Happy Holiday's

Christmas morning breakfast menu

For as long as I can remember we've had the same thing on Christmas morning.  It's funny, we all love this breakfast, but for some reason we only make it once a year.

What I love about it is that both dishes are made the night before so that the morning you (or in my case, my Dad) gets up first and pops them in the oven.  I'm usually sitting by the tree going through my stocking when this happens - yes, I still get a stocking :)

Spinach strada

Ingredients:

 - 6 croissants, cut in half lengthwise (you may not use all of them depending on the size

 - 6 eggs, room temperature

 - 1 1/2 cups milk, whole or skim (I wouldn't use nonfat) 

 - 1/2 tsp salt

 - 1/4 tsp pepper

 - 1/4 tsp nutmeg

 - 1 package frozen spinach, thawed and well drained

 - 1 1/2 cups (6 oz) shredded monterey jack cheese (optional - pepper jack cheese for a bit of a kick)

 - 7 oz crumbled feta cheese

 - optional - mushrooms, thinly sliced and then roughly chopped

Directions:

Place croissants crust side down in lightly greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Sprinkle spinach out evenly over croissants (if using mushrooms, add at this time).  In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, milk, salt, pepper, nutmeg. Pour egg mixture over spinach and croissants.  Press croissants down so that liquid can soak into them a bit. Sprinkle cheeses evenly over strada. Cover and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take strada out of the fridge and let come to room temperature, about 15-20 minutes.  Uncover and bake 40-45 minutes.  If cheese gets too dark too quickly, cover with foil while baking.  Serve warm.  This is even better the next day or for brunch with a big green salad.

Bubble bread

(also known as monkey bread)

Ingredients:

 - 1 package frozen white dinner rolls, thawed

 - 1 box (4 oz) butterscotch pudding (not instant)

 - 1/4 cup white sugar

 - 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

 - 2 tsp cinnamon

 - 1 cube butter, melted

 - optional - chopped pecans

Cut dinner rolls into 2-3 pieces each.  Mix pudding, sugars, cinnamon and nuts. Sprinkle a bit of the sugar mixture on the bottom of a lightly greased bundt pan.  Dip each piece of dough in melted butter and roll in sugar mixture.  Place dough in pan.  Sprinkle with remaining sugar and pour remaining butter over rolls. Cover and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.

Remove bubble bread from fridge 30 minutes before baking.  Leave covered and in a warm place to allow the rolls to rise. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Uncover and bake 35-45 minutes. Cover with foil if top browns to quickly.  Let stand in pan for about 10 minutes.  Place plate upside down on bundt pan and flip over.  Tap bundt pan if bread doesn't fall immediately. Serve warm and with lots of napkins.

Hope your Christmas morning is filled with family, friends and yummy, delicious food!

LMF

2012 year in review

2012 has been a great year for me.  I started this blog with a post on my resolutions for the year.  One of them was to have more fun.

2011 had been such a grown-up year for me, after moving back from London, changing jobs and buying a house, I wanted to make sure and relax and actually enjoy life and all its blessings.

For Christmas I made Dan a photo album of our year and maxed out the number of pages that iPhoto would allow, without even getting everything in!  So I think we managed to pack the fun in.

Here are some highlights from 2012:

January

I started this blog! (ok technically December)

We celebrated New Years in Tahoe.

We headed to Arizona to see Dan's Dad play with the Chicago Cubs (Fantasy Camp)

February

We celebrated a 30th birthday wine tasting in Napa.

Pacino had his first surgery of the year.

We took a long weekend in Pebble Beach for the AT&T Open.

March

We spent a long weekend in Hermosa Beach for the Lakers game and visiting family.

And and extra long weekend in Palm Desert.

April

I started my 1000 gifts list.
Healdsburg wine tasting weekend with friends.

May

We celebrated my review at John Ash and more wine tasting.
My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary.
We celebrated my birthday in Chicago, where we found the most amazing breakfast spot.
{more Chicago here}

June

Summer relaxin' - BBQ's and burgers
A bit of nostalgia for Croatia

July

We attended the Festival of Chris (Dan's mom's birthday weekend).

We took a road trip to Hermosa Beach for a friends birthday boat cruise.

Pacino had his second surgery of the year.

Festival of Chris Part II - Italian cooking class and tour.

August

Pacino took his first boat ride and I tried paddle boarding on the lake in Tahoe.

September

Girls trip to Vegas for Labor day and my very first dive, ever.
Pacino had his first birthday.

I got to show my love around my favorite city in the world - Paris.

There was a surprise engagement in Paris!

We found out that Versailles in closed on Mondays.

A good friend from London visited for the weekend and we went wine tasting - quelle surprise.

We discovered every sort of fried food you can imagine at the Dallas State Fair.

This girl moved to New Zealand and I miss her all the time.

October

I ran / jogged / walked Nike Women's Half-Marathon.

I fell in love with autumn in New York.

November

We celebrated Thanksgiving with Dan's family and ummm... more wine tasting.

December

Celebrating the holidays with the Nutcracker and ice skating in in San Francisco.
I hosted Christmas Eve at my house - this was huge for me!

Cheers to 2012 and may 2013 be absolutely amazing for all of us!

LMF

images: first / last

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve is one of my favorite days of the year.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas Eve and a very Merry Christmas!

See you in the New Year!

LMF

Christmas at my house

My tree:

It's pretty small so I have it on a table to keep Pacino from playing with anything while I'm at work.  But I love pulling out all my ornaments and decorating it.  

When I was living in London, my parents and brother came over and we celebrated Christmas there.  I bought this very Charlie Brown tree from ASDA but wanted some really beautiful ornaments.  I found some at The White Company, Zara Home, House of Fraser and treated myself to a couple at Harrods.  That's where the gold cross is from on the top of the tree - my favorite ornament.

I must admit, London Town knows how to do Christmas.

When I moved home I packed up all my ornaments and brought them back with me.  I'm so glad I did.  It's such a great reminder of my time there.

 These ornaments were too big to fit on my little tree but I love the colors.  It was hard to find this sort of taupe-grey color in a christmas ornament that I wanted.  I placed them in a glass bowl on my console.

I have all these beautiful colorful ornaments that didn't fit on my tree.  I piled them in another glass container and a basket on my bar.  

I posted yesterday about the card holder I made here.

This is one of my favorite cards on it.  She knows me so well :)

My DIY rosemary wreath {here}. 

{via}

I saw this image on tumblr and printed it out and framed it for my mantel.  

It looks like Pacino's nose. :)

Stockings are hung.

Presents are wrapped and under the tree with some of my favorite gift tags.

Hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend!

LMF

Glitter Clothespin {diy}

I'm bring you the world's easiest and fastest diy.

I needed a pretty place to hang my holiday cards.  

Usually, I'd put them on the mantel but since it's pretty much the new standard to send photo cards, they don't tend to stand on their own very well.

Supplies:  

- bag of mini clothespins (from Michaels - 50 for $1.79 with 40% off coupon)

- double sided tape

- scissors

- glitter :)

TADA!

A little anti-climatic, I know.  Could you see where this was going?

I just strung some twine across my mirror and taped to the back. It seems to be holding up just fine.

I'm kinda loving them.  I think they'd be adorable on place cards or gift tags too.

LMF

Weekend

I had a very Christmas-y weekend and loved it!  I can't believe Christmas is only 6 days away.  Did it come fast this year or what?!

The Nutcracker at the San Francisco Ballet with my mom and aunts.

They made it snow when you walked it to the opera house.  It was sort of magical :)

I love when the Christmas tree just grows and grows and grows!

Ice Skating in Union Square - it's become our Christmas tradition. 

Drinks at the Top of the Mark and dinner at Delfina - it was perfect!

We had a Christmas tree decorating party at my parents house.  And Thanksgiving dinner too, since my brother didn't make it out for T-day from New York.

And we tortured Pacino a bit.

Doesn't he look like the dog from the Grinch that stole Christmas?!

Sunday was candy / cookie / cake making with my mom, and of course, football, 

and my favorite: wrapping presents!

LMF

Men's Gift Guide {1 thing only}

Last Christmas, Dan surprised my with a gorgeous bracelet I've always wanted.  It was completely unexpected.  Both his mom and sister knew about it and were excited to hear about my reaction when I opened it.

They asked him later about what I had gotten him.  He told them "different stuff, some underwear and things." He failed to mention that I got him multiple pairs of the world's most expensive underwear! That he couldn't stop telling me about! 

Apparently, for men, these are the worlds most comfortable underwear. (I guess they could be comfortable for women too, but I haven't tried.)

Lululemon - Game On Boxer Brief

I got my brother one pair last year, just as a joke, like ha ha your sister bought you underwear.  

(It was funnier in my head.)

It's the only thing he's asked for this year.

LMF

Gift tags {Free Printables Roundup}

One of my favorite parts of the holiday's is wrapping gifts.  

I love finding the perfect present for someone, but I think even more so, 

I love the pretty paper and beautiful ribbons.  

I'm a goner in shops like Paper Source.

I've been finding loads of free gift tag printables on some gorgeous blogs.  

I thought I'd share in case anyone else out there loves paper and string too. :)

I'm completely in love with these from Sweet Muffin Suite.

Have you ever visited Pencil Stitches? Such a lovely blog!

From the beautiful Southern Weddings Magazine Blog.  I love the 'Merry Christmas y'all' tag!

From Nicole's Class Blog. I love the red with Tiffany blue!

Style Me Pretty posted gift tags and pretty printable gift wrap.

I'm kind of loving the white and red print paper.

And the gift tags from Style Me Pretty are just too stinkin' adorable!

From Creature Comforts Blog:  

There were tons of styles on Creature Comforts Blog, these were just my favorite.

From Hey Look:

I love Hey Look's from last year too!

Did I mention all of these are free?!

Thank you so much to all these generous ladies!  I'm am so in awe of your talents!

If you need me, I'll be on my living room floor surrounded by scraps of paper, boxes and ribbons, probably with tape stuck on me somewhere, with the Christmas tree lit, a cup of hot cocoa and Love Actually on the tv. :) 

Here's the first few wrapped gifts under my tree.

Please note the tag-less-ness here and you'll understand the need for this post. :)

LMF