Merry Christmas 2016

Merry Christmas, everyone! Here's our complete Christmas photoshoot, although you've probably seen most of it on my Instagram already!

We chose El Parc del Laberint d'Horta (The Labyrinth Park of Horta) as our location because of its beauty, and it didn't disappoint :)

Let me know what you think and enjoy the season!

Vegan Carob Cake Recipe

Truth be told, I hadn't baked in a while, let alone taking pictures of my creations or blogging about it! I feel like recently all I have time to do is cook proper meals, since to be honest, having to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day for two and a half doesn't leave you much spare time!

A couple weeks ago, we treated one of our friends to a vegan cooking class for her 30th birthday, and it was such a fun experience! The dessert was a carob brownie, which inspired me to cook this vegan carob cake this week. 

For those of you not familiar with carob, it's a healthy alternative to chocolate because it's naturally sweet, high in fiber, low in fat, has twice the amount of calcium compared to cocoa and, most importantly specially for kids or caffeine-sensitive people, it doesn't have caffeine.

I got the recipe from here (in Spanish), and it's SO GOOD! I feel like next time I want to go cocoa-free the whole way though, because this recipe has a bit of chocolate in it.

You know I'm a huge chocolate lover, but this doesn't mean I don't have a major crush on carob ever since I first tasted it a couple weeks ago. Some people dislike it because, obviously, it will never taste 100% like chocolate, but I simply love it. It's slightly different yet totally mesmerizing. 

So without much ado, here comes the recipe!

VEGAN CAROB BANANA CAKE

• 2 or 3 over-ripe bananas
• 1 and 1/2 cups of spelt flour
• 1/2 cup of carob flour
• 1 cup of chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 2 spoons of pure unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 spoon of ground cinnamon
• 2 spoons of baking powder
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1 cup of oat milk

1. Blend the bananas, sugar, oat milk and olive oil together.
2. On a separate bowl, mix the spelt flour, carob flour, baking powder, cocoa and cinnamon.
3. Gently place the dry mixture on the liquid batter and keep folding until blended. Fold in 1/2 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts.
4. Pour the mixture into a pound cake pan or any other baking dish of your preference.
5. Last but not least, distribute the remaining 1/2 of chopped walnuts on top of the batter so as to create a nice coat.
6. Bake for 50-60 minutes at 170C.

TIP: This recipe will be even healthier if you use 1 cup of dates or 1/2 of molasses instead of the sugar. 

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RECETA EN ESPAÑOL

BIZCOCHO DE ALGARROBA VEGANO

                                                        2 o 3 plátanos maduros

1 taza y 1/2 de harina de espelta

1/2 taza de harina de algarroba

1 taza de nueces picadas

1/2 taza de aceite de oliva

2 cucharadas de cacao puro en polvo

1/2 cucharada de canela en polvo

2 cucharadas de levadura

1/2 taza de azúcar moreno

1 taza de leche de avena

               - Bate en un bol los plátanos, el azúcar, la leche de avena y el aceite de oliva.

- En otro bol, mezcla la harina de espelta, la harina de algarroba, la levadura, el cacao y la canela.

- Incoropora la mezcla del punto número 2 al bol del punto número 1 con movimientos envolventes hasta que esté bien integrado. Añade 1/2 taza de nueces y integra suavemente.

- Pon la mezcla en un molde y esparce el resto de las nueces por encima.

- Hornea a 170C durante 50-60 minutos. 

NOTA: Puedes sustituir el azúcar por 1 taza de dátiles o 1/2 taza de melaza.

I hope you like it as much as we did. Thanks for reading!!! 

Second Baby Gender Reveal

* Boy or Girl?! *

 

I know you guys have been waiting for a long time for this post! Thanks for bearing with me and having patiently awaited until the gender reveal pics were ready!

So, without further ado, here it comes! Our second baby is a...

 BABY BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Almost everyone thought we were having a girl this time around! So if you're one of the ones who thought so, please comment below to let me know why! :p Also, on yesterday's Instagram post, a lot of you thought the surprise I was referring to was that we were having twins!!! Definitely not, what I meant is barely anyone bet for a boy, and that's what our little one is!

It's a little prince we've been blessed with!!! And the other major reveal... His name...

* NOAM *

Noam is a name of Hebrew origin, and it means "pleasantness, charm, tenderness".

I think Noam is really similar to Liam, and I love these two names for the 2 brothers! They are going to be 2.5 years apart, and I'm not sure I can handle so much cuteness! :p

It took me a while to decide on Holi Powder for this gender reveal. You may remember we did Liam's with balloons! I love the result and we could have never done it without the help of our friend KC Leung, our photographer for the day. These pictures require so much movement, it would have been impossible to take them as we usually do, with a tripod.

Baby Noam is due in less than 15 weeks, and we all love him so much already it's crazy! Liam likes kissing mommy's belly and even pronounces Noam's name better than his own haha! 

I hope you liked the pictures, we put so much love in them and hopefully we can show them to our Noam one day! <3 Thanks for reading!

Summer 2016

Our summer couldn't have started any better, after finding out we were expecting our second baby on the 6th of June :) Shortly after that, on the 11th, our road trip in southern France started, and we spent 10 lovely days in a secret early babymoon discovering the Languedoc-Roussillon, Camargue, and Provence regions. 

One thing we soon realized was how much better did French schedule fit our family rather than the Spanish one. French have lunch (as most of the world does I think) a bit before 1PM, and dinner around 7:30PM. In Spain, we eat at 2-3PM and 9-10PM respectively. This schedule is really bad for going out to restaurants with toddlers who need to nap/sleep by the time we're just starting to eat. Eating earlier as the French do definitely smoothed our trip a lot, as Liam was ok during lunch (it was in fact his lunch time as well), and same goes for dinner. 

In the Camargue region, we specially enjoyed the salt mines of Aigues-Mortes. They were SO pretty with their pink color, it was such an enjoyment for the eyes! There were several huge, white salt mountains around, and we were allowed on one of them! We took these pics below while on it, and Liam and I dared trying the salt directly from the ground :p

The Provence region was our main destination, and getting to visit the lavender fields was a dream of mine that finally came true! The bloom had just started in June, but they were already absolutely gorgeous.

We also enjoyed discovering Les Baux de Provence, St Remy de Provence, and Roussillon, lovely little Provence towns we fell in love with.

Les Baux de Provence

Roussillon

The farthest we went in our trip was Les Gorges du Verdon, which is the beginning of the Verdon river, an absolute delight, it was SO pretty! We really enjoyed this one-day trip.

The most pleasant surprise from our trip though, was our last stop: Collioure, a lovely little French town by the sea next to the Catalan border. I chose it because it was in the middle of Arles (our last real stop) and our home in Barcelona, but it ended up being a major highlight of the trip. We absolutely loved being in the seaside after spending our trip in the inland, and Collioure truly surprised us by being absolutely gorgeous. 

In July, I had major bleeding in my 9th week of pregnancy as I explained here and was on sick leave for 77 days, so I didn't take much pictures... 

When Liam's school term got to an end by the end of July, we moved to our beach house and Liam and I spent the whole month there.  The hubby came back everyday after work, luckily it's not too far from Barcelona. I didn't exactly get to rest having to take care of Liam one-on-one, but it was the best for him, he had a blast every single day! So I guess that makes it all worth it :) Plus my 20 week ultrasound confirmed everything was ok with my pregnancy and I could go back to work, so yay!

We also celebrated Liam's second birthday on August 28th, which is when we also announced that we were expecting our second baby. We've just recently taken the gender reveal pics, so you know which post will be next! I hope to post it within this week.

Thanks for taking your time to read all the way until here, I hope you liked our little summer summary!

Second Pregnancy: 20 weeks ultrasound

It seems surreal to me that I'm already halfway through my pregnancy, but I'm so glad I am because this is definitely the best half! I'm already feeling my baby kicking inside of me, my bump is showing nicely and, most importantly after thinking I was going to die in the first trimester due to morning sickness, I don't feel nauseated and my energy is back!

We went in for my 20 weeks ultrasound last week when I was 19w4d pregnant. This is probably the most important ultrasound in the whole pregnancy, because they check every single one of the baby's organs to the detail. Luckily, everything was just fine, not only with the baby but with myself as well, as the internal bleeding I had is completely cleared! We were over the moon about these news, and also about the fact the ultrasound confirmed the baby's gender as it was told to us in my 14 weeks ultrasound. Thank God, because we have been buying stuff and calling the baby the gorgeous name we have picked for her/him already!

Here are some ultrasound pics I'll treasure forever, how cute is this baby already?! Top to bottom: 12w4d, 14w5d and 19w4d.

Now, time to connect with this baby and let him/her know just how much I love him/her already! Oh, and time style my bump as well! I'm really enjoying putting together lovely maternity outfits!!! Are there any maternity fashion brands you'd recommend?

Love,