Preggo Photos

The above were taken by the lovely Ashtin Paige.


Below were taken by my wonderful sister, Kasie.

Cute vintage shirts I wouldn't mind having :)

Giveaway on The Dainty Squid

These coffee mugs are soo cute and a must have!!

(Click the image to head to her blog and enter to win!!)

down to the wire....I need to stay busy!

So I'm down to the wire, Jocelyn will be here before I know it. I'm trying to stay busy to keep my mind off it because just sitting around waiting makes me anxious!

I know I won't finish her blanket before she's here, so my goal now is to finish it in time for her to use it.

Today I've been working on Josiah's ABC Rocker quilt.

And cutting squares, and more squares and more squares and more squares!! I like it though. Keeps me busy and it's easy to cut and watch tv.

I did finished a couple of things for Jocelyn,

And picked out her coming home outfit

 with some cute socks her Aunt Kasie got her

And I still have to make the second one, but she just might come home with some crocheted sandals.

So we have doctor's appointment Friday then we are taking pregnancy photos!  I didn't take any the first time I was pregnant so I've be searching for inspiration:

Saturday is our baby shower, keeping my fingers crossed that I don't go into labor before then.
Sunday is my nephew's first birthday.
Monday we go in at 7am to be induced.

Busy weekend, but life is good.


✌

I soooo want my own space..

Definitely on the christmas cookie list...

Yesterday I was at my sisters house and  I was in the baking mood, which I've been in for about the past week. So I decided with my sister's encouragement to bake some. So I went on to allrecipes.com, (my default for finding a recipe.) I searched and search until I decided to just take one of the recipes and make it my own, as usual. So this was my take on the Spice Cookies with Crystallized Ginger 

Orange (and next time cranberry) Spiced Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons dark corn syrup
• 3 tablespoons orange zest
• Juice from half an orange
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar for decoration (add some colored sugar to make them prettier)
• 1 cup dried cranberries (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 2 large cookie sheets.
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add egg, and corn syrup; mix until fluffy. Stir in the orange zest. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ground ginger, and cloves; stir into the egg mixture. When dough starts to come together, add cranberries, then mix with your hands to form a smooth dough (dough will be very moist)
3. Form dough into 1 inch balls and roll in white sugar. Place balls on a cookie sheet 2 inches apart, and press down with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar. Bake in the preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes, cookies should be golden brown. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before Moving to a rack to cool completely.

I completely forgot to add baking soda, but they still came out okay. They were a little to dry, but if you like a crunchy cookie I guess that's good. When we made these yesterday we decided that a few things need to change especially to help with the moister so I marked all the changes that we plan on making next time with gray font. I also think that substituting brown sugar for the white sugar will help with the moister and give it a deeper flavor. These will be a huge hit at Christmas time.

Just a little thing I could use...

I could totally use one of these kits.  Every crocheter's dream.  It's on my wish list, maybe for my birthday, or Mother's day.


That's all for now.
✌

Cupcake Goodness...

So I've never been much for baking sweets from scratch, but I've decided to try my hand at it. Mostly because I've had a really bad sweet tooth.

So I did a little research on cupcake recipes and just kinda threw my own recipe together with whatever stuff I had in the pantry.

Slightly Tropical Virgin Piña Colada Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup Butter, softened
• 1 cup Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 Egg Yolk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 2 3/4 cups Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1/4  teaspoon Salt
• 3/4 cup Sour Cream
• 1/2 cup Cream of Coconut
• 1/2 cup Pineapple Juice

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350℉. Line cupcake pan with paper or foil liners.
2. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla
3. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
4. In another separate bowl whisk together sour cream, cream of coconut, and pineapple juice.
5. On low speed, add dry ingredients a half cup at a time to creamed butter, alternating with a half cup of sour cream mixture. Blend on high speed for 2 minutes.
6. Fill cups 2/3 full. Bake for 22 to 26 minutes. Cool completely before icing.

For Next Time:

Next time I make these I will probably get some coconut flakes and sub crushed pineapples for the pineapple juice.  And they weren't as sweet as I would like so I'll probably add more sugar. Plus maybe add some coconut extract, cause they "tropical flavor" I was going for isn't there at all. The moistness wasn't a problem, they are very moist. But they are a little dense for my likely so I will do some research to find out what to do to help with the denseness for next time. 
As for the icing, I couldn't give you the recipe if I wanted to cause I just threw some stuff together and added things here and there to get the flavor I wanted. But next time I make these I want to come up with some sort of pineapple frosting. When I do I'll get the recipe down and post it.

I feel like...

☂Rainy days. They are perfect for creating. I always feel like baking, knitting, drinking a cup of tea, reading a good book, watching a movie(although movies are always better when I have my honey to snuggle up with on the couch), and blogging of course.  

 Today I'm craving some delicious muffins.  I found a recipe that would be perfect, but looked in the pantry only to discover I'm out of brown sugar!!! what kind of non-sense is that! And if only I had a car I could just run up to the store and grab some. Then I would also be able to grab some eggs, which I'm also out of.☹


So my delicious muffins will have to wait for another day.

Banana Crumb Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla 
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 bananas, mashed
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375℉  Lightly grease 10 muffin cups, or line with muffin papers.
2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla, nutmeg, 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon, and salt. 
3. In another bowl, beat together bananas, sugar, egg and melted butter. Stir the banana mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
4. In a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Cut in 1 tablespoon butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean. 

Make it, if you dare. Let me know how it is.
✌