Big Girls Have More Fun

I offered to watch Macie on Thursday morning while Marisa went to work for a few hours. Our morning was a lot of fun together as it always is. I made blueberry muffins and she helped put the liners in the pan. Then she just played on the counter while I finished up.

While we were waiting on the muffins to finish baking she had a little snack. What a big girl she is carrying that all around. Don't let this little body fool you, she is actually a little porker. She ate 2 muffins while we sat and watched a movie together. Apollo enjoyed all the crumbs that she left behind.

When we were done eating we played all around the house. But we got sleep and tried to take a nap on the couch and then in the bed. That didn't work out so well so I fell back on food. We had bowl fulls of apple sauce and then we tried graham crackers. They were yummy but more fun to break apart. Mom came around 11:30 and when she left Apollo kept trying to get in one of my baskets that is under one of our end tables. I finally decided to look and see what he wanted. In the basket were 3 of his toys that she had put in the basket. Haha. What a girl she is!

Be Mine

Valentines Day is quickly approaching so I wanted to try the heart shaped cake pops that are in Bakerella's cake pop book. Ours of course are not as "perfect" as hers are but it was also our first time attempting these. There were some things that we learned about this process. We had two different heart shaped cookie cutters. One was a regular heart and the other had ruffled edges all the way around. I would show you pictures but they decided to get crumpled up in the garbage disposal instead. haha. The regular heart made better cake pops. My father-in-law, Travis, had that cookie cutter. He really packed the cake mix into the heart. I on the other hand didn't pack them as tight. Because my heart was ruffled it made the cake pop when dipped look a little messier. I think I will be using the regular heart next time. The cookie cutters can be bough at Hobby Lobby.

The lumpy hearts are mine :(.

A pretty heart.

All of them in the Styrofoam block.

Cake balls were made when we ran out of lolly pop sticks.

I also bought edible markers that you can write/draw on cookies and things. TOTALLY a waste of money. I don't know what kind of mark it is suppose to make on these so I'm not going to be too judgemental. The markers didn't make a clean line. Almost like a marker running out of ink. I also bought fine tip instead of regular tip so I don't know if that had anything to do with it. If someone else has better luck with these markers please let me know. (I bought mine at Walmart). So a good portion of the pops are plain because we didn't want to ruin them by writing on them. Bummer. It was a fun family even through.

Snow Week #2

Snowmagedden #2, Blizzard #2, whatever you would like to call it; we had it. I believe the total inches of snow that Bentonville got was 24 inches. If you look at the pictures below, you can see that we barely have any patio furniture. Our front yard was about the same way. Our shrubs in our flower bed were covered as well. Matt and I have spent the day doing little work. I have made valentine cake pops and made sugar cookies with royal icing. I have even had a morning with Macie. I have posts for all of these so just come back later and you will see those. Let's get back to the snow and Apollo who just loves it.

Shoveling is SO over rated. Why not use our commercial grade leaf blower. Ha. Redneck style.

Going Green

I bet you never knew that going green could taste so good! I found this Key Lime Cupcake recipe on a blog called Buttercream. The lady that runs Buttercream also does some awesome themed parties. She made this cupcake for a summer Luau they were throwing. You should see the pictures of what else she made. MMmmmmmm. BUT I stole her cupcake recipe.

You will need a box of Lime Jello and a box of Betty Crocker Super Moist Lemon cake mix.

Dump in the cake mix and Jello mix (dry) into the mixer. Mix for 30 seconds until combined.

Then add:

3/4 cup water

1/3 cup Key Lime juice

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

2-3 drops of green food coloring

Mix and then fill liners 2/3 the way full. Bake on 350 for 17-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

While in the oven, make the cream cheese frosting.

Here is what you need:

1 stick unsalted butter

2 cups powdered sugar

4 oz. cream cheese

1 tsp. vanilla extract

MIX TOGETHER:)

Put the icing into a decorating bag and choose your tip.

Pipe frosting onto cupcakes and then sprinkle with crushed Graham Crackers.

ENJOY!

With all of this cold weather and snow we have been having, I needed something that would make me feel warmer. Key Lime makes me think of the Florida Keys which makes me think of summer time and the warmth of the sun. Just the cupcake by itself was amazing. The smell was delish but the taste...mmmmm. Then I tried one with the frosting and boy of boy. It was hard to explain. Almost a cross between Key Lime pie and cheese cake. So wonderful, light. and tasty, and EASY to make. Thanks you Buttercream for the idea!

Mumford & Sons

If you haven't heard of Mumford & Sons you are totally missing out. I mean, this band is amazing and will totally rock your world. I downloaded this whole album on my iPhone and I can't get enough of it. It is my go-to "Get ready music", it will amp you up for a great evening. You might even find me dancing in the mirror with the straightener in my hand. Matt thinks all of the songs sound the same, but Matt's music repertoire is limited. He doesn't stray into unknown territory of music and only sticks with what he know (country, blues, and rock). Me on the other hand, I LOVE any kind of music. I have favorites in any genre. I love going on road trip by myself because I can rock out to any kind of music that I want and listen to favorites over and over without being yelled at.

Let's get back to Mumford & Sons. Their album Sigh No More has 12 high powered songs. Each one is equally perfect and this is the one album that I don't find myself skipping songs to get to others.



The instruments in this band is what grabs me and makes me scream "MORE". Instruments include the typical drums, guitar, and bass guitar and then the not-so-typical mandolin, accordion, banjo, and Dobro. The last few instruments are some of my favorites and I cant seem to get enough especially when integrated into a "rock" album.

The sound of the album takes me back to Yonder Mountain String Band and The String Cheese Incident. Both YMSB and SCI make amazing music to begin with, but then they throw in the violin or the mandolin and it completely knocks you off your feet.

What amazes me are their influences. If you read on Wikipedia about the is says that Shakespears Much Ado ABout Nothing is where the album name comes from. And "Roll Away Your Stone" is influenced my Macbeth. "Timshel" and "Dustbowl Dance" are taken from John Steinbecks East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath. I also learned that Mumford also runs an online book club from their official site.

My favorite Mumford & Sons songs are "Sigh No More," "Roll Away Your Stone," "Little Lion Man," "Timshel," and "Awake My Soul." Those would be the first songs to download to test out what you think. Honestly though, if you love all kinds of music and especially love the sound of a banjo and mandolin then you will love this album. It is about time that they come out with their second album....anytime now men....anytime.

Cake Balls and Homemade Salsa- What a Combo...

I was at a couples shower before the end of the year and they served some killer salsa. They said it was homemade and of course I was asking where they got that recipe. I had never heard of The Pioneer Woman but everyone else had. A few of my girls friends even had her cook books. When I went home I looked her up and found her blog and website. On there she has the recipe to her salsa among other goodies. I have used her recipe for the Molten Chocolate Cake that I made in a previous post, Her website is www.thepioneerwoman.com. I followed her salsa recipe last night. Here is what you need and how I made it:

1 can of Whole Tomatoes- juice and all (Walmart was pretty picked over yesterday at the store)

2 Can of Rotel- I used one HOT to add some kick and then I used Lime and Cilantro for the other. I couldn't find cilantro at Walmart either so I was hoping that this would do the trick. (I also forgot to add in lime so good thing I got this can that has it. ha)

A little onion and a whole jalapeno (seeds and all)

Other Ingredients that aren't shown:

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. garlic

Lime juice- half of a large lime (I used the Rotel)

Cilantro (Thanks Rotel)

Cumin...forgot that

I got a mini food processor from my Grandmother last year and never thought I would need a big one. Boy was I wrong. You are suppose to dump everything into the processor together and then blend BUT since it was small I had to do everything in stages and then mix in a bowl together.

Matt tried the salsa and said that it had too much onion, which The Pioneer Woman warned me about. SOOO, I added another can of Rotel and Tomatoes to even it out and I think it did the trick. I think that it is yummy and am now trying to figure out how to use it all. I think a Mexican Fiesta is in our future!


CAKE BALLS: TAKE 2

This time I used Devils Food. The batter sure tasted yummy! I made the cake balls with whipped butter cream frosting. I thought that would be good with the devils food cake. I rolled them into balls and then set in the fridge during the time I made the salsa. At Walmart they sell bags of Wilton Candy Melts.

The Candy melts you can order in any color you want. Just follow the link above. The Bentonville Walmart sells the white, brown, and pink melts. I have the cake ball book by Bakerella and in the book it says to NEVER color the melts with food coloring or anything water based. It has to be OIL BASED. Me being stupid, made the mistake once again and ruined a whole bad of white melts. I guess I don't know where to get oil based coloring. Someone needs to let me in on that secret. ha. I decided to go with cake balls this time instead of cake pops. Maybe I will do something fancy for Valentines day next weekend. Who knows. So I dipped some in the pink melts and some in the white. Since the cake was brown it shows through with the white melts. Next time I will keep that in mind for cake/color selection.

I also bought a pack of 2 bottles (they look like ketchup/mustard bottles) for decorating. I think they were $2.00 at Walmart. Again, you find all of this in the cake decorating section that is with the wedding, birthday, and greeting cards area. I filled the bottles and decorated the balls. I found this awesome silver glitter sprinkles and so I put that on before it dried. Below are picture of what they look like. I think they are super cute and the prefect coloring for Valentines day. Now all I need is a better camera to take pictures of this stuff. These aren't doing them justice. Hopefully my father-in-law with love them because they were made again from his request.

If you want more info on Bakerella and the Cake Balls and Cake Pops go to www.bakerella.com. She is AMAZING!!!

MMMmmmmmm........

Oh DVR, How I Have Missed You....

Isn't it so sad that I was gone for less then a week and when I come home my DVR is loaded up with goodies for me? haha. AND to make matters even better, we have had 2 snow days that I can be lazy and catch up on all of my shows. Matt gets to be the lucky one and watch them with me. He just laughs at the shows that I can't wait to see. Here are just a few that I couldn't wait to see.
I don't know what I think about Brad on the Bachelor this season. He keeps saying that he has changed but seeing the previews for the end of the season kind of scares me. Of course there is that ONE crazy girl that I can't stand to watch. This season it is Michelle. I don't understand how we see the CRAZY and he sees the crazy as sexy. She turned out kind of like a dominatrix this week, taking Brad into a room, straddling him, and not letting him talk. She said, "Next time I will let you talk." Wow.
Then we have sweet Emily who hasn't even said anything negative about any of the girls. How can you just not love her. And we all felt for her this week when Brad took the girls on a group date to the race track. I thought Brad handled it very well, but it made all of the other girls jealous. We will see what the rest of the season brings.


Who hasn't seen this show?! Matt and I started watching it on Netflix. It is on 'instant' and so we were able to watch whenever we wanted. WHAT A SHOW! I loved the movie but this TV show is amazing. Talk about an incredible cast that you can't help but love with a little extra dose of high school football mixed in. The show is in its final season on Direct TV channel 101. There are only 2 episodes left and I am almost depressed to know that.
It's funny because now some of our friends are just now falling in love with this show. For those of you who live in Bville, I have all of this season on my DVR still. We could have a FNL day. If you haven't seen the show and have Netflix, WATCH THIS. You will not be able to get enough, I promise.

Oh Real Housewives of Beverly Hills you are so dramatic. There is something about watching someone elses lives that just hooks you. First of all, these ladies are LOADED. Have you seen their houses and cars and jewelry and pools.....WOW. I cannot believe the drama that has come out of these ladies. I mean crazy. The Reunion shows were this week and last week. There were some surprising endings to everything. Camile apologized to Kim. Camille has been noted as the most hated housewife. I still don't know how sincere she was at the Reunion. (My dog just farted and I totally got distracted. ha.) I just think this show is funny. Season 2 can start anytime. ha.

CASTLE!!!!!! I hope everyone has seen this show. Castle and Beckett kissed last week. Even though it was to distract a bad guy, you could see that there were feelings there. It is sort of the kiss we have all been waiting for. Now it can happen for real. There has been crazy sexual tension between the two. The producers keep tricking us into thinking that more is happening then really is in the previews. I was almost mad at them when they showed the one where Castle has an engagement ring. Really? They had to do that to us? We know something MUST happen, I just hope is does in this lifetime....

And last but not least, One Tree Hill. (I am watching the show right now crying ha.) I have been a loyal fan of this show since it first started. There have been some season that I haven't seen but I picked it back up two seasons ago. There are some new cast members and we have lost some. Of course there is the typical drug/alcohol problem, shooter on the loose, family members passing away, and weddings. I love it though. Brooke just married Julianne and of course I sit here crying from some of the scenes. I just love this show.

So those were some of the shows that I got to catch up on. Of course there are others as well BUT these are my favs. Ok that's all- the dog keeps farting. I think I need to venture into the snow to take him out...