gold pot. I love the deep red of it. And last, but not least, we have our little Christmas tree. It’s an artificial one. It’s kinda sparse in some spots, but it’s still cute and does the trick to set the mood. So this is just a taste of what our house looks like at Christmas. Merry Christmas from me, Brit Boy, and our various mascots :-) Also I want to wish everyone all the best whether you celebrate Christmas or another holiday during this time :-)

Thanksgiving Wrap Up

I mentioned yesterday that Brit Boy and I had a nice laid back weekend. Thanksgiving was great and the food turned out great. The menu included: turkey and dressing (or stuffing depending I guess upon where you grew up) :-) , macaroni & cheese, braised brussel sprouts, and mashed potatoes with cream cheese and chives. For dessert, we finished it off with sweet potato pie. Our robot mascot Trevor was most interested in the pie. Here’s a photo of him getting ready to dive in.




I would have posted a photo of Trevor after he dived in, but take it from me, it wasn’t pretty. LOL. But all in all, it was a nice Thanksgiving. The food was great, but we also paused to think of what we are grateful for. That is what I love about Thanksgiving…it’s being with the ones you love and being thankful for all of your blessings. Brit Boy and I don’t have a lot of money, but not many people do these days. However, as far as we’re concerned, we have everything :) We have a roof over our head and we have enough and that indeed is a blessing.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!!!! Trevor wanted to let you all see his costume. He made it himself. Pssst...(whisper)..he borrowed Brit Boy's handkerchief and kept running around saying, "I'm a ghost...boo!" LOL. Anyway, we just humor our little mascot around here :-) Here's a photo.




Enjoy your weekend!

Trevor's Celebration and Holiday Pie

Yesterday, we all waved goodbye to the summer Olympics for another four years. As I wrote at the beginning of the Games, Brit Boy and I were cheering for two teams in our house and our family mascot Trevor was cheering along with us. In the end, the divided loyalties meshed and all together we were proud of both of our home teams. And overall, we caught the Olympic spirit and were proud of all of those from around the world who competed. There were so many athletes that I found myself cheering for, just for the strength and drive that they showed and it didn’t matter where they were from. I was cheering for Usain Bolt from Jamaica, as he broke the world record and just loved his enthusiasm. My heart went out to Liu Xiang, the Chinese athlete who was unable to compete due to an injury and he wanted so much to compete in front of his home crowd. I just love that all of these athletes from everywhere had the opportunity to compete.

Back on the home front, Brit Boy and I watched the Closing Ceremony and the handoff to London for the Games here in England in four years. Trevor, our mascot and dear robot friend, decided to hold his own little party to close things off nicely. Here’s a photo of Trevor with his multiple flags…isn’t he a proud one. (smile)



And he blew up the balloons all by himself. Brit Boy and I showered him with a bit of confetti, so he was a happy boy.

Today, here in the UK, we have been having Bank Holiday. A bank holiday, for those who don’t know, is a public holiday that is held here at different times of the year, sort of like Labor Day in the US. Brit Boy and I have been enjoying a day together and we even did some more baking today. This time instead of turning a cookie recipe into a cupcake recipe, we went another route and baked a pie. Although this time we changed one of the ingredients in the pie, so our changeable baking is still alive and well. (smile) The recipe was for a strawberry and rhubarb pie, but we can’t find rhubarb in the store anymore, so I thought we would try substituting raspberries.

Well it turned out great and we are really doing well with this “design your own recipe thing”. (smile) We were so anxious to taste it that we ate some of it first and then we had dinner. This is also becoming a tradition with us sometimes. We both think that we read somewhere once that eating in this order helps you digest or metabolize better or something like that. Who knows? But it sure is fun to eat that way sometimes. (laugh) Here’s a photo of our pie after we had our pieces and it has a few nips out of the crust here and there. We had to sample it to make sure it was okay. (wink)




So we have had a fun day, with our tasty pie and our celebratory robot.