A recipe and a tree...

We finally got our tree up today!! This year we bought a fake tree... this is my first time with a fake tree, so it will take some getting used to. I told Jon that I will have to buy some pine scented candles to make it seem real. But it does look really pretty! I just love sitting in a dimly lit house with candles flickering and tree lights shimmering. It is so peaceful!

Here is the recipe that I found for Cranberry Bliss Bars. It is by Todd Wilbur.

Cake:
1 c.(2 sticks)butter, softened
1 1/4 c. light brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1 1/2 t. vanilla
1 t. ginger
1/4 t. salt
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. diced dried cranberries
6 oz. white chocolate, cut into chunks

Frosting:
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
3 c. powdered sugar
4 t. lemon juice
1/2 t. vanilla

1/4 c. diced dried cranberries

Drizzled Icing:
1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 T. milk
2 t. vegetable shortening

1. Preheat oven to 350F

2. Make cake by beating butter and brown sugar together with an electric mixer until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla, ginger, and salt and beat well. Gradually mix in flour until smooth. Mix 3/4 c. diced dried cranberries and white chocolate into the batter by hand. Pour batter into a well-greased 9x13 baking pan. Use a spatula to spread the batter evenly across the pan. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until cake is light brown on the edges. Allow cake to cool.

3. Make frosting by combining softened cream cheese, 3 c. powdered sugar, lemon juice and vanilla in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. When the cake has cooled, use a spatula to spread the frosting over the top of the cake.

4. Sprinkle 1/4 c. diced dried cranberries over the frosting on the cake.

5. Whisk together the Drizzled Icing ingredients. Drizzle icing over the cranberries in a sweeping motion or use a pastry bag with a fine tip to drizzle frosting across the top of the cake.

6. Allow cake to sit for several hours, then slice the cake lengthwise(the long way) through the middle. Slice the cake across the width three times making a total of eight rectangular slices. Slice each of those rectangles diagonally creating 16 triangular slices.
Makes 16 bars.

PS- If I make them again, I think that I would use less powdered sugar in the frosting. I added more lemon in mine, because the frosting was so sweet from the powdered sugar that you couldn't taste the lemon at all. Mine was done in less than 35 minutes too, so just keep your eye on it. Also, I think that you could use craisins instead of plain cranberries and it would be fine. Let me know if you try them, and what you think.:)

A Starbucks treat

At our house we love Starbucks, and especially this time of year. I love the Gingerbread Latte, Gingerbread Macadamia Nut Biscotti, and the Cranberry Bliss Bar!! As if we didn't have a hard enough times during the holidays with tempting and yummy foods, Starbucks has to bring out all of my favorites! Well, this year I got a little worried when the Gingerbread Latte came out in Danville, but the Cranberry Bliss Bar was nowhere to be found. I even asked the manager if they would be getting it. She had no idea what I was even talking about. I was so sad, that I knew I had to do something. I began searching for a recipe for Starbucks Cranberry Bliss Bars. I found one and decided to give it a try. My thought was that if I could never get a Cranberry Bliss Bar here in Danville, at least I could make them. Tonight our old Sunday school class had a Christmas party and we were invited. I had the perfect opportunity to try out my new recipe. I was a little dissapointed by them... my white chocolate melted into the bars instead of staying in solid chunks and they didn't seem as moist... but I am also my own worst critic, especially in the kitchen. Jon says that they tasted better than Starbucks. That's a pretty good compliment from a non-dessert kind of guy. I am still not convinced, but it was fun to try. I may try them again and tweak the recipe a bit.:) If you have never tried the ones at Starbucks, you really should go and get one!!

Go Navy! Beat Army!

Happy (day after) Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! We have been waiting to share our exciting news until after we had a chance to surprise our families! As you can guess by the picture, we are expecting Baby Uyboco #2, or as Jon called him/her Baby U2.:) I am currently 10 weeks pregnant with a due date of June 26. Eliana is so excited about having a baby brother or sister and she assures us that she knows all about taking care of a baby, so she will be able to feed the baby, hold the baby, and play with the baby. She found out the day that we had our ultrasound, which was this past Tuesday. It was so neat to have her there to see the first glimpse of her little brother/sister moving around inside Mommy.

God is so good to us. He has blessed us with a wonderful family, awesome friends, and now two children!! We love you all!

Eliana's Royal Tea Party

This past Saturday we celebrated Eliana's 3rd birthday with family and friends. Eliana loves the movie Gigi, God's Little Princess and acts out the tea party that Gigi has with her friend Frances at home all the time. She also loves princesses, so we thought we would combine the two for her party. We threw her a princess tea party. It was really fun to plan and decorate and it all came together so nicely. Eliana had a few of her little friends from church over. They came dressed as princesses. You will see in the pictures one little girl not dressed up. She told us that she was dressed up as Cinderella in her rags!:) There were tea sandwiches, tea(pink lemonade), and cupcakes to eat. My Mom was here and did an awesome job on the cupcakes!! I got the crazy idea to make princess castles, like you would a gingerbread house, even though it had nothing to do with a tea party. We had a blast doing that, and the girls really enjoyed it. I am not sure if it was the candy that they got to eat, or the castles, but they seemed really happy.:) One of my favorite memories from the party is when "Cinderella in rags" told all the little girls that she would read them Eliana's new Gigi book that she had received. It was so cute to see all 4 girls snuggled up on the couch together, listening to a 1st grader do an amazing job reading the story to them.:) We had a great day! Wish you had been here to share it with us too!!

DISGUSTING!!!

For those of you who have either lived in or been to Hawaii, you know that we have some weird bugs there. From the centipedes and millipedes to the creepiest creature in all creation, the many sizes, shapes, and colors of cockroaches! Yuck!! But, seriously, I have never in my life seen more strange bugs than here in Virginia! My first introduction to one of their fine creatures was last year after we had just moved in. I was taking a shower and what do I see crawling on the ground towards me but an inch long skinny thing with long hairy looking legs sticking out on all sides, really too many legs to count. My first thought was centipede, from my many years in Hawaii, but then I thought, "Could there really be centipedes in Virginia?" Thankfully a good dousing of water washed that creepy fellow away. Icky!! When the weather started warming up again we discovered another creepy Virginia bug. This one looks like a giant ant. At first I thought it was the queen ant, but then we saw several of them and knew they all couldn't be the queen. This thing has three distinct body parts like an ant, but each part is literally pearl sized. It's huge! And the weirdest part, it is bright red in color! Jon tried to kill one and it had a really tough exoskeleton! EW! I am feeling all icky just talking about these things, but I have one more to go. Today while running on the treadmill, I spotted something strange on the floor. It was about 3 inches long and brown. I was trying to figure out what toy Eliana had brought downstairs with her that looked like that, when I noticed that it was moving. It looked like a cross between a caterpillar, worm, and centipede. I was in the middle of my run, so I decided to watch it a little more to see what it would do. But, it just kept moving closer and closer to where Eliana was watching a movie. I tried to sound nonchalant as I told her to climb up in her chair to watch the movie because there was a bug on the floor. She got right up there and just watched her movie. I knew I had to do something to get rid of the creepy thing, so I stopped the treadmill and ran upstairs to find a jar or something to trap it under. That way it could stay trapped and Jon could take care of it when he came home. Poor Eliana, the minute I ran upstairs to get a jar, she started screaming thinking the bug was going to get her. I got a jar as fast as I could and trapped that creepy thing under it. I then found some bean bag things from a game we have and put those on top of the jar, just to make sure that thing could not get out. Eliana's words to Jon when he got home, "Daddy, you have to go downstairs and take care of that creepy bug!" He threw it out in the road and hopefully it is dead and will not find its way back into our house. I took a picture of it trapped under the jar. I wish that I had pictures of the other grotesque bugs that I mentioned. They are truly unique and truly disgusting!!! I love God's creation... but sometimes wonder why the bugs and why so creepy!!

A little China doll

Last night was the Fall Festival at our church. Jon and I are not really all that into Halloween or dressing up, but when I saw this adorable outfit that Eliana's California Grandpa had brought her from China, the wheels in my head started turning. I got really excited to put the whole look together, and then wished I had thought of it sooner to have more accessories to really play it up. Eliana was so excited to be dressing up as a "Chinese girl" as she called it. She wanted to know if I was going to dress up as a Chinese girl too, even though I wasn't Chinese.:) I told her I wasn't because I didn't have an outfit. She received many compliments and definitely stood out in her one of a kind costume. It was a fun night, and we didn't even end up with that much candy, much to my relief. I was jokingly telling people that I was going to put a sign on Eliana that said, "No candy please." Half way through the night she said to me, "Mommy, you forgot to put a sign on me.":) Was she gloating or just being observant?!:)