Way to go girls!!

Maile and Audrey are learning how to swim...and I am soo proud to finally see them become comfortable in the water!! Of course, I still freak out when I see them go underwater for 8 seconds ( mostly Audrey will do that). She has come such a long way from being completely terrified of the water to going behind her instructor's back and jumping in the water just to show mommy that she can do it.

We have been going to swim classes once a week since May now and they have both made such progress. I will never forget the first 3 sessions where they both screamed the whole entire 30 minutes of the class just feeding off of each other...oh what a nightmare. I never thought we'd leave that stage behind and here we are just a few months later and both of the girls are able to float on their backs ( Maile has an easier way to just let herself relax and float) but Audrey is certainly trying her hardest and she is much less fearless than Maile. We almost think that she might outdo her sister soon.

Today was so special because for the first time in months I saw Maile swim almost 3/4 length of the pool. I was soo incredibly proud and was cheering on both of them the whole time. Their instructor does a great job cheering on them while still pushing them to achieve more and more every day.

Oh...the "little" things in life that make you ohh soo happy. I wish I had taken a video of them swimming today...perhaps tomorrow....

Dessert you say??

Oh yeah and not just any dessert. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't have much of a sweet tooth...perhaps because desserts in Europe are about half as sweet as the ones here in the States....but this one just falls into a totally different category. I could have the worst day ever and a bite of this just puts me into the happiest of moods...hehe

Ok, so it's certainly not one of my creations but it is a signature dessert of Roy Yamaguchi, founder of Roy's - a hawaiian fusion chain of restaurants that can be found all over the United States... an absolute favorite resturant of Eric and mine for sure.

Roy's is all about food - unique, beautiful to gaze upon, pleasing textures, and bold flavors - with a taste that is as good as it looks. And his Hot Chocolate Souffle is absolutely EXQUISITE and here is the recipe for it.

Ingredients:

8 oz good quality Semi Sweet Chocolate

12 TBS Unsalted Butter

3TBS Cornstarch

4 whole eggs plus 4 yolks

Directions:

In a mixing bowl combine sugar and cornstarch. Have eggs and yolks mixed together in a separate bowl. In a saucepan melt butter and add chocolate. Stir constantly until chocolate is melted and very smooth, simmering at the edges. Add the chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix until combined then add eggs and continue to mix until mixture is very smooth to the touch and sugar is dissolved. Pour into a container and refrigerate over night.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray metal rings with pan release, line each with a strip of parchment paper and then spray again. Place each ring on a parchment lined baking sheet. Fill the rings 2/3 full with the souffle base. Bake for 25-30 min. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and while holding each mold with tongs, slide a metal spatula under each souffle and transfer to desired plate. Gently lift off the mold and remove the parchment paper. Dust with powdered sugar and serve immediately with icecream.

Enjoy!

It's official..Maile is 3 yrs old

We ended up having her birthday party on the 30th of August despite the fact that she was born on the 31st. Her actual birthday fell on a Monday and with everybody working that day it just wouldn't have worked.

I've known we were gonna do a princess party for Maile for at least a few months now ever since she started really getting into the whole disney princess thing. Actually the whole thing started for her when she watched "Sleeping Beauty" for the first time. She was absolutely mesmerized and from then on...we knew we were "in trouble". She must've watched this movie at least a hundred times since then and she is able to reproduce almost every scene in the movie. Her favorite however is when Aurora pricks her finger and she falls asleep. It's adorable watching her try to find any old thing around the house that she can "prick" her finger on and fall asleep while waiting for her prince ( usually daddy but sometimes Audrey or me) to kiss her on the cheek and wake her up. Oh and I should mention this whole routine usually happens upstairs so that she can complete the last scene in the movie where "Sleeping Beauty" ( her) and her prince ( daddy) come down the stairs holding hands and finish with a beautiful dance.

I won't even go into explaining how Cinderella ended up in her mind as being "Sleeping Beauty" while the actual "Sleeping Beauty" is just simply Aurora....perhaps because this one princess has so many names throughout the movie...from Aurora to Rose to "Sleeping Beauty" to the final scene where the fairy God-mothers change her dress color from pink to blue and back and forth.

Well, somehow we hardly ever try to correct her on the actual name of whatever princess she might be pointing to and we even let her go with the same thing during our recent trip to Disneyland where she actually got to meet Ariel, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Bottom line is...I've known what the theme for Maile's 3yr party was gonna be and no matter what you call it she had a blast.

I ended up renting a Disney Princesses Castle Bouncer complete with misters on the inside so that it would help with this horrible heat in AZ while the kids were in there bouncing and playing.

Daddy did an awesome job decorating the house with all sorts of princess related decorations that Maile absolutely loved.

Ever since I joined the MOMS Club in Gilbert more than a year ago we have been blessed with a bunch of really incredible friends. I love the fact that these kids spend so much time together getting to know each other, some of them she even goes to preschool with. That makes for some great friendships and really great parties.

All in all I think we had about 35-40 people in our house that day. For the food I decided to go with something simple and ordered petite sandwiches from Sprouts. I then made a chinese salad to go with that and I also had a fresh fruit platter.

For the cake I decided to go with this princess castle cake since I am not much of a baker myself...it's not really the baking part that intimidates me it's more the actual decorating. Well...Maile loved it and the great thing about that is she still plays with the little figurines that came with it...and she has enough that she can share with her sister too.

Oh, and Maile had her first little updo on this day as well. I had asked my neighbour friend who does my hair if she could help me make her look a bit more special and she was more than happy to do that. I was really nervous because Maile's not always thrilled at the idea of even blow drying her hair so to think about using a hot iron...I thought for sure she wasn't gonna let me do it but to my suprise she sat down and as her curls got prettier and prettier you could see her face light up while she was still playing with her Leapster princess game.

We always seem to take so many pictures especially on their birthdays and here are some of my favorites.

Thank you to everybody who made it to our party and helped us make Maile's day that much more special. Thank you for all the awesome presents that she got. She will be playing with those for quite a while...