If you are happy and you know it... make cupcakes!

Yeap, most of the time when I get home from work, all I want to do is just chill, sure I have to run some errands and cook, but other than that, I just want to plop, but some days, I just have the energy and want to do something fun, and last Wed. was that kind of day... so what do you do? Well you get a date with your best cupcake buddy, and go at it! :)

That girl can crack eggs with one hand! although I did eat some eggshells while eating a cupcake, but that's calcium, right?

And in case you are wondering, all I did, was make the batter, fill up the cupcakes molds, little less than half, then place the cones on top and put it in the oven that way, for a moment Keera got excited she actually she was eating ice cream, but the cupcake frosting was good enough for her! LOL :)

His Valentine Day for me!

Oh He was WONDERFUL! he is always wonderful to me, but on special occasions he always goes above and beyond, to me it is not about how much money you spend, is about how much thought and effort you put in it, and he sure knows how to do it!


Ok, you need to know, I am in charge of finances at home, he has his debit card, and can use it of course, but I always find out, and know about it, but he does get some tips at work and some money a week for snack and little stuff, not much really, cause he has the debit card he can use for bigger stuff, anyways, this was special for me too, because he saved every penny he had to get me all these stuff because of course he didn't want me to find out and see it on our account, that made it even more special :)


First, in the morning, he wakes up before me and all of a sudden I hear one of my favorite love songs, a very special one for me and he knows it, so he comes to the bedroom and wakes me up with a pot of miniature roses and a card he made himself from magazines cutouts, he said it took him a week to finish it, in order to find all the words he wanted, he even got into some of my ink to make the edges, super special to me! :)





Then he is very persistent that we hurry and have breakfast at Denny's, so we do.... we had a really nice breakfast, and when I am almost done I see a group of 5 older guys dressed in red vests, I point them out to Gilmer and say "look, they must be going to a show or something an coming here for breakfast first" Gilmer nods, all of a sudden they come to my table "Are you Lani Riojas?" Yes, "we have a rose for you and a card from your love, and we are going to sing a couple of songs to you" so they do! ok, two things, first, this is soooo out of his comfort zone, heck it was even out of My comfort zone, and my zone is much wider than his LOL, but he did awesome! he just did it because of me, and second, he took the time to call them and get everything ready for this, again, out of his comfort zone, made it sooo special! and they did sing some very nice songs :)





Then we go this "scavenger hunt" looking for something in the weirdest places, gas stations, outside Dennys, anyways, when he finally comes back with what he is looking for, he shows me and it was the nickel saver, weird huh? and he just shows me the classifieds, where people had written down things for their loved ones.... yes.... he had written me a message in Spanish in the nickel saver! again! so out of his comfort zone! oh he is so the best!





Now you tell me if the guy didn't score some points! ;) Bad thing for him though, he is going to have to think of something more spectacular for next year LOL :D

close up of my handmade gifts for him

These are a couple of things I made for him on the 12 days of valentines, he loved them!, but he is so sweet, he loves anything I make him ;)

This is an altoid tin I altred with alcohol inks, some grungeboard and distress glitter, inside the little book I left a note for him :)



And this is a frame I altred with our wedding picture, he's been asking for one of these for a while and I just never got around to do it, well now I did, and really it took me all but minutes to finish, mostly it just took time for the glue to dry.

Valentines @ the Riojas

People still says I love valentines day because I am a young newly wed, but come on! how long are you going to call me a newly wed? I've been married now for 2 1/2 years now, and seriously, I am not that young, I am going to be 30 this year! wow, written down sounds so serious! LOL. So here's the deal; no, I don't need Hallmark to tell me to make something special for my sweetie, no I don't need a special day to show my love to the people that are important to me, but I do enjoy the celebration, why not join it? it is a nice theme, to me, the most similar to Christmas, isn't Christmas about love, and everybody has nice feelings for other people? well, that's how I feel about Valentine's day, I love the feeling :)

At home I started the celebrations early. Started with the 12 days of Valentines, I started hiding little things for Gilmer to find and make him feel special.

Day 1 left a cookie in a soccer tin on his desk
Day 2 left a decorated tin with goodies in the mailbox
Day 3 left a little bear with a handmade sentiment in his backpack
Day 4 decorated his car and left a goodies in it
Day 5 left goodies in the bed
Day 6 put goodies in his bed as he woke up
Day 7 decorated bathroom mirror and left goodies there for him
Day 8 left in dinning room table altered microscope slide
Day 9 got him the hallmark dancing guy with balloons and a bookmark and left it at the entrance for him to find
Day 10 Made him an altered frame with our wedding picture
Day 11 Made him cupcakes
Day 12 gave him altered altoid tin with goodies inside

So that's how I celebrated valentines day for him, this celebration was so rewarding to me, everyday he was so excited to get these small little things, that you would've thought I was giving him a brand new car or an Xbox, and really it wasn't hard for me to do these, so, why am I not doing it on regular basis? whatever I was giving him, was not too important, what was important is that he was feeling loved and thought of, I really could make him that happy very easily more often. That's my plan, and that's my part of valentines ;) he deserves a whole new post for himself, and more time to type :)

My new fav!

Ok, I LOVE inking now, it is my new favorite thing to do, and all thanks to 3 people... Tim Holtz that makes the coolest things!, the beautiful, talented inkalicious girl, Leah, she took the time, last time we were at convention, to teach me some cool stuff about working with ink and alcohol inks, and the also beautiful, Hot mamacita, bookalicious girl, Christine, that also taught me some cool tricks, LOVE it now! :)
I made this for Gilmer, I am doing the 12 days of Valentines for him, and I was going to post all of it together, but he Loved it so much, I thought I would post it on its own, so Christine, here it is, I took the pictures as fast as possible :) Charms from A Charming Place.

Weekend is over, go back to work!

What a great weekend we had!

First I went with Crisdee and Keera to a "Princess Party" you know there's no better party than a princess one, right ;)
Then we went to dinner and a movie for mom's b-day, we watched "He's not that into you", and well, although I didn't absolutely hate it or care that Gilmer wanted to take his eyes out, WHAT'S UP GIRLS! really? REALLY? Why is the world telling women that they are desperate to get a man! or that they NEED a man as bad as to put themselves through all that, women are worth much more than they think they do, if that movie has any true on it. Ok, that's all I am going to say about that now.
Saturday went to the temple with Gilmer and had a GREAT time, I learned for myself something that I heard before, and I will share with you: When you are putting off going to the temple and something always comes up that doesn't let you go, it is because you REALLY need to go, we had such a nice spiritual experience on Saturday and we hope that the lesson sticks with us and we can make the changes for better we need to.
Sunday we had conference, sat down with the Ceja's and Nena's kids, that was fun! they were good really, although all of us 4 adults had to seat in between all 6 kids, but it worked out great! Mikel really is a sweetheart Nena! :)
We had yummy spaguetti back home, that my dad brought, he really makes a killer spaguetti sauce! and also made some chicken alfredo sauce for Gilmer, it is his favorite, so we had a good time with the family at home. And that was it, a full weekend but great!

Last week I had some time to play with cards too :)

Happ Birthday Mami!

We love you! We'll see you tonight for dinner and a movie! Have fun with Keera :)

Love, Lani & Gilmer

Take a mental health day

So, I do this every once in a while, although not much lately, work is just fun for me now, and one of my best medicines, but, don't you ever have one of those days that you have way too much to do to have time for work? Well, I do, and I've been having one of those for around a week now, and so, yesterday, when I woke up with a headache I decided it was the best chance for me to call in for a health day. Turns out the headache is just my sinus, one of the few bad things about living in USA, I didn't use to have to deal with this in Lima, but oh well. So most of the time when I think I have too much to do to go to work, it's related to my scrappy mojo, and it was this time too, I created most of the day in my scrapbook room and then decorated the house a bit for Valentines, only a week and some left for Valentines and I finally get the house decorated, I know! :D; but it really is one of my favorite things to do, specially Valentines, because yes! I love GLITTER! I love PINK and I do like lovy dovy stuff, there, I confess! ;).After that, I actually cleaned the house, thank you very much LOL, and cooked, uhmmm... gotta tell you, there's something really special when you cook on your mental health day, at least for me, my mind just plays and works with ingredients that may work good together, and this recipe was yumo! Ok, so it was:

Pork chops
Garlic
Canola Oil
Oregano
Cilantro
Lime juice
Soy sauce
Salt, Pepper and Cumin

Very simple, just salt, pepper and cumin on the pork chops, put them in a bag, put the rest of the ingredients in it, let sit for a couple of hours. Fried the pork chops just to brown them, then on the same pan, add some water and cornstarch, put the pork again and let it cook, so simple and so yummy :)

Another sport widow

By no way I want you to think I am the perfect wife, because truly I believe I could be much much better, I could tidy up the house more often, take out the trash myself more often, when it is my turn for laundry, I could just do it and not wait for the last day, when I am out of whites, but, I don't, ok, I am just not the perfect wife; and I do truly also believe he is a much better spouse than me, he cleans, he cooks, although I do think I do better than him on that ;), he spoils me, he doesn't spend, he lets me buy whatever whenever I want, he cuddles me, he wakes up early in the morning with me to warm up my car and make me breakfast, anyways... he is a really good husband.... BUT... there was just something I always wanted... this is the sad story of a Peruvian, growing up, my brothers took over the TV on Sunday afternoons, yes, it is the day when most SOCCER games are played in Peru, so there I was, home bound, nowhere to go, because it was Sunday of course, and having to either take a very long nap, read my scriptures or watch SOCCER!, ok, so there might be some of you that love it, but I just DONT, I just don't get it, a whole bunch of people running for a ball, and kicking it? seriously? what's so great about that? and you know how Hispanic games are, Hispanic men are not shy on their adjectives for the opponent or shy on they way they treat them, so it really is like watching WWF, I just don't want that, so they watched the pre-game, the game, the post-game commentaries, and the following smaller team game.... anyways, you get the drill; so back to the point, growing up all I dreamt about, was how blessed I would be if my husband didn't like SOCCER! how happy I was going to be not watching soccer ever again, but seriously it was just a dream, come on, if I wanted to marry a Peruvian, I know my chances were slim, very slim, he wouldn't like soccer, but I still hoped....
This Cinderella woke up from that dream and found a very loving considerate husband that LOVES SOCCER, he could dream, eat, sleep, well maybe not eat, cause he does love eating too, but dreams about soccer, and really FEELS for soccer, so there are times I feel like a soccer widow, I do, but I can never stop feeling blessed for the kind of person he is, after all, his capacity for feeling such passion, is one of the things I love about him too, so Gilmer, it is ok, you still are the perfect prince for me, cause if you really were perfect, I would be in trouble! ;)

You may have plans...

And your body has other plans for you, and won't cooperate!, I have been sick probably since last Thursday, but like a good stubborn latina girl, I have been ignoring it, plus I had to be at work, so I had to ignore it; finally on Saturday when we were suppose to go to the Temple to go to the sealing of a couple from the branch, my body did not respond to me, woke up finally at 8, that's late for me since I started my early work schedule, anyways, went to town, run some errands, got home and really needed a little nap before heading out, so the little nap turned into waking up at 2 in the afternoon, really so dissapointed I couldn't go to the Temple, but what do you do, you gotta just let your body rest sometimes, so the rest of the day was resting, a little bit of scrapping and just chilling with Gilmer, we did have a good day at home, we haven't had a Saturday like that in a long time, so it was ok. By Sunday I was almost all good again, so I got to play with my nursery kids, I tell you, Church is just playing for me since I got this calling, I LOVE IT! LOL. Then we went to my mom's, played with Keera a little bit and watched God's Army, it really is a nice movie.

All good today back to work and feeling the Valentine spirit already! many things working in my mind, I do love Valentine's day! sorry if you don't, if people think is a "commercial holiday" but I don't, I know I don't need anybody telling me to show love, but I just like the more special opportunity to do it, so decorating and creating I see in my future today :)