Happy Birthday to Olivia Rose

To my beautiful Birthday Princess La La: Words cannot describe how much I adore you. I hope you will remember today for the rest of your life and know how deeply you are loved.

Family Vacation Day 1

House of 3 Summer Swirls & Birthday Frames

We're here! The trip was eventful (Did you follow on FB?) but we arrived in one piece and we are so stoked for Disneyland tomorrow. We have an early morning breakfast with Minnie Mouse and friends to celebrate all the kids birthdays so come back for all the details!

Family Vacation Twenty Ten

Hof3 Summer Swirls

Tomorrow we are going to Disneyland for Olivia's Birthday. After that we are going to Santa Barbara where my brother & sister in law live and we'll be visiting the beach. My kids have never been to the beach or Disneyland so it is going to be the most insane amazing trip of all time. I'm so excited but I'm also nervous just thinking about having 5 babies out and about in the Happiest Place on Earth. Pray for us.

Hof3 birthday countdown & pink party decorations

We'll be gone for 7 days so we'll have plenty of misadventures to discuss. I'll be documenting our trip and hopefully posting, facebooking, and tweeting our every move so stay tuned. And seriously, pray for us. We need all the help we can get.

Ooooh, We're Goin On A Trip!

We are taking our first family vacation on Tuesday and I am terrified. But it's going to be so so fun and I'll give you guys all the details tomorrow and you will die of laughter when you see all the S we have to pack. Hilarious.

Introducing my New Real Estate Blog & Website!

I have been working all week on my new Blog & Website and I invite you guys to all check it out and tell me what you think! I got the inspiration from an article Jessi (shout out!) sent me and I ran with it. I really really love both the site and the blog and I hope you all will love them as well.

Dwellings by Rosemary Watson


Rosemary Watson Real Estate

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

When I was searching for a Strawberry Pie recipe, it perplexed to find that the only recipes that used fresh strawberries were the no-bake pies I shared with you earlier. Call me crazy, but after being obsessed with Pushing Daisies and the Pie Maker and watching him week after week make glorious looking strawberry filled pies I was determined to find one that you bake. Lo and behold, I find a recipe for this gorgeous looking Strawberry Rhubarb Pie on my ever favorite blog Smitten Kitchen. I confess I have never eaten rhubarb and when I found some at the farmers market last weekend I jumped for joy, then looked perplexed at the celery looking fruit (or vegetable?) wondering how in the world THAT can taste good? Nevertheless, I bought some a vowed to bake up the pie because for crying out loud I'll never know if I don't try. And I am sure glad I did.

Sorry this picture is from my iphone so it is terrible, but you can see that it turned out fabulous.

Strawberry Spinach Salad

Some of you might be a little timid when it some to eating fruit in a savory salad, but let me assure you-if you have never eaten a Strawberry Spinach Salad, you are missing out. The sweet flavors mix with the spiciness of the red onion and the crunchiness of the walnuts and its a little party in your mouth. This is a pretty fancy salad, good and gourmet enough to serve at a baby shower or even a wedding; but easy enough for a Thursday dinner so make it tonight and impress yourself!

Strawberry Jam Time

Of course, Strawberry week wouldn't be complete without a good jam recipe. My mom made jam with pectin in it, but I had none so I followed this recipe to make pectin-free jam. Both are delicious, but I think I like the texture of the stuff with pectin in it better. Actually you can use the jam without pectin for some amazing Strawberry Margaritas or Daiquiris as Braden discovered ;) I found the recipe for the pectin jam on Rhonna's blog and you can find her cute labels on the House of 3 website. The DIY Summer Printables has a ton of cute stuff to print out and use for all kinds of summer fun!

The pectin free recipe is from the blog Pastry Heaven, and like I said it was pretty delicious. There's a ton of great recipes on the blog too, such as Not Just Any Cherry Pie. I think we may need to have a Cherry week to try it.

Fresh Strawberry Pie

Did you know that Pie is my favorite food? I can safely say I've never met a pie I didn't like. So, my number one goal in life is to perfect every single pie known to man. Except for mincemeat pie, that sounds gross. Just all the tasty ones. Anyway, our very good friend Kathie makes this pie and I love it. It's one of the best ways to use strawberries and it's a tried and true favorite. I'm pretty sure everyone will love this pie.

I found a recipe for it on this blog of a lovely lady called Annie Strawberry, and I figured if anyone was the authority on Strawberry Pie it would be her. I changed the recipe a bit- I omitted the lemon zest (only because I was out of lemons) and added a whole box of jello instead of half (only because I didn't read the directions thoroughly and just dumped it in there) and it was absolutely delicious so this recipe is for the exact pie I made.

Happy Strawberry Week!

Wohoo it's time to kick off our berry filled week of recipes, and the first one is what I made yesterday for Fathers Day Breakfast. I found a recipe for Meyer Lemon Cream Cheese Danishes on Cheeky Kitchen's blog (which I LOVE) and modified it to make Lemon Curd & Strawberry Cream Cheese Danishes.

I had made the lemon curd last week for some Lemon Debutante Cupcakes that I delivered to a baby shower and I had a ton leftover so these danishes were the perfect place to add some Lemony goodness and some red delicious strawberries. I found the recipe for the lemon curd on another one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen and it was the best thing ever. I think I need to whip up a batch every week and just have it on hand. It would make pretty little gifts too all bottled up in little mason jars and tied with some cute ribbon. Anyway, this recipe makes 3 big Danishes that you can do whatever you want with. I added just lemon curd to one, kept one plain cream cheese, and the last one was the Strawberry Lemon Curd Cream Cheese Danish and it was by far my favorite so now I'm sharing it with you! Happy Strawberry Monday!

Sneak Peek of Strawberry Week

I'm officially calling next week Strawberry Week. Join me & my kids for some daily recipes for the sweetest summer fruit around (and if you live in Mesa go to Superstition Ranch Market on Main & Greenfield to get some of the most gorgeous berries 4 cartons for $1). I'll be spending the weekend preparing all sorts of treats and making recipe cards.....and gaining 5 lbs. Boo.

And to give you a little taste of the sweetness, here's my little strawberry blonde twinners.


PS- How do you like my new blog header & background? It's all House of 3 baby, go there NOW and check out all their new stuff! I'll be doing a 4th of july post on them next weekend

Online Shop is now Open!

Ok everyone, shophandmadeparade.com is now open so spread the word! I'm adding stuff to it everyday, so keep checking back throughout the weekend to see what we are putting in stock! I decided we needed both an Etsy shop for made to order items and our website for in stock items so we have more control of our time! Now we can keep our Etsy shop on vacation while still offering our in stock items to our customers for our Sample Sale! I couldn't figure out the coupon codes for the shopping carts, so we're offering 40% off in stock items to everyone! If anyone from the photoshoot wants to order something specific and get their 40% off of a custom order, just email me and let me know what you are wanting and we can whip it up for you!

Oh and here's more photos from the shoot for those of you that have been dying to see more

Photo Shoot Pictures 2

Did you guys think I forgot about you? Sorry, life got kinda crazy last week, so I'm just now getting around to loading these pictures. Our Etsy shop is on vacation until the 5th of July, but we are opening up our online shop for a limited time starting Wednesday for our Sample Sale! Everything from our photo shoot will be in our store for 25% off (except for those of you that came to the shoot, you will be getting a coupon code emailed to you for 40% off!)

Photo Shoot Pictures

I'm finally getting around to editing all the pictures from the Handmade Parade Photo Shoot we had Saturday, so here's some shots of our Olivia (& some of Braden). I'll post the rest of the girls tomorrow!