Everybody loves Ebelskivers

I've blogged about it before, but I just love our [new-ish] little family tradition of having Ebelskivers for breakfast when Sean is home for a holiday.  Healthy? not so much. Delicious? definitely. We have tried lots of different recipes from my Ebelskiver recipe book, but this one was probably in the top three {along with Lemon Curd ebelskivers and Apple-spiced filled ebelskivers}.  This morning I made Double Blackberry Ebelskivers with a fresh blackberry in the middle and homemade blackberry sauce! 

Living and loving life in the little things. 

Days off, family breakfast, sticky fingers, beautiful sunny day. 

Doesn't get much better.

Thank you Lord.

Our Lovely Easter Celebrations

We are so blessed to have both of our families in town, and as a result, we celebrate all holidays twice. :-) Sometimes that means crazy, long days with too much food, even more dessert, and no naps- not a good combination. I am usually frazzled because we run from one place to the next {and occasionally we visit up to 4 different locations on 1 holiday}.  Now that we have 2 babes, it is a lot harder to haul them all over the planet on a given day- so we are getting better about taking turns for holidays, or celebrating the day before or after with one or the other family.  For Easter this year, the Bradford side decided to have their celebration on Saturday, which was wonderful because all the cousins could come and we didn't have to feel divided or rushed. Jack had so much fun with his (2nd) cousin, Ellya. He pushed her around in his fire truck for a long time! 

On Sunday morning we celebrated as a little family.  Sean and Jack repeated proclaimed, 

"He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!" 

and we gave Jack and Claire their easter baskets :-) 

Claire shared her candy with Mommy&Daddy ;-)

dinosaurs!

loves his soft bunny

Later we went to Nana's house for dinner and an Easter egg hunt with the cuzzies.  We now have 11 kids at our family parties! 4 of which were born in a 6 month span. Claire is number 11. 

We had so much fun celebrating with our families, but the greatest joy is knowing that we serve a living God. One who conquered Sin and Death; a perfect, sinless sacrifice. He is Risen Indeed.

love this pic

Jack & Nicky {wish I could have heard this conversation}

cute lil chocolate face!

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A Very Vday Tradition

For most couples, Valentine's Day means reservations at the most expensive steakhouse you can afford {or that is still taking reservations that day- since I heard a statistic that something like 70% of men forget to make their reservations early enough} red roses, perfume, conversation hearts, a box of chocolates, and maybe diamonds jewelry. 


While I am a self proclaimed hopeless romantic, Hallmark holidays just don't really strike much of a cord with me, so we have never made a huge deal out of it.  A couple of years ago we decided that staying home and cooking dinner together was just more "us."  And that is just what we did.  I made garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus, parmesan toasted rolls, and Sean grilled fillets for us.  And so it became our little Vday Tradition.  


Sidenote: in case you were worried...we go out to dinner A LOT. Sometimes to fancy, expensive dinners, other times to one of our 5 "go-to" choices, but we do go out.  Matter of fact- we are going  OUT on a date tonight!! Our last one for a little while, since Claire will be here on Tuesday!!! Yay!


Here are a couple of pics of our Valentine's Dinner :-)

"It's so simple and it's so true- I love us...and I love you"

{ba-you-ns that Daddy brought home for Jack- he LOVED them}

The view from my seat. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE.

Of course no meal is complete without some sort of yummy dessert. Usually I try to come up with something delectable and special, but this year good 'ol brownies and ice cream were the winners. And it was good.
                                                      xo

A day at "Wiggle Bay"

Thank you Martin Luther King, Jr. 

It seems like Sean has to work on most of the smaller holidays. He even worked a full day on New Year's Eve. Boo. But not Monday! Thanks to Dr. King, even T.D. Ameritrade took day off, which meant we got to spend the day together in the beautiful, 85 degree, San Diego weather! We decided to go to Seaport Village and have a picnic. Jack decided it was actually "Wiggle Bay" instead of San Diego Bay. All of you who are Wiggles enthusiasts could probably guess we sang

 "We're on our way to Wiggle Bay....just a few waves, and we'll be on our way"

 more than once. We just enjoyed the weather, the family time {just the 3 of us...since those days are quickly fleeting} some sandwiches, and of course, no picnic is complete without the pink & white circus animal cookies. I can't believe I failed to capture that in the photos. I guess I was preoccupied with the two year old bundle of energy running all around! We had such a fun time!  

{My camera settings were not right, but it kind of looks cool}

 xo