what was I thinking?

Anyway...I thought I would have my nieces (4 & 6) over tonight for a sleepover, since G has such a ball with them...trying to be super mom I baked cookies and made tacos for supper (this by the way took about 2.5 hours).

On a side note: every once in awhile I decide to be "healthy," I am in one of these phases right now, so I have been cooking out of the Deceptively Delicious cookbook for about 2 weeks - steaming, mashing, pureeing and making all sorts of odd vegetable concoctions to put in our food. My daughter has the nose of a bloodhound, and by the way, can also tell she's about to eat some "gonna kill you" meat or veggies just by licking a particular miniscule bite on her fork, even after slathering ketchup on it.

The tacos were a hit, which had ground turkey and mashed butternut squash in them with corn and red peppers as sides. The cookies were a huge success and the girls couldn't even tell that they had chickpeas in them. My daughter on the other hand refused to eat the meat and picked all the chocolate chips out of the cookies. Oh well, at least I'm trying...here are some pics of the food...

bliss

- 23 degrees Celcius (for those of you who are metric) or 73 degrees Farenheit and sunny

- a fresh hair cut

- cruising in the convertible

- Billie Jean playing on the radio

Today I had all four, and it was pure bliss! I love summer!

M had option number 2, which was eating McDonald's for lunch, suntanning and reading gossip mags. That pretty much sounds like heaven as well (I was getting my hair did), hopefully we can get to that next week!

image from this site

sweetness!

I had a little get together will the girls last night. Usually we would have some wine and yummy dips, and anything with garlic. Last night I thought I would do something different, so we had a little dessert and coffee. On the menu we had fruit kebabs, lollipop brownies drizzled in butterscotch, white chocolate dipped strawberries, mini chocolate puddings with whipped cream, lemon tart and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla butter cream icing. I have to give credit to My Sweet and Saucy for inspiration on the cupcakes, and her butter cream icing recipe. I don't get all caught up in the fact that I need to make everything from scratch, either. The cupcakes, brownies and pudding were a mix...and the lemon tart was a frozen one (President's Choice Tarte Au Citron...divine!)

mini chocolate puddings served in espresso cups

Lollipop brownies displayed in sugar filled bowls, to help them stand up, the small boxes in the background are extra cupcakes for everyone to take home...boxes and labels from Garnish.


fruit kebabs on knotted picks from Garnish, and white chocolate strawberries


my chocolate cupcakes...got the already coloured fondant at Michael's

genius!

How cool is the diy cork lamp! Kate over at Design Sponge posted about her fabulous creation. Check it out. I'm totally going to do this in my guest room!

queen of cakes

Sylvia Weinstock is definitely the guru of cakes. She makes fantasy creations out of sugar and flour like you wouldn't believe. With her trademark round glasses, she is just a little bitty thing, but she has made cakes for the famous of famous! Here are some of her creations...

all images from Sylvia Weinstock Cakes

I'm hungry!

I found these yummy treats via Tuesdays With Dorie.

from Dianne's Dishes

from the Occasional Baker
who, BTW, just got accepted to medical school!

from A Cookie A Day

what we've been up to....

Just a little preview of an Avocado Kiss project. These are birthday invitations for my neice, who will be turning 9 next month. I have volunteered to host a Tea Party for her, and am beyond excited to do something really girly, but still modern and chic. The party is June 14th, and I will definitely be posting pictures. In the meantime, here are the invitations...


We've got a couple more things in the works...a birthday invitation suite (invites, favour tags and thank you cards) as well as a set of wedding invites....we'll keep you posted!

love it...

So, I said I would follow up with some great wedding gowns that could possibly go well with the canary yellow and I found them!!! I am completely in love with these Vera Wang dresses and they could absolutely go with any colour or look or anything really, they are just super fantastic (for lack of better chic adjectives). Whether you go out looking for these specific designer pieces or you use them for inspiration you'll look fab.

canary yellow

twiststyle.etsy.com $45.00

luxedeluxe.etsy.com $32.00

littlesweetpeas.etsy.com $160.00

lovelulumae.etsy.com $107.00

ananya.etsy.com $42.00

I have completely fallen in love with this shade of yellow...I picture it mixed with creams and golds and maybe some muddy khaki. There are so many possibilities...it could be your main colour or just used as an accent. I found all these cool accessories on etsy and I will keep looking for some inspiring wedding gowns and suits in order to give you an entire picture. I did find some beautiful gowns by Nicole Miller though I couldn't post the pictures.

wat up sista?

A big Happy Birthday wish goes out to my favourite friend and business partner C. It's her birthday weekend and she is on a small vay-cay in Minneapolis with her hubby and some friends. I wish I was there!!!

C and I have been friends for almost 10 years and she is my most loyal and special friend. We share everything and I know that she would give me or any of her friends the Christian Louboutin's right off her feet if she had to. Our husbands have played soccer together and been buds for as long as either of them can probably remember, so C and I have endured endless road trips to very small (sans shopping) towns, and hours of "remember in 1982 when we played (throw in some team name) and I shot that ball right off that goal post and..." We continue to listen to those stories, though mostly now we are in the kitchen gossiping about celebrities or coming up with some new brilliant ideas for Avocado Kiss.

C has always inspired me and helped me to keep my feet on the ground (or not, when neccesary). She rationalizes better than anyone I know, and in a shopping companion that is a great quality. And in the 20 emails a day that we send each other we still have endless things to talk about in the car or when we see each other.

I could go on forever but I just wanted to say "bonne fete" and I love you!!!

get me a cup of joe!

How totally awesome is this coffee?! Once again, thank you Design Crush for featuring this fabulousness! Ugly Mug Coffee Company is from Memphis, and they roast the beans in Memphis. They are committed to a fair trade policy, ensuring that the growers they deal with are fully compensated for their work of growing great beans!


Now, can we talk about how fantastic this packaging is! I want to go out and buy some right now. And, hello, they have Elvis coffee...my brother-in-law would go loco for that. I'm not sure if I want the "First Cup Easy" or the "Think Big Bold". You could probably determine your whole day by the type of coffee you choose to drink! I might just have to get the sampler pack...I hope they ship to Canada...

I digress, you must check out the website, there are all these fun sayings, and they really give you a lot of information about coffee. Like, did you know that coffee reaches it's peak 7 to 10 days after roasting. So I'm pretty much guessing my can of coffee from Safeway has lost all it's flavour!

All this coffee talk has me dreaming of my espresso machine....I think I might need a double shot today!


all images from Ugly Mug Coffee Co.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

Okay, so I'm CRAZY about this for sooooo many reasons! These are pictures from a launch party for the Wedding Chicks. Amy Squires, a very talented photographer, and Jocey Canrinus, a very talented stationery designer, are the Wedding Chicks. They have a really fun blog, it's well written, the design is fab, and they have so many great ideas! Listen, if they put together a party like this, you know that not only would you totally want to hang out with them, but they've probably got all kinds of goodies to blog about!


This party was organized with the help of Kary H Events, and I wish I could of been there! I love the bottles in the ice....I love the little cupcake toppers....I love all the details!!

All images are from The Wedding Chicks and Kary H Events Blog.

Be sure to link through to their blogs to check out the full size images. Thanks for the great inspiration ladies!

preppy love

I picked up this "collector's" edition of Martha Stewart Weddings the other day. I love Martha, but I kind of found a lack of new ideas in this one. I know it's a collection of ideas from all of her Weddings magazines, but I was pretty uninspired. However, I did LOVE the cover! Avocado Kiss is currently working on a set of invites (I promise to post some pictures soon), and the pink and green preppy combo, was my jumping off point. I know that both of these colours are pretty popular in wedding decor, but I found this particular combo really new. Perhaps it's brightness of the green and very pale pink...or the fact that it's mostly green, a brave choice!

Here are some pieces I've pulled together for this look:

inspiration palette

some floral inspiration...ranunculus, my MOST favorite flower, mixed with some green mums

ranunculus picture from here
green flowers from Hostess With The Mostess


bridal gown from Ann Taylor

suit from J.Crew

seersucker bridesmaid's dress from Thread Design

I think everything works together to create a preppy, but posh wedding. Perfect for a summer celebration, or for saying your vows on the beach!

destination weddings

I have a friend who is thinking about getting married away from home and all the big wedding hoopla. Myself, I loved all the party planning and fuss, but everyone is different and I can totally see the benefits of tying the knot somewhere hot and exotic.

I was browsing today to find some great places to go and the best times of year to do it. You want to avoid certain countries and cities in hurricane season, for example (seriously, how gross would that be). Or you might want to go to a ski resort or a winter type get away (not really sure why, but whatever floats your boat, as C would say). The Knot has a whole area on their website dedicated to destination weddings and best of all they give you a list of months and which places are the best to go in those months - how easy is that?

So if you're thinking about heading somewhere other than your home town check this out to make your day a less stressful.

Go Team Canada!

I'm feeling very patriotic today....I just purchased my official Team Canada olympic apparel. I'll be wearing what all the Canadian athletes will be wearing at the Olympics this summer in Beijing. There is some really cool stuff, and it can be purchased at HBC.com, or your local Zellers or The Bay will have it too. I got the way cool sweatshirt and cropped sweatpants, though I don't think I'll wear them together (a little matchy, matchy for me). I can wait to cheer on the athletes this summer!