happy hearts

I love the holiday season. I love that it starts off with Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday but I love the Christmas season. I love the trees, the lights and the music. It just makes my heart happy.

My sweet girl waiting for her Thanksgiving dinner.

 Our Thanksgiving craft. I love how many different ways there are to decorate a styrofoam cone.

 Trotting out to find our Christmas tree....

Our Tree.  ahhh happiness.  I love the magical ambiance a christmas tree brings. I'm so excited for this Christmas season!!!

Another Yum

For the pampered chef party I made a little treat to eat with the food our Chef made us. I picked a recipe that kinda went against my rules. It calls for Oatmeal Cookie Mix. I hate it when recipes call for pre-made things that I could make myself for a lot less-just tell me what I need.  So I spent $2.50 on a stupid cookie mix...doesn't sound like a lot but it adds up.

To me, this dessert was pretty good but it wasn't like melt-in-my-mouth-can't get enough-WOW! But the girls at the party seemed to like it and wanted the receipe. So here it is, thanks to Betty Crocker!

Pumpkin Streusel Cheesecake Bars

Cookie Base

1	pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® oatmeal cookie mix
1/2	cup crushed gingersnap cookies
1/2	cup finely chopped pecans
1/2	cup cold butter or margarine

Filling

2	packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
1	cup sugar
1	cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
2	tablespoons Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1	tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
2	tablespoons whipping cream
2	eggs

Toppings

1/3	cup chocolate topping
1/3	cup caramel topping

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	About Concordance™

1. Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, stir together cookie mix, crushed cookies and pecans. Cut in butter, using pastry blender or fork, until mixture is crumbly. Reserve 1 cup mixture for topping. Press remaining mixture in bottom of ungreased 13x9-inch pan. Bake 10 minutes. Cool 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add remaining filling ingredients; beat until well blended. Pour over warm cookie base. Sprinkle with reserved topping.
3. Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until center is set. Cool 30 minutes. Refrigerate about 2 hours or until chilled.
4. Before serving, drizzle with chocolate and caramel toppings. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. Store covered in refrigerator.

Ideas, I'm feeling crafty

Every Thanksgiving at my parent's house, the girls work on a craft. So I've been searching blogs for some great ideas. Here are a few of my favorites for thanksgiving and a few that I want to do on my own.

I think this idea is so cute by Somewhat Simple and I really want to capture my daughter's profile because I just can't get enough of it. It's just soo adorable.  I'm not sure I'll do the glitter part but I think it'll look great anyway.

Holiday Clips from Somewhat Simple. These will be cute, as she suggests, to be used with a string to make a garland of your Christmas cards you receive.

Acorn Wreath- A friend pointed this one out from MADE. I'm not sure about using acorns for a couple of reasons 1) the acorns around here have tops and the ones she uses do not, and 2) apparently, there are maggot-y type of bugs that live in them that began to come out. yuck.  Others have used lima beans or red beans.  She then spray painted through out the year.

Or a cranberry wreath from Martha Stewart

Crayon Cozy from Creative Crate will be fun to have in a few more months...although I'm not sure I'm ready to give her crayons...maybe another year or so. :)

Peppermint Trees from BHG. Also saw this done with buttons-cute but more expensive and I can't seem to find the link for it.

Personalized Candles from the Idea Room

I better get to work...Christmas is just around the corner. :)
AND if you have any craft ideas let me know or good blogs, I'd love to take a look!

Chef'n it up!

Hey guys! I'm having a pampered chef party tomorrow night (Thursday, November 4) at 7:00. Come if you want some free food you don't even have to buy anything. Just call me if you want to come. If you don't want to come and just want to order some pampered chef products you can do it online. Just enter my name for the host and you can click on the button at the top right to shop online.

In only actually own one pampered chef product so far but I LOVE IT! The baking stone is amazing. I have the rectangle stone and it makes the BEST cookies. It cooks them evenly so there are no burned bottoms. Not to mention it is so easy to clean.

Anyway. thought I'd share.

Sweet little Halloween

Hey! Hope you all had a fun Halloween weekend. Halloween is much more fun with kids, isn't it? I know it will only get better as Bekah gets older.  Here she is trunk or treating.

This year I have developed a few pet peeves about trick or treating. If you're old enough to go trick or treating by yourself then you're too old, in my opinion. However, if you are teenager taking a younger sibling then I'm okay with it. But if you're a group of teenagers, take a hike. I obviously don't have the guts to say no but I think I'll just be handing out a lame tiny piece of candy to them. 

The other pet peeve is that kids are just reaching into the candy bowl and grabbing the candy. And maybe that's just how everyone else does it but I grew up with them handing that candy to you or dropping it in your bag.  I find myself fighting a pessimistic view that kids are growing up greedy and without manners.

ANYWAY, we also went to get a pumpkin at a nearby, free, kinda lame pumpkin patch. But it got the job done, we got a pumpkin and got some cute pictures. Sadly, we never got around to carving it.

Mr. Pumpkin Head...I guess that was Victory's  costume. :)

As promised, that if my family ended up having their Halloween party, I'd share a picture of my costume.

1950's Housewife

 I'm happy to report that I did pretty well in the donut eating contest this year.  I came in second, after my brother. Victory, well, he didn't do so well I think my three year old niece beat him. He claims the contest was rigged. hmmm.  

That was our sweet little Halloween week.

Let's Celebrate!

WE MADE IT A YEAR!!!! It's amazing that it's been a whole year since our girl came into the world.

 It's hard to believe she was ever that small.

She's is the funniest, cutest little girl around...of course I'm biased.

She didn't really get into opening gifts. At first she was just going to walk past this one. Until I made the toy make noise, then she worked to get it out. 

I was talking with my mom and sister about whether or not we should have a party for her or not, I said it's more of a celebration for Victory and I that we made it a whole year! My sister laughed and said, you mean mom and Becky (Bekah's babysitters while I worked) made it a whole year. True, we definitely couldn't have done it without them . THANK YOU!  But to make myself feel better, I've been a stay-at-home-mom for six months if you include my maternity leave. It probably sounds lame but I'm still proud to say we have made it a year!

In the end, since our apartment is so small we just had family over to celebrate.

 She didn't really get into the whole cake thing. I ended up cutting a slice and she ate a little. I also stuck her hand into the cake and she just looked me like "what did you just do" and started crying because she had frosting all over her hands.

This was our cake. It looks much more amazing than it tasted. The frosting had 2 CUPS of butter.  IT tasted like chocolate butter. GROSS. If anyone wants cake, come on over, I've got half of it left over. Next time, I think I would make a cool whip frosting instead.

It was a fun birthday celebration! We're happy she's a part of our lives!

An almost perfect fall evening

Tonight Bekah and I got to go to a Halloween party. I was so excited to go to this party. I got to be with friends and have something to distract me from a lonely Friday night.  I used to not get into the whole costume thing but I've actually enjoyed dressing up these last few years-even though I figure it out at the last minute. This evening I was a 1950's housewife. I think it turned out pretty good-sorry no pictures. If my family has a get together I'll dress up and get some pictures. Bekah got to be a butterfly. I was amazed that she left all of her accessories on except her butterfly bracelet that I made for her.

Her little butterfly friend. I love the ribbons she put in her tutu. And the antennas! So cute! Need I say more?

I love this look on her face. She was so distracted with everything and everyone, I couldn't a very good picture.

 Look at this cute Peter Pan! Ca-ute! Their whole family dressed up as characters from Peter Pan.

She kept me busy following her around and around their house making sure she did't get into anything she shouldn't. It was an enjoyable evening with good food  (yummy chicken tortilla soup!) and cute costumes. I just missed Victory, thats all.

Victory was off at a football game in Kearney. The whole time I was away at the party I was hoping that they wouldn't make playoffs. Based off some wildcard point system they could win their game tonight and still not make it to playoffs....this would have been the best case scenario for me and more or less for Victory (He still really would have liked to make it to playoffs) Anyway. He just texted me annnnnnddddd .......wait for it...........they lost. Sad for them but YAY for me! That just means I won a week with my husband! :)