• M&M Cupcakes

    Sometimes, the hardest part of this blog is deciding what to write about.  Lately, my life has become pretty routine – I follow the same schedule and do the same things, week after week.  It’s hard to write about interesting things when you aren’t DOING interesting things.  {Well, blog-worthy interesting things, that is!} I just mentioned that fact to my husband.  He told me that I needed to start doing something interesting, then. I glared at him and told him that I was going to…

  • S’mores Rice Krispies Treats

    So, tomorrow is my birthday. I’m going to spend the day making a birthday cake for myself.  How exciting is that? Actually, I’m pretty excited.  I love making big obnoxious layer cakes, and I’m sure tomorrow’s cake will be as big and obnoxious as they come.  And then I’m going to put a candle on it and make my family sing me happy birthday.  I wonder if they’re as excited about this as I am?  Ha! I usually do all of my baking for the…

  • A Playroom Makeover: Part 2

    First things first, if you haven’t read Part 1, go back and read it now. Good?  Ok. After we got all of the construction, painting and cleaning behind us, it was time to do the fun stuff – it was time to make the room look like what we’d been envisioning for almost a year now.  Because we adore everything about our new pantry, we teamed up with Organized Living to give our two little girls a bright, clean & efficient play room.  Their bedrooms…

  • Pumpkin Tiramisu

    SO MANY Thanksgiving desserts, so little time.  How can I make all of the desserts?  I’m having anxiety – I need to make them ALL!  My Pinterest boards are FULL of pumpkin and there are four days until Thanksgiving.  #igiveup You guys, we are mere days away from putting the pumpkin away for the year!  First, how the heck is that possible, and second – NOOOOOOO!  I’m not ready for mint and  white chocolate and toffee and cranberries and santa cookies yet!  I need another week –…

  • Banana Bread Cupcakes

    Bananas wasting away in my fruit bowl + Marscapone cheese and walnuts in the fridge = DELISH concoction by yours truly.  I love banana bread, but my girls eat bananas like they’re going out of style, so we never have any left to make treats with.  This week, however, they left me with nearly a full bunch of bananas to play with.  YAY!  Furthermore, my husband has training tomorrow so he has lots of hungry guys to feed these to.  Bonus. These are wonderful muffins. …

  • Easter Candy Cookies

    My girls have been begging me to make chocolate chip cookies for a few weeks now, but my dessert menu has taken me in other directions.  With Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and now Easter, it always seems like there’s been something else to make. Then, when browsing my Pinterest boards, I found these cookies that I’ve wanted to make for a LONG time, so I decided I’d made them wait long enough.  Easter candy cookies!  Basically, they’re really big, chewy, fat chocolate chip cookies…

  • Red Velvet Poke Cake

    Yep.  Kinda obsessed with the ol’ poke cake. I actually have yet another one coming soon.  But since I’m 100% convinced that you can’t have too many poke-cake recipes, I’m not going to worry about it one little bit.  The world cannot have too many poke cakes. And it’s possible that I say this about EVERY poke cake I make, but this one is my favorite.  There’s actually no contest.  This is the best.  Until the next one, I know, but still.  So far –…

  • Chocolate Marble Cheesecake

    Cheesecake and I have a love-hate relationship.  I love to eat it, but hate to make it.  I have never, ever had much luck making a successful cheesecake.  I’d make one that tasted amazing, but was flat, or cracked, or fell apart.  Or, I’d make a pretty one that of course, was bland or the wrong texture.  It got so bad that I pretty much gave up on them altogether. But, you know me.  For some reason, I just can’t let things go.  My husband…

  • Easy Creme Brulee

    I won’t make you listen to any more stories about my rough week.  If you remember from a recent post, my daughter starts 1st grade tomorrow.  And since I don’t have a time machine or (apparently) the ability to will time to slow down, I have put on my best happy face and hopefully hold back tears until I’m out of the school parking lot. OK, one more story.   But technically, this isn’t a story, it’s really just information that you need to know…

  • TUACA Mule and TUACA Root Beer Float

    This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of TUACA Vanilla Citrus Liqueur  for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine. Today’s post is sponsored by TUACA®.  Have you had it yet?  TUACA® is “a vanilla citrus liqueur, a brandy, blended with natural sugar, fine spirits and vanilla essences.”  Doesn’t that just SOUND amazing? You guys.  It’s fantastic.  And even better, it puts a delicious twist on one of my favorite drinks, the Moscow Mule.  Paired with ginger beer and lemon juice, it’s a totally…

  • Castello Moments: Potato Gratin

    There’s just not much better than this.   Warm, gooey potatoes, oozing with cheese?  You guys, come on.  This is the ultimate comfort food. My friends at Castello were kind enough to send me some generous wedges of two varieties of their cheese, Hirten and Classic.  I have to admit that we’ve enjoyed cuts of the Hirten with crackers and a full-bodied red wine on a few occasions lately, but once I settled down to cook with it, I was glad I did. You can…

  • Oatmeal Cream Pies

    I am embarrassed to say that I have eaten an entire box of Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies in one sitting.  It was a long time ago, but it was not one of my finer moments.  These days, I won’t even buy them because they’re full of preservatives, high fructose corn syrup and sugar…I won’t keep them in the house in hopes of keeping that junk away from my girls as long as I can. Instead, I like to make treats at home so I can…