True Love!

We got to take care of our dear friends' dog...

*Izzy*

 for a few days.

It was seriously true love from the moment she came to us..

We adored her and we are pretty sure she loved us back!

Lots of love...

Perfect timing for Valentine's Day!

And speaking of Valentine's Day, 

Luca's kindergarten class was encouraged 

to make/bring a card for everyone on Thursday.

In the spirit of more love (this time of chocolate!), 

the kids and I wanted to try and make ganache-filled heart shaped truffles...

I followed this recipe (minus the gold dusting)

and it wasn't very hard to do...just a little messy...

I poured tempered melted chocolate into my mold--

making sure it coated the whole of the inside of the heart-shaped mold.

I let that cool and then spooned in a large teaspoon of ganache...I let that cool and then poured more of the melted chocolate over the top of each heart to seal the deal...and with a bench scraper, I tried to clean things up a bit...

Messy.

My tempering technique obviously needs some perfecting--as you can see..

Those white-ish markings below are what happens 

when melted chocolate solidifies and it hasn't been tempered properly.

Looks funny and is definitely not perfect, but still tastes good!

And my wrapping technique needs some work, too...but who cares about that!

They tasted AMAZING!!

Meanwhile, while everything was either melting or cooling...

The kids got busy with their home-made cards.

The supplies: awesome clip art printed from here.

An amazing collection of everything vintage you could ever want...

Luca did a great job with his cards!!

He made one for each of the kids in his class.

These are some of my favorites.

And, not bad--after all was done:
there even managed to be a few truffles left over for his parents!

LOVE!

Yes, so, lots of love all around!  

We hope Izzy will miss us as much as we miss her..

But I am pretty sure she is happy to be back home.

Lot's of love to you and yours...

Happy Valentine's Day!