2010 Year in review

I’m so very happy that it’s 2011. There are so many wonderful things to come this year.

I thought it would be nice to take a look back at some of the highlights of the past year over here at Cute and Delicious.

In January I made lots of cupcakes for some bake sales, including the Homemade for Haiti fundraiser.

In February, I did lots of crafts, including reworking our book case, knitting a heart for Shawn and making coffee cozies.

In March, we celebrated St. Patrick’s day with holiday foods and I veganized my mom’s fudge recipe.

In April, I experimented with different recipes including vegan crumpets and raw sauerkraut. I also made some pies!

May was quiet, but we visited the amazing Rose Bowl Flea Market (and I made the best cherry pie, I’ve ever eaten).

In June, we went to Portland and got engaged. Biggest, best surprise of my life.

I highly suggest you read Shawn’s recap of the day as it is sweet and wonderful.

In July, I raved about Portland more and made a lot of waffles.

In August, I cooked with figs and made Star Wars cookies.

In September, I made Thank You cakes for friends and we took romantic photos in Griffith Park.

October was a busy month. We had the first screening of Brainwashed Love. We introduced our families at our engagement party. I also made lots of Halloween treats including a spiderweb cake.

November was also packed to brim with food and fun. I made savory things like tofu benedict, green bean casserole, carrot souffle and hot pockets.  We celebrated with a birthday cake party and Harry Potter cupcakes. On the sweet side, I made a peanut butter coconut cream pie and Dia de los Muertos cookies. We also made our save the dates with vintage postcards and photos. That’s not even the half of it! Busy month to say the least.

In December, I made many many cookies from Martha Stewart’s recipes, except vegan of course. The most exciting was seeing what my wedding dress is going to look like and sharing a few details with you.

It was a crazy wonderful year. I think I did pretty good on my last minute year end to do list. Can’t wait to share everything with you all in the new year.

Happy 2011 (and a waffle sandwich)

My dearest readers, it is almost 2011. Can you believe it? I certainly can’t.

This year has been crazy. It’s been rough at times and some of the best things ever have happened as well.

I really can’t wait for 2011. I can’t wait for our wedding and all the new experiences we will have.

On the last day of the year we celebrated by rearranging our whole apartment. I’m rather happy about it.

And we made waffle sandwiches.

We received a fancy little waffle maker for Christmas. It had to get broken in immediately.

So we had waffles for breakfast. We made the Chelsea Waffles from Vegan Brunch and of course there were more than we could eat so we saved a few for later.

After we were hungry from moving all our furniture, I grilled up some apple field roast sausage and some slabs of tofu. Shawn made an amazing cheezy sauce. We piled it all together and devoured it. Definitely amazing. Delicious and amazing.

Tonight I’m looking forward to celebrating with some dear friends. My resolution this year is to be more magical. I think that’s what my life needs.

Happy New Year!

xoxo

Winter vacation

Well it’s the one fabulous week of vacation Shawn and I have off together. We spent Christmas at my brother’s house with his family in Las Vegas. Though we were only there for a brief time, it was really relaxing and nice. I’m feeling very fortunate this Christmas. We made cookies, danced around like idiots playing Just Dance 2 and visited the Magical Forest.

One of the highlights was going hiking in Red Rock Canyon. Since it has been raining heavily there, there was a beautiful waterfall.

This is Wrigley, my brother’s dog. She’s so sweet and absolutely adorable. They adopted her in New York about 9 years ago.

My nephew, Dylan, particularly enjoyed running under the waterfall and jumping over streams.

Alas, I wish our vacation was pure vacation. Instead, I’ll be working on a ton of wedding projects. I can’t believe how soon till we get married. I can’t wait.

So, I now bring you my monster vacation list of things to finish by the end of the year.

(See I was just bribing you with Shawn’s lovely photos. You can see some more of our holiday photos that Shawn took if you like.)

Alix’s (mostly wedding) to do list

1. Finish and mail out our invitations – This project is ending up taking quite a bit more time than I anticipated.
2. Work on our guest favors – I’m hand making each one, but can’t quite share what they are yet.
3. Figure out a hotel for our guests – Apparently our wedding weekend is a busy one and everywhere seems to be booked.
4. Finalize our catering – Yep, our wedding is less than 2 months away and we don’t have this settled yet. Yikes!
5. Plan our honeymoon – We have picked a place and booked flights, but need to figure out the details like hotels…
6. Finally take our engagement photos
7. Order our wedding bands
8. Find someone to officiate our wedding
9. Do some blog housekeeping – just a few nips and tucks here and there for the new year

So there we have it. Can’t wait to start crossing things off. I’m really hoping to have the invites done tomorrow but it’s looking a bit unlikely. Then we’ll be taking our photos on Thursday, which will be much more fun than anything else. We’ve also gotten a lot done…so I’ll share some of that, so everything isn’t so daunting.

Really awesome wedding stuff we’ve accomplished recently

1. I got my shoes delivered yesterday. I love them. All thanks to you lovely readers, Jo in particular, who showed them to me.
2. Shawn ordered his outfit. It’s really cool and his groomsmen are going to look great too.
3. We’ve booked a photographer. This was a really hard choice and things ended up working out in an amazing way.
4. I should have my dress by next week!
5. We figured out a really cool plan for our rehearsal dinner which will be fun, low key and really let us spend time with our guests.

After making these lists, I’m feeling pretty good. I know there are a lot of other things I haven’t listed to be done (like a cake…), but I’m not going to worry about those right now. I should really get back to work as I have a lot of cutting and gluing to do with those lovely invites.

Happy Christmas

It’s Christmas Eve! While I’m not a religious person, nor do I particularly care for what Christmas has evolved into, but I am a huge fan of holidays. I love the excitement, the festivities, the specialness that holidays bring about. I feel that Christmas time has this feeling tenfold.

We tried to get a tree this year. It was a fake one, flocked and pre-lit. It was also the saddest Charlie Brown Christmas tree you’ve ever seen. But upon trying to actually purchase it, we were told it was not for sale. Major holiday let down.

Instead I decorated a branch I found by wrapping it in twinkle lights and hanging tiny glittered blue and silver bulbs. It was supposed to be hung from the ceiling but in the pre-holiday haste, it is merely dangling from a curtain rod.

It’s sweet and gives our living room a warm glow at night. Next year when we have our first home chosen together we’ll have a tree I’m sure.

Here is to putting away daily stresses, forgetting about emotional drama and being grateful for what you have. Here is to being present and appreciating your life for what it is today, not just what it will be or what it was. Here is to relaxing.

I hope your Christmas is filled with love and magic.

Christmas wishes

Do you have a Christmas wish this year? Something special that you really want? Maybe it’s not a thing, maybe it’s a change in your life or a feeling you’re in search of. Maybe it’s a wish for someone else.

These two little cats are very practical in their wishes. They wish for what they really really want. So much so, that I’m sure I know what they’re wishing for.

Sometimes when you wish for something hard enough, it really does come true. Sometimes a friend comes over and brings you an entire bag full of your favorite pom poms.

Sometimes your mom and dad stay home for a whole week and give you all the snuggles in the world; making up for all the times they wouldn’t let you sit on their computers while they were working.

What are your Christmas wishes?