I'm still horribly behind on my Easter posts. I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating the resurrection! I do promise to share our Easter story, but for now here's what I made for dessert for our Easter dinner with friends!

Ingredients:
I only made a half batch due to only needing enough for four people.
- 2 C all-purpose, unbleached flour
- 1.5 C sugar
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 4 eggs
- 1 C canola oil
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3-4 C freshly shredded carrots
*optional* 2/3 C chopped pecans and/or walnuts

Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 and prepare your muffin pan with liners/cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk together your eggs and oil. Add your vanilla.
- Mix in your sugar and cinnamon before adding your flour and baking soda.
- Fold in your carrots. Do not over mix!
- Use 3 to 4 tbsp to fill your tin/liners.
- Bake for 18 to 25 minutes.
Top with cream cheese frosting and enjoy!

This recipe was adapted from Wilton.

Hello blogging world! I know, I know. It's been a while. I'm sorry. Sometimes life gets the best of me and it takes all of me to get the laundry done and be the places I need to be. Thank goodness this upcoming week is slow of pace. That means I get to pay more attention here and hopefully catch up!

So, what you're here for. This AH-mazing recipe!

Coffee Cake Muffins

Ingredients:

- 1/2 C brown sugar
- 1.5 tsp cinnamon

- 2/3 C sugar
- 1/4 C butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 C low-fat sour cream
- 2 tbsp water
- 1.5 tsp vanilla
- 1 3/4 C all-purpose, unbleached flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt

- 3 tbsp powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp fresh orange juice

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 400. Prepare your muffin pan with liners and/or cooking spray.
- In a small bowl, mix together your brown sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.
- Beat butter and sugar together. Add your eggs and mix until well blended.
- Add your sour cream, water, and vanilla.
- Gradually add your flower, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix until just blended together.
- Take 3 tbsp of your brown sugar/cinnamon mix and put it in another bowl. Pour the remaining into your batter. Use a spatula or wooden spoon to mix it-- but don't over blend. You want to be able to see your sugar mixture (as pictured).
- Fill your muffin tin with about 1/4 C to each (a little less if possible). Sprinkle brown sugar/cinnamon mixture on top of each muffin (should make around 20 muffins).
- Bake for 25 minutes. Check with a tooth pick to see if it comes out clean with no batter, and go from there if they aren't done after 25 minutes.
- While the muffins are cooling, mix together your powdered sugar and orange juice. Drizzle over muffins (after they have cooled for at least ten minutes) as evenly as possible.

These are perfect if you have a brunch or morning function to attend and need to bring something to share!

This recipe was adapted from Myrecipes.com

Happy Monday!

I made these muffins for the same event I made the Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones. I was blessed to have a few leftovers, since this recipe made a few more. Mr. Michael was very pleased, too, since he absolutely loved them. It's basically chocolate covered strawberries in muffins.
Who wouldn't love that?

Ingredients:

- 1.25 C unbleached, all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 C sugar
- 1/4 C brown sugar
- 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
- 1 egg white
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 C strawberries, chopped
- 1/2 C (mini) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

- Preheat your oven to 350. Prepare (mini) muffin pan with liners and/or cooking spray.
- Whisk/mix together your sugars, applesauce, egg white, and vanilla. Add your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cinnamon--best if pre-mixed in separate bowl).
- Once everything is thoroughly combined, fold in your strawberries and chocolate chips as gently as possible.
- Use one (heaping) tablespoon for each mini muffin, or 1/4 C for each regular muffin.
- Bake for 18 to 20 minutes (mine took exactly 18). Transfer to cooling rack for a few minutes before devouring.
- Muffins will keep in airtight container for about a week (though they do get rather sticky).


This recipe was molded from Sally's Baking Addiction.

Print out comes from eighteen25.com.

Happy Valentine's Day!
I find it mildly humorous that I had dozens of posts for this holiday planned out in my head and only ended up posting two (including this one). Ah, well. Life tends to be busier than planned-- always.

Hubby and I celebrated this wonderful holiday a bit early. Today Michael and I are taking it easy, going about our usual routine. However, he was spoiled with a new delicious muffin recipe for breakfast,
I had one of these pretty awesome scones,
and we will probably have one of these amazing cookies later.

Michael also got Where the Wild Things Are as his gift from Clark and me. I still can't believe we didn't get that book for him until now. And yes. He loves it.

Life has been pretty crazy but I've been taking in the cuddles. Michael was sick for the past week and I kind of feel like I'm getting something. I'm desperately trying to fight it off with airborne and plenty of rest.

Michael and I took a two hour nap yesterday, which is really uncommon. Usually I use nap time to get things done on my end, which results in him only sleeping for about 30 to 45 minutes. I think we both really needed it. Never mind that it was a late-afternoon-nap which resulted in a late-bedtime. It was needed. And I just love snuggling with him-- especially now that we're planning on finally starting to move him to his own bed. I have no exact date as an end goal. We're going to take it at his pace using the No-Cry Sleep Solution as our guide.

By the way, I was looking back on Michael's pictures from February last year (when he was five months old) and just about melted. When on earth did my child get so big?


OK, enough with pulling the time-flies-so-quickly-it's-insane moment. What are your plans for today? I hope it's filled with love (and chocolate... lots and lots of chocolate)!


All new recipes will be posted through out the next week. Sorry for the delay!

Thursday morning, when our weather was at its worse (we had five straight days of nasty rain/wind), our coffee pot broke. There was no warning signs, no spewing grounds... nothing. I turned it on... and it wouldn't work. It was thirty minutes before I even noticed, because I'll set it up, turn it on, and do things and then get excited to get my first cup of coffee... but there wasn't any. It was awful.

After consulting my mama on just how to find a substitute way of making coffee, I dulled my coffee-less-morning-pain by making these DELICIOUS muffins. After making them I of course felt guilty (and after eating two of them). Luckily a friend came by to take some off my hands.

They are rich and delicious, and easy to make. Luckily they are rich enough where two was my limit (with a nice glass of milk or cup of coffee).

Ingredients:

- 1 C whole wheat flour
- 1 C unbleached, all-purpose flour
- 3/4 C unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3/4 C sugar
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 C milk (I used skim)
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp butter, melted
- 1/2 C vegetable oil
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips, plus extra for sprinkling if desired

Directions:

- Preheat your oven to 350.
- Wish together your milk and melted butter. Add the oil and eggs next.
- Combine your flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Add the liquid ingredients to this mix well. Don't over mix this. The batter should be somewhat lumpy.
- Gently fold in your 1 C chocolaate chips.
- Spoon the batter into your prepared muffin pan. Use about 1/4 C batter per muffin.
*If you use liners, make sure to spray them!*
- Optional: Sprinkle the top of the muffins with extra chocolate chips for show!
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Check the muffins with a toothpick. Make sure it's batter sticking to the toothpick and not just melted chocolate from the chips when you're deciding if they're done or not!
- Remove muffins from hot pan to a cooling rack and let sit for at least five minutes before digging in. This didn't, exactly, happen when I made them... but then they were very hot and VERY "melty" with the chocolate chips.

ENJOY!



This recipe was adapted from About.com.

I wasn't a big fan of gingerbread until Clark and I got married. It was never a tradition in my parents' home, and therefore I never developed a taste. Clark, however, loves everything that involves molasses and ginger, so I slowly but surely developed a taste for it over the years.

These are Michael approved, as well!

Ingredients:

- 1/3 C unpacked brown sugar
- 1/2 C molasses
- 1/3 C milk
- 1/3 C vegetable oil
- 1 egg
- 1 C unbleached, all purpose flour
- 1 C whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp ground cloves

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 400 and prepare your muffin pan.
- Whisk together your molasses, brown sugar, milk, oil, and egg.
- Add your dry ingredients until the mix is well combined.

- Use 1/4 C for each muffin, approximately. Makes 12 to 15 muffins, depending on how much you use for each one.

- Bake for 16 to 20 minutes. Let cool before devouring.


If you wanted to add a little icing, it would definitely spruce these up and pass them off as "cupcakes"... even if they aren't quite as light.

By the way, today is your last day to enter the Simply Modern Designs and Relay for Life giveaways... so DO IT!

This recipe was adapted from: The Sisters Cafe.

Planning Michael's birthday party was a blast. If you follow me on Pinterest, there was a board dedicated to it up for I don't know how long. Come the end of July, maybe August, I was jumping out of my skin trying to plan the party.

It started off with me planning to make all the food. Homemade pigs-in-a-blanket, red-white-and-blue cupcakes, Captain America cake, mini-chicken-salad-sandwiches, fruits salad, veggies in a cup with ranch, cute bags of popcorn... I wanted to go ALL out.

But as the time drew near, I realized that I could really only pick a couple of projects that were closest to my heart and do them as best I could. If I tried to do everything, not only would Michael's birthday be the price of a small wedding, but I would be killing myself over it all to the point I would lose all fun in my child's first birthday.

So, I bought prepackaged finger foods. I dedicated time to preparing veggies and fruit (or rather, my mom did), and I made the cupcakes and Michael's cake spectacular (or at least as close as I could).

So, for instructions on Red, White, and Blue cupcakes, follow the link.

To make an awesome Captain America cake, watch the video below. I watched it twice, practiced the cake twice before I made it for the party. I gave in, in the end, and bought prepackaged Wilton Fondant because making it homemade did not seem worth it to me.



What I learned from this, thanks to my mom, is that there is no way to be a crazy-perfectionist in situations like this. Things will happen how they happen, and all I can do is my best and let God handle the rest. After all, not everyone is going to get along. Not everyone is going to have a good time, but I hope that everyone who was there was happy to celebrate with Michael-- and that's what it was for!

So, please enjoy these pictures!

Thank you for being patient on this one. We had family visiting, friends coming from out of town, and so much going on that there was no way this post would have made it up Friday or Saturday.

In case you didn't know, Michael's birthday was September 7th. I still can't believe it's been an entire year. What happens when we reach five? Ten? Eighteen?

I don't want to think about it.

I can't even remember what I put in my last post about Michael's developments. It seems I turn my head, or blink, or snap... and there he is doing something that's completely new and entirely adorable. I suppose every mom can say that about her child.

Michael's one year check up is on the 21st (thanks to doing his last round of shots two weeks late due to this and that), so I promise to share his weight and length as soon as I know it!

If you hadn't noticed, Michael's growing a little tuff of hair on top. Luna likes to lick it in to the shape of a mohawk now and again. It only stays that way with dog slobber. Water does not work. Clark tries to get Luna to bathe Michael consistently just so he can have a mohawk. Boys.
(Photo from Courtney Valentine Photography (TN).)

Michael is exploring foods like there's no tomorrow. "Tu-nana-ish" has taken the back seat to things like grapes, blueberries, spaghetti sauce, and just about anything new he can get his hands on. Oh, did I mention cake?
(I will have another post dedicated to the making of this cake.)

As always, Michael's favorite remedy for anything is to be outdoors. Now it's even better since Mama and Dada got him an awesome swing.



However, bath time has climbed the list as well now that he has some awesome new toys (thanks to Marmee and Papa, and his friend Mackenzie).

We are desperately still waiting for Michael to take those first steps. While he has taken some one three at once, he has yet to repeat that or walk across the room without help via furniture or toys. He definitely cruises on his own, though, when he has a toy or something to hold on to near by.

On his actual birthday, not party day, we went to see Dada at work and Michael got his first real boo-boo. Truly. He was crawling and went right off the edge of the climbing mats, although previously he had been cautious when going over the edge. He fell on his face, and much to my dismay there was blood. It wasn't so bad until he coughed and it went all over the place. Not to mention how much he was crying. After nursing a bit, though, he perked right back up-- but you can definitely see the swollen lip in this pic!

After this, we went and got him his first ice cream (Rainbow Sherbert) to help his lip feel better. He was very appreciative of that.

His two top teeth are officially through, although they still probably have about halfway to travel down still. We also believe his two bottom teeth are starting to make an appearance. This is due to his attitude, clingy-ness, and swollen gums as of late.

Other things that Michael loves:

1. Llama Llama books of any kind, by Anna Dewdney.

2. Interactive books (such as prerecorded books, like the one he got from Marmee and Papa for his birthday), or the Hallmark books like those you can find with Bigsby or Scooby-Doo.

3. Going to the climbing gym and hanging out with Dada.

4. Spending time in Luna's doggy bed. (No picture, sorry!)

5. Getting into anything and everything.

That's all for now, folks! Tune back in with specifics about Michael's birthday party soon!

Not to be confused with Pink Lemonade Cupcakes. I think these definitely turned out better than their pink predecessors. I had initially planned on making this a cake, but cupcakes are so much easier when you plan on giving them away... not to mention cuter, in my opinion.

Ingredients:

- 1/4 C butter
- 1 C sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 C + 3 tbsp frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 2 C flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/s tsp baking soda
- 1 C buttermilk

Directions:

- Preheat your oven to 350.
- Mix together your dry ingredients in a small bowl (flour, baking powder and soda).
- Beat together the butter and sugar. Then add the eggs.

- Add lemonade concentrate and vanilla.

- Add about 1/3 of your flour mixture, mix. Add 1/2 C buttermilk, mix. Repeat this process with the rest of your dry ingredients and buttermilk.
- Line/prepare your cupcake pan (or 9 x 13 cake pan). Use 1/4 C for each cupcake.


- Cupcakes: bake for 22 to 25 minutes. Cake: bake for 30 to 35 minutes. Check with a toothpick to see if completely cooked (no batter will stick to it).
- Let them cool before icing!


Sadly, I did not get to ice these (due to many different things, but for one Clark kept eating them before I got to them). The recipe listed below for the icing is from the original recipe (which you can view here). I did not get to alter, or even try it, just so ya know!

Frosting:

- 1/3 C butter, room temp
- 3 to 4 C powdered sugar
- 1/3 C + 2 tbsp lemonade concentrate, thawed
- 1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

- Beat the butter until smooth. Add 1 C of powdered sugar and 1/3 C of the concentrate. Mix.
- Add the vanilla and gradually add the rest of the powdered sugar, as needed for consistency.

Cookies & Cream has always been one of my favorite ice creams. I love oreos. I love ice cream. It works out.

And then I found this idea. It just seemed beyond brilliant to me.

If you ask Clark, he'd say it was. He devoured these cupcakes. Of course, he pretty much devours all sweets I make.

Ingredients:

- 16 to 24 Oreo halves
- 2 1/4 C All Purpose, Unbleached Flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 C butter
- 1 1/4 C Sugar
- 3 large egg whites
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 1 C milk
- 15 - 20 Oreos, chopped (I just kind of crumbled/quartered them into the mix)
*I limited the over all amount of Oreos to however many there were in a pack, but if you want to get two packs just to be sure, go for it! Also, use Reduced Fat!*

(There is also another list of ingredients for the frosting pictured below the cupcake instructions!)

Directions:

- Preheat the oven to 350.
- Line a cupcake pan, then put an Oreo half in the bottom of each liner with the frosting side facing up.

- Mix together your butter and sugar on a low to medium speed until well blended.

- Mix in your egg whites one at a time. Then add your vanilla.
- Mix together your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder) and alternate between adding it and the milk to the sugar/butter mix. So, add half of your flour, then half your milk, etc.
- Carefully mix in your crumbled Oreos.

- Fill your cupcake liners about 3/4 to 2/3 full.
- Cook for 22 to 26 minutes.


- Remove from the pan and let cool for a sufficient amount of time.


- You can frost these with just about any frosting. My husband actually thought they tasted better without frosting, but then he doesn't typically like a lot of frosting anyway. Look below for the frosting recipe I used!
Enjoy!


Cream Frosting

Ingredients:

- 8 oz Cream Cheese (low fat)
- 6 tbsp butter, at room temperature
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 4 C powdered (confectioners') sugar
- 2 tbsp heavy cream
Oreos to crumble or top with

Directions:
(Pictures are of a half recipe of the frosting)

- Mix together the cream cheese and butter.

- Add the vanilla and heavy cream.

- Slowly mix in the powdered sugar until there's as much as needed for the right consistency/flavor.
Voila!


Inspiration for this recipe came from: Stock Piling Moms