Oops...Forgot To Post in February!

February was short and very, very busy. So busy, that I totally forgot to come on here and document some of the events in real time. I'll do a little recap of sorts to catch you all up. Weather wise it's been so wet here that we have experience a bit of flooding in our basement even! A first for this California girl. Luckily it wasn't too bad. One night it was so stormy and windy that it flipped our umbrella completely up and over our table out in the back yard. We should have taken the umbrella down for the season, so it's our fault. I think with all this wet weather we are in for a beautiful spring though, as evidenced above with some of the blooms that are starting to make their appearance in the yard. The plums are in full swing with the peach blooms following behind a bit. The blooms sure make for some really pretty views outside my windows these days.

After more than 16 weeks, Caitlin's wedding dress arrived the day before Valentine's day! We are storing it here, since the box is quite big and Caitlin and Cyrous don't really have the room for it. We haven't taken a look at the dress, because we are too chicken to take it out of the tissue. Maybe when the curiosity gets the better of us, we will open it all up. We are just happy that it is back!

Valentine's day this year was low key.  I cooked  dinner for my Valentine instead of going out. I made a "Venetian Duck Ragu," and baked a small six inch cake. I had so much fun making this cake. I used a recipe from a new baking cookbook from the UK. I weighed all the ingredients with this one, even though they gave cup measurements. I find that most European recipes are way more accurate when you weigh them, especially the UK ones. Weighing in baking is generally better anyway. Even though I carefully weighed everything, I ended up with a lot of batter! So much, that had I put the other layer on this, it would have toppled. I decided to freeze the other layer for later date. The frosting was my favorite Martha Stewart cream cheese frosting. The most fun was gathering the flower and berries to make a romantic Valentine color scheme. Even though the cake was six inches, we only managed to eat 3/4 of it over 4 days.   The duck recipe was from "Fine Cooking." I have it on my Pinterest food board, if you follow me on there. I found some beautiful duck legs at Berkeley Bowl, and I can't wait to try more recipes with duck, now that I know they are carrying it more regularly.

We had a wedding fashion show the first week of February at work. It was a lot of fun, and both Caitlin and I worked that day. She did all the makeup and I helped dress some of the models. The two girls pictured are such sweethearts, and so much fun to work with. We had terrible weather, so it was kind of a low turn out, but it still was fun. We had music, drinks, and treats as well.

 Lastly, I have been working on a mini collection for spring/summer for my Easy shop. Normally I make and item and then put it in the shop. This season, I'm doing more of a collection, and will put it all up at once in my shop.  I have some really pretty fabrics that I coordinated for this mini collection, so stay tuned. The two pieces above are the start of it, I also made some bloomers to go with the embroidered piece. Next up after I finish the pinafore, are some matching floral pieces. I can't wait to unveil all of it.

Phew.....so there you have it, my February catch up. Oh, and on February 12th, my blog turned 9!!!