Why, happy birthday!

Happy birthday, Life as a Wife! Welcome to the (hopefully-not-so-) terrible two's...

I also want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everyone who passes a glance here at my blog (hi, Mom!) - your readership is much appreciated and I am grateful for your loyalty and encouragement. I'm excited to enter this third year of blogging, and hope it will be fun-filled and that I'll be able to share some new and exciting adventures with you, so don't be a stranger! Follow along and please, pretty please, leave me some notes! Have I ever mentioned how much I love when you leave comments? :)

In the meantime, let's celebrate with brie en croute! Thanks for the inspiration, Paula Deen.

Ingredients
1 8 oz wheel of brie (or a large wedge like I used)
1 sheet puff pastry
1/2 C COLQUITT pecans (thank you Sass and JB!)
1/4 C brown sugar
1 T butter
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1 large egg

Directions
Preheat oven to 375
Remove puff pastry from freezer and let thaw for 15 minutes or until soft
Melt butter in warm skillet and add pecans
Saute until golden, just a few minutes
Add cinnamon to pecans and coat thoroughly
Once puff pastry is thawed, roll out over flour if necessary to achieve a flat surface (my Pepperidge Farm puff pastry arrived in a tri-fold, so I did have to roll out with a pin)
When pastry is flat, place brie in the center
Pour toasted pecan mixture on top of brie
Sprinkle brown sugar on top of pecans
Now, wrap up your brie! You'll see I made a very simple envelope fold below. Typically I would add some cute shapes (hello, Shamrocks for March!), but Hubby was taking this to a Scotch night party, so I didn't want to overdo it :)
Beat the egg and lightly brush crust with egg wash
Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes or until golden (just imagine how all that brown sugary goodness is getting ooey gooey melty inside!)
Serve and enjoy!

Wise words from my Dad: Keep in mind that brie melts fast in the oven. Especially if you are using a wedge like me, you'll want to keep a close eye on it.

Two of a kind

This past week, Hubby and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary - which seemed to have come a lot faster than I ever imagined!

Though our wedding cake is now gone (remember last year?), we had a great time re-watching our wedding video (obviously, right?), looking at our photo album (thanks Larry and Terri!) and reminiscing about our wedding day...

And some fun memories from the past year...here are some favorites!

 My Grandparents' 60th - we have a lot of catching up to do :)

(if anyone's doing the math, that's 88 years of marriage between my grandparents, my parents, and us - throw in Hubby's family and we're easily over the century mark... 127ish years I believe)

Los Cabos, B.C.S.

El Paso, TX

Santa Fe, NM

Exumas, Bahamas 

 

Boston/Cambridge, MA

and...falling in love with this little white fluff ball!

Thanks everyone for your love and encouragement!

Year-old Cake

Well, normally I wouldn't eat year old cake, but as time will tell, this was the weekend Hubby were scheduled to face the frozen truth. We went against our better consciences and sliced into the cake that graced our reception one year ago:

Here is what it looked like this year:

Still promising, I'd say! Now, drum roll, please...

...and...we're tasting...

Success!

To our astonishment, the cake had been perfectly preserved during the year. With each bite we looked at each other, wondering if we had a bad case of anniversary delusion. But alas, with each new bite, the truth was only more confirmed: our cake was just as delicious as it was on our wedding day back in 2008.

To this great news, we owe credit partially to my parents' freezer, but mostly to The Cake Guys, who graciously designed, baked and preserved our cake to give us not just one, but two (ok, three, four, five... I'm still devouring it nightly) perfect cakes to accompany our celebration of these unforgettable days.

Here is my highest recommendation of these wonderful fellows for any brides who have not yet made a decision about wedding cakes. If you want a cake that's equal parts pretty and yummy, then you'll love the cake guys. I'll admit that I even gave them every reason to be frustrated. Less than three weeks before our wedding, I fell in love with this cake from Martha Stewart Weddings:

I immediately emailed The Cake Guys, and lo and behold, they said, sure, no problem!  Turns out these proportions are not realistic for actual cake... it would collapse! So the Cake Guys in their genius-ness evened out the layers (they make multi-tiered cakes entirely out of... cake... a surprisingly rare procedure among wedding cake artists, I learned).

Not bad, eh?

I'm telling you, you'll love these guys! They even added script "L's" on the cameos for a cute personal touch. If you see a cake you like, ask your baker about it. It's worth it, believe me... think outside the box!

While we're at it, let's also not forget to share major props for amazing photography from Larry Sengbush and to-die-for flowers by the famous Junior at The Garden Gate. Possible wedding vendor posts to come... what do you think?