New blog

I have started a new blog which I am REALLY excited about! It will be all things domestic! Cooking, cleaning, laundry, crafts, etc! Go check it out! I promise I have set aside time every morning to post!

www.pinkstilettosinthekitchen.blogspot.com

Have a great day!!

Sweet Treats!

I'm sorry I have been the worst blogger in the world! Fall has been a BUSY season for us. We had a wedding at the beach (complete with a whole week stay for me and Addie), baby showers, anniversary trip, family trips, then the normal cleaning house, laundry, all that fun stuff!

Over this time I have realized that I like to blog but when it comes to it I always pick to cook or bake something instead of blogging. So I am going to start adding some of my recipes into my blog. Some will be my own blood, sweat and tears and some will be from cookbooks, blogs etc. But when I find a recipe from someone else that I LOVE I HAVE TO SHARE!

I have gotten a few comments on FB to post some of my recipes so here are a few to start :

BRANDY'S OREO TRUFFLES:

1 package of oreos

1 8oz. package of cream cheese

1 box of white chocolate bark

1. Crush 7-8 cookies and set aside.

2. Crush the remaining cookies (I use my magic bullet or a plastic bag and hammer!) and then add the cream cheese (soften it first!). Use the back of a spoon to mix these two.

3. Roll this mixture into small balls and place on wax paper covered baking sheet.

4. Melt the white chocolate. Dip the balls into the chocolate, tap to get the excess off and set back on was paper. You can sprinkle the finely crushed cookies on top for decoration.

5. Once they all dry, refrigerate!

(NOTE: You can do this with any cake mix also. Bake the cake as directed and then let it cool. When the cake is cooled, crumble it into a large bowl and add Cream cheese (softened), mix the two together and roll into balls. Dip in chocolate (white or dark) and let dry then refrigerate! I make these at Christmas every year will all kinds of different cookies and cakes!)

BAIRD HOUSE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

(Graham surprised me with a "last trip before the Addie came" the Christmas before Addie was born. He took me this B&B in Valle Crusis, NC,The Bair House. It was wonderful. Dee-Dee is the most amazing cook and I begged for the cookbook the entire time we were there. Unfortunately she was waiting on the new copies to come in so I couldn't get one right away. But Graham ordered it for my birthday. To say the least I WAS TOTALLY EXCITED! (I MAY HAVE SCREAMED ALITTLE!)

3/4 cup of sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup butter (soften)

2 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 12oz bag chocolate chips

1 12oz bag of Reese's peanut butter chips

you can add nuts if you like them

1.Cream sugar and butter,mixing well. Gradually add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla.

2.In another bowl combine flour, soda, and salt. Mix well. Gradually add flour mixture to sugar mixture, stirring until just blended. Add the chips and nuts.

3. Drop by rounded tablespoon on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack and ENJOY!

(I call these PMS cookies, they really do the trick! THEY ARE WONDERFUL!)

OKAY HERE IS THE BIGGY!

PIONEER WOMAN'S CHOCOLATE SHEET CAKE:

Cake:

2 cups of all-purpose flour

2 cups of sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup of buttermilk

(if you don't have buttermilk you can add 1 tbsp of white vinegar to just under 1 cup of milk and stir together. In this case use 1/2 tbsp white vinegar and half cup of milk)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

2 sticks of butter

4 heaping tbsp of cocoa powder

ICING:

1 3/4 sticks of butter

4 heaping tbsp cocoa powder

6 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

1 pound of powdered sugar

1/2 cup finely chopped nuts (again you don't HAVE to use nuts)

CAKE:

Preheat oven to 350

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar and salt. Stir together and set aside.

In another bowl mix buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and soda. Mix with a fork and set aside.

In a medium saucepan melt the butter. Add the cocoa powder. Whisk together to combine.

Meanwhile boil one cup of water in another pot.

When the butter is melted pour the water in. Allow to bubble for a minute then turn off the heat. Pour the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture.

Stir well for a few minutes to cool down the chocolate mixture, then add the egg mixture.

Stir together until smooth then pour into a greased cake pan and bake for about 20 mins.

ICING:

While the cake is baking make the icing.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat.

Add the cocoa powder and stir until smooth.

Add the milk and vanilla

Add the powdered sugar. Stir together.

Dump in the nuts and stir to combine.

Immediately after removing the cake from the oven pour the icing on top. You'll want to avoid spreading so pour it evenly over the cake.

(GO MAKE THIS RIGHT NOW! IT'S WONDERFUL!)

Okay so there are some SWEET treats to try! Later I will post so starters, main dishes and soups!

Bragging rights!

*Caution: I am about to brag about myself!*

So I have been doing 30 day shred for about 2 months now, and have been making healthier food choices. Last night I was getting ready for church and decided to try a pair of red pants I bought back when I was a Faulkner..................THEY FIT! They were alittle snug but still I got them on and was comfy enough to wear them! I have been SO excited! When I stepped on the scale this morning I have lost 43 lbs since Addie was born! I still have about 20 to go to meet my goal but the pants fitting has DEFINITELY boosted my determination! YAY for me!

Sorry, I know I am REALLy bragging BUT I think I get too every now and then!
Happy day to all!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

I was just browsing craigslist, like I do everyday, and I came across a picture that I has really upset me!

It was of a man pushing his baby in a stroller with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth!

COME ON!

Dude do you not know what that does to a baby??? And if he HAS to have one while walking his baby down the street he probably does it in the house too! Can we say lung cancer? ear infections-which lead to ear problems, growing problems and the 1,000,000 other things this causes????

Granted I MAY be jumping to conclusions, he may not have it lit and he may NEVEr smoke around her............but i doubt it!

It aggravates me to no end when I see a pregnant woman smoking. Does no one ever tell them that its like holding a pillow over your baby's face for the 4-5 mins it takes you to smoke it? Is it REALLY worth that? These people are so selfish! Too selfish to have kids if you ask me!

Oh the ongoing project....

It seems like FOREVEr ago that we started this kitchen remodel, and we STILL aren't done! Back on 6-18 I wrote a post saying we would have a new kitchen in 2 weeks..........hahaha........wow was I wrong! It's now 10-6-09 and we are not finished! I will have to give Graham alittle break, he is in the middle of his MBA and for the past 8 weeks he had 2 classes and it about killed us all! He would work all day, come home, eat dinner play with Addie for about 20 mins and work on school till midnight or so and then the entire weekend. It was HORRIBLE, and he will start that again in about a month, argh!!! Anyways, we FINALLY got the wall out, support beam in, the countertops in, the cabinets painted (OH MY GOODNESS WHAT A NIGHTMARE, another post another day!). Graham has put up all the dry wall but has yet to mud it! I have painted all the walls except for the part that needs to be mudded. HOPEFULLy, one day we will finish this nightmare! Here are some of the pics!

* These pics are SO out of order but I don't feel like moving them all around!*

Obsessed!

I am COMPLETELY obsessed with this website:

http://chefscatalog.com

If you love to cook, and love high quality products, this is the place for you!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE just looking around at all the neat products. I have started a wish list for xmas. If Graham could come up with about $8000 (as of this moment) I could have everything! ofcourse I don't see that happening. But I have listed them from most important to least. I HIGHLY recommend you take a look at this website! I'll post some of the must haves later, right now I am about to head out the door to go to Montgomery for my niece's birthday party tomorrow AND then the BEACH on sunday for a whole week!!!! YAY me and Addie!

I'm Running around I'm so EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AHHHH! I am SO EXCITED! I just Pre-ordered a copy of this:

The Pioneer Woman Cooks! It goes on sale October 27th! I have tried SEVERAL of her recipes and never once had one turn out bad! I LOVE her, I spend HOURS and HOURS searching through her website, reading her blogs on photography, family, cooking, mainly her life! You should really check it out! http://thepioneerwoman.com/ one look and you'll be hooked I swear!

So everyone go on over to Amazon.com and pre-order the most WONDEFUL cookbook ever!!!!!!

My little sweetheart!

Addie will be 19 months old on Thursday! Where has the time gone? I mean really, everyone always said it would fly by but you don't realize it till you have a baby!

She is into EVERYTHING these days, she tests me beyond belief! I don't know where she gets that from??!?! The other day she was taking a nap, and I was trying to do laundry and clean. I hear her wake up but figure I have time to put one more load in. As I am switching the laundry out I hear a commotion in her room................then I hear her RUN to her door, well run INTO her door, fumble with it a few seconds and finally get it open. Then she runs down the hall, finds me and says, "Mommie I poop!". I'm thinking, 'OH GREAT! where did you poop?' since she went to bed with a diaper and pants on and now she is only wearing her tshirt. Addie gets my hand and runs me into her room where I find this:

Her pants laying in the floor at the door, her diaper laying beside her bed and POOP on the floor beside her rug! I was thinking how glad I was that she had pooped because it had been a day or two and I was worried. As I am standing in her room I just look at her and she looks up with a BIG SMILE and says, "Mommie I poopied! AND WIPED!" lol. I look around and she had wiped herself with a blanket! and she was ever so proud of herself!

Kids sure are funny! How in the world do you not laugh at them? Earlier on Friday I was changing the laundry out and Addie was standing at the door, I said, "Addie, go get Pink and your blanket, it's time for a nap." This is when my child grew into a teenager in all of 5 seconds....she rolled her eyes, turned around and said, "OHHH SH**!". REALLY? HOW DO YOU NOT LAUGH AT THAT?? I turned my head and cracked up. Ofcourse I got myself together and told her that was a bad word and we don't say it but man on man, that was a hard convo to get through without laughing! (BTW-she didn't hear that from me, she heard it from her father who got in big trouble over it!).

I hope you all have a great day!

Dreams

Oh how I want a B&B! Since I was a little girl I thought that would be the perfect business to own. Graham and I could work together, my children could play at home, we would meet all kinds of neat people, I WOULD GET TO COOK BREAKFAST AND COOKIES EVERY DAY!, I would clean, and sit on the porch in the evenings with our guests and learn about their lives! How wonderful does that sound? The only problem is I don't know where I want to have one at. I suppose it would be nice for it to be around here BUT then again I want a house with history in neat new city!

I change my mind on location all the time! When we drove up the east coast for our honeymoon I wanted one in Mass or Maine, I went a two mission trips in high school to Cape May, NJ and wanted one there, then last year we went to Wyoming and ofcourse I wanted one there. Wyoming is one place Graham and I agree on. Mainly because he wants to have a ranch, BUT we could have a ranch B &B!

I look constantly at different ones for sale, today I found this jewel of a place on the Maine coast:

This charming place is in southern coastal Maine and has 10 rooms with 2 suites! I LOVE IT! It's within walking distance to town and beautifully landscaped all for $1.3 million! lol! Actually, that really is a pretty good price!

And then there is this one in Cape May, NJ:

This one looks across the street to the ocean! It too has 10 suites and ALOT of history in the home all for $1.2 million!

ahhh dreams! I wish Graham was as adventurous as I am. I really would just pack everything we could and do it!

What a crazy few weeks!

let's see......after the whole "chemical Pregnancy" as the docs call it (I still consider it a baby that I miscarried) we have had some serious conversations about Birth control and Hines #2.

WARNING: I'M ABOUT TO GET REALLY PERSONAL!

There I warned you ;)



I decided to leave the IUD out, you can read below about some of the reasons behind this decision. But I have tried several pill forms of BC and they all throw me WAY off and I am CRAZY. I used the Ring when we first got married but that resulted in Addie (haha). So we thought maybe we would try to get pregnant (not that it is hard for us, apparently) and then Graham 'get fixed' (I LOVE THAT, it's like he is a dog or something,ha!) and I would get my tubes tied also. But we were faced with all the fears of having another one....Have we had enough time with JUST Addie? Will she still get enough attention? Do we have enough money for two(NO! but we didn't have enough money for one either!)? And ofcourse I thought of the stupid stuff, Where will we put another baby(Graham wasn't too keen on the idea of moving, JUST YET)? How will I get to take naps if I have two!? (Stupid, I know!) and I was worried about not getting to buy Addie EVERY cute outfit I can find!

I'm still not convinced we need another baby. I think deep down I want another, but I went through alot to get Addie here. How can I do that while taking care of Addie too? Graham on the other hand WANTS ONE NOW! Easy for him to say he doesn't have to carry it for 8 or 9 months! After much consideration, we have decided to TRY and wait till the end of next summer to get pregnant again. We are planning a trip to Disney World next Spring with Addie. I KNOW, I KNOW she's too young! We think she will LOVE it! She may not remember it when she is 20 but we will. And it's NOT going to be the only time she gets to go (we plan on every other year as the kids grow up). Graham and I have always agreed, trips are IMPORTANT. We have taken SEVERAl awesome trips.