How do they sleep like that?

I began to clear the dishes and came back to find this...Valentine of all the kiddos finds the most interesting positions to fall asleep in, so far this is my favorite.

Many Years Blue Eyes!

Some one turned 4 this week!
A new blue tutu from brother, a hike with special friends, a rousing "Many years" after Liturgy, 4 gluten free panda ice cream cakes to share, and lovely toy handmade by sister...could there be a better birthday?

ps. the little pandas are printable paper toys from http://www.thetoymaker.com/ one of our favorite sites. Biddy watercolored the blocks then when dry, modge podged the cut out pandas on.

New Year...New Server

There was a new server at our parish this morning, he was very serious, and very tiny and just a wee bit fidgety.

To be honest his parents were torn between giggles and tears.
But they are very very pleased :)

Gluten Free Vasilopita

I should have posted this a while back but here is our gf Vasilopita recipe. We adapted our recipe from Simply Delicious Greek Cooking 


Gluten –Free Vasilópita

Ingredients:

Cake Batter

1 pound  butter

2 cups sugar

6 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

7 cups gf flour (we used Jules)

Decoration:

Whole blanched almonds ( we used sliced un-blanched which is all we could find)

1 beaten yolk

1/2 Tbs milk

1 teaspoon sugar

Coins:

Silver coins (quarters are good- washed well and wrapped in foil)  

Directions:

Using stand mixer, cream butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

Mix dry ingredients in separate bowl.

Add dry ingredients to mixer, blending well; batter should be thick but spreadable

Pour and smooth  into two buttered 8” x 8” square pans.

Spread batter between 1 – 11/2 inches thick.

Hide coins in cake batter. They will sink down during baking.

Decorate cake tops with almonds. They may sink a bit.

Combine beaten egg yolk,  milk, and  sugar.

Brush each cake top with egg yolk mixture.
Decorate with almonds.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes until golden  and pick inserted near center of cake comes out clean.

Cool completely.

Serve cake slices with fruit and whipped cream or sprinkled with powdered sugar.


This is always devoured before I can get pics but we will be making this again at church school tomorrow so I will try and get a picture then. Happy New Year!


(Though if your feeling like pound cake Go check out this one I ran across it while "visiting" over  at one of my favorite blogs By Sun and Candlelight.)

(Once again it got eaten up but here is a pic I snapped before baking)