December Happenings

We've been busy this month! Highlights include:

• A weekend trip to Minnesota and Mall of America.

Can you believe there's a whole amusement park INSIDE the mall?

We made the mistake of going on a water ride-poor Matt ended up soaking wet! Not so fun when it's 20 degrees outside. I guess that's how they get people to buy clothes :)

• Chinese Lantern Festival in Dallas

• Christmas trip to St. Helens

My beautiful sister

We went on a nice hike-I missed the beautiful Oregon greenery :)

Dinner at a fun German restaurant. They have an accordion player that came to our table. He sang us a traditional  love song for our anniversary-rules are you have to stare into each other's eyes until the song is over.

We went ice skating at the mall.  Matt got a little distracted when we walked past a poster shop. :)

Our week there went by too fast-it's time to get back to work. Happy New Year, everyone!

Table For Two

We have a lot to be thankful for today, including my first attempt at cooking Thanksgiving dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Cupcake Factory

I've been taking a cake decorating class lately, and I've been bringing the fruits of my labors to work the next day.  As a result, someone from work asked me to make the cupcakes for her daughter's baby shower.

First I made all the flowers

Then I baked and frosted all the cupcakes.

100 cupcakes, all boxed up and ready to go!

My house is a crime scene

Or that's how it has seemed lately.  We recently went through the massive undertaking of  removing the popcorn from our ceilings.  The crime scene reference is because of the tarps we've had taped everywhere to keep the mess down.

Matt, hard at work

And who knew that our white ceilings were not  so white.  Check out this dramatic before and after:

The process entailed moving all our furniture out, putting tarps down, scraping the old popcorn off, taping or removing the lights and vents, taping the walls, and re-painting the ceiling.

All our furniture, piled up in the living room

After that we decided we might as well install crown molding while we were dealing with the mess.  We bought ourselves a saw and borrowed a nail gun and Matt got to work.

Looks pretty good, don't you think? Thanks to Matt for all his hard work!

You know you're a Texan when...

So this weekend the weather has gotten unusually cool. Yesterday and today the temperature has been about 50 degrees and I've been FREEZING!  We even used our fireplace yesterday(for like the second time ever). Maybe it's a good thing we've said goodbye Utah, because I have lost any tolerance I had for the cold.

Thought I'd share another recipe I tried recently: Baked  pumpkin doughnuts!  They were DELICIOUS!

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 cups pumpkin purée (canned pumpkin)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, or 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon plus heaping 1/4 teaspoon each ground nutmeg and ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons flour
• 
  

COATING

• 3 tablespoons cinnamon sugar

Directions

1) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two doughnut pans. If you don't have doughnut pans, you can bake these in a standard muffin tin; they just won't be doughnuts.

2) Beat together the oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, spices, salt, and baking powder until smooth.

3) Add the flour, stirring just until smooth.

4) Fill the wells of the doughnut pans about 3/4 full; use a scant 1/4 cup of batter in each well. If you're making muffins, fill each well about 3/4 full; the recipe makes about 15, so you'll need to bake in two batches (unless you have two muffin pans).

6) Bake the doughnuts for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean. If you're making muffins, they'll need to bake for 23 to 25 minutes.

7) Remove the doughnuts from the oven, and after about 5 minutes, loosen their edges, and transfer them to a rack to cool.

8) While the doughnuts are still warm (but no longer fragile), gently shake them in a bag with the cinnamon-sugar. If you've made muffins, sprinkle their tops heavily with cinnamon-sugar.

9) Cool completely, and wrap airtight; store at room temperature for several days.

Yield: 12 doughnuts or 15 muffins. From: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2012/09/07/pumpkin-doughnuts-baked-to-perfection/

Fall is here!

I love fall.  I love it even more this year because this is the first fall since kindergarten where I haven't gone back to school.  Fall also means an escape from the Texas heat.  We just bought some new bikes and are looking forward to some fun bike rides this year.

To celebrate, I tried out a new recipe:

Pumpkin Cupcakes:

Yield: 32 cupcakes

For the Cupcakes:

4 cups cake flour (not self-rising), sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 Tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2½ cups packed light-brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1½ cups canned pumpkin (not pie filling)

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 pound (4 cups) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
¾ teaspoon vanilla extract

To Make the Cupcakes:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until just combined. Add pumpkin; beat until just combined.

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until golden brown, 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be refrigerated up to 3 days in airtight containers.

4. To finish, use an offset spatula or a pastry bag fitted with a decorated tip to top the cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

To Make the Frosting:

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and cream cheese until fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add sugar, ½ cup at a time, and then vanilla, and mix until smooth and combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

If not using immediately, frosting can be refrigerated up to 3 days in an airtight container; before using, bring to room temperature, and beat on low speed until smooth again. 

Recipe from:http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2009/11/02/pumpkin-cupcakes-with-cream-cheese-frosting/

Lately

We've been doing a lot to stay busy! Here's what we've done the past few weeks:

We went to Phoenix to see cute little baby Blake's baby blessing, as well as celebrate Lexi's 2nd birthday with Brian and Amanda.

Our friends, the Castles, just hosted a fun Napoleon Dynamite party, details here:
http://lifedesigncraft.blogspot.com/2012/08/napoleon-dynamite-partybbq.html

I've been baking a lot for this cake decorating class I've been taking. I just finished the beginner course and have been on the hunt for new recipes to try.  I found this recipe for a salted caramel buttercream frosting on pinterest and thought I'd share.  This frosting is awesome! It might be my new favorite recipe. :)
http://kimberlytaylorimages.com/chocolate-cake-with-salted-caramel-frosting/

We just learned roses

We spent Labor Day weekend in DC visiting the Kings.  We went to the zoo with Trevor.  I can't believe how big he is getting!  He's just full of smiles and crawling all over the place!

Wait, who are you really?

On this trip we also got to spend some time at the Holocaust Museum.  It was definitely a somber experience, but the museum was very well done and I would highly recommend it.

One thing that sticks out in my mind:

On the second floor of the museum, you walk down a corridor to find a room full of hundreds of shoes-old, new, big and small.

The inscription reads:

We are the shoes, We are the last witnesses.

We are shoes from grandchildren and grandfathers.

From Prague, Paris and Amsterdam

And because we are only made of fabric and leather

And not flesh and blood, each one of us avoided the Hellfire.

 It was fun seeing those guys again., we hope to visit at least one more time before they finish law school and move away. :)

My honey-do!

So this post is pretty much to say I have the best husband ever.

Our latest project has been to re-caulk the bathroom.  (I say "our" like I did anything:) )   Whoever caulked our shower last did a terrible job.  I was really bumpy and uneven and as a result we got mildew everywhere. Gross.  With my first attempt at cleaning it I tried spraying diluted bleach on it. Nothing.  I tried regular bleach and even a bleach pen around the grout lines.  Nothing.  So this week Matt spent his evenings after work scraping out all the old stuff and re-did the whole thing.  Now I'm happily living mold-free. :) Matt didn't even complain about having to do it.  Not only that, but helping me with all the other projects I've gotten into my head since buying our house.
  
Also, now that I've been working, Matt has been getting home about a 45 min before me.  Matt has VOLUNTEERED to start making dinner! It's been so nice this past week to come home to dinner ready and waiting for me.

I just feel so blessed to have a husband who loves me and cares about me.  He has told me I'm beautiful every single day since we've been married.  I love him so much and don't know what I'd ever do without him!

Weekend with the Round Rock Phillippis

We had a fun weekend-Brian and Amanda came to visit.  We had fun at the park, made some play-dough, the guys got to go check out the new Batman movie and the girls got their toes done. 

Matt's play-dough masterpiece-Minnie mouse!

Short and sweet weekend, but we had a lot of fun. Come back soon!