• A Playroom Makeover: Part 3 – The Reveal!

    I can’t believe we are FINALLY done with the playroom!   It’s been months of work – squeezing in an hour or two here and there after work, a few hours on the weekends.   Yes, we could have paid someone to come in and just do it all for us, but we honestly do enjoy doing it ourselves – the end result always makes it worth it.  There’s really nothing better than that sense of accomplishment after finishing a big project. If you want…

  • Lemon Love: April Wrap-Up

      Don’t you just love Roald Dahl? April was just a blur around here, it was such a busy month that I’m not sure how I kept up!  Here’s a quick wrap up of my month:

  • Chocolate Chip Cookie Layer Cake

    I’m in that place again.  I’m in that place where I have a birthday party looming in the not-so-distant future and I’ve done ZERO to get ready for it.  I haven’t ordered my decorations, started crafting my banners or even planned the meal.  The party is in eight days.  Oh, and I have that whole job thing, plus kids and dance classes and dinners and bathtimes and storytimes and homework and about eleventy-bazillion deadlines to meet before then. I am fuh-reaaaak-ing out. Why do I…

  • Broccoli Cheese Soup

    Life has been a whirlwind in our household lately.  With my oldest starting Kindergarten and all of the activities that go with it, my busy time of year at work, my husband’s insane work schedule, and nailing down our erratic daycare needs, we just don’t have a lot of normal family time lately.  It will be a rare occasion in the next six weeks when we’re all home together at the same time.  I’m determined to make sure we can enjoy a family dinnertime together as often as possible,…

  • Cinnamon Rolls

    Ahhh…cinnamon rolls.  I’m not sure that there’s anything better than a really good cinnamon roll, but in my opinion a good one is really hard to find, and a good recipe is even harder to find.  My biggest problem with most cinnamon roll recipes is that the bread part of the roll is usually bland, and the only cinnamon flavor you get comes from the filling itself.  This recipe, however, has cinnamon in the dough itself, so the bread is flavorful too.  But, if I’m…

  • Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcakes

    I’m grumpy today.  I don’t really have a good reason to be, we’re leaving for a family vacation in exactly 22 hours.  It’s a much-needed vacation, especially after the past several whirlwind weeks – it will be nice to just relax for a few days. Oh, did I mention that we’re road-tripping it?  With two little girls?  Maybe relax isn’t the right word.  Today, I started making lists of all of the things I needed to do, remember and pack before we leave.  The lists…

  • Restaurant Style Salsa

    You know when you go to a Mexican restaurant and they give you one of those little bottles FULL of extra salsa?  You know, so you can refill your own salsa dish?  Those are my favorites.  Because seriously, a little tiny bowl of salsa for a table full of people is just never going to be enough, it’s just not.  And then, you know when you’re at a Mexican restaurant, and your food comes out and you immediately have to ask for a box because…

  • Spiced Cranberry Apple Butter

    Who still has cranberries left from the holidays?  Anyone besides me?  I always stock up and freeze what I’m not going to use, because I firmly believe that cranberries aren’t just a winter fruit.  It drives me crazy that you can’t find them year round, so when I see ’em, I buy ’em. Our CSA has been overly generous with our apple deliveries lately too – so much so that we haven’t been able to eat them all quickly enough.  We eat them like crazy…

  • French Vanilla Cupcakes

    How adorable are these?  I made these for a baby shower and just loved the way they came out.  My new jumbo cupcake pan has just opened up a whole new world of cupcakes for me and I have to say I am loving it.  I love the look of the ribbon tied around the base of the cake – and it’s much easier to do on a jumbo cake than a standard cake.  I found a coordinating pink sugar for garnish and think that these…

  • Share-It Saturday: Week 4

    Hi everyone!  Welcome back for another Share-It Saturday on Lemon Sugar!  Before we get started, make sure you like Lemon Sugar on Facebook, and don’t miss my latest post – you can enter to win a Better Zester.  You’ve got to try one to see what all the fuss is about.  You’ll be zesting just for fun. Or is that just me? Don’t answer that.  Let’s move on to the party. Welcome, welcome!  That was my best Hunger Games voice.  Geez, I’m just oozing coolness…

  • Chocolate Covered Strawberry Ice Cream

    So, relevant but irrelevant:  last week I cleaned out my refrigerator.  Like, REALLY cleaned it out.  I took everything out, scrubbed it, sanitized it, threw away, organized, and made everything pretty and bright.  In my cleaning frenzy, I uncovered four pounds of strawberries that we purchased the weekend before at the Farmer’s Market.  The strawberries were clinging to life, on the edge of questionable, so I chopped them up and was racking my brain for strawberry recipes. I made a strawberry cake (that recipe is…

  • Giant Chocolate Muffins

    Can you justify eating a cupcake for breakfast? I can. It’s easy, really.  You just call it a muffin.  I mean, it doesn’t have frosting, so clearly it isn’t a dessert – and everyone knows that muffins are perfectly acceptable breakfast fare.