2014 Memories & Blessings Mason Jar

On New Year's Eve, Joe and I were chatting about our resolutions and plans for the year. I was telling him about how I wanted to choose a word for the year and about this really cool memory jar idea that I stumbled upon on Pinterest. 

Have you seen them? If not, here's the rundown: Throughout the year, you toss in notes of the good things (big or small) that touched your life. Then, at year's end, you pull them out together and reminisce.  To my surprise, he thought the jar was an awesome idea. Almost three weeks later and I finally have the jar done. 

What I like most about this is that while it's obviously a fit for the New Year, it could also work just as well to record what happened between birthdays. 

Need some ideas of what to share? Try some of these:

Surprise gifts

Daily blessings

Happy moments

Special memories

Momentous occasions

Life's little pleasures

Milestones

Accomplished goals

Birthday Fun in Philadelphia

I bet you didn't know that Saturday was my 24th birthday! If you just put two and two together, then you now know that we moved into our house on my birthday last year. That was probably the most eventful birthday ever so this year I just wanted to take it easy.  I'm not sure if everyone else looks forward to their birthdays as much as I do, but I always feel like a little kid on August 18th. [Give me a few more years and this feeling will probably fade away haha.]

I think I feel this positively about birthdays because I'm married to the sweetest guy ever who goes out of his way to spoil me each year. In addition to the presents that blew me away (he knows me too well), the Mr. treated me to an afternoon in our favorite city. We visited the Philadelphia Art Museum's current exhibition: Gauguin, Cézanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia, lounged amid the gardens on the museum lawn, and had a surprise dinner at Davio's. The evening was topped off with some drinks and a delicious tiramisu.

Side note: If you get a chance to visit one of the northern Italian steakhouse's four locations, I highly suggest it. The Mr. and I both ranked our meals in our "top three." The food was astounding and all of the employees were attentive and professional. 

As I mentioned earlier, the Mr. got me some great gifts. Christmas had been a holiday full of kitchen gadgets but my birthday was made complete with tons of crafting goodness and some fashionable accessories on the side. You'll see a lot of the items in future posts and I'll be sure to point them out when the time comes.

I hope everyone else had as nice weekend as I did! Unfortunately, it left me with little time to really work on anything. Check back later this week for a delicious "breakfast for dinner" recipe and some crafty fun!

Elmo Present {Printable}

Today is our nephew's second birthday party! We got him a sweet techy gadget (if you knew the Mr. you would completely understand). While I'm positive he will absolutely love it once he figures out what it is, it won't have the allure of the Fisher-Price packaging. This is why I thought I might go about doing something a bit more creative with the wrapping.

The baby LOVES Elmo, probably about 10x more than he loves me. His parents put together quite the Sesame Street themed celebration.  What better way to dress up our gift than with Elmo's face? Yeah yeah, I could have just gone and bought some Sesame Street wrapping paper, but I wanted something fun and unique. This was just that.

Materials:

• My FREE Elmo Printable
• 8"x11" white cardstock
• Color printer
• Ink
• Scissors
• Red wrapping paper
• Adhesive: glue stick, glue dots, etc

Instructions:

1. Print out the Elmo face shapes onto white cardstock (it absorbs the saturation of ink better than normal copy paper)
2. Carefully cut around each shape
3. Arrange the face as shown above (Left eye slightly overlaps the right, nose sits between both eyes, and then the mouth in a big smile)
4. Wrap your present using the red wrapping paper
5. Adhere the face shapes to the package in the correct layout
6. Presto finito, you are done!

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That's So Cheesy

Before I get to the cheesy part, I want to mention that yesterday was my sweetheart's birthday! I'm so sad that it's over already; I just love having the freedom to spoil him like he deserves. We spent the evening in the city and had dinner and drinks at Fogo de Chao (awesome restaurant if you have a meat-lover in your circle). Before heading down, he got to open the presents that he was left to ogle over all day while I was at work (tee-hee!).  If I had to guess the Mr.'s favorite gifts from last night -- the bean bag toss game to round out his outdoor game collection, the Legend of Zelda blanket that I made especially for him, and the vertical chess board set which brings a whole new meaning to the "art of chess." If you've never heard of Straight-Up Chess, I seriously recommend that you check it out... the product is innovative, the quality is impeccable, and the customer service is outstanding. (I'll take a good picture of his tomorrow when the sun is out again)

Now, on to the cheesiness (yeah!!).... Yesterday went by too quickly, so today was time to celebrate over lunch with his parents. Since my in-laws have never enjoyed any type of fondue, we thought it would be a great communal birthday meal. The main course was a variation of the Coq au Vin recipe found in the Melting Pot's cookbook and served with raw bite-sized marinated meats (rosemary chicken and a savory filet mignon), organic P&D shrimp, and veggies (carrots and baby potatoes). While it was absolutely delicious, my take on the classic cheese fondue was the show stopper in my mind at least. After all, what's not to love about cheese and wait for it........................................................................ champagne? Yeah, nothing. That's what I thought.

CHEESY CHAMPAGNE FONDUE
Ingredients:

• 8 oz Shredded Gruyere
• 8 oz Shredded Emmentaler or Fontina
• 1 1/4 cups brut champagne (dry!)
• 2 Tablespoons snipped green onions
• 1 clove of garlic, peeled and cut in half
• 1 loaf of fresh, crusty bread, cubed (I used Wegman's Garlic Tuscan Bread... YUM!)

Directions:

1. Rub the garlic cloves along the inside of the fondue pot
2. Heat the pot to medium and pour in the champagne
3. Let the champagne warm up, then stir in the cheeses until they cook together and are smooth (depending on your pot this could be as fast as a minute, or as long as 15 minutes)
4. Stir in the little snippets of green onion and turn the heat to low
5. Serve with the bread cubes on fondue forks and enjoy