Happy Birthday to Shalyn!!
Hope you had a great day! Of course our card to you is late (seems to be the norm lately!) Sorry!

I thought I would post a few pictures of our recent trip to Guatemala. For those of you who check our adoption blog, you'll see some duplicates.

The top pictures are of Spenser playing with some blocks that my friend Shannon gave us. He played with them for hours! We ended up leaving them with him and of course I couldn't find any once we got home to replace them, luckily I was able to find some on line and they arrived a few days ago, ready for him to play with when he comes home. (which hopefully will be soon!!)

He was fascinated with them ~ maybe he'll grow up to be an engineer??

















This next picture is Spenser in a shirt that my mother-in-law picked up at a Harley dealership. Tom & I sure hope we can live up to it! :)

You may notice that he isn't wearing pants - honestly, we did bring pants for him, but they were much too big on him and really hindered his mobility. He crawled right out of one pair! He seemed much happier without them, so if we were just hanging out in the room, we didn't even bother with putting them on. I hope he won't always have such an aversion to pants! Could be problematic once school starts!!

While Tom & I were in Guatemala, we had "Pastel de Tres Leches" (Three Milks Cake). This is a delicious cake that is very popular in the Latin American Culture. I was able to find a recipe for it and thought I would share it for anyone who wants to try it. It got rave reviews!! I will not lie, there is nothing low cal or low fat about it!

Pastel de Tres Leches
1-½ cups All-purpose flour
1 teaspoon Baking powder
½ cup Unsalted butter
2 cups White sugar (divided)
5 Eggs
1-½ teaspoon Vanilla extract (divided)
1 cup Milk
½ of a 14-ounce can Sweetened condensed milk
½ of a 12-ounce can Evaporated milk
1-½ cups Heavy (whipping) cream

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Grease and flour a 9x13-inch baking pan.
Sift flour and baking powder together and set aside. Cream the butter and 1 cup of the sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs and 1/2 teaspoon of the vanilla. Beat well. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, 2 tablespoons at a time, mixing well until blended. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes.

When cake has finished baking, pierce it with a fork or skewer multiple times. Combine the whole milk, evaporated milk, condensed milk and pour over the top of the cooled cake. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

Whipped Cream Topping: When ready to serve, combine the whipping cream and the remaining 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 cup of sugar, whipping until thick. Spread over top of cake.
Because of the milk in the cake, it is very important that you keep the cake refrigerated until ready to serve. Serve chilled. ENJOY!

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the new year - can you believe January is half over!

Take care!

Love, Tom & Caryn