Catch up

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas/Holiday!  This year feels like it just flew by, and it's hard to believe that the holidays are over!  It's been a while since I posted.  Last time, I told you guys about the fun little bachelorette trip we took to Austin.  Here are a few snip bits of my life since then.



Went to my friends wedding and had a great time. I'm so very happy for her.  She made a gorgeous bride - and I told her so.  And she comes back with, "Ya, as if you're going to tell a bride she looks bad on her big day."  And of course I came back with, "I was talking about the clothes, not the face."  But in all honesty - as I know she won't be reading this - she looked gorgeous, top to bottom.   The wedding itself was very small and intimate and exactly what she wanted.  She has lot of friends, she does.  But she just wanted it to be her very close friends and family.  It was at this really gorgeous country club.  I do admit to ditching the wedding halfway through to go explore the area.  I also got to meet some of her friends from across the world - she was skyping them while eating dinner.  It was very funny actually.  Picture this:  New husband sitting on your right eating his little heart away, photographer taking pics of you and your husband and scolding you for not paying attention.  A group of friends standing around the table trying to take selfies with you, and you sit there skyping with people.


BY THE WAY.  I helped with decorations.  I'm not completely useless.  This was for the Dholki - dance partay.  We did go a bit crazy.  None of us are actually good at dancing, but we dominated the dance floor.  And none of us are really good at singing, but we sang out hearts out. fun times.





 







While I wasn't at the events or generally being lazy.  I was trying to meet up as many friends as I could during the Holiday season. Got to finally meet up some of my old High School friends.  We try to do a reunion every now and then.  I remember once saying we should do a hang out once a month - for all the people still in town, some friends have actually moved out to different parts of the world - and i remember everyone saying how they were always busy.  I get that everyone is busy - believe me, I do.  But we hang out with our other friends regularly - friends we've made in college and university and at work, we could take a day out of that and meet our old friends.  I like doing that and being in touch with them.  I don't want it to be one of those things, were we see each other in the future and just smile at each other and turn away because it becomes awkward.   But we did meet up - and had a great time just catching up with each other.  PLUS, JUST LOOK AT THE FOOD.  YUM!

















I was sick for a few days, and stayed at home to rest.  But my dear friends couldn't survive that long without bothering me and just showed up at my place.  It was very cool though, we stayed in and watched movies.  I also had a baking day and made some cinnamon almond cake, Mexican wedding cookies, and peppermint hot chocolate.




 Altogether, my holidays were perfect.  I had some time for just myself, time for my friends, and some for my family.  How were your holidays?  Let us know what you did!

Cinnamon Cake Recipe

Yes - I've added effects to make it look cooler

The other day, I was just sitting around and doing absolutely nothing. I was getting kind of bored, so I walked up to my freezer and pulled out an Oreo Sandwich Ice Cream. 

Just to have something to do! 

Now, I've been trying to be on a diet for the past few weeks.  I'm not changing up much of what I eat.  But I am trying my best to stay away from junk food - because that's where my weakness is.  So I controlled myself, put the ice cream up and walked away.  I started walking around in the kitchen thinking of all the things I could do to occupy my time.  I finally got it - why not bake a cake?  And I know, I'm trying to stay away from junk food, so why bake a cake?  Well, my dad had been asking me to bake a cake for the past two weeks, but I was too lazy to.  But I knew this was the perfect opportunity.  It would take up some of my time and I'll bake that cake my dad wanted.

So I present to you, my recipe for cinnamon cake.  It was pretty good and is pretty simple if you have all the ingredients.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1  (1/2) cups all purpose flour
• 1  (1/2) tsp baking powder
• (1/2) cup milk
• (1/2) cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla/chocolate extract (I used chocolate)
• 2 tsp cinnamon powder

Directions:

1.  Combine and swift through the dry ingredients (flour and baking powder).
2.  In another bowl take your room temperature butter and sugar and cream together.  Once that has been done, beat in your eggs. Mix well.  Add in the extract of your choice (As mentioned, I used chocolate, because I like how the cake color turned out - a light brown).
3.  Combine the dry ingredients with the mixture you made above. 
4.  Add in the half cup of milk.  Mix it all well.
5.  Add in cinnamon powder and mix.
6. *I sprinkled a bit more of cinnamon powder on top before putting it in the oven, because ya know - why not?*
7.  Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.  Monitor on your own as well. 

Frosting?  Nope - I'm on a diet remember!  But for an extra kick, add some ice cream on top - while the cake is still hot.  YUM!

Let me know if anyone tries this out, and how they like it.