The Seerapu Famliy

I asked Aruna Seerapu if I can take some pictures of her precious little girl Celina. I ended up taking some pictures of this wonderful family, and a billion pictures of Celina :) 

Little Celina was super happy for the first half of the shoot, but towards the end she got a liiiiittle bit grumpy...but her grumpy face is the cutest thing ever! 

 

This is her signature grin. Look at her dimples!
I couldn't stop smiling while taking these pictures...she's just too adorable.

You see what I mean? She was SUPER happy! She kept wiggling, smiling, laughing. She's so funny!

Celina says: "Stop taking pictures Aunty! I'm tired of the camera in my face!"

teehee. This one is my favorite :) 

mommy's lipstick mark :)

  I absolutely LOVE her glossy eyes. She's going to be the prettiest girl on the block :)

I remember having sandals like this once upon a time...

"Unma the flower Celina!"

and she did it :)

I love these traditional Indian dresses. I want one for myself hehe

Celina couldn't decide whether to have her mother assist her in putting the jewelry on, doing it herself, or taking it off haha. 

And this picture concluded our photoshoot for the day!

I really enjoyed photographing this family!

and afterwards...they fed us some ono kine Indian curry and rice. 

it was the best curry I've ever had. literally.

Shout out to the Seerapu family,

I love you guys! Good luck in India :)

The Shem Burger.

Amidst all of the final papers and test craziness...we had a birthday celebration!

Lindsey Neff's 21st birthday :)
We were all supposed to meet up at Castles...but David and I were working, AND it was pouring rain!
It wasn't really the prettiest day, but we definitely had a good time getting to know the Neff's better and the other couples at the partay.

We went to Kahuku Grill for dinner, and oh my gosh...it took FOREVERRR to get our food, but it was probs the best burger I've had in a whole year

The Shem Burger.
guacamole. bacon. cheese. beef patty. grilled onions. lettuce. tomatoes.
mmmmmm...I can eat that every day.
I'd gain like 500 pounds though.

Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to photo it since I chomped it down too fast.
I definitely got photos of the birthday girl and her hub though :)

Ben and the Birthday Girl!

Sarah and Zach

Chase and Lisa

Kaycee and Cade

Me and my hub.

"I mustache you a question!"--Ben

Zach...?

The super delicious coconut banana cake + icecream

The Romeril's were so nice to get this for her :)

Kahuku Grill date nights/birthdays are the best.

 

Happy Birthday Lindsey! 

life is wonderful.

David and I had an extremely marvelous week. 

 During the week of March 25th~April 1st we...
-had the Roberts' over for dinner
-ate PINEAPPLE fried rice (twice)
-watched General Conference
-went to Costco on saturday (sad for the wallet, happy for the fridge)
-had a bake-off at the Carlston's home
-oh yeah, I guess we did some school stuff too...

So...I usually fall asleep during a couple of the talks given in General Conference, but this time, I only dozed off to ONE talk. Yes, I'm proud of that. BUT I guess I should try my best to be 100% attentive all the time. :)
 I really enjoyed listening to this year's GC because I felt a really strong connection to many of the topics. I especially enjoyed Uchtdorf's "stop it", "don't judge me because I sin differently than you!" he talked lots about not envying others and STOP gossiping (that could be pretty hard for us ladies hehe).
R. Nelson's, "could an explosion in a book factory create a dictionary?"--when talking about the absurdity of the big bang theory, Perry's "Are you a Mormon? If not, you should be!"
If you want to watch or listen to General Conference, go to: 

<http://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2012/4?lang=eng>

You get to hear the words of a modern day Prophet! And it's forreal! :)

We also walked around the temple last week...it's just so beautiful

I still can't get over how perfect his mustache is...

 David, making our GC sticky buns! :) yum!

 drool...

this is kinda random, but below was my lunch today!

doesn't it look delish??

English muffin, portuguese sausage, egg, and cheese. drool. again.

Yesterday we had a "bake-off" at the Carlston's house which pretty much led to all of us gaining like...five pounds.

ugh.

But it was so great because we got to meet some new people, and eat our stomachs away :)

I baked some cinnamon rolls or "cinnabon clones".

(will post recipe at the bottom of post)

 These were probably the best cinnamon rolls I have ever had in my life.

There were two awards, "yummiest", and "best presentation"

I won the yummiest teeheehehee.

The reward is "dinner with the Carlstons" 

Can't wait!

I took tons of pictures cus it looked so good!! 

 "come to mama"

"say aaaaaahhhh"

So satisfied!

Cinnabon Clones

Serves twelve
 

Ingredients:
1 cup of warm milk (45 degrees C)
2 eggs
1/3 cup of butter or marg (soft or melted)

 4 1/2 cups of all purpose flour (I use 405)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of white sugar
1 package fast acting yeast

1 cup of brown sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon
1/3 soft butter

Cream Cheese frosting:
  7oz (or roughly one package or Philadelphia cream cheese) cream cheese
1/2 cup butter/marg
 2 cups Confectioners Sugar

 1 tsp vanilla flavoring / essence

Directions:

1.Mix the sugar, butter, and salt. Add in eggs one at a time 

2.Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk in a bowl

3.Pour yeast mix into the sugar mix

4.Add flour (a cup at a time)

5.Mix it until there are no more lumps, and then use your dough hook to knead it for about 2-3minutes

~your dough is almost ready~

Now, let is rise for 1.5 hours until it has doubled in size.

**Make sure you lay the dough out on a floured surface**

Roll the dough into a rectangle,

spread a ton of butter all over, but leave a strip at the top so you can seal it up nice and tight later

After the butter, take your cinnamon and brown sugar mixture and spread it all over.

*the more, the better*

Roll the doll tightly, seal it, and cut it into however many pieces you'd like :)

Before you place the rolls in your pan, sprinkle some of that cinnamon/sugar mix in there, I learned from my experimenting that the rolls taste so rich if you do this.

Place the rolls into the pan

Wait for another 30 minutes to let the rolls rise.

Bake them for 15-20 minutes.

It all depends on your oven though--for me it was exactly 15 minutes

While the rolls are in the oven, start your cream cheese icing!

1.Stick the butter into your kitchen aid until it's light and fluffy. 

2.Add the cream cheese

3.Add the sugar little by little

4.Lastly, add the vanilla

Leave it in the fridge till you need to use it!

When you take the rolls out of the oven, make sure they cool down a little first before pouring your cream cheese icing on them. The icing will melt if your directly pour it on when the rolls are a billion degrees hot. 

Alright ya'll, bon appetit!

While we wait.

ok, I admit it...I love blogging.
It's so addicting! Don't worry though mom, I finished my homework first (ehehe)! :)

Today, I decided to make some banana chocolate chip muffins. I didn't think it would be that great because last time I tried, my chocolate muffins/cupcakes turned into brownies...

This time they came out super fluffy and delish!

heart-shaped muffins <3
I will post ingredients and instructions at the end of this post!!

 I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Best meatballs I have EVER made.

I can probably eat this every night. 

David making our hot choclate--he's an expert.

And yes, we drink hot chocolate in Hawaii too. 

The pair-cup David and I got for Christmas from my brother.

Thank you Ken, these are my favorite cups!

We had a super lazy weekend because of the crazy wind and rain. 

It was literally raining tunas and turtles out there! We didn't want to leave our apartment. 

So instead, we did homework, watched movies, made good food. All is well :)

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients

 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)

1 large egg

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup milk

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line twelve 1/3-cup muffin cups with foil muffin liners. Mix mashed bananas, egg, melted butter and milk in medium bowl. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in large bowl. 

Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients just until blended (if using a kitchen aid, just add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients--it doesn't really make a difference). Stir in chocolate chips.

Divide and fill each about 3/4 full. Bake muffins until tops are pale golden and tester inserted into center comes out with some melted chocolate attached but no crumbs, about 20 minutes. Transfer muffins to rack; cool.

Cookie Jar

I have a new found hobbie: baking.

Before marrying David I did not know how to bake. at all.
I had tried baking cookies, brownies, and cakes, but it never seemed to cook right the first time.

Well guess who's the baking champ now? :)

I wanted to surprise David with some chocolate chip cookies the other day, so while he was working on our truck, I was working hard in the kitchen.

First, cream the butter, white sugar, brown sugar together.

Next, beat one egg at a time into the mixture (Use two eggs)

At this point, I got a little bit messy and forgot to mix the cocoa powder and the flour together first...but it turned out fine so I don't think it matters a whole lot. 

Add flour, cocoa powder, salt and vanilla in to the mixture.

Dissolve the baking soda into hot water and pour it on in!

My secret ingredient! I didn't have enough chocolate chips, so I decided to add some Japanese caramels! Hollah to my mama for sending them to us!

If you haven't tried these caramels, you should give it a shot :)

Chop up the caramel and throw them in!

Is your mouth watering now?

Because it should be. 

This made 36 cookies. I made them five days ago, and we still have about half left. 

I guess next time I should half the recipe... :) 

Bon appetit!

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons hot water

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped walnuts/caramels

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, cocoa powder and caramel/nuts. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased pans.
3. Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned. 

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