Peanut Blossoms

I think one of the reasons I love the Christmas season so much is that it reminds me of the good times from my childhood. I love looking back on days filled with snow, Christmas lights, the gathering of family and of course the cooking. There are many Christmas favorites but this one takes me back to my mom every time...

Peanut Blossom Cookies

Ingredients:

48 Hershey Kisses, unwrapped
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup  Creamy Peanut Butter
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Dash of salt
Additional granulated sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Cream butter and peanut butter in until well blended. Add white sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy.

Add the egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. In a medium sized bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to the peanut butter mixture.

Ok, here comes the fun part!

Roll the dough into 1-inch balls. I use a melon baller scoop to give me the perfect amount of dough. Pour a 1/4c of sugar into a shallow bowl. Roll the dough balls in the sugar and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from the oven. Immediately press a Kiss into center of each cookie. The cookie will crack around the edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Let cool.

Now honestly I can rarely wait for them to cool...simply because the combination of slightly melted chocolate and warm peanut butter cookie is perfection.

You could use peanut butter cups or other flavors of Kisses. No matter how you do it, I'm sure you'll enjoy.

Linking up with Green Fashionista

Savoring the Season

I know my blog has been kind of quiet lately, but like many bloggers I follow, it's been an intentional slow down. It seems like once Thanksgiving hits, this precious holiday season goes by at warp speed.

Last year we were caught up in all of G's firsts for this time of year.

2013

She's much more aware and interested this year. While I know she may or not remember what we've done with her in these early years, I want to be very present now and always. This has required less computer/phone time and more playing, singing and memory making.

It's so easy to miss the wonder and beauty of this time of year. We have to be intentional in what we do. I'll soon be sharing some our favorite traditions and hopefully some new ones.

I ran across this fabulous free printable and just had to share before heading out to church this morning. It's a fun reminder to not get so caught up in everything. May you steady your pace and savor all that is this season.

Tasty Tuesday: Apple Crumble

I'm alive! I know I've been out of the blogging world for a bit but life has been crazy...a good crazy, but crazy nonetheless. We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family. The food was good. The fellowship was great. The time with my sweet little family was priceless.

I've been savoring every moment. Before I get too sappy, I wanted to be sure to share a new go-to recipe. I opted to stray from the typical pumpkin desserts for Thanksgiving this year. I had some delicious apples that I had made and frozen a few weeks ago. (You can find the recipe here.)

I chose to make an Apple Crumble. Oh. My. Word. I could literally just eat it out of the skillet. Now that I've peaked your interest, here is the recipe. (The original recipe can be found here.)

Apple Crumble

Ingredients:

6 c. of Freezer Apple Pie Filling, thawed

1 c. wheat flour
1 c. old-fashioned oats
2/3 c. brown sugar
1/2 c, white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
12 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, diced

Directions:

-Preheat the oven to 350.

-Coat a cast iron skillet with cooking spray.

-Spread the apples evenly in the skillet.

-In a large bowl combine the remaining ingredients. Using your hands (seriously the best method), mix the butter into the dry ingredients until a crumble has formed.

-Sprinkle the mixture over the apples evenly.

-Bake for about 40 minutes or until the topping is browned and bubbly.

-Enjoy alone or with a scoop of ice cream.

Linking up with Green Fashionista



Simple Cinnamon Rolls

I've been a little MIA lately with a sick toddler, home projects and work consuming my days. I finally opted to take a little break and share a recipe I recently tried.

I'm a sucker for cinnamon rolls and I have a great homemade recipe...but it is pretty time consuming (although well worth the effort.) When I stumbled upon this no yeast recipe, which means no rise time, I had to give it a shot. I had everything for the rolls on hand but not for the icing. We opted for pre-made cream cheese icing and that worked just fine.

No Yeast Cinnamon Rolls

For the Cinnamon Filling:
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons butter, melted

For the Cinnamon Roll Dough:
2-1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for rolling out dough
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
5 Tablespoons butter, melted and divided

Directions:


Preheat oven to 425. 

Combine filling ingredients in a small bowl, and mix well. In a larger bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

Whisk together buttermilk and 4 Tablespoons melted butter in a separate bowl, then pour into the dry ingredients. Stir together until dough just comes together (do not over mix.) Kneed slightly with your hands until the dough forms into a ball, then slice it in half.

On a lightly floured surface, roll each half into a rectangle that is a little larger than a piece of paper. Press half the filling mixture into the center, leaving 1/4″ of the dough clear on all 4 sides, then roll, starting with one of the short ends. Pinch together the seam, trim the ends and cut into 8-10 slices. 

Repeat with the other dough half, then place rolls in a non-stick sprayed 9×13 pan. Brush the rolls with remaining melted butter and bake for 15 minutes, or until tops are golden brown.

Top with icing and enjoy! 

Linking up with Green Fashionista

19 and Counting

Weight: 29lbs 11oz 

Height: 2’ 8”

Shoe size: 4-5

Clothing 24months/2T

Our precious babe is becoming such a big girl. It’s hard to believe that she is 19 months old! I blinked and my little blonde haired newborn has since become a fiery redheaded toddler. She has grown in so many ways. 

Our doctors continue to be impressed with her vocabulary at this point. She’s been moving into short sentences. The ones we hear most often are:

“Let it go” (every time we see or hear anything Frozen related.)

“Where’s ____________” (the blank is usually filled with Bella, Daddy, Mo-Mo…)

“Love you” (which of course melts my heart every time.)

We’ve also noticed that “please” is no longer “ease” but “pease” so, we’re making progress. Maybe it’s the teacher in me but as of late I’ve noticed that she pronounces “k” as “t” at the end of words. For example, “book” is “boot” and “duck” is “dut”. Adorable!

She’s quite opinionated these days and she definitely knows what she wants. We’ve had several battles of the will, and while I could go all day (because I am not a quitter), she tends to bounce out of her fits and frustrations quite quickly.

She is typically a good eater and not too picky at this point. Bananas, peas and applesauce are definitely some of her favorite things. When she's hungry she'll let us know by saying "bite" or "eat" while standing at her highchair.

She recently went through a major bout of fever. She held a high fever (between 101-103) for almost a week. She was such a trooper and still remained pretty happy and content throughout that time.

She attempts to put her socks and pants on, and while unsuccessful, she puts forth a great effort. She can step into her shoes well enough to walk in them and more often than not she has them on the correct feet. Luck is on her side. 

She adores books and music. Jagger’s moves have nothing on her. She is becoming quite the little dancing queen. I’ve also noticed her starting to increase her types of play. She will have her moose and giraffe interact, she attempts to feed her moose with a bottle or her cup, and she loves to push most things around in her baby stroller. She is interested in puzzles but gets easily frustrated when the pieces don’t fit right away (I don’t know where she could possibly get that from.) She really enjoys putting dirty clothes in the hamper and throwing things away (which is dangerous…we’ve found many things that are not trash in the garbage…)

Her stranger anxiety has really increased. She is quite the Mommy’s girl and is often considered my shadow. She interacts well with the children at her sitter’s house and at church and I’ve been told she is quite the helper.

We fall more in love with her every day. Not one moment goes by that I do not thank God for blessing us with our miracle. 

Linking up with Annie

Finally Fever Free

It has been a week that I'm glad to put behind us. Our little Snickerdoodle developed a pretty high fever last Sunday. She kept that fever until about Friday when it went down a bit. According to our mid-week doctor's appointment,  it was just a lingering virus. She was pitiful!  She took her fluids well but she'd hardly eat...which is not my daughter at all.

I'm happy to say that by Saturday she was very low grade and was feeling much better despite a very runny nose and nasty sounding cough. This was wonderful news because one of my dearest friends had come into town. She hasn't seen G since she was a week old. It was so nice to catch up.

I hope we've got the sickness behind us. We stayed home from church on Sunday to get some much needed rest. G is finally fever free and we're on the mend. God is good!

Sporting her big girl ponytail

Linking up with Leslyn

Walking with Gideon: Where's the Proof?

This journey with Gideon continues to be enlightening. I'm still in awe of just how often I find myself relating to his thoughts.

Judges 6:17-23a

In the throws of life we find ourselves facing difficult decisions and we often seek out a definitive answer. Which way do we go? Which is the best option? What would You have me do God? In my experience, there have been a lot of times when these questions are answered with silence. This silence drives me towards God even more. I dive into His word and search the scriptures for words of direction. I pray for clarity.

When these times of "grey" enter into my life and I'm not sure what I should do or how I should respond or struggle with understanding the circumstances, I have often times ask God for proof. Sometimes it's proof of His hand in the situation or proof that I am doing what I should be doing (because apparently solely trusting in His control is too hard). I don't know why I make things more difficult for myself. Fortunately, (well maybe unfortunately) I am not the only one and I discovered that even Gideon had this same need for proof (v. 17).

We ask God to show Himself. We ask Him to wait on us (v.18). Maybe we think we need more time or more clarity, but really? Who are we talking to? We are talking to the Creator, the Great Physician, the Great I AM! And yet we are asking Him to wait on us. Just putting that into words reiterates just how crazy that really is. He is the time keeper. His timing is perfect and only in His time will all be revealed (which is admittedly difficult for impatient people like myself). Besides that, how many times has He proven Himself over and over again? Countless and yet we still insist that He "prove" Himself again. Boy are we a greedy bunch.

However, because of Who God is, we can trust Him to do this. He does wait on us at times and He does continue to reveal Himself to us. We in turn must prepare our hearts and minds to receive Him (v. 19). Gideon experienced God's presence and saw wonders performed that would leave no doubt that God was with Him (vv. 20-21).

When we find ourselves needing "proof" of God, God will provide. He uses the times of darkness, confusion and frustration to build us up and draw us to Him in ways that we would not have known otherwise. At the moment we fully turn ourselves and situations over to Him, an amazing thing happens. Are we still facing those same situations, thoughts and emotions? Yes. However, we recognize that we no longer face them alone and that God's hand is truly in the midst, maintaining a handle on even the most chaotic of situations. He is the Peace in the storm (v. 23a).

We all have our hurdles but our testimony and faith are built through these things. Some days we find ourselves totally at peace with what God is doing in our lives and at other times we wonder if He's even aware of what's going on in our lives. As situations arise I encourage you to seek after God and to ask Him to reveal Himself and His purpose to you in those times. He will bring to light an array of revelations that will astound. you.

(You can find past Walks here.)