Betty Crocker(s)

Over the weekend the two Fisher girls visited me for a day. We whipped up some of their dad's favorite cookies (reeses peanut butter cup cookies) and a pan of my favorite bars! They love to get in the kitchen and bake, and I love sharing the time with someone in the kitchen, teaching just as my grandma taught me!

As you can tell, we did not shy from the mess and dove right in!

I was really glad Kyle wasn't home, he would have been twitching from all the flour...and sugar...and, well, the mess in general! We did clean it all up, though! We baked and played games and sang and danced and played some more. Such a fun girls day!

They are SO yummy when they are warm out of the oven!

We then watched a movie and enjoyed some popcorn and m&ms.

And played games. They had never played Trouble before, and that was one of my favorite games growing up so it was a must! They LOVED it! We also played Farkle, Wii Just Dance and Wii Mario Kart.

Then we went outside to play fetch with Tucker, roll down the hills, and enjoy the pretty sunset!

Tucker loves them just as much, as they played hide and go seek and fetch all. day. long. with him! It was such a exhausting fun day!

I'm ready to NOT see flour, sugar, or reeses for a long time now :)

Trick or Treat

My place of employment loves Halloween. (That might even be an understatement). Every year the Friday before Halloween they have what is called "Harvest Fest." We organize a baking contest, pumpkin decorating contest, costume contest, and decorating contest. All in one day. AND, in addition to those festivities, they cater in lunch for the entire building. (Doesn't this sound like Thanksgiving or Christmas?!)

I entered the baking contest. This is my entry!

I made a "Pumpkin Patch" using a mini bundt cake pan.

I took second place!

This is what took first place. Eyeball cakes!

I considered entereing the pumpkin decorating contest but decided against it in the end. I really didn't know what to expect, since you can't carve. Based on what I saw this year, I think I'm for sure going to enter. (What can I say...I'm a joiner!)

This entry took first place. Pretty sweet if you ask me!

That is a pumpkin. For real. And those are hallowed out avocados for the eyes. How awesome is that?!

For the costume contest you could enter individually or as a group. You also had to do a skit. My "team" entered as the Beauty School Dropouts and we performed a short minute "skit" to the song "Beauty School Dropouts" from Grease. I do have a copy of the skit, check Facebook if you REALLY want to see it ;)

Here is my team. We ended up taking first place!

Beauty School Dropouts. Everyone is wearing a wig!

Since we were "dropouts" we had crazy hair and crazy makeup. We even had smocks made up with names on the back.

For the decorating contest I did not enter (it's usually a department thing and we decided to do the costume instead). Here are the three departments that got first, second, and third place.

Haunted House. They literally took 3 aisles and converted them to a haunted house. Lights off, walk through and they jump out at you, wear legit costumes and everything. CAH-RAZY.

Second place went to Smurfville. They even did a skit based off of an episode. Very creative.

Third place went to Under the Sea. They had a tiki hut, jelly fish...everything! Very fun.

It was a fun day at work! I doubt I will be able to top that at any other place I work at for the rest of my life!

On the actual Halloween day I handed out candy with my neighbors (since Kyle was gone) and I estimated just under 150 kids came trick-or-treating. Sadly, there was no Harry Potter this year. A LOT of Iron Man, though.

Kyle and I also went out with friends. Here are our costumes!

Kyle was Ace Venture and I was Flo from Progressive. (Click on the costume names to see a real picture of them!)

As a group, we had April O'Neil and Michelangelo (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Carmen San Diego, and Where's Waldo.

 We had a costume contest at the bar we went and I ended up taking second place, and Where's Waldo took third! (First place went to a girl that was showing skin...of course!)

Overall it was a fun Halloween...but now I am already looking forward to Christmas!!!

Betty Crocker(s)

Over the weekend I played bake shop-cool aunt-babysitter-wanna be teeny bopper. Did you follow all that? Basically, I had a slumber party with one of our good friends' two girls; 11 and 13 years old.  Whenever I would bring cookies or something baked to one of their pool parties, they were always in awe. So, we planned a bake-date. That is exactly what we did. Baked. 

Before they got to my house I had picked out some of the "fun" recipes I thought they might like to do. Chocolate rolo cookies, Reeses peanut butter cookies, and Pizza Bars. I thought they would want to do one, MAYBE two. Nope. They wanted to do ALL THREE. (In addition to the caramel rolls the next morning!)

Let me introduce you:

This is Nova. She is 11 years old and a firecracker. She knows what she wants and is very strong-willed (note the red hair!) She is also adorable and super sweet when you get to know her. 

This is Jo. She is 13 (in a couple weeks) and loves everything outdoors. She would rather be out hunting next to her dad than getting her toes painted. She recently has found a passion for cooking while her mom was pregnant and has been a huge help in the kitchen.

For 5 hours on Saturday we baked and baked. They became experts at rolling dough. They got antsy waiting for the pan to bake in the oven and kept Tucker busy in the meantime. I think Tucker was just as happy and excited as they were!

I haven't baked like this since I was in MN, and I can't even remember then why I would have baked so many sweets. It helped me remember though how much I love being in the kitchen. Here are our finished products:

They were SO proud and excited to share with their mom and dad!

Thats me in my messy kitchen. Thanks for the aprons, Jill and Amy! They came in very handy :)

In addition to baking we watched lots of movies, played cards and board games, listened and danced to Justin Beiber and Taylor Swift (painful, but I got through it!) It was a super fun weekend but I was ready to put my feet up when they went home. ;)

Thanksgiving Weekend

Kyle and I enjoyed a 4 day weekend at HOME. We were at home 95% of the time with Tucker and it was awesome.

Thanksgiving Day we made our first turkey. All 8 pounds of it. It was my first turkey and Kyle's first time carving a turkey! Overall, I think it turned out great and am happy for it being my first!

I know I didn't really need to post a picture of the bird, but I had to document it! ;) I set the table using a lot of our china and things we got from the wedding, overall I was very pleased at how it turned out! We had A LOT of leftovers, when we were finished it didn't even look like we had touched the food! But, I am totally OK with that, it means no cooking for a week for me! We did, however, finish up the pumpkin pie last night. It was the first pumpkin pie that I had made or even ate since my grandma passed away a few years ago. It was an emotional and very, very delicious pie!

On Friday we went and got some deals on outside Christmas lights and a tree! We spent the entire day putting up lights and listening to Christmas music. Kyle and I were both really in the Christmas mood, and we both LOVE our lights on our house. I think our neighbor was worried we outdid him...he put up his lights that night and had to go buy more even! Oops! Tucker was outside with us in the front yard the entire day as well. What do you think? I think they turned out excellent for our first time putting up Christmas lights!

Tucker did not like Kyle up on the roof. 

I have since added a wreath on the front door and candy canes on the window, but overall, this is it!

Hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with friends and family and enjoyed the rest of the Holiday weekend!

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I hope everyong gets a little chips n salsa or some guac today...you can never go wrong with either of those! In honor for today, thought I would share with you some recipes (of course...I LOVE food so I have recipes for even Cinco de Mayo)!

My sister shared this simple recipe with me for guac, and even though I found a mix down here I love, this is always a good standby and quick to whip up.

Easy Guacamole
I usually use 2-3 avacados (but depending on how many people will eat it, of course)
Roma tomatos
Limes
Parmesean Cheese

Remove the skin and the pit from the avacados and mash them together in a bowl- a simple fork will do the trick. *Side note the softer the avacado, the more ripe. Do not keep them in the fridge unless you don't plan to eat them for a few days.*
Cut up your roma tomatos and add to mix. Drizzle fresh squeezed lime juice (as much as you want...I usually go by taste!) Top with some parmesean cheese and you have a simple and amazing Guac recipe! My favorite is eating them with Lime Chips...perfect combination!

Tequila Lime Chicken
4-6 Chicken breasts, boneless skinless
1/4 cup tequila (chicken broth for the young ones!)
6 oz. frozen limeade concentrate
1 Tbsp. grated lime peel
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Combine all marinade ingredients in shallow container and mix well. Poke each chicken breast with fork and place in marinade container. Marinate in fridge a minimum of 1 hour. We made ours on the grill, but I'm sure a grill pan or the oven would work as well! Enjoy!

Margarita Cupcakes
Unfortunately, I cannot take credit for this recipe either. I found it on one of my food blogs and hope to try them out SOON! Enjoy!!
(Click the word 'margarita cupcakes' and it will take you to the recipe!)


I celebrated last night with some friends, and let's just say I will be staying away from margaritas for a while. Nothing beats chips n salsa and margaritas with the girls!

Feliz cinco de mayo!

pumpkin, pumpkin, and more pumpkin...

With the Thanksgiving holiday right around the corner, I have been craving pumpkin. The smell, the taste, and all the different recipes to bake with. Especially my pumpkin roll that I now make every Thanksgiving...its not the same without it! (Thanks, Shannon!)

Last week I finally found some Libbys pumpkin at the grocery store, and after Kyle requested pumpin bars, I made them during the Vikings game. Thanks to my wonderful grandma and her amazing recipe, they turned out so tasty and fabulous. People at my work had never heard of pumpkin bars (must be a northern thing?) so I brought some in to share and they all LOVED them! (They kept calling them pumpkin cake!) After such a wonderful experience with my first pumpkin craving of the season done, I am out to try some more.

Here are a few recipes I have gathered over the past month that have pumpkin in them and they look (and I am sure taste) amazing! Maybe this weekend I will have time to experiment in the kitchen again...

I currently follow Picky-Palate, she has an amazing food blog and her recipes are always simple! Here are some of her pumpkin-inspired recipies that caught my eye (and hopefully yours, too!)

Cinnamon Toasted Pumpkin Pie Tarts
Chocolate and Pumpkin Pie Shortbread Bars
Double Pumpkin Kissed Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Gooey Pumpkin Butterscotch Brownies

Taste of Home also has many fabulous recipes, and I found this one that sounded amazing...

Snappy Pumpkin Cheescake

And something for an after dinner...

Pumpkin Pie Martini

So now that I am officialy hungry and still an hour away from lunch, I need to get my mind off of food!

Happy Baking!