Halloween advent calendar

My sister and I were browsing around Gardner's village one day and saw a cute advent calendar and thought it would make a fun project! Cute, yes. Fun....eh, maybe if I had a pattern of what to do. I had to figure out on my own how to do everything, making it look not so professional, but hey I tried my best, if I made another one, which I won't, it would def. look better than this one. But for wingin' it, I'd say it's not too shabby....just don't look too closely. :)

I wouldn't expect anyone but me to notice that this skeleton is MINE! :) Remember my skully I made for last year's Halloween digi kit? Yup, that's him! I've got to do a post alone on how to cut out fabric with your cricut! It's so much fun! Or maybe everyone already knows how to do it and I'm comin on board late.

So, because I was trying to figure out what I was doing as I went along, I did not take any pictures or write down how to do it, but if anyone is just itchin to make one, I can help my sister finish hers and use hers as the tutorial, now that I sorta know more what I'm doing. :)

Can't wait to fill these pockets up with yummy treats.....and just hope Faith doesn't find them and eat them all in one day! :)

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Let the pumpkin baking begin, yay!!!

I just tried this awesome, amazing of a dessert that I found here. They are absolutely fantastic!! I love cinnamon rolls, pumpkin makes them even better!

Besides waiting for them to rise, it's fairly quick and easy to make. Try them, you know you want to! :)

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing

roll dough adapted from King Arthur Flour

makes approximately 15-16 rolls

Ingredients:

Roll Dough:
1/4 cup warm water (not hot, about 110 degrees)
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1/3 cup warm milk
1 large egg, beaten
3/4 cup pumpkin puree, either fresh or canned
1 tablespoon melted butter
2 cups (approximately) All-Purpose Flour
1 1 /4 cup Whole Wheat Flour (just use white flour if you don't have any)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom (I omitted this as I didn't have any)

Filling:
1 stick butter
2/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon each of allspice and ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves

Cream Cheese Frosting:
4 ounces cream cheese
1 stick (4 ounces) butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon lemon juice
2-3 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

In a large bowl, stir yeast into water to soften. Let rest for 5 minutes before stirring. Add milk, eggs, pumpkin, butter, 2 cups flour, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cardamom to yeast mixture. Beat vigorously for 2 minutes.

Gradually add remaining flour, a little at a time, until you have a dough stiff enough to knead. Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Knead, adding flour as necessary, until you have a smooth, elastic dough.

Put dough into an oiled bowl. Turn once to coat entire ball of dough with oil. Cover with a towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.

Combine the white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg and cloves in a small bowl, set aside. Transfer the risen dough to a lightly greased work surface, and pat or roll it into a 16" x 12" rectangle. Spread softened butter over dough and then sprinkle with the sugar mixture.

Roll the dough into a log the long way; it'll stretch to about 20" long as you roll. Using a very sharp knife, slice the log into 15 slices. In order to cut down on drag, it helps to rinse the blade in hot water, and wipe it off, between slices. Place slices in a greased 9x13 inch baking pan (or in two 8 or 9 inch round cake or pie pans). Cover with a towel and let rise until almost doubled, about 45 minutes.

Bake in a preheated 375°F oven. Bake the rolls till they're brown around the edges and beginning to turn golden brown across the center, about 20-30 minutes.

While rolls bake, prepare the cream cheese frosting. Add the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and lemon juice to a small food processor. Blend until smooth and combined. Add the powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time, blending in between, until well mixed and desired consistency is reached. (I used 2 cups powdered sugar)

Frost warm rolls with the cream cheese frosting and serve immediately.

For night before prep: Prepare the rolls up to the point where you roll and place in the pan. Then, cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, remove the pan from the fridge and proceed with the instructions where you left off. Rising time may be slightly longer than noted in the recipe due to the dough being cold vs room temp.

Canyons

I love going up to the canyons, get away from everything and just enjoy some good ol' mountain air, while wearing a warm, cozy hoodie. ahhh

We originally had my whole family going but just ended up with us and my sister's fam. We had a good time. Brought up some food and all the goodness to make s'mores and just goofed off.

I tried to get a normal smiley picture of faith, but all I got was her tongue, so I gave up on cute pictures and joined her in a silly one. :)

This was our dinner. I got the recipe from.....guess where? Picky Palate, of course. She called it 'Walking Tacos'. She made her own chili, which I'm sure tastes great, but my idea of making it easier, faster and just as yummy is Wendy's Chili. I call my version "Running Tacos". I thought it was clever... ;) You can use the million ingredients or just grab a bag of Fritos and Wendy's Chili (ask for Sour cream there) and there you have it for a very quick, tasty meal!

You can't be by a camp fire and not roast marshmallows! Faith loved the sticky, ooey-gooey treats...and cuddling with her uncle "Pakritch". His name is Patrick, but that's how Faith says it. haha I like that better, more catchy. :)

It's fun to take pictures of fire...we're still trying to figure out our camera. Tim and I had different thoughts on what makes a good fire picture. So without telling you who took what picture, I ask you....

Number One?

...or Number Two?

I gotta get a few more trips up before it gets too cold, care to join us? :)

Fall branches

Wanna hear a kinda funny story? Well, I'm gonna tell it anyways. ;)

I saw this picture below and thought it would be so cool to have some branches to do that with! So I convince my sister how cool it would be and we make a trip up the canyons together. She brought her big tree choppers (that's the technical name) and we started chopping down some sweet lookin branches that we were already envisioning where to put at our house.

I risk life and limb (ok, maybe just my flimsy sandals) to cut down some gnarly ones and we make a big pile next to our car. We really didn't cut down a whole lot, we found a lot on the ground that had already been broken off. So, along comes a forest ranger, who no doubt was told by some "tattle tell" driving by, to ask what we were up to. As he first got out of his car, I was back in the trees and immediately dropped the choppers and let them slide down out of sight, and walk towards Tammy acting like I was just enjoying the view....of course he could see the big pile of branches next to our car and said that we're not supposed to be cutting down branches. Pretending I would do no such thing I asked, "what about the branches that are already on the ground?" He replied that we could take those for firewood at our campsite but couldn't take them out of the canyon or we would get a ticket. That wasn't worth it to us so we waited for him to drive out of sight and then I slipped down the hill to grab the choppers and we were off, leaving our big batch of decorations. :)

Tammy and I were both shaking. hahah yea, we'd make horrible criminals. Here we are, how old? and were getting in trouble just like we did in our teen years, and had children in tow. We laughed and laughed.

I tell you, where is the justice. Where else am I supposed to get my branches to decorate with?! :)

So.... of course that didn't stop us. The next day we used our common sense and went up a canyon that had next to nobody there....and definitely no forest rangers. My brother came this time and we drove while he chopped down our branches of choice, stuffed them in the van and within an hour we had enough gorgeous fall branches for both Tam and I to use.

I have them inside for now but when I get down to serious business putting up all my Halloween decor, then my front porch is gonna look something like the first picture, hopefully.

Aren't they just beautiful?! It adds a nice touch and feel to our home. Now, I just hope that no forest rangers are reading my blog...shhhhh ;)

Pumpkin Clip

I guess this is the start of all the Halloween/fall goodness; let the fun begin! :)

I was out shopping and saw a pillow that had a rolled fabric flower on it that looked like a pumpkin and I thought, "How cute would that be in Faith's hair!" She can look cute and festive at the same time. Fun, ya?! :)

Quinoa Chili

Is this normal for anyone but us? Scraping the cupboards for clean dishes only to find tupperware and measuring spoons to eat with.... I'd rather just use that than exert myself washing a few dishes, when I'm hungry I mean business. :)

As handy as tupperware and measuring spoons are, this post isn't about them. It's about another yuuuummy soup I found at Picky Palate. It's similar to the last soup recipe I posted, but this has beans instead of meat....so if you're sick of eating meat all the time like we are, this is a nice alternative. I actually like the flavor of this soup better than the other one.

And, if you haven't tried out some quinoa yet, you should!

Chunky Vegetable Quinoa Chili

1 Cup uncooked quinoa

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

5 stalks celery, chopped

5 medium carrots, peeled and sliced

6 sweet peppers, chopped

1 zucchini, quartered and sliced

2 yellow zucchini, quartered and sliced

4 cloves fresh garlic, minced

Pinch of kosher salt

32 oz chicken broth

2 15 oz cans diced tomatoes

2 cans white beans, drained

2 Tablespoons ground cumin

1 1/2 Tablespoons chili powder

1 teaspoon hot sauce

1 teaspoon fresh lime juice

Kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper, Lawry’s Garlic Salt with Parsley

Fresh Cilantro leaves, chopped

1. Cook quinoa according to package directions. Set aside. Heat oil into a large dutch oven over medium heat. Saute onions, celery, carrots, sweet peppers and zucchini’s. Stir and cook for 5-8 minutes or until softened. Stir in garlic and cook for 60 seconds. Season with a pinch of kosher salt.

2. Pour in chicken broth, cooked quinoa, tomatoes, beans, cumin, chili powder, hot sauce and lime juice. Season with kosher salt, pepper and Lawry’s according to your liking. Add some then give a taste until you are satisfied Stir in fresh cilantro leaves.

3. Simmer on low until ready to serve. We like to crush tortilla chips over top, mmm!

8-10 servings

mmmmmmmmm :)

Tomato, Tomahto

When we left for vacation our garden was growing, but pretty small and we were expecting it all to just die while we were gone.......the very opposite happened. Our tomato plants completely overtook our whole garden, housing some big, massive spiders. The good thing is that there are a lot of green tomatoes, but it's killing everything in it's path...like a tomato volcano here.

Whoever said you can't kill a zucchini plant, lied. We planted two only to find them dry up and blow away basically. Nothing. Nada. Zippo. Zilch. Our yellow squash on the other hand....... we thought that had died too cuz we got back and saw not a thing other than the massive tomato plants. Then our neighbor came over and said, I noticed you had squash growing so I kept them at my house for you; then gave me a bag of 6 massive (yes, that's my favorite word today :) ) squash. It's not like you can bake bread like with zucchinis. Wow, those things breed like rabbits! ;)
Yea...we're a little late for this trellis thing, but it's worth a shot. Now we're just waiting for all the tomahto's to turn red! mmmmmm

Growin' up

My little Faithy started preschool last week! She loooooves it! The first few times she would not come out to me, she was having too much fun. It's good for her to be out for a few hours socializing with other kids, and it gives me just enough time to get some stuff done! It's weird, but it's nice at the same time.

Faith has been taking violin lessons (rather rhythm/beat lessons) but today started her first lesson with a violin. I can't believe how tiny her violin is, it's so cute!! She's catching on quickly, and loves "playing" her violin just like her Gramma. :)

Yummy French Toast

Usually when we celebrate birthdays in my family we get together for dinner, but this time we decided to mix things up and do a breakfast. I was excited for a chance to make this Crème Brûlée French Toast I've had on my list for about a year. I forgot to mark where I found it, so I can't remember where I got it! oopsie
This is prepared and soaked the night before, so in the morning all you have to do is bake it, oooh yea! It's definitely a keeper.
And if you've never had Buttermilk syrup, you need to try it, it's the best! I first got the recipe back in High School and it's been my favorite ever since.

Creme Brulee French Toast

Ingredients:

· 1/2 cup butter

· 1 cup packed brown sugar

· 2 tablespoons corn syrup

· 1 loaf Texas toast bread (extra-thick slices)

· 5 eggs

· 1 1/2 cups half-and half-cream

· 1/2 teaspoon salt

· 1 teaspoon vanilla

· 1 recipe buttermilk syrup

Method:

In a small saucepan melt butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup over medium heat until smooth, stirring occasionally. Pour mixture onto large, greased jelly roll pan (18x13x1). Spread to cover surface. Place 12 slices Texas toast bread in a single layer to cover pan. Mix together Eggs, cream, salt, and vanilla . Spon mixture over each piece of bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Bake uncovered at 350F. for about 30 minutes. Remove from pan and serve. If not serving immediately, turn each slice of bread over (this will prevent bread from sticking to the bottom of the pan). Serve with Syrup.

Makes 12 servings.

Buttermilk Syrup

Ingredients:

· 1 cup sugar

· 1/2 cube real butter

· 1/2 tsp. soda

· 1/2 cup buttermilk

· 1 tsp karo syrup

· 1 tsp vanilla

Method:

Mix all ingrediaents except vanilla and heat in saucepan to boiling. Boil 5 minutes stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add vanilla.

Zipper Flower

I'm lovin the new zipper style lately, totally fun and creative! I went to buy a headband but when I saw the price and how easy it looked to make, I was just achin to try it myself! So instead I bought some zippers, came home and had this done in less than 10 min. That's my kinda craft! :)

Even though I just saw one of them and pretty much knew how to do it, I still wanted to look up a tute to see how others did it. I liked THIS one. Mine doesn't look as pro as hers but it works well enough for me!
It was harder than I thought to find the metal headbands. I found mine at Hobby Lobby but it had teeth on it, so I just ripped them off and then I liked it. :) If anyone knows of somewhere else to get them, let me know!!

Now to try some different styles and make one in every color, right?! :)

I Am Like a Star Freebie Digi Kit

** NO LONGER DOWNLOADABLE FOR FREE **

Take a wild guess who this kit is dedicated to.......yup, my sweet angel Mikkie.

I didn't realize til I was folding her clothes how much her pajama top was part of my poem. The sun, rain, rainbow...totally cool. Perfect! There's a lot of symbolism in this kit.

-The star is from the song "I am like a star" which was her favorite bedtime song

-The helicopter is for when she "flew to Jesus"

-The butterfly for a few reasons--I was intending on decorating her room with a butterfly theme and purple, and cuz she always said "flaw" for 'fly' but flies aren't as cute as butterflies so I went with the latter....I'm sure she agrees. I just love butterflies.

-The gum balls because she LOVED gum. Absolutely loved gum. I would always be finding a whole empty pack in my purse.

-The 'white crochet paper' is a piece of her beautiful crocheted dress that was donated.

So there ya go, that's my baby girl in a nutshell. :) Add all the happiness and cuteness in the world and that's her. I love and miss her like crazy.

Here's the kit.

I hope you enjoy and have fun with this kit; it for sure came straight from my heart. :)

Meet Canon PowerShot S95

My new toy. I love it! I didn't want to spend thousands of dollars but also wanted something like a DSLR. Some of my main requests were:

A. The "fuzzy background" feature (ya know, out of focus background)

B. Take clear action shots (those are the best kind, but I could never get a clear one)

C. Not have to wait a lifetime from the time I press the button to the time it actually takes the picture.

It does those AND hdr pictures- very vibrant colors, very cool and HD video- love the quality...plus it's very portable. Nice!

It has great reviews. It actually just got released. Sweet.

Bottom line, if you are in need of a good camera and not wanting to spend more than $500, this is the camera for you. :)

Caramel popcorn

So, exciting news!!! I got a new camera!! I know, I can hear you all shouting for joy too :) Now maybe I can have non-lame pictures for you to look at, like the ones here! Tim wanted to make sure I give due credit to him for finding our sweet-awesome-gnarly of a camera. And there was much rejoicing. yay.

This camera is so awesome it deserves its own post.....later :)

I've made this (found here) two times already and I can tell you it's not going to be the last! It's. That. Good. I'm telling you so easy and scrumptious, you have to make it!

It makes a great little gift that you can wrap up all cute. I found these fun little popcorn containers at Target for $1.00 about a month ago. I'm hoping they have more, cuz I love putting the popcorn in them to give away.

** If your name is Bruce and you like one-step directions, just mix together all ingredients and start eating. :) **

For all others, here's the recipe :)

Sweet and Salty Butterscotch Candied Popcorn

-1 3.3oz bag Kettle Corn popcorn, popped and all un-popped kernels removed (Laura's note: I didn't have kettle corn, so I just used the lightly salted popcorn i already had-works great!) -1 Cup dry roasted peanuts -1 Cup butterscotch chips -6 Tablespoons butter -3/4 Cup packed brown sugar -1/3 Cup corn syrup -¼ teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Place popped popcorn and peanuts onto a large rimmed baking sheet that has been sprayed lightly with non stick cooking spray.

2. Place butterscotch chips, butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and salt into a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly until mixture comes to a light boil.Remove from heat and pour evenly over popcorn and nuts. Gently stir to coat mixture over popcorn. Bake in oven for 30 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.

3. Remove from oven and pour onto parchment paper to cool. Break into pieces and serve. Enjoy!