a Big Announcement!

Matt and I are so excited to share this big news! :-) 

I haven't updated much lately, but we wanted to share the news here too! 

 We are already smitten with this bundle of joy! :-) 

Baby Estel is due December 22, 2014! 

Brunch date with a Girl Friend.

One of my favorite things is to have a girl friend or two over for dinner. Just a couple people or one on one so you can really talk and get to the heart of another person. A couple weeks ago I had a girl friend over for brunch. We sat around this table for a good while chatting and getting to know one another better. It's so great being around a table with someone else. 

On the menu: a fruit spread, blueberry muffins, and quinoa breakfast recipe from Shauna Niequist's book Bread & Wine. 

Delicious coffee and orange juice. 

Such a good time. I need to be more purposeful and do this more often! 

Proud

Growing up, my mamaw (grandmother) and I baked. This is what we enjoyed doing together. 

She was an amazing baker. She baked her daughters wedding cakes, and cookies galore for any event we had. She knew her stuff!

I grew up at their house. I was there almost every day after school. I was there on weekends. I loved them. My pap was a gardener, and a professional lottery player that cherished his Hostess treats (Twinkies).
My mamaw was a homemaker that genuinely cared for others. She was so hospitable. She hosted baby showers, wedding showers, family reunions, graduation parties, etc. If your family member is in the hospital, then she was bringing you a meal. She genuinely cared for the people she loved and even those she barely knew.


This past Thanksgiving, my mamaw was very sick. She was on hospice, and my heart was breaking to see her this way. She was a "do-er". It was the worst thing for her that she could not get up and cook at Thanksgiving.
So I brought the Turkey to her for approval.

She was one of my best friends. 

This day I sat down with her and we talked about what Christmas cookies I should bake. My cousin, Lydia, was to get married in March. We all had a certain cookie at our wedding we call "lady locks" that are a cream filled very delicate cookie. Mamaw and I made these together. She taught me how and it's one of my favorite cookies! 

She asked me then, knowing she likely would not make it, if I would make these lady locks for my cousins wedding. 

It was an emotional day making these cookies. 

My mamaw passed away December 16, 2013, and I kept my promise.

This past weekend was the wedding. The cookies were a hit. I made 11 dozen and they were gone in minutes. 

The cookies are hard to make. They are time consuming and the dough is very delicate. You cut the dough into thin strips, and wrap them around a round clothes pin to make them tubular. You bake them on the clothes pin and then let them cool. After cooling, you slide them off the clothes pin.

 This is the tricky part, because usually this is when they break. I laughed because there were a lot of times while I was making them that I sounded just like mamaw. I remember when they would break and she would let a "well, shit" under her breath and just look at me and smile. I definitely had a few "well, shit" moments that day. 

After they cool completely off the clothes pin, you make a cream filling and fill them with an icing decorating bag. 

Delicious. 

A friend of my aunt had my mamaw bake these a couple times for events at her house. At the wedding she came up to me and told me that mamaw would be proud. 

I started to tear up just thinking about it. 

I miss her so much.

 I hope she was looking down and proud that day. Not only for those cookies, but how beautiful Lydia's wedding was, and how beautiful of a bride she was. 

We all miss you and love you very much mamaw! 

Oscar Night Party

Matt and I had a little get together for Oscar Night a couple weeks ago. 

We were really into it this year! Matt saw all the nominated movies for Best Picture. I saw most of them with a couple exceptions... 

That night we had lots of champagne, strawberries, snacks and even a ballot for predictions! 

 

Last minute I decided to do some chocolate covered strawberries with a little tuxedo action. :-) so fun! Making these for a couple weddings this summer. 

I was winning for such a long time with my ballot. Then Matt pulled ahead. Knowledge is power I guess, and if you've seen all the movies you would know... 

I had a big spread in the living room so no one would have to leave the tv to miss anything! 

On the menu: 

Homemade spinach dip with bread, tortilla chips and veggies. 

Charley's seasoned chips and Jack's salsa. 

Poker mix that I am addicted to! 

Chocolate covered strawberries.

Plenty of wine and champagne.

It was such a fun night. I wish I had more pictures than just my instagram pictures. I need to get better at using my new fancy camera! I promise I will and the image quality on the blog will improve! 

Community Around the Table

Being in the kitchen is where I feel at "home". It's where I am the happiest (aside from my bed probably!) I love nothing more than mixing up a feast. Having the oven on, every burner on the stovetop range with a bubbling pot or simmering onion, timers beeping and measuring out flour, spices, flavors, that is my happy place. I love this place. I love the kitchen. 

After getting married and moving away from home, I learned this about myself. I love cooking, and even more I love baking. On top of all that, I love having people into my home. I love showing people love through the taste of food and comforts in my home. I get true and utter happiness preparing a table for people to sit around and talk, eat, and get to know each other on a new level. 

I remember our first tiny apartment in the northern suburbs of Chicago. We had a tiny living room/dining area, a galley kitchen and one bedroom and a tiny bathroom. It was built in approximately 1970 and had the same carpet, same horrible plastic type baseboards and was so dusty I was at the doctor about 100 times for my allergies in the 2 years we lived there. Having people over was scary at first. I started having people in our building over because I knew that they knew what we were dealing with here. Once I got over it, put up some decorations and painted my hutch mustard yellow and fell in love with "our first home" a little bit (as much as possible...) I started branching out and having more people over. I realized that people didn't care. 

(my mom and I cooking Thanksgiving dinner in our kitchen in Chicago, and our first Thanksgiving meal together in Chicago with our neighbors and my parents) 

I recently read a book by Shauna Niequist that truly spoke to my soul. Her third book is titled "Bread & Wine" and it's an amazing book that I highly recommend you run out to Barnes & Noble or your closest bookstore and buy right now, and in case you live somewhere like me that has 3 feet of snow and the thought of leaving your pajamas and the couch creates a true panic attack, get it on your Kindle or reader asap and start reading. I promise you won't be able to put it down. 

This is a quote from that book, and it is so true of my feelings and how I grew from having people over being about showmanship and a beautiful place setting and more about making people comfortable. 

"What people are craving isn't perfection. People aren't longing to be impressed; they're longing to feel like they're home. If you create a space of love and character &creativity&soul, they'll take off their shoes and curl up with gratitude and rest, no matter how small, no matter how undone, no matter how odd".-Shauna Niequist "Bread & Wine"

Once I let people into my home, I fell in love. When we moved to Grand Rapids, we were renting again. Having a dining room wasn't on my radar, especially with apartment hunting. That's not really what we were looking for. Matt and I have learned so much in our marriage through hosting people. Making things work. My husband is such a patient man. Sometimes, I admit, I can become a bit insane when things don't go right in the kitchen and then He helps me move the entire apartment around to host meals.

We have our house church at our house once a week. We have meals together, we get to know one another. We live life together. A group of 15 people smashing into our living room with floppy card tables and metal chairs. When we got married, Matt's grandparents gave us their table from when they were married. It's metal, and green top 1950s style. It weighs about 100 lbs I swear. My husband and I lug that thing into our living room and move the tv and everything out and we have people snuggle up on the couch at one end of the table, and someone smashed against the wall in a metal chair at the other end, and we eat. We feast in fact! 

Something our church here in Grand Rapids has done that we love and have been so blessed by is "family meals". A church member signs up to host a meal in their house with a purpose and a meal planned, and then church members sign up to come to a meal. We have hosted and gone to meals at others houses and we have always been so blessed. To walk into some strangers home for dinner is truly amazing. It's such a blessing. Some may think it is so weird, but it's really a great way to get to know people in such a raw way. 

(a picture from our meal prep a couple weeks ago) 

We have gotten to know some of our closest friends from just inviting them into our home for food , drink, and time around the table together. 

(a table set for four. something about having other couples 

We love hosting parties as well! We recently had an Oscar party and it was so much fun! 

I've decided that this is something I really want to feature here on the blog. I recently got a nice new professional(ish) camera from a friend and I am ready to embark on this journey! So be ready for posts on food around the table, place settings, recipes, parties, and food and at times my inadequacies in these things and things that go wrong in the kitchen. 

I'm really excited about it! Stay tuned for updates! 

I literally have no idea what to put as the title of this blog post. 

This whole blogging world is still really something I have a love/hate relationship with. The more I dive into it, the more I feel like it's just another social media outlet to make our lives look so sparkly and shiny. To make us look like we have it all together. It's a place to post pictures of our perfect children, our perfect husbands, our perfect houses.

 I don't want my blog to be that. 

I know that the entire blogging world does not consist of this, but the blogs I follow mostly make me feel like my two bedroom apartment is inadequate. They make my heart long for a beautiful house with subway tile back splashes, barn wood accents, and a beautiful kitchen that I can cook up delicious meals like risotto and beef bourguignon (and yes I did have to google how to spell that!) 

The inadequacy and low self esteem truly eats at my soul sometimes. As much as my heart is longing for the house of my dreams, a precious baby in my arms, and the time and energy to DIY every aspect of my existence, I realize this is not a goal I can achieve, and while my heart longs and my mind thinks on these things all the live long day, I need to learn to be satisfied. I need to learn to soak in every once of sunshine God gives me. I need to remember what reality is. I need to give thanks to God for all He has blessed me with in the small moments and in the dark, dreary, cob webbed infested thoughts of my mind. 

Mostly, I just miss an outlet to write my thoughts. I miss a place to put my feelings. So, I'm back in the saddle. The key strokes at my finger tips long to write out what I feel and what I have on my mind... so here it goes again. No plans, no hopes, no striving to be something I'm not. Just words on a (web)page and feelings written out into the world. I hope that in writing things and sharing my heart here that others are blessed. I plan to post even the gross, the ugly, the downright bitter ends of my life here and not jut the sparkly, ravishing, elaborately glamorous (like my life is at all glamorous, let's be real here people) portraits. 

Welcome back Lace in the Kitchen. 

catching up

Life lately: 

breakfast dates.

the pup says no studying. 

handsome husband. studious. 

mini apple pie bites.

sangria pitcher. 

tapas night with friends. 

year 10 of college class. PhD year 2. 

Trauma nursing class. 

fall decor care package from my mom. 

sushi date night. 

Guest Post from Cristina at Sundae Brunch Blog

I recently stumbled upon Cristina's blog and fell immediately in love with her food photography and her recipes! Her blog is so colorful and her photos make her food look amazing! 

She was the winner of my giveaway a couple weeks ago, and in talking with her I decided to ask her to do the first guest post I have ever done here on Lace in the Kitchen! She accepted the offer and today I am happy to have her guest posting here on Lace in the Kitchen! 

Being a relatively new blogger, I was honored when Katy asked me if I’d like to do a guest post for her blog. Of course I would! Thinking of what in the world to write about was the hard part. I knew it had to be something that reflected my personality in the kitchen, something that Katy’s readers would enjoy, and, most importantly, something that Katy would enjoy, too. 

Whenever I’m having a party I always like to make cupcakes. For the time and effort (which isn’t much), I don’t think anything else has an impact quite like cupcakes. Sure, a tiered cake is impressive, but it isn’t always easy, and then you have to worry about serving it. Cupcakes are easy, beautiful, and make everyone happy. 

I created this recipe just for Lace in the Kitchen, using a classic yellow cake batter with lemon extract as my base, and adding in honey and extra vanilla to my go-to cream cheese frosting.

I love the way they came out. I also added fresh blueberries before baking to about half of the cupcakes, just to see how they’d taste, and those were really delicious, too. The only problem is that the blueberries sank. Not a problem at all flavor-wise, just not the final look I was expecting. I’d still recommend it, though. Next time I’ll just toss the blueberries in a bit of flour first to try and get them to stay “afloat”. (Just an excuse to make another batch, really.) 

The final touch was a bit of lemon zest (I love when the toppings suggest what flavors are inside) and the easiest DIY washi tape toppers. I hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as I did!

Ingredients: (makes about 18 cupcakes)
1 stick of butter, room temperature
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 ½ cups sifted self-rising flour
½ cup whole milk, room temperature
½  tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ tsp lemon extract 

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350. 

Cream the butter and the sugar together. Add in the eggs and beat well. Add in the flour, milk, and extracts. Divide batter evenly between cupcake liners. 

Bake for about 20 minutes, depending on your oven. Let cool and then frost. 

For the frosting: (yields enough to generously frost 18 cupcakes, plus eat some straight out of the bowl)

1 ½ 8oz. blocks of cream cheese, room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
4 ½ cups of powdered sugar (more or less)
4 tbsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. honey
Heavy cream, as needed (usually a splash or two)

Instructions:

In your largest mixing bowl, cream the cream cheese and butter. Add in the powdered sugar little by little. Once it’s all blended, add in the vanilla and honey. If the frosting appears too stiff you can splash in a bit of the heavy cream until you get your desired consistency. Because I use a piping bag, I generally like to keep the frosting thick enough to hold its shape. I used the Wilton “open star” tip #4B on these.

Thanks so much Cristina!!!! Everyone go check out her blog right now. Seriously! 

Sundae Brunch

Bed & Breakfast

This is where I spent last weekend. The Grand Victorian Bed & Breakfast in Belaire, Michigan! 

Seriously, I have not been so relaxed in a very long time! 

This was our room. The "Queen Ann" room. It was so delightful. Fireplace, old victorian chairs and loveseat. and that bed was so comfy! Every day the host left us treats on our bed! 

I can't stand the cuteness!!!! (and the deliciousness!) 

Matt and I had no plans or expectations for the weekend except to eat good food and relax! We did just that! We walked down the street to downtown Belaire which is so big that if you blink you will miss it! Although the town has a lot to offer in a small space! cute stores, delicious restaurants, ice cream places! So cute! 

We explored around the B&B and this was one of the parlor areas! 

We ate a delicious dinner our first night in town after exploring and then went back and sat on the porch and drank coffee and ate our treats left for us for dessert! 

The next morning we woke up and sipped coffee in our room before breakfast! 

The breakfast both mornings was AMAZING! Seriously. To Die for! I want to live in this place all the time! I told them I was moving in! 

Saturday Matt and I heard at breakfast about this huge antique show happening even further north. After breakfast we hopped in the car on the hunt for this antique haven! We drove along lake Michigan and I kind of fell in love with Michigan even more. Until we got there and it was FREEZING and I remembered why Michigan and I have a love/hate relationship! 

We shopped around and I wished I had a house to decorate with all the antiques I could find! I had my dream home all planned out and decorated in my head before we left there! We came home with an antique crate I had been eyeing. 

We stopped on our drive home at a gourmet deli and got some lunch and enjoyed our food in this beautiful spot! 

OKay seriously... my husband is a stud! 

It's the end of cherry season up north so we stopped and picked up some fresh cherries and enjoyed them for dessert the rest of our drive back to the B&B. 

We arrived back at the B&B and I took a 2 hour nap! aaahhhh..... 

That night we went to Short's Brewing company in downtown Belaire! I ordered so much food I don't know what I was thinking!! I ordered 2 separate appetizers! HAHA! Our B&B was part of the "mug club" at the brewery so we got $1 off our beers and got to drink out of these handmade mugs! 

Seriously. I needed this weekend! Great third Anniversary celebration with my love! 

Stay tuned within the next couple days for a guest post from Cristina at Sundae Brunch Blog!!!!! You're not going to want to miss this post! Seriously... I've seen the pictures! 

Three Years!

Tomorrow, Matt and I will celebrate 3 years of wedded bliss!! It's been a whirlwind 3 years! 

July 31, 2010

Honeymoon in Jamaica

Home to WV for 2 days then packed up the Penske truck for Chicago, IL. 

We explored Chicago area for almost 2 years. Then, Matt graduated with his Masters of Divinity! 

We packed up the Penske truck again and headed north east to Grand Rapids, MI. 

We got the cutest puppy ever and Mildred Agnes taught us way more responsibility!! 

We've managed to do some traveling in between all the crazy! 

We visited several places in Germany! Cologne, Trier, Koblenz, and several other places! 

We went to South Carolina with my family! 

We've been home to WV, visited family in OH, and several states in between! 

I started my 4th job in 3 years 2 weeks ago and you are always so supportive and loving!! 

This is the boy I fell in love with in 2005 and became my husband, the man I fall in love with more and more every day we get to live life together! I love you Matt! 

So excited for our weekend up north in Michigan celebrating at an adorable B&B!