Let's Bake!

This is my first fall season with a Kitchenaid mixer!!!!

This is definitely something to celebrate.

I'm not a very good baker, and in recent years I have given up completely.

Its just not my area of expertise.

But how can I be the proud mom of a Kitchenaid mixer and NOT use it

during the busiest baking time of the year?

Pinterest to the rescue.

Here are some goodies I am looking forward to making in the near future...

Pumpkin Spice Latte M&M Cookies

This recipe doesn't seem too daunting to me. I can probably do cookies without

screwing them up too much. Plus the whole pumpkin spice thing is huge this time

of year. And you can't go wrong with anything that has M&Ms in it.

Homemade Butterfinger Bark

Oh I love Butterfingers. They've always been one of my favorites. For some reason,

whenever I'm at the movies I have to get those little Butterfinger Bites. I spend like 10

minutes eating them and then another hour picking them out of my teeth. Lovely, right?

I REALLY wanna try this Butterfinger bark. It looks like something I would eat in one sitting.

Salted Caramel Pretzel Blondies

I love blondies. I love salted caramel. I love sweet & salty.

I need to eat this.

 

Carmel Apple Cheesecake Cookie Bars

This looks absolutely amazing and like the perfect fall treat.

I would so make this next to the pies at Thanksgiving.

I can only imagine how amazing this tastes. 

Caramel Cake

This one looks a little too intense for me but I might just hire someone

to make it for me, any takers?

I think there is a lesson to be learned here. I'm not really looking forward to making these.

I'm just looking forward to eating them.

All of these recipes will be pinned to my Pinterest food board.

Feel free to repin!

Super Cool Pumpkins Pt 1

It totally hit me yesterday that Halloween is next week.

I stayed up late placing orders online for the last few things we

need for the kid's costumes this year.

My oldest daughter is going to be a peacock, my son wants to be a zombie ninja turtle, 

and the littlest daughter is going to be Agnes from Despicable Me.

Needless to say, these will all have to be thrown together by yours truly.

I also started thinking about pumpkins. We don't have pumpkins yet.

And what will we do with these pumpkins?

At Easter I posted a bunch of creatively decorated Easter eggs.

So I decided to look around online and see what the crafty people of the world

have decided to do to pumpkins over the years.

Here are a few of my favorites that I found.

 I see what you did there.

You painted lots of bats on lots of pumpkins and added a moon to the one in the back.

I wouldn't have thought of this myself.

Kudos.

Ok this one is just way too cool. These pumpkins are made out of pages from

an old book. It looks all vintage and creepy like these would be sitting outside

of a haunted house. Well, only if the creatures that haunted the house decorated

for Halloween of course.

I am very fond of the idea of going against the grain and breaking out the

bright colors this season. Everything is so....brown...and orange.

Lets paint some hot pink pumpkins and call it a day!

 Glitter is amazing because it just makes everything happier.

My friends and I refer to glitter as herpes, but now that I think about it, its more like

Herpes was the evil twin and Glitter is his sister.

They both spread all over the place, are hard to get rid of, and sneak up on you when you 

least expect it. But one makes you happy and the other just makes you really uncomfortable.

I don't even know if my references to Herpes are accurate but here are some glitter pumpkins...

 

 Ohhhhh aren't these last pumpkins fabulous?! By far my most favorite.

This is totally my kind of style. I just love how eloquent and delicate they look.

I might just have to attempt this...next year.

Our 4th of July

I hope you all had a safe and fun 4th of July!

We kept it low key this year and spent it as a family.

We sat around the house for most of the day.

I made chicken tacos for dinner...

kind of an odd choice for America's birthday but whatever!

After dinner we went to our local park where they were

having all sorts of fun. Vendors, live bands, games and stuff

for the kids to do.

 

We grabbed an Italian Ice and enjoyed the music for a little bit.

 

Then we headed back to the car where we planned to sit and watch the show.

We were super excited that we had such a good spot to see the fireworks.

 We knew we were gonna be close.

I guess we didn't think about how our kids would react.

Let me start off by saying, this isn't their first rodeo.

However, most 4th of July celebrations are held far enough away that we

don't have to worry about the noise.

Once the fireworks started this is kind of how it went...

*boom*

- Britton starts screaming.

*boom*

- Davin asks if its over yet.

*boom*

- Britton starts having a panic attack.

*boom*

- Andrew puts Britty in the car where she proceeds to cry and scream.

*boom*

- Kayden's afraid of them landing on her.

*boom*

- Davin starts crying and jumps into my lap.

*boom*

- Andrew and I try to convince the kids that fireworks

are cool and pretty.

*boom*

- Kayden covers her ears and asks if she can sit in the car.

*boom*

- Davin clings to me for dear life and refuses to turn around and watch.

*boom*

- We decide to pack everything up and drive a few miles down the road

where it won't be so loud and scary for them.

*boom*

- We get all the kids in their carseats and drive a few miles down the road.

*boom*

- We park and get them out of their carseats.

*boom*

- Britton immediately starts crying again.

*boom*

Andrew: "Still too close....back in your carseats!!"

*boom*

- We get all the kids back in their seats.

*boom*

- We drive another couple of miles down the road.

*boom*

- We park so that the kids can watch out of the car window

instead of getting out again.

*boom*

- We stop just in time to see the finale.

*boom boom boom*

- Its over.

We couldn't help but laugh!

We know that our kids will have many more fireworks shows

in their lives and although this one didn't work out the way we had

hoped, it will still be memorable!!

Lovely Easter Eggs

Look at these eggs!!
Every year we do the same thing with the boxed egg

decorating kit and maybe a crayon or stickers for added effect.

All our eggs end up looking the same year after year.

Oh well, at least the kids enjoy it, right?

NOT THIS YEAR!

I will be putting a little more effort into my Easter eggs

after I found these puppies.

And most of them are so simple! See for yourself and click the

picture if you'd like to go to the original website with instruction.

1. Sharpie Eggs - SO cool!

2. Glitter Dot Eggs - These are so fricken adorable.

3. Marbled Eggs - Um, awesome!

4. Mustache Eggs - Why didn't I think of that?

5. Speckled Eggs - Just use a metallic Sharpie!

 6. Googly Eyed Eggs - My kids would love this!

7. Post-It Note Eggs - Who would've thunk it?

8. Glitter Glam Eggs - Speaks for itself.

9. Natural Dye Eggs - Probably my favorite out of the bunch.

10. Czech Kraslice Eggs - Hollowed out, amazing!

It's settled. I need to go buy a few more dozen eggs.

Whether you have kids or not, get in the spirit this weekend

and make some Easter eggs! (If you do any of these, I want to see!)