Weekend was quite good. Saw some friends, girls had the Misha Lulu Fall/Winter shoot, let me just say… the new line is amazing always, a few other things to do here and there, and had some friends over for a dumpling party tonight. There was lots of things to thank God for this weekend. Actually, there are just lots to thank God for all the time!

With Ben home, our weekends are kind of blurring together. Two weeks down, two more to go. I will be so sad when he goes back to work, but very thankful he has a job to go back to.

It feels like the house re-doing is going so slowly. This week has been about cleaning and emptying spaces. We got a few things done, but still so much more to go and I am currently tackling this horrendous mess of my crafty zone and Ben is working on the garage. Next week, we will meet together in a spare room and tackle that like crazy and hopefully getting to the garden.

As far as our pretty wood floors, a few things have set us back, so now we are looking to get those put in the last week of April leading into the first week of May. Unless, something else sets us back again, but that’s the plan so far. Other than that, all is well in our home and I am really just loving all of our time together.

This week’s learned and links…

– Love this simple post.

– Brave has the cutest little voice. Listening to her tell a story makes me smile.

– Too much stuff stresses me out.

– Soul must sleep with tons of books in her bed.

– These kid glasses are way cool.

– Making this paper dots garland asap.

– I announced the Misha Lulu giveaway winner on twitter. Follow tweets here.

– I must eat something sweet right before bed. As I type, I am waiting for Ben to bring me home frozen yogurt.

– Follow my pins here and since it seems you can’t pin from my blog any longer due to flickr, you can get some Cakies pins here or here.

Tomorrow we are off to another Misha Lulu shoot in the morning and on Sunday we are having some friends over for dinner. What are your plans this weekend?

There is lots of cooking going on in this house these days. It’s nice to have fresh, well thought out meals for my family. I like to serve them with yummy food.

One night, I made Pancit Bihon…

We had left over rice noodles from when I made Spring Rolls last week, so I attempted to make my girls some Filipino food. I am a Filipina (never been to the Philippines though), but sadly I don’t know how to make any authentic dishes and when I try, I make it healthy, so it kind of loses all the filipino-ness from the food.

I know my girls like pancit when my mom makes it, so I attempted to make it too. I used tofu instead of meat and it came out eh. Something was missing and I couldn’t figure it out. I pretty much followed the recipe, but me thinks that it wasn’t made by a Filipino because something was just off. Anyone familiar with pancit have any suggestions? I would not recommend this recipe, but I would like to find a good one and master a healthy version of it!

Ben actually got in chef mode again and made us some Spicy Grilled Salmon…

The rub we put on the salmon is just so good and super spicy. The girls just have their filets salt and peppered. This is one of our go-to faves and it hits the right spot every time.

Crunchy Pork Kimchi Burgers?!! Yes, please!

It stood out to me when I was going through my latest Food & Wine and it sure was tasty. Plus, we had some fresh homemade kimchi from my BFF’s mom, so I knew it was going to come out fabulous. It was fast, easy, and tasty! We had ours with spinach and some brown rice. Actually, my parents were over for dinner, so I also made Scallion Meatballs and they were all so yummy together.

Another night was for Poached Eggs in Tomato Sauce with Chickpeas and Feta…

I saw it on Stephanie’s blog last week and the combinations just sounded good and it indeed was. I cooked the eggs a bit longer since the little ones were eating it, so ours wasn’t quite poached, but it didn’t hinder the flavors at all. The recipe calls for one can of chickpeas, but I doubled it and I think I might have doubled the tomatoes too. I am trying to let go of being so precise and just going based on experience and things we like. We love tomatoes and chickpeas, so I though a bit more wouldn’t hurt. We paired it with pita bread and the girls were devoured all of it.

It really makes me smile to see my girls eating well and trying new foods. I am loving this family meal planning thing and loving the time spent at the dinner table a whole lot more.

I started making these types of bags so long ago. See here, here, and here. So when Brave needed her own little dance bag, I knew exactly what I was going to make. This one is True’s dance bag and now Brave has her own for dance class. I made the instructions for the bag a long time ago for a little project I did for Free People (see here) and if you want to make your own braided tablecloth bag, you can get the instructions right here.

Brave’s bag was made without the cotton batting, but I think it works for this purpose. My little dancer was happy with it, despite the fact we got to dance class only to realize she only had one tap shoe inside the bag. Oh well! Hopefully next week, she will remember to make sure all her dance shoes are inside!

On a pinterest side note… some of you have emailed and commented to let me know you aren’t able to pin somethings you see here. Well, flickr has decided to block pinterest from using flickr pictures for pins and I use flickr to host my pictures, so you are no longer able to pin directly from my blog. I think this move is a good and bad thing. To work around it, I have pinned some things you might like from here and you can repin directly from me. This way, I am properly credited in pinterest and we can still all share ideas.

If you want to pin some ideas from here, follow the Cakies board here or just follow along with me on pinterest here. If there is something from my blog, that I did not pin, but you would like to pin, just let me know and I will try to get that pinned. Hope this helps us still be happy pinners!

Our newest Food & Wine issue came in and there are a ton of good stuff that I marked to be put into the family meal planning schedule within the next few weeks. There are two that really stood out and one of those might get cooked tomorrow (instead of what I originally planned from last week). I am getting hungry just thinking about it. One of them involves kimchi and I really love kimchi. If I had to be re-born into another Asian, I think I would choose to be Korean, though it is neck in neck with being Japanese. Their food is just so much better than Filipino food (to me at least).

For our meal planning, I have typically just been searching through Food Network recipes, Smitten Kitchen, and a few others online resources. I really do like looking through Food & Wine though, I think good pictures make the world of a difference. For me, the problem with using actual magazines is that I don’t like to tear out pages, and the recipe I like gets lost because the magazine gets put in with the other stacks of Food & Wine magazines we have and I never remember which issue to find it again. Does that ever happen to you?

It won’t happen this time though because blogging about it will be a good reminder and I think for sure I am making one of the above recipes tomorrow. My parents are coming over for dinner, so I want to make something extra yummy!

When looking for new recipes, what is your go-to source?

Just like I did for Ben’s Valentine present, I made the girls their own egg-ish shape surprise balls. We ditched the Easter basket and did the balls instead and I think with all the gifting they were given throughout the day from family, the surprise balls were definitely the way to go. I wonder if they would get bored if this became an Easter tradition instead of baskets and as they get older, maybe some dollar bills can get wrapped inside.

I have four girls, but did three balls because Glow didn’t really need one. The girls were beaming with the discovery of each new little treasure and I love that though the items were small and inexpensive, it did the job of giving the girls a special little something to celebrate the day. These surprise balls are perfect for tons of occasions!

If you celebrate Easter, what kind of goodies do you gift the little ones in your life?