boys – Page 5 – Casa de Berry

2012, boys, food, friends, lunch, peru

A Peruvian St. Patrick’s Day

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012by casadeberry2 Comments

I know, weird, right? But let me tell you how it happened.

Recently, I saw on Facebook that my brother was a fan of a Peruvian food truck called Sanguchon. The main locations are up in San Francisco, but, much to my delight, I saw that they were also in various places around the bay area. My husband, his parents and our oldest had business to attend to on Saturday – they would be gone the whole morning and part of the afternoon, so I decided to take my youngest to try a bit of Peruvian food. Our good friends J&M were free for lunch and live super close to where the food trucks would be, so we met up there.

The menu looked pretty good, many Peruvian dishes made into sandwiches or wraps, and lovely side dishes, dessert and drinks were also available.

The first offering on the picture above is Pan con Chicharron – a sandwich that includes the ingredients for the traditional weekend breakfast in Peru. The bread was crunchy but not hard, made specially for Sanguchon, and the meat inside was flavorful and moist. At home we would serve this on a plate instead of as a sandwich, the meat alongside the fried yams, with some red onion and spicy yellow pepper sauce. I was happy that the flavors worked all together in the sandwich, and my friends seemed to enjoy theirs as well.

My friend M holding up her Pan con Chicharron. Yum!

The next picture is of Lomo Saltado, which, again, we serve as a meal, but next time I would love to try it as a sandwich. It’s stir-fried pork or beef with fries, tomatoes and onions. My husband learned to make this for me 😀

Next are Yuca Fries, which, I will be totally honest, are not my thing. I find Yuca to be too dry and am happier with sweet potatoes or yams as a side dish.

Inca Kola is the national soda of Peru – back there we love to drink it with anything, but for some reason it really seems to work with Chinese/Peruvian food. Every Chifa (Chinese restaurant in Peru) says that their food goes great with some Inca Kola, and it’s true. It’s very sweet and crisp and I love it. They now sell it at my local Target (???) and I do my best to avoid it because there is no Diet Inca Kola.

The last item in the picture is Chicha Morada. Peru has many varieties of corn, including a purple corn that we use to make this sweet drink and a sweet pudding called Mazamorra. My dear friend K loves Mazamorra and calls it “purple stuff” ;D I’ve discovered that Whole Foods carries Purple Corn flour from Peru so I’m going to try and make some Mazamorra.

Our favorite part of lunch, however, were the Alfajores:

I love alfajores. Alfajores are so bad for me, because I can’t eat just one. My little man was chowing down on these and kept asking for more. Shortbread cookies with dulce de leche (or manjarblanco, as we call it in Peru) in between, dusted with powdered sugar. So good. These were excellent. The cookies were very tender and the filling just right.

A good friend of my family has a killer Alfajor recipe, and now I need to get it from her because I didn’t realize how much I had missed them! Who knew a dessert of Arabic origins, brought from Spain to South America, would become such an integral part of our cuisine?

And what on earth does Sanguchon mean? Well, in Spanish, the word “sandwich” became “sanguche” (SAN-goo-che) and a Sanguchon means a big sandwich. I ate only half of mine and saved the rest for later. It was a nice surprise to find Peruvian food and be able to share it with our friends. If you’re in the SF Bay Area, check out Sanguchon’s schedule to see if there a food truck near you!

Oh, and if you’re going to try the alfajores, please don’t wear black pants like I did – the powdered sugar went everywhere! ;D

2012, boys, craft, green, holiday, husband, school

Leprechaun Trap!

March 16, 2012by casadeberry2 Comments

Ah, the much awaited leprechaun trap. Last year my son was in kindergarten and I saw all the first graders proudly parading their creations — and now it’s his turn!

With his dad’s help, they created a seemingly innocent structure in friendly hunter green. A helpful ladder led to the top . . .

And what is that I see? A rainbow? And Lucky Charms?
Come on, little leprechaun, it’s only a few steps to the bounty!!!
Just ignore those lines of moss, they’re not hiding anything like cuts on the floor . . .

My sweet boy displaying his leprechaun trap.

I think they’re going to catch one or two greedy leprechauns, don’t you think?

2012, birthdays, boys, craft, husband

Superhero birthday party – Background and Decor

March 2, 2012June 29, 2020by casadeberry14 Comments

superhero wall
(Click on the picture above to see a larger version)

My husband wanted to create a huge cityscape, full of well-known superhero landmarks, a blend of Metropolis, Gotham, etc. for our son’s party — we had a huge roll of butcher paper his mom had given us, so he decided to use that and our supply of spray paint to create his vision.

Putting the final touches on the Daily Planet building.

Some final detail shots:

The bat-signal appears against a stormy sky.

Shadow-lettering on the Daily Planet topper.

The main letters on the Daily Planet, Daily Bugle, and Stark Industries buildings were printed out, cut out (no Silhouette here, LOL) and pasted on.

My son had the great idea of adding the superhero decals I had gotten him for Christmas to the buildings. They really added the finishing touch to the background.

Here’s my sweetheart on the morning of his birthday.

In addition to the fab background, my husband also built a sloping console to go on top of the TV console – he cut out pieces and taped pictures of various villains and technical elements, then added fluorescent lights under so it really looked like a computer console:

The birthday boy loved all the touches throughout the house, and I loved all the work and thought my husband put into making our sweet boy’s birthday a magical one.

If you missed any of the earlier posts, click on the following links to read about the rest of the party details: Invitations, Masks & Capes, Cakes, and Piñata – enjoy!

2012, baking, birthdays, boys

Superhero birthday party – Cakes

February 29, 2012February 29, 2012by casadeberry4 Comments

My mother-in-law has always baked birthday cakes for the boys — as I mentioned last week, it’s only been in recent years that my husband started to decorate them. This year he chose a simple design for our superhero-obsessed boy: Captain America’s shield.

This cake was huge — how huge was it? The platform it’s sitting on is a table topper, which my mother-in-law wrapped in starry paper to match the cake’s theme.

It was also delicious. My boy loves vanilla, so she obliged with a yummy, moist vanilla cake, vanilla pudding filling, and vanilla buttercream frosting. So good! Here is the moment it was brought out:

Time to blow out the candles!

The surprise was, there was a second cake — you can see it on the left there. It is an arc-reactor cake that, thanks to our friend S, could light up.

Aidan tries to blow out the arc reactor 😀

Since the larger cake fed everyone at the party, I decided to bring the arc-reactor cake to Aidan’s school on Monday. His classmates loved that it lit up and had many nice things to say about the yummy cake. I saved the last piece for my boy to have after dinner. Thank you for the yummy cakes, Gran!

2012, birthdays, boys, craft, entertaining, husband, kids, parties

Superhero Birthday Party – Masks & Capes

February 28, 2012March 7, 2012by casadeberry13 Comments

Our original plan had been to make fabric masks and capes for the kids so they could be “superheroes” all afternoon — but then my husband decided to shape foam sheets into masks and off he went, making a ton of them in a variety of colors and shapes.

This one was my favorite:

I loved the sparkly rose gold color and the heart shapes!

My son chose this one:

Here he tries on another mask for size:

The kids loved choosing a mask and cape and wore them throughout the party – here are some of them during the piñata gorefest (not really). I made a few capes in different colors, and my son requested his be longer, and I added his initial on the back.

It was fun to see the kids trying to decide which color mask or cape to wear, it was a very important choice ;D

2012, birthdays, boys, craft, paper, project

Superhero birthday party — invitations

February 27, 2012June 29, 2020by casadeberry2 Comments

My oldest turned 7 yesterday – he’s been into superheroes for the past few months:

As Captain America for Halloween

He’s waiting for the new Avengers movie to come out – so is mommy, for entirely different reasons – so of course, a superhero party was requested. My husband and I go crazy planning our kids’ parties so we had a lot of fun with this one.

The invitations were the first project completed, of course — I’ve posted about some of our past efforts, but in this case, it was my husband’s work all the way. He came up with a cool superhero invitation concept, but I’ll let the birthday boy show you the invitation itself 😀

The Avengers seal on the front of a gate-fold card.

Inside, on the center panel, would be all the party information.

On the left were the names of some of the Avengers and their status for attending the party — Responding!

On the right were the map and coordinates for the superhero headquarters, i.e. our house. Yes, the map and coordinates actually pointed to our house. It’s my husband we’re talking here, he’s very detail-oriented 😀

Some more detail pics:

More about this party on Wednesday!

2012, birthdays, boys, february

A trip to Sprinkles

February 24, 2012by casadeberryLeave a Comment

For Christmas, my dear friend D gave me a gift card to Sprinkles. My husband and I have been trying to improve our eating habits, so I decided to wait until my oldest’s birthday to use the card. I asked him if he wanted his BFF to go along and of course, he said yes!

On Friday morning, I drove the boys up to Stanford Shopping Center to indulge in some cupcake goodness and kick off my son’s birthday weekend.

I love this pic of my darling boy and his sweet friend:

Running towards our destination!

I got a few more to bring home ;D

My choice was, of course, the milk chocolate cupcake:

The boys chose vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting, although none of us could take more than three bites. The cupcakes are so rich that we brought ours home and ate the rest later.

I used to work close to this mall years ago and it was so strange going there today, seeing all the changes, all the new stores, and remembering what I was doing way back when this was my favorite mall to hang out at.

Also, many thanks to my friend D — $3.50 cupcakes are SO not in our budget, so your gift was the reason for this super fun little trip! Thanks also to my awesome friend M for letting your son join in our cupcake mission 😀

2012, birthdays, boys, husband, parties, past project

Past Project: Birthday Cakes

February 22, 2012February 19, 2012by casadeberry2 Comments

Around here, it’s the man’s job to do birthday cakes. That’s right, my husband has created some fabulous cakes for our boys’ parties. It must be genetic because his mom was in charge of cakes for the first couple of years, but then as our boys’ preferences have evolved, my husband decided he’d give cake decorating a try. His mom still bakes them — they’re so good! — and my husband plans out the logistics of transforming a plain cake into a dinosaur, Godzilla, or whatever the boys are into.

Let me show you some of their talented creations:

This was the cake for my youngest’s first birthday. It was a toga party, so my mother-in-law make a cool cake with lettering to match the invitation.

When my oldest turned 3, he was totally into elephants and Go, Diego, Go! So gran made him an elephant cake and I found a Diego candle topper:

He loved it, but when people started singing he said it was too loud and dove under the table. Gran and I dove under, too, so he could blow out his candles and I could take pictures.

Next year, it was all about dinosaurs:

This was my husband’s first cake – seriously. He based his creation on a video from Betty Crocker.

For our youngest’s luau party, he decorated this huge tiki cake:

Last year, my oldest was obsessed with Godzilla, so dad obliged and made him a super awesome cake.

My boys totally appreciate what Daddy makes for them, and I sure appreciate having a talented husband and mother-in-law.

Are you the cake maker in your household?

birthdays, boys, parties, past project

Past project: Cards and party invites

February 20, 2012February 23, 2012by casadeberry4 Comments

Our oldest is having a birthday party soon, so I thought I would share with you some of our past efforts this week – hope you enjoy this post!

Here at Casa de Berry we love to do a lot of our own stuff. We could probably save ourselves a lot of time and (sometimes) stress, but the lure of making our own _____ is usually too strong and we cannot resist.

When we had our boys, we wanted something a little different for their birth announcements. Our first son got the full Lord of the Rings treatment:

This was an insert that went inside a gate fold card, sealed with a elven motif.

Our youngest got the martial-arts poster treatment — we were trying to figure out what to do when all of a sudden I got this shot of him and we just went, “Kung Fu Baby!”

For birthday parties, we’ve gone the same “homemade” route, such as this Harry Potter-inspired invitation for our oldest’s first birthday:

He was into Thomas by the time his second birthday rolled around so we issued a Boarding Pass for the party:

Our youngest had a toga party for his first birthday:

Then he got a simple Mickey treatment for his third birthday:

For his fourth birthday, we threw a luau-themed party:

Last year, my oldest was obsessed with Godzilla and we themed his birthday party accordingly:

My husband and I usually go back and forth on invitations, Christmas cards, etc. Sometimes I’ll come up with an idea and he will refine it, sometimes I just do the whole thing or he does, but for this upcoming party, I will proudly give him all the credit. He came up with a seriously awesome design and did a fantastic job with it. I can’t wait to unveil it next week!