Gifted Magazine

*Image from Creature Comforts

I am a sucker for presentation and packaging.  Gifted, a new holiday online magazine from Creature Comforts, knocked this one out of the park.  The EZine is well thought out, organized and easy to navigate through on the computer.  There are loads of inspiration ideas, projects, free printables and even the occasional recipe.  There are so many great packaging and gift-giving ideas in this magazine I don't know where to start!  The gift guide at the end I love, love, love.  All you have to do is click the name of the company and you are taken to their website.  How much easier can shopping be?  I also like that a lot of the companies involved are small businesses and bloggers.  It always makes me feel good when I support small business.  They have thought of everything including gifts for your pets.  Do yourself a favor and go check it out.  Trust me you'll love it and come away with at least one idea to use this holiday season.

The Snot River

I've got a kiddo with a bad cold so we've been spending our days in the big bed reading The Nutcracker over and over and trying to learn how to blow her nose.  It really stinks when you can't give her anything to take the symptoms away.  We've just been doing lots of snuggling and loving to make her better.  Hopefully the snot river will stop soon...

Recipe: Spicy Sausage Dip

Yup, that's not a picture of spicy sausage dip.  This recipe, while thoroughly yummy, is not that pretty to look at.  Instead I thought a random picture of my little one was cuter (at least to me it is).

Almost every family I know has this type of dip at family functions and get togethers.  We had a small crew over to our house at the last minute on Halloween and I needed something fast, easy and crowd pleasing to fix.  I had planned white chicken chili and cornbread but the addition of 4 more people to our already group of 8 had me worried I didn't have enough food.  This dip was the easy solution and feeds quite a few people with only 3 ingredients. 

Spicy Sausage Dip

16 oz. spicy/hot sausage

16 oz. reduced fat cream cheese (not fat free, yuck!)

2 (10 oz.) cans of Rotel tomatoes with green chilies (I use mild)

tortilla chips, veggies or whatever else sounds good for dipping

1. In a skillet brown sausage and drain fat.  
2. Add cream cheese and tomatoes to skillet and heat until thoroughly melted and combined.
3. Transfer to a small crock pot and serve with chips, etc.

In my experience this has always been a great dip for the guys in the crowd.  They're always the ones who tell me how good it is.  I think because it has a little kick to it.  This would be a great recipe to bookmark for a Superbowl party, too.

"Arrrrggg, Mickey"

Steve took the day off today and we are all still in our jammies.  Great way to spend the day after Halloween if you ask me!  Halloween was busy and fun.  Carter (aka: Elmo) and Ava ran around the yard to get pumped up for trick-or-treating.  When we finally headed out with the wagon, she gave the first 2 houses we went to candy out of her bucket not yet understanding that they were going give her candy.  Little Elmo did the same thing.  So cute!  Our little pirate went around saying, "Arrgg, Mickey" all night no matter how many times we said it should be matey.  When we got home the two littles ran around the house on their little sugar rushes.  Overall, a very successful Halloween with friends and family.  

PS:  Simon (the bun) wouldn't go near his costume and was not at all happy about me putting his ears through the hat.  Hopefully I'll have better luck next year.  

Gooey Pumpkin Guts

The family pics were postponed until next week which only gives me another week to fret over find something more flattering to wear.  It was really windy here and cold so we didn't want to take Ava out and chance getting her sick before Halloween.  Since we had our evening free, we decided to carve our pumpkins.  Ava was super excited and talked about gooey pumpkins guts for 30 minutes straight while we cleaned/carved pumpkins and roasted seeds.  She requested a scary pumpkin from me so the above left was the result.  Steve went a little more kid friendly with his on the right.  I'll try to post a pic of the wee one and the furball in their costumes before Monday.  If I don't get around to it then I hope everyone has a safe and spooky Halloween!

Is she pregnant or just fat?

We have family pictures tonight which I am very excited about.  At least I was excited until I tried to figure out what I was going to wear.  Ava and Steve look great.  I made this little flower headband for her to wear in some of the pictures and she loves it.  She prances around the house swinging her hair from side to side.  Occasionally she will run to get her stool and look at her flower in the mirror.  She's such a girl!  Steve looks great in anything especially blue which is what color he is wearing tonight.

Then there's me.

The six month pregnant lady who's trying to look fashionable and cute with a baby bump that just kinda looks like I ate too much Halloween candy at this point.  Let's just say I'm less than thrilled with my look and I hope Steve and Ava standout waaaaaay more than I do.  

Recipe: Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Sugar Frosting

Light, fluffy, soft, irresistible.  All words to describe these melt-in-your-mouth cookies from Better Homes and Gardens Recipe site.I made these for our soup party last weekend and they were so yummy.  I made the cookies several days ahead of time and layered them between wax paper to freeze until I needed them.  The day of the party I made the frosting and frosted my little heart out.  This recipe makes a lot of cookies!  It would be very easy to half this recipe though and enjoy only 30 of these yummy little cookies.  

• 
  
• 2  cups  butter, softened
• 2  cups  granulated sugar
• 2  teaspoons  baking powder
• 2  teaspoons  baking soda
• 1  teaspoon  salt
• 1  teaspoon  ground cinnamon
• 1  teaspoon  ground nutmeg
• 2    eggs
• 2  teaspoons  vanilla
• 1  15-ounce can  pumpkin
• 4  cups  all-purpose flour
• 1/2  cup  butter
• 1/2  cup  packed brown sugar
• 1/4  cup  milk
• 1  teaspoon  vanilla
• 2-3/4  cups  powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large bowl, beat 2 cups butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Beat until combined, scraping bowl occasionally. Add eggs and 2 teaspoons vanilla; beat until combined. Beat in pumpkin. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour.

2. Drop dough by heaping teaspoons 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until tops are set. Transfer cookies to a wire rack; let cool.

3. In a small saucepan, heat 1/2 cup butter and brown sugar until melted and smooth. Transfer to a medium bowl. Stir in milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in powdered sugar until smooth. Spread frosting on cookies. (I let the frosting set up a bit before frosting the cookies.)

*Makes about 60 cookies.