A couple days ago, I was browsing through my Pinterest dessert board looking for something to make for our friends' New Year's party tonight.  First I thought I would just be lazy and make the boxed brownies I have in the cabinet.  But then I thought, wellllll.... I'm on vacation, I have the time.  I need to go all out!

And go all out, I did.  With Sweetapolita's Neapolitan layer cake.  Devil's Food cake layered with chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream...  I can't believe I have to wait another 6 hours to delve into this thing, it's just not fair.

It's a little frillier than I would have liked due to my choice of icing tip, but I didn't have the one she used in the blog.  (We'll just pretend I'm practicing for a little girl's birthday party ;-)   I used my usual Devil's Food cake recipe because I was a little wary of the mayonnaise thing, but if you try her recipe, I'd be interested to know how it turned out.

Hope you have a happy and prosperous new year!  We are looking forward to new challenges ahead!

Can you believe it??  After two years of trying, we're finally pregnant!  (Yes, "we".  Kevin received a book for Christmas from his brother called "Dad's Pregnant, Too!"  LOL

This is technically our second pregnancy... we found out that we were pregnant in April, a month before our Ireland trip.  But only a couple days after our positive pregnancy test, it turned out that my HCG levels were not promising and it ended up being an ectopic pregnancy (the egg had implanted itself somewhere other than the uterus, probably in a fallopian tube.)  To prevent the tube from bursting (very painful and resulting in surgery) the doctor gave me a shot of methotrexate, which is actually a drug used in chemotherapy that kills off rapidly dividing cells.  Then I had to wait three months for it to get out of my system before we could start trying again.

But anyway, here we are, just going into the second trimester!  The first trimester has been pretty easy... I haven't really had any morning sickness to speak of, though I have had an aversion to cooking so poor Kevin has been subsisting on Ramen noodles and bread and butter and I have eaten cereal for dinner more than once.  I really hope that I can get back into cooking soon.  I bought a pregnancy cookbook and have made one recipe so far, but I'm looking forward to trying out some more.

Here are some pics from our latest ultrasound... the doctor says it's probably a girl, but not to go out and buy a bunch of pink stuff yet.  We will know more at our next ultrasound on January 21.  It's hard to believe the baby is about the length of your thumb in these pictures...

Today was a busy day in the kitchen.  I planned to make these Linzer cookies, Peppermint Candy Cane Bark for a Christmas gift, and a new chicken recipe in my pressure cooker.  When I stopped by Michaels yesterday to get the candy melts for the bark, they were all out.  So, I bought Ghirardelli chips at the grocery store instead.  That was a bad idea.  $12 worth of chocolate went in the trash because it didn't set up right and wasn't hard enough.  Lesson learned:  don't procrastinate.

The chicken dish was completed without incident, but it wasn't very interesting.  Thankfully, the Linzer cookies saved me from having a totally unsuccessful day.  I used pomegranate jelly from Whole Foods (the only place I can find it)... it goes perfectly with the almond cookies.  Now, these cookies are kind of a lot of work.  I got the cookie cutters for cheap at Homegoods last year, so I wanted to try them out, but honestly...?  If you don't want to do the work, make these instead. 

Now, please excuse me while I go get some crumbs on the sofa and try to figure out where to buy peppermint candy cane bark.