“Today you are you! That is truer than true!
There is no one alive who is you-er than you!”

Dr. Seuss

Friday

NEW KIDS JUICE, with veggies and less sugar!



This new juice from Apple & Eve makes it easy to add more veggies to your bundle of joy! It is tasty, attractive and besides carrots (full of Beta-carotene, a Pro-Vitamin A, good for our eyes!), it has only 9 to 10g of sugar per box! That is at least half of other brands including the "100% fruit juice" ones! You should give it a try!

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Tuesday

TRADITIONAL BRAZILIAN PARTY CANDY, YUM!



These are trademarks at kids birthday parties in Brazil: "brigadeiro" and "beijinho de côco" or chocolate candy balls and coconut kisses. All my friends know  they are part of my parties! They are pretty easy to make, it just takes time to roll them, but the effect is worth the work. Besides they are amazingly delicious! Say goodbye to your diet!

Chocolate Balls (brigadeiro):
  • 1 can of Nestlè condensed milk
  • 4 tbsp unsweetened chocolate powder
  • 1 tbsp unsalted butter + butter to roll the balls
  • chocolate sprinkles to coat
Coconut Kisses (beijinho de côco):
  • 1 can of Nestlè condensed milk
  • 100g coconut powder + some to coat the balls
  • 1 tbsp unsalted butter + some to roll the balls
  • cloves 
(Do not buy sweetened American coconut. You will need to use pure coconut, dry and powdered. If you have a Brazilian store nearby or a grocery store which offers Brazilian products on their Internationl isle you will can find it. Or you can find it at the Indian section at your supermarket too. In Texas we have Fiesta where I find mine at great part with Indian products.)

The preparation is the same for both:
In a sauce pan add the condensed milk and chocolate or coconut. Mix well BEFORE, then heat the pan at medium flame. When warm add the butter. Keep mixing until it starts to thicken. It will get more watery before it thickens. Don't stoop mixing and don't try to use high heat to speed up! It will burn the mixture! When it starts coming of the bottom of the pan, it's ready! Turn off the stove and place it on a buttered shallow pan (glass or metal) until it cools. Once it is completely cool, it is ready to be rolled.
This process is simple and easy, but it can get messy. It is WAY easier if you have two people. One to roll the balls and another to coat them. First open the paper or aluminum cups you will use to serve. (I am lucky enough to have someone bring to me the tiny cups above, I never found them here). Use the smallest cups you find. Place a thick layer of the coat (chocolate sprinkles or coconut powder) on a plate. Spread butter into hands and fingers and roll the balls into your palms in circular motion. Then coat with the coconut or sprinkles. If you don't  have a helper, make a few then coat them, wash your hand and start again. A helper will save you the constant hand washing! You can use color sprinkles too, like I did above. For the coconut kiss, decorate with a clove in the middle, but remove it to eat.

(The size of the balls and quantity of them will depend on the size of cups you find, thus the size of balls you are making. For mini cupcakes paper cups, you will get about 30 chocolate or 4o coconut balls for each recipe.) If baking for a bigger party, you can double or triple the recipe with no change on the results.

TIPS: If you do not like chocolate or coconut (some people ARE crazy!) you can do a white ball just with the condensed milk. If you LOVE both, try coating the chocolate balls on coconut! Yum! For a themed party use colored sugar to match the theme!
These recipes can be made up to 10 days to 2 weeks in advance. Freeze the rolled balls into a container and place them on the cups the day before the party. If baking up to a week before, just keep it refrigerated.

Bom Apetite!

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Monday

JUMBO CUPCAKE, a show of rainbow colors!



For my daughter's rainbow birthday party I made small cupcakes for the kids and a jumbo rainbow cupcake to sing the happy birthday and served that to the adults. The cake was beautiful to decorate the table of treats but specially colorful when cut open! It is said that people eat with their eyes... I don't know, but for the first time we had no leftover  from the kids' birthday cake!

 
I used a white cake mix (because I had made from scratch a lot of other treats) but you can use any white cake recipe. Do not use whole wheat flower or yellow cake mix, because the colors are never going to be right. Divide the cake dough in six equal parts and color using food or frosting coloring to make purple (blue +red), blue, green (blue + yellow), yellow, orange (yellow + red) and red. Layer on a jumbo cake pan (I bought it at Walmart) starting from purple and going up to red. Follow the usual instructions of your recipe for baking. You will do the same with the frosting to top after cooked. Take a look at my post on the small cupcakes with rainbow frosting. (I colored extra frosting when baking those to cover this cake). Start applying the frosting from the top (inside) and move outwards. I am not a super baker, so I didn't achieve the perfection I would like but to be honest it didn't matter!  The colors do the trick for an attractive cake anyway! I recommend placing cake on a white cake stand or decorating with white marshmallows around the cake if you do not have a white stand or serving plate. (the contrast is better and if using the marshmallows they will look like clouds!). This same technique can be used for smaller cupcakes. Enjoy!


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Sunday

PARTY CUPCAKES WITH RAINBOW FROSTING



Since I had so much to do for my girl's party, I decided to use a ready cake mix for these cupcakes served to the kids. I used Funfetti from Pillsbury but any cake will do since the colorful detail is the frosting anyway. Simply separate any frosting you decide to use in six equal parts (bellow) and color them, if using store bought, the 50% less sugar is best. TIP: making the cupcakes was easy, the presentation was awesome and it cost me a fraction of ordering a cake! For the adults I made a Jumbo Cupcake with colored dough!

TIP: Look for frosting color at a craft supply store as they usually have a bigger variety of color. Or simply use food coloring as such: purple (blue and red), green (yellow and blue), and orange (red and yellow). Top with colored sprinkles and arrange on a neutral color platter or tray! Voilà! It looks like the kids liked them...

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Saturday

MAKE A RAINBOW PARTY - FUN & COLORFUL!


Somewhere over the rainbow a little girl turned 3!  


The party was simply beautiful! This is a gender neutral theme you can use for any age. All the food served was colorful and I had a table of treats (above) to die for! Since the party was outdoors, I placed rainbow colored pinwheels around the yard, planted colorful flowers on a large pot a month in advance so the pot looked more mature for the party (bellow) and even decorated with wind chimes and outdoor decor following the theme.


Here is what was served: veggie platters (broccoli, red and yellow cherry tomatoes, carrots, yellow squash and petit cucumber), fruit trays (black grapes, strawberry, papaya, mango, green grapes, blueberry, oranges, grapefruit and  kiwi), avocado, blue corn and yellow corn tortilla chips, butter popcorn, rainbow goldfish and fruit loops. Unfortunately there are no pictures of them. ;(
We decided to buy an inflatable bouncer instead of renting one and it was great! We paid almost the same and the kids have been using it a LOT! But since it was a little smaller then the ones we use to rent I bought a "paint your own" pin wheel (it is VERY windy in Texas in April) at Oriental Trading Co. So I set a few cans with markers for the kids to draw, but I wasn't sure kids would be interested. It turns out it was a huge success! Kids really enjoyed!

I paid attention to every detail... To sing happy birthday, instead of the traditional hat, I opted to each guest a rainbow lei, displayed in  a glass canister before given out (bellow). Bows of a rainbow ribbon (found at Hobby Lobby) added a little charm here and there.

But the table of sweets was the hit! I am not sure if it was because of the decoration or the delicious treats! That is why I will be posting recipes  and detailed pictures of all the sweets this coming week! So you will need to check for: the butterfly goody bags, Brazilian Chocolate Balls (Brigadeiro), Brazilian Coconut Kisses (Beijinho de Coco), Soft Mary (Maria Mole), Rainbow Jumbo Cupcake, Confetti Cupcakes with Rainbow Frosting! Yumm! We we still had Rainbow Layered M&Ms, Jelly Beans Jar and Lollipops!

I could not have done it without the help of my family who was visiting from Brazil and the wonderful work of my friends from idea studio, who made the personalized invitation, labels and thank you notes! Thanks for coming! 

Besides the butterfly bag each guest received a bag with a tag saying "thanks for coming!" (above) with little toys all with the rainbow colors, but I found the rainbow crayon at OTC.

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Friday

Butterfly Goddy Bag - Simple, Affordable & Cute!



Besides this is a very affordable idea! Simply fill a snack size ziplock bag with goodies. Paint wood clothespins in any color you desire and make a little face on the top. If you want you can use pipe cleaners for antennas.  Clip bag in the middle of bag and voilà! You can arrange the butterflies on a tray or platter, or place them directly on the table. For my daughter's rainbow themed party I painted the  wood pins in rainbow colors and arranged them all around the table of treats. It was adorable!


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Thursday

LITTLE PIECES OF EARTH - MY EYES' WINDOW


Planting trees is a nice way of celebrating Earth Day. Today I planted four.  But taking pictures of the delicate and grand beauties Mother Nature has given us is also  a pleasant way of showing Love to our Planet. Here are a few of the ones I took when I found a beautiful piece of Earth along my way.








ALL PICTURES TAKEN BY DANIELA COHEN.
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS ARE PROPERTY OF THE ARTIST AND ARE PROTECTED BY THE UNITED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW.
YOU MAY NOT COPY, PUBLISH, OR OTHERWISE USE ANY PHOTO WITHOUT THE SPECIFIC WRITTEN PERMISSION OF DANIELA COHEN.
Copyright© 2010. All rights reserved.

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Wednesday

Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, near San Antonio, TX



Living in the ever growing Houston area? If your kids love animals and a trip to the zoo, you must take them to this safari in the Texas Hill Country. It is located between San Antonio and New Braunfels, two nice cities to visit as well. Natural Bridge and Wildlife Ranch is open 362 days a year and has the safari, a petting zoo, a learning center and some other animals, but the highlight is the safari per say. You drive your car among the animals on a 4 mile loop and then you park to see the rest. We spent over one hour on the safari only. There are about 500 animals representing 40 different species. At the gate you will be offered a CD which will "guide" you. We didn't like it much, as our pace was different from that of the CD, besides we were so excited by all these beautiful different faces coming to eat out of our hands that we didn't want to pay attention to the CD (they recommend throwing the food on the ground, but yes we broke the rule and we loved it!). I do recommend the book though because it explains all the animals they have. You get some food to feed the animals included with your admission, but you have the option to buy more if you want. There is a "grill restaurant" but it actually has snacks and a lot of unhealthy choices (everything is fried!). I recommend you bring your lunch if you prefer to eat healthy. They do have a coupon for the restaurant on their website. If you are staying at a hotel in the area, you can find coupons on area maps or brochures.


I had never seen so many different types of deer and antelope (like the one above), cattle, bison, ostriches, zebras and many others! The animals look really healthy and are quite friendly. They will come to your windows to eat because they know you have food! We were crazy enough to feed even the bison from our hands (I had never seen one up close, they are HUGE!), but again this is not the recommendation... we are just a weird family that would go to any zoo before going to an amusement park! So ... we , had to know who had a soft or rough thong, who had  a pale pink or black mouth... 
Get the camera ready before you start and if you have a sunroof you will be able to get awesome shots from the top! If you can make a video you may get lucky and get the nosy zebra below! Have fun!


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Monday

The Art of Botanical Arranging - FREE class at Pottery Barn




Don't know what to do after church next Sunday? Need an excuse to have a nice brunch and spend time with a girlfriend? Need to brighten up your room to welcome the warm season? My favorite spring change in the house is bringing new flowers and botanicals indoors, with real and "I can't believe is not real" plants,  and gardening outdoors!

Pottery Barn has free decorating classes every month! The next theme is flower and botanical arrangement. Classes will be held the next two Sundays, April 25th and May 2nd. You can bring a vase and flowers and they will show you how to arrange them. Click here to  RSVP to your local store.


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Sunday

LATEST BABY & CHILD RECALLS - APRIL 2010


It is hard to keep up with all recalls, isn't it? Latest there have been literally milloins of them! Did you know more than 2 million cribs have been recalled recently? How about 1 million baby slings recalled after infant deaths? Strollers recalled for finger or fingertip amputation include well known brands like Graco and Britax! In fact the most recent recalls include from toys, furniture, pacifier clips and clothing to Children's Tylenol and Motrin!




The good news is you can find the list of recalls with all information you want to know here.

Please, send a link of this article to your friends. It is better to be safe than sorry! 

This article was originally posted on http://arttipsandthoughts.blogspot.com
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I AM HAPPY TO BE BACK & GLAD YOU MISSED ME!


While I am very committed to this blog, sometimes life gets on the way. Being a working mom has brought me to a new perspective of urgency. Sadly the day has only 24 hours!

Between work and kids, the only time I find to write here is the after hours...
But between my girl's birthday (with the grandparents and uncle flying in from Brazil and getting here at 5am that day) , the second celebration with daddy who was away, the crazy preparation for her party 8 days later, the celebration at school, parent/teacher conferences, child observations, guests who need attention, and of course, a tummy bug AND a viral infection... well, the after hours were already taken by something else. Be it rolling Brazilian Candy at midnight, making butterfly goody bags at 1am or rainbow cakes at 2!

Now, I am back, healthy and happy again!

Thanks for all of you who have written to me asking for my blog posts!
I really appreciate you who took the time to become a follower!
Please, enjoy this blog again!

This article was originally posted on http://arttipsandthoughts.blogspot.com
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