Valentine's Day came too quickly for my liking, but it never has to really end. We celebrated by going out and playing some T-Ball with our oldest while our youngest was pretty much the cutest outfielder, ever. Don't believe me? Check it out....



But you're not here to tell me how cute my kids are (a little bit of favoritism there). You're here for this delicious recipe.

Red Velvet Donuts

Ingredients:

- 3 TBSP butter, softened
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 C sugar
- 1/2 tsp red food coloring
- 1 C flour
- 3 TBSP unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt

- 1.5 TBSP distilled vinegar
- 1/2 C buttermilk

Directions:

- Preheat your oven to 350 and spray your donut pan.
- Use a standing or handheld mixer to combine your butter, egg, vanilla, sugar, and food coloring.
- In a separate bowl, mix together your dry ingredients. Alternate adding your dry ingredients, vinegar, and buttermilk to your butter mixture until all is well combined.
- Add the mix to your donut pan, filling each 3/4 of the way full.
Side note: I don't have a piping bag, but using one or filling a large ziplock and cutting off the tip to put the mix into the donut pan helps it disperse evenly and come out "prettier".
- Bake for 9-11 minutes. Remove from the oven/pan to a cooling rack.
- Let them sit for around 20 minutes before adding your icing/frosting (and sprinkles if you like)!
Forgive the poor quality of my photos, they're all with my phone!
I cheated and simply stuck some Pillsbury frosting in the microwave before dunking these bad boys in it to frost them, but this recipe for Cream Cheese Frosting was paired with the original recipe.


Pair with coffee or milk for the greatest taste!


I wrote an "attitude" piece over at my new blog. You should check it out!

I'm finding it hard to believe that we are in the last week of January, let alone that it's 2016. I know we all fret over time and how fast it goes, but it makes more and more sense to me why our parents always warn us about it. Michael is four, and Levi is just about 8 months. I can't handle it.

I decided to try and do Practising Simplicity's 52 project this year (again...). The problem is, I decided it about a week ago. So although I'm sharing four pictures, I'm honestly not sure of their timeline. I intend to be more intentional with pulling out my "good" camera and not just my phone to snap some shots as time passes. After all, life is made up of small moments. And I definitely want to capture as many as I can.
#1

Goose Poses.

#2

Loving Chaos.

#3

Brotherly Fun.

#4

Levi's Curious.
These boys just make my heart burst. Michael has started just playing with Levi whenever I'm preoccupied. He'll crawl on the floor and hand Levi some cars or try to play patty-cake. And while Levi isn't always amused by his big brother, anyone can tell by the way he looks at Michael that he wants nothing more than to keep up and be like him.

Making a Valentine's Day banner wasn't the only craft we've done in preparation for this wonderful holiday. Some may say that it's crafted by Hallmark to make people buy cards and chocolates and flowers, but I say it's what we make of it. And I love this opportunity to teach Michael about the purist type of love-- God's love.

On good 'ole Pinterest I found this link for Bible verses centered around Love for a countdown to Valentine's Day. Michael has a hard time counting past twelve, so it was the perfect opportunity to start working on the next round of numbers with him. We spent time cutting out more hearts and learning numbers up to 14.


On the back of each heart, we taped a verse. Then we taped them on our fridge. Right now they are front and center, and every day Michael will point to the numbers and count. It's an easy way to help him with 13 & 14. Next week, once February begins ::gulp:: we will take the number down that matches the day, and tape the verse on this:


Not my finest work, but it serves the purpose. We've taped it up in Michael's lesson/art corner (a post to come about that soon!) and that way he'll be reminded each day about the true meaning of LOVE.

Have some Valentine's Day ideas? I'd love to hear them!

Valentine's Day is coming up and in my opinion there is never enough time to celebrate it. Naturally I decided that this year we should start extra earlier to prepare for the day of L O V E.

I don't see Valentine's Day as just a day to remind your significant other/spouse that you love him, it's a day to remind your children how much they are loved and how much we are ALL loved by our Heavenly Father.

Can I get an amen?

This year we're doing lots of crafts. Michael is so into doing things together (like our Thankful Thursday jar). He's also seriously into cutting.


I had been wanting a heart banner for the house. Although I would *honestly* prefer a perfectly crafted one that looks professional, like most that are displayed, it's much more fun to let Michael pour his heart out and share just who and what he LOVES.


We used a cookie cutter to make the identically shaped hearts, but I think different ones would be adorable, too. We cut them out and each day he filled out 3-4 with things he loved.


I helped him spell.

It ranged from family members and friends to Quesadillas and "The Red Store" (aka Target, the best place on Earth).


After we had more than enough, we used some adorable ribbon (which I think originated from Michael's) with XOs all over it and then hung it around his teepee he got for Christmas.


Now whenever he looks at them, he'll ask me what specific ones say. Each one makes him smile and brings about a conversation about that specific thing.


Example:

"Oh, that one says, 'Read Winnie-the-Pooh'. I love doing that. But we finished it, so what will we read next?"

(In case you were wondering, the answer is The Wizard of Oz.)

I love when people are completely amazed at something you make. Scones always seem to be one of those things. It is automatically assumed that they are difficult and time consuming. I used to believe this myth. But that's just it-- it's a myth! I am addicted to scones. And now that I can make them... oh, it's a dangerous combination. I made these for the Bible study I go to, which happened to fall on Valentine's Day. I went home with an empty dish. I was so happy.

Ingredients:

- 2 C all-purpose, unbleached flour
- 6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces/chunks
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/3 C sugar
- 1/4 C low fat cream cheese, softened
- 1 egg
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 to 1 C chopped up strawberries (itty-bitt pieces!)

Directions:

- Preheat your oven to 375.
- Use a pastry cutter to combine your first four ingredients. Or you can use your stand mixer, or a food processor. Your choice! Pulverize/mix/blend until mixture is in pea-sized pieces.
- (Transfer to a mixing bowl if you used a food processor.) Stir sugar, cream cheese, egg, and vanilla into mixture until well blended.
- Gently fold your strawberries in-- this can get messy, just so you are warned.
- Gather your dough into a ball and transfer to a generously floured surface. IF desired, roll out to about 1/2 inch thick and cut into shapes. Or you can just follow the directions for the pumpkin or blackberry scones for cutting into the "typical" shape.
- Transfer scones to prepared cookie sheet (sprayed or lined with parchment paper) and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
Be warned that the strawberries can burn to the bottom, so make sure to check on them when they hit the 15 minute mark and up.


This recipe was adapted from Tea With Grace.

These cookies are to die for. I mean, they couldn't have turned out better in my opinion.

Ingredients:

- 1/2 C sugar
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2.25 C oats
- 1/2 to 3/4 C m&m's or chocolate chips
- 1/2 C brown sugar
- 3/4 C smooth or chunky peanut butter (I used natural and it turned out great!)
- 2 tbsp butter, softened
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Directions:

- Preheat your oven to 350.
- Mix together the peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and eggs in a bowl.
- Add your baking soda, salt, and sugar.
*This will be pretty thick and a little hard to mix.*
-Mix in your oats.

-Carefully add your M&M's or chocolate chips.
*Note: This may be because I used natural peanut butter, but the dough will be extraordinarily crumbly. It may take some effort to really mold the dough for the cookies. But have no fear! It's worth it!*

- Form the cookies into 2 inch balls or so and place on prepared cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, then use a spatula or fork to carefully flatten the balls. Cook for another 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on cooling rack before enjoying!

This recipe was adapted from Sweet Pea's Kitchen.

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!

Clark is home and that means our healthy eating takes a vacation.

No. Not really.

But it does mean that we make a few acceptions so he can enjoy some homecooked foods and desserts he loves. This time around he requested Molasses Cookies. A recipe I realized I hadn't shared, because I hadn't made them since before I started the blog. Which, at this point, was around 2.5 years. Crazy.

The great thing about these? You can make them for just about any season/holiday. I was so excited to use my Valentine's Day cookie cutters on something other than sugar cookies.

As always, if you don't want to devour these within the first few minutes after they cool, make sure to have storage containers ready to put them in and stash them away. Ours barely lasted 48 hours, thanks to visiting friends and Clark (ok... I had a couple).

This recipe requires you to refrigerate the dough for at least two hours.

Ingredients:

- 1/2 C butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 C packed brown sugar
- 2/3 C molasses
- 2.5 C all-purpose, unbleached flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves

For *optional* topping:
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

- Beat together your butter and brown sugar. Add your molasses.

- Mix together your dry ingredients. Slowly work them into your molasses mixture. It should end up being very crumbly.

- Cover your dough and refrigerate for at least two hours or as long as overnight. I did mine for the bare minimum and the dough was a little hard to handle, but worth it.

- Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare a cookie sheet.
- Roll out your dough to about 1/8 to 1/4 inch and cut them with cookie cutters in whatever shapes you like.
Note: Because the dough was so crumbly, the cookies were hard to handle when moving to and from the cookie sheet. I would suggest using a spatula to do this.
- Top the cookies with your *optional* cinnamon/sugar mixture
- Bake for 6 to 8 minutes. Move to a cooling rack and let sit for a couple of minutes.

Michael really wanted to try them. I was taking pictures and he snuck up and grabbed one before I could say no. I didn't even notice until I saw his hand coming into the picture! He's too precious.

Oh, and if you didn't notice, these are Vegan friendly! No eggs/dairy necessary! This recipe was adapted from the Williams-Sonoma Cookies book.

And make sure to go by Newlywed Moments for an AWESOME giveaway. Want a Kitchen Aid Mix Master? Need a new one? Emily Crider and 30 other bloggers are giving one away! Check it out and make sure to enter!
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