Our 4th of July BBQ

I hope everyone had a fun-filled 4th of July Celebration! Wasn't it kin-of awkward that is was right in the middle of a working week? I prefer Holidays almost at weeks end, hello more time off, lol. But we made the most of it and crammed as much in as possible: Shopping, Parade Watching, Movies our yummy BBQ and of course Fireworks. As you know my man likes to grill, and we shared one of our favorite grilling adventures just the other day {BBQ Carnitas Nachos} I found a gingham paper table cloth while grocery shopping for $ 1.99 knowing it mode make the perfect table runner for a future outdoor dinner, I'm glad I bought it! It look so cute hanging out with our all white dinner ware. We kept our BBQ Menu Simple, but tasty. We served up Corn on the Cob with butter & Cotija Cheese, Bake Beans, Red Skin Potato Salad, BBQ ribs and Burgers. We also had fresh fruit, Watermelon and Plums. The Plums are actually from our tree in our backyard! This is the first year they where ripe, and we have a ton. We plan on giving a bunch away to friends and family and I'll be using some in baking recipes :) 

I also picked up a few citronella candles to place on our table, to help keep the bugs away.  

For the past couple of months my favorite cook book is Martha Stewart's Cupcakes, filled with amazing recipes. So far I've made Banana Split Cupcakes, Vanilla Confetti Cupcakes and Strawberry cupcakes. I planned to make cupcakes for 4th of July, but wasn't sure which ones I wanted to bake. I came across a One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcake recipe that looked tasty and easy, a winning combination.

Over the past few weeks, I've starting falling in love with cute cupcake wrappers, when I saw these gingham at Wal-Mart for $1.75 for 75, I couldn't resist. Plus, they matched the gingham table cloth I bought and used as a runner for our table. My new favorite background for taking food pictures is quickly becoming our new counters. 

One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Butter Cream Frosting

Ingredients 

1 1/2 All Purpose Flour

3/4 Cup unsweetened Cocoa Powder

1 1/2 Cups of Sugar

1 1/2 Teaspoons of Baking Soda

3/4 Teaspoon of Baking Powder

3/4 Teaspoon of Salt

2 Large Eggs (room temperature)

3/4 Cup of Buttermilk (I had no Buttermilk on Hand, so I used this substitute)

3 Tablespoon of Vegetable Oil

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

3/4 Cup of Water

Bake It

Preheat oven to 350 Degrees, line your cupcake pans with liners. I double lined mine, I wanted to be sure the gingham pattern on the liners would be seen since I was baking chocolate. Shift together flour, cocoa powder, salt, sugar, baking soda, baking powder together in a large bowl. Next add in the eggs one at a time, warm water and buttermilk, oil and vanilla until smooth. I mixed after adding each ingredient one at a time. Pour batter into each liner, filling 2/3 full. Next bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes, insert toothpick to check when they are done. Cool on wire rack. 

Frosting

I found an amazing butter cream frosting recipe from Savory Sweet life. It was simple, just using 6 simple ingredients. Click here for the recipe. I attempted to frost the cupcakes old school Magnolia style {not as cute, but I'll get there, I think!} I topped each cupcake with a M&M and called it a day :)

Hasani said they were amazing, and he couldn't stop eating them an asked me not to make them again since he couldn't resist. To bad his birthday is this month, because I'm making these again, lol. 

How was your 4th of July? Did you BBQ and making any yummy treats for your family and friends?

Valentine

From my Valentine, he's always the best at finding the perfect cards for me! Love you Hasani :)

Happy Valentines Day Everyone!

Be Mine: Sweets Done

Last Wednesday I shared the Valentines Day projects I planned on making. today I'm sharing the my Sweets Project. I decided to make to sweet deserts. First up a spin on Cake Pops the easy way a mix of store bought and homemade. Here's how I 'made' my cake pops. I bought Entenmann's donut holes and lollipop sticks from the store. You can buy donut holes at in any grocery store or better yet buy them from a mom and pop donut store. I didn't want to make two stops that morning, so just bought those.  

I made homemade vanilla glaze using this recipe, the glaze is super sweet and yummy. I rolled each cake ball into the glaze, then sprinkled the sprinkles on top and then added the lollipop stick. I placed the cake pops in the fridge for about an hour to allow the glaze to firm up. 

The result very yummy and super sweet cake pops, they are so sweet so having one is perfect! I enjoyed my cake pop with a cup of coffee, mmm mmm

Next I made for the very first time I made homemade sugar cookies cut into shapes. I bought a bag of cookie cutters from Target and ended up only using the large heart. I made a few cookies with the x and o's but they were so tiny, we made the rest all heats. I used Martha Stewart's sugar cookie recipe and my cookies came out so nice! 

As a first time cookie baker using cookie cutters, I never knew how involved the whole process is!! Make the dough, chill the dough, let the dough stand, roll the dough cut, re-roll the dough. Let the cut cookies chill in the freeze, line the cookie sheets with parchment paper and on and on! Most of my Sunday was consumed with following all the steps Martha gave. As a result my cookies tasted so good and held their shape, some edges weren't perfect but that's OK. 

Next I made my own white royal icing, which is super simple to make and again crazy sweet all sugar, a little water and egg whites, click here for the recipe. I bought some gel frosting for the outline and to decorate the inside, here's where I went WRONG. I didn't know at the time, gel frosting doesn't harden. It stays 'wet' which sucks when your filling the inside of your cookies with royal icing that does harden (but stays yummy) So when I went to fill the inside it got tricky and things ran and I ran out of the gel frosting. I just had enough to outline all the cookies, so wasn't able to decorate the inside of the cookies. Here are my cookies, sorry for the bad lighting it was late and they were so tasty { all gone } I was unable to take better pics. 

Next time I make sugar cookies, I plan to using Royal icing again and have food coloring on had to make pretty colorful outlines and decorate the inside. The cookies are lot of work! I learned some much making this batch of cookies, and I hope I keep improving. I'm anxious do decorate some more, its all trial and error for sure! 

Have you made the any treats for valentines day? Or are you a cookie pro, would love to know your icing tips and secrets :) 

PS. Dont forget to hop over to Summer's Blog and see what treats she made

Be Mine: Sweets & Crafts Projects

I was chatting with my girlfriend Summer about doing some Valentine's projects this since its both our our little baby boys 1st Valentine Day we wanted to make the month/day extra special. Plus I wanted to start a new tradition of making sweets & crafts with my boys. All I had to do was mention the word sweets to Tabari and he was in { such an 11 year old! } 

Back to our conversation, we decided to team up and each work easy to do Valentines sweets & craft projects to share with you all. I didn't want to go on a shopping spree for Valentines stuff, so I hunted though dollar bins, used coupons and looked for sales. I gathered lots of ideas on Pinterest { how how I love thee } you can follow me on Pinterest here. Here's my V-Day loot I'm working with. I found colorful sheets of paper at Micheal's on sale for twenty five cents each + I had a coupon. I also found the metal stencil letters at Micheal's in the dollar section and knew they where a must. 

This time in Targets dollar section, I bought cookie cutters. I really like the X & O's and large heart ones the best. I also bought some sprinkles, such a great deal :) I also bought two sheets of felt, and decorating gel { pink, red and black} I also bought a heart punch for 6 bucks thanks to a Micheal's 40% off coupon { heart punch not pictured } 

Now that you've seen my V-Day sweets & craft loot, here's what I plan on making. For my sweets project, I really want to make pretty cookies to gives as gifts to friends and of course eat some at home :) I've been pinning & Google-ing pretty valentines cookies like crazy. I've never decorated a cookie before, other than slapping on some thick frosting and sprinkles. So this is for sure out my comfort zone. I promise to share the good and bad and the ugly in my cookie making efforts. I'd love to make pretty cookie, like the ones below.

{ via here }

{ via here }

I plan on making pretty heart garland with the paper I bought. I'm not sure what style my garland will look like, but I adore the paper and think the mixture of solid and printed will be so pretty. I love how the garland below is a mix of smaller and larger hearts

{ via here }

{ via here }

I plan on using the felt to create two things. First a pretty heart paperweight. Lastly, I planing on adding some love to Avery's clothes. I'm really inspired by this image from Martha Stewart, cute hearts sewn on a knit hat. I can't reveal my exact plans, just yet. But I'm super excited to share!

Nest Wednesday February 8, I'll share my Valentine sweets and craft projects. If your undecided on DIYing some Valentine goodies, I hope to inspire you to try some simple and fun ones like I am. 

Now jump over to Summer's blog and check out the sweets and crafts projects she's planning doing for Valentines for her family. 

Are you planning on making any V-Day crafts this year?

After Christmas for Christmas

Is it socially acceptable to talk about Christmas goodies I won't be using for another 11 months? Let's just pretend is perfectly OK. I didn't mean to buy anything after Christmas for Christmas, but hey when you come across items that are marked down 50 to 70% off, you need to at least look at potential goodies. My first stop checking out Christmas goodies was West Elm ( online ) I was a day late shopping online, but I still scored four red felted stockings for only $ 4 bucks each and free shipping! I didn't even have to drive to our nearest West Elm which is about 20-25 mins in my car, this makes me a happy girl. I'm so glad I bought them! Every year I intend to sew stockings, I just never find time. Next year we're planning on a colorful traditional Christmas decor. 

My next Christmas loot came from Target, there I bought a box of pretty green & red ornaments for around five bucks, I also bought some breaded cranberry strings and a Christmas door mat for only three dollars! The door mat is so nice, its already packed away for next year. I also grabbed a bunch of wrapping paper for only a $ 1.25!! 

Lastly my favorite buy is the vintage style Elf on the Shelf!! I'm so happy about getting this set it even comes with the book :) I paid half :) I love how its all about starting new family traditions, so this makes it even more fun. I'm so excited about the Elf!! :)

Did you score any good deals after Christmas for Christmas? 

Holiday Movies

There's nothing I love more than doing a Holiday Movie Marathons with my family. In fact Movie & TV show marathons are a regular occurrence around our home. In the past we've done Die Hard Movie-thons (1-4) I'd never seen them before, and actually ended up liking the series. We've done Saw Movie-thons, Breaking Bad TV-thons, Elm Street Movie-thons the list goes on and on. Of course we save the scary movies / too young for Tabari to watch Movie-thons for us the adults :) 

 I love watching Holiday movies during the Holidays ( of course I could watch the movies above anytime of the year!). Every weekend this month we've been getting our into the holiday spirit with holiday movies, making a ginger bread house and baking cookies. I love watching these holiday movies year after year: Love Actually, Jingle All the Way, Family Man, Trading Places     (LOVE THIS MOVIE) Home Alone, Deck the Halls, The Santa Clause, Scrooged, While you Were Sleeping and The Holiday. 

What are your favorite Holiday movies to watch year after year?

'Tis the Season

It's starting to feel more like Christmas now that we have Holiday Decor and our tree up in our living room. I like to keep Holiday decor sweet and simple, a little can go a long way. For a few years we've been decorating our home with blues & silvers, next year I want to go crazy with the color! Crossing fingers I can find lots of pretty colorful ornaments on sale after the Holiday. Here's our home dressed for the Holidays.

{ Can you see my reflection in the bulbs? That's just me saying Hi! }

I wanted a little Holiday tree on top of our secretary desk, so I used a manzanita branch and spray painted it white placed it in a large round vase ( left our from our wedding) and wrap it in sliver ribbon. Then I hung ornaments on the branches (instant pretty).

A few years ago I made a white feather wreath for Christmas, this year I made a wreath twin and hung them from our bookcases. I opted to only decorate the top of the bookcases, again keeping it simple. 

A closer look. Ornaments placed in vases and just resting on top.

More ornaments placed a pretty bowl! To more ornaments look pretty on the tree and scattered around the house in vases, bowls on wreaths wherever! 

Finally our tree! I let Tabari decorate the tree this year, he had to much fun and didn't break one ornament, but I did! lol 

My favorite ornament of all time is the gingerbread ornament Tabari made in Kindergarten, it still smells good years later. He placed his letter 'T' ornament next to it. We started a tradition last of buying a special ornament each year, he decided on the 'T' and got an 'A' for Avery. I opted for the pretty white owl { sitting on our secretary desk } Hasani also got an owl a cute felted one for the tree. 

A tree is not complete without a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, { heroes in a half shell, turtle power} lol

Some beads and snowflakes dressed up our entryway. 

Most of our holiday decor is done, I need a few more coats of white on my Goodwill deer and plan on making a few ornaments I saw on Pinterest with the kiddos this week. I'll share when done. 

Have you finished all your Holiday decor? Any projects your still working on?