Baking with Maddie

I already posted a recipe about the death by oreo cupcakes, but this time I made it with Madison and actually got some pictures. I am going to post the recipe on this post, in case you missed the other post. Maddie loves to help with anything, especially cooking or baking. As soon as I started to make this, she started screaming 'me help, me help' at me. I took the chance and snapped a few pictures while I was at it. :) Enjoy!

Ingredient

1 pkg oreos, regular size 1 pkg mini oreos, for decoration 1 pkg chocolate cake mix 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature

 8 Tbsp butter, room temperature
 3 3/4 c powdered sugar
 1 tsp vanilla extract
 cupcake liners




Directions
1.   Preheat oven to 350. Mix packaged cake mix according to directions. (Do not bake.) 

2.   Line cupcake tins with liner, place an regular size oreo cookie in the bottom of each one

3.   Take 1/2 of remaining cookies and chop coarsely and add to cake mix. Fill the cupcake tins. Bake for 15 min (or according to box directions). While cupcakes are baking make the frosting.

4.   Cream together butter and cream cheese. Add vanilla, then add powdered sugar slowly until blended well.

5.   Chop remaining regular-sized Oreos very fine. Add to frosting.

6.   After cupcakes are cool put frosting on and decorate with a few mini oreos on top

After dinner, Maddie had to taste her cupcakes and see how they turned out! :) I think I got the approval!

I will say that these cupcakes are delicious!


Hope you enjoy!


Lori

Walgreens trip 11-10

If you don't already know, then I am a couponer. I am not a great one, but I am learning. I frequently go to Walgreens because they offer military discount on Thursday and have some great deals. So, today I went and came home rather proud of myself! I got 12 smart waters, 10 tubs of blistex, 4 bag of chips, and 2 bags of mars mixed candy. I paid $11.32 out of pocket. I saved over $46 and got $16 in RR's ( it's like Walgreens money that I can use on my next purchase within a week). Let's hope I can continue doing well :).


Just had to share!

Lori

Making brownies

A couple of nights ago I wanted some brownies. We hadn't had sweets in our house in about a week and that is a very rare occasion, so I had the itch. It wasn't homemade or anything. Maddie has turned into quite the little baker and tries to help with anything in the kitchen. Well anything actually!! I asked her if she wanted to help and before I knew it I heard skid marks and a chair moving closer to me. She jumped up and immediately took over. I let her mix it up for a couple of minutes with a few mixes from me. After she finished helping me, she got a bath while they baked. When they were finished baking, I pulled them out and let her have the first bite! :) she was happy to help and get to be the first to try it!
It was another great memory for us and another accomplishment for her! :)

Marine Ball 2011

 

 

My hubby and I :)

Some of my beautiful friends!

The hubby dancing

  

My beautiful friend and me

  

My love and me dancing <3

 I was really bad about taking pictures this year! I wish I would have taken more pictures, but my good camera is broken and I don't get great pictures with my little camera. I had a lot of fun celebrating the Marine's birthday! I had chills the whole time during the ceremony. It was such a humbling, proud, emotional moment that I couldn't help but tear up most of the ceremony. The guest speaker gave such a good speech and I think that spoke to the students there. Half of the people there were students and a quarter were guests, so that left the instructors (us). My parents came into town to watch Maddie for us (which was SUCH a problem for them LOL). We went out after for a little bit because we didn't have a timeline. It was a lot of fun to go out and know that our daughter was in such good hands.

Maddie had a lot of fun with Mimi and PopPop! She got to stay up until 10 (Which never gets to happen), got some muffins and other goodies, play time with them, and so much more! This little girl gets spoiled unbelievably by them. She doesn't complain though. :)

Unfortunately, Mimi and PopPop had to leave the next morning to prepare for their next adventure. Maddie was sad for  them to leave and still asks for them every time she wakes up in the morning or in the afternoon. 

I was so thankful that my parents could come down, that Maddie got to spend time with them, we had a good time at the ball, and my husband who proudly serves our country!

Lori

Cheesy Baked Potato soup! YUM!!

I tried THIS recipe a couple of weeks ago since it is starting to get cold enough to have soup! It was so good! :) Seeing as I can't have onion and don't like celery ( and didn't have any on hand any way), I left those items out of my meal. Also, I only had hash brown shreds instead of diced. It turned out rather tasty! :) My husband thought it was good, but would add the diced hash browns along with the shreds and use less fatty bacon. Ha! I would have to agree with him! We will definitely use this recipe again! I love using recipes that I can use in my crock pot! Now, that I have found the slow cooker liners, I love using crock pot recipes even more! If you haven't tried those liners, you are missing out!


I used:


1 bag of thawed potato shreds
sprinkled some onion powder in
(2) 14.5 oz. cans of chicken broth
1 cup of water


I let these cook for about 6 hours
Then, I mixed (3) tablespoons of flour and 1 cup of milk together in a small bowl and added it to my crock pot mix and stirred.
I let the mixture thicken for about 20 minutes
I added (2) cups of chedder cheese and let it melt.
Since I love me some greasy bacon, I loaded it up on my soup once in the bowl!


It was so good! Maddie actually ate it as well which means it was good. The way I made it is a slightly different from what the recipe says, but it was YUMMO!


I know I need to start taking pictures of what I make since I am sure it will sound a lot more appealing if you SEE how yummy it looks! I'll work on it! :)


Enjoy!


Lori

Awesome Idea to try out!

Oh the lovely things: Scratch Off Lottery Tickets - DIY + Free Printable...

This seems like a really neat idea that I want to try out! I had to share this idea since I know a lot of my friends like doing creative things. : ) If you do this, let me know how it turned out and if you would do it again.


Lori

My Pirate Princess

Today was trick or treating down here. I was really excited that this is the first year that Maddie will get to go trick or treating. Maddie was loving her costume, minus the hat. After we had dinner, we geared up and headed out. We headed over to the new house and all of a sudden she got really quiet. The lady was so nice and was offering her to pick out whatever she wanted. She was frozen. Jeff and I tried to get her to say something. anything. Jeff picked something for her and we were on our way again. She ran down the sidewalk saying 'Nice. Nice. Bye Nice. Bye Nice.' She loved watching the other children walking past us and showing off her supply of candy. Every time we left a house, she wanted to show me. Have I mentioned that I love that girl? A few houses scared her. Well, not the house, per-say, but the scary costumes. Daddy had to hold her a few times. One of the last houses the couple was dressed as the big bad wolf and little red riding hood. She was terrified of the wolf. She would not take her eyes off of him the entire time she was there. She went to the lady, but wouldn't look away for more than a second. It was funny.


We only walked down the street. I knew that would be  long enough for her and enough candy. It was getting colder and she was getting the chills, so we thought it was a good time to turn around and pass out candy. I tried to get her to help pass it out, but she just stared at the kids. So, daddy gave her a bath while I passed out candy. Overall, this evening was a big success. We made another memory together that we will never forget. Maddie had so much fun, got some candy, and got to dress up! :)


Look at the other post to see the pictures! :)


Lori

Pumpkin Carving Part II and Trick or Treating Pictures

These are the pictures from my camera. 

My beautiful daughter and I :)

Love my family!

Our pumpkins before the carving

Maddie helping daddy out!

She was determined to help out!

Poking the points herself!

Daddy was trying to get her to help...

By the look of her face, you can see that she didn't think so!

Love her! Even with her scratched up nose! : p

I was trying to get her to at least touch it!

FINALLY!!!! She touched it with her fingertip!

My Pirate Princess! and her 'Bubba'

She loved her costume!

Trying to get as many pictures with us as I can!

The picture she took of me.. with a little guidance :)

Leaving the house to go Trick or Treating for the first time.

Walking up to the first house.

She was too scared to grab a piece of candy.

While walking away she kept saying 'nice. Bye nice.'

She was scared to walk up to the house!

A little blurry, but she was excited to keep going.

She was scared of the big bad wolf.

She did not trust him. she went to Little Red Riding Hood, but didn't take her eyes off of him. 

Pumpkin Carving

Today, we decided to FINALLY do our pumpkins. I mean at least it's not after Halloween right? I was really excited because this year Maddie could be more of a participant than just an observer. BOY, was I surprised when she didn't want to stick her hands in the gooey pumpkin guts and dig it out. She wouldn't even touch it. I had to persuade her to touch them and even that with just the tip of her finger!! BOOOO! She was being a total girl today. Oh well! At least we got her to help Jeff poke the pumpkin for her sketch. Maddie picked a scary cat for her pumpkin. I picked a spider and Jeff chose a witch. I did the gutting and Jeff cut. Of course I couldn't pass up baking the pumpkin seeds. Maddie enjoyed eating a few of them. : ) I, also, tried a new recipe that turned out really well. I was kind of nervous of how it would turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised. I'll post about that in another blog post. : ) I still need to take a picture of the finished product, but I'll post the pictures that I have. Enjoy!


Lori

Mummy dogs

It's almost Halloween and if you know me, then you know that I LOVE holidays and taking part in every aspect. My house is decorated, a lot of my desserts include pumpkin, and now I am putting it into meals. Tonight I made mummy dogs. I originally found the recipe off of the Pillsbury website. I thought it was a really cute idea. After I glanced at what I had to do with the cresent dough, I did it on my own. I did not follow the recipe like I thought, but if you would like it, then you can look HERE.

For this recipe, you will need:


the container of cresent rolls
8 pack of hot dogs
Cheese if you'd like
Mustard

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.Open the container and separate into 4 squares, Then you cut each square into 8 strips.Each hotdog would get 4 strips. Wrap the hot dogs and the place on the cookie sheet. Make sure that you leave room to place the 'eyes'. You may add pieces of cheese throughout the hotdogs to make it appear of bandages. I started out at 13 minutes and continued to bake it for an additional 3 minutes. Afterwards, I added mustard dots for 'eyes'.


It was a hit with my family. It was a nice change and festive for the Halloween weekend. As usual, if you try it please let me know what you think or if you changed anything.


Lori