Spring Break Bust!

For spring break this year, Mark and I got the wild idea to take the kids down to San Antonio and go to the zoo and then the Alamo. Seems legit and within reason, right?

What normally should have been about a two hour drive to get to the zoo took way more that two hours. It took for-ev-er!!

They had the main road to the zoo blocked off and rerouted everyone around. We were crawling and once we got to the point where they rerouted us, it took another hour to get to the zoo. It was bumper to bumper, every parking lot was full and once we got to the front of the zoo, it would have taken about another hour to get inside. Apparently, everybody else had the bright idea for the zoo, too.

We decided to forget the zoo and move on to the Alamo and the Riverwalk. Once we finally found a parking garage downtown to park in, we were all cranky, tired and hungry.

We turned a corner after coming out of the parking garage and what did I see? Only a slice of Heaven in front of me! Whataburger! If you're not from Texas or another state with a Whataburger, then I have to tell you, these burgers are so good! We ordered, got our number and sat down to wait. The number we got didn't surprise me considering the day we had so far.

Emily's face describes how we all felt.

But oh how I heart Whataburger! If we ever move out of Texas and to a state without a Whataburger, our visit's back to the Lone-star state will definitely include a trip to this fine establishment. Whataburger with cheese, please!

Mr. E and me!

We decided to move on to the Alamo. It was crazy there, too! The line outside the
Alamo wrapped around the building, so the kids weren't able to go inside. Ethan was disappointed because he had been studying about the Alamo in school, and he was telling us all about it's history.

Me: Maybe we can go to the Alamo.
Ethan: Yeah, we've been studying about that in school.
Me: Really?
Ethan: Yeah, we saw the movie.
Me: You saw the movie? That's how you've been studying the Alamo in school?
Ethan: Yeah, and that Jim Bowie was mean and he drank alcohol a lot.
Me: Oh! My school tax dollars at work! Thank you education system!

But this is about as close as we got.

Here's Mr. E in front of the Alamo.

So then we made our way to the Riverwalk. It was just as crazy over there. The wait for the Riverwalk boat ride was another hour or so. We decided then that San Antonio on spring break was not such a grand idea and decided to start heading home.

We stopped at the outlet mall in San Marcos and shopped for awhile, then we stopped at the Crackle Barrel, which was yummy as always.

OK, so the highlight of our San Antonio trip was Whataburger and the Crackle Barrel! Ha!

The next day I had an order for some cookies, so I baked these...

Funfetti Cake Mix Cookies

And these...

Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

And on Saturday, Emily and I went to go see my dad get ordained. Mark and Ethan were working at our church's clean up day the first half of the service, but they came later and was able to catch the actual ordination.

Me, my dad, my mom, Emily and Ethan

So a major lesson was learned. Don't, I repeat, DO NOT visit San Antonio during spring break! Do however, run don't walk to a Whataburger near you! (LOL!!)

 But it was nice to spend time with my family! I enjoyed it all!

A Sleep Over, New Years And Of Course, Cookies

On Saturday, we visited Mark's family in Waco for our Christmas with them.

Ethan after unwrapping gifts.

As a special treat, we brought our niece and the kid's cousin, Angelina home with us. The girls absolutely love each other and always have a blast when they are together.

They laughed and talked and giggled the whole time.

Then a little toenail painting commenced...

On New Year's Eve, Mark decided to get the kids a few fireworks.

This is the first time the kids have done fireworks. They had a few sparklers as well. This was the first time I had ever done firework, too. The kids and I had so much fun. They were non-stop smiles the whole time. I so enjoyed watching them have a blast with the fireworks. It thrilled me to see their smiles and hear their laughs.

I'm not so great with my camera, but here are a few pics from the fireworks.

Emily with her sparklers.

I have been dreaming and craving cinnamon rolls for a while now. So after work on Monday, I decided I was going to make some. They turned out so good.

I've blogged about these before. The recipe is from here. However I used regular powdered sugar and milk for the icing this time instead of making the caramel icing.

Tonight I made these cookies for an upcoming order...

Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

This is a serious cookie! Seriously, ridiculously, wickedly awesome.

We ate up the extras that were left over. Those Kraft Caramel Bits are the bomb.com!!! YUM!

Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies
Adapted from Diary of Dave's Wife recipe

3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups of flour
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup Kraft Caramel Bits
1/2 cup chopped Pecans

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla and blend in.
3. Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda & salt.
4. Stir in chocolate chips, caramel bits and pecans.
5. Drop by spoonful onto cookies sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat mat.
6. Sprinkle dough with a pinch of course salt (I used Kosher).
7. Bake 8-10 minutes until just golden brown. Do Not Overbake.
8. Take out of the oven, let cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool.

I Got A Dream & Cookies, Cookies, Cookies

My name is Jennifer, and I have a dream. It's not a big dream. Just a little one. Want to know what my dream is?

I want to be a stay at home mom, who makes cookies on the side. Friday, I got a little slice of my dream.

I took a day off from work because I was asked to make some cookies for my local bank's Christmas party. Yes, they have their party in November, before Thanksgiving.

So Friday morning, I got up early and took the kids to school, went by the grocery store for a few last minute things, then I came home and baked, baked, baked. 19 dozen cookies to be exact. I packed them up, went to pick the kids up from school, dropped the cookies off at the bank, took the kids to the library, picked up a movie from Red Box, came home, made dinner, watched movie and went to bed. It was magical, really. All day long I kept thinking, "This is what I want to do. I want to take care of my family, my home and bake awesome cookies once in a while.".

I mean who doesn't like cookies? You always hear people who are either team pie or team cake, but I think everyone is team cookies!! There isn't a pie or cake monster. No, there is only a cookie monster. And he even covered Carly Rae Jensen's hit song. Everyone love cookies!!

 So after baking for around 6 hours, my dining room looked like this.

Jello, Mint Chocolate Chip, Cake Mix & Monster Cookies

On Saturday, we got to the Christmas party around 45 minutes after it started. My mom and dad were already there since my mom works at the bank and she basically had to "work" at the party. I first saw my dad and he said my cookies were almost gone. I then got in line with the kids to see Santa. My mom joined us when the kids were getting their pictures made and she told me that my cookies were gone and all that was left were the store bought ones. I got compliments all night long on my cookies. I was so excited!!

We had a great time at the party, but the highlight was the photo booth.

First up was my mom & I.

I didn't realize how much taller I am than my mom. I'm even slouching and bending over here. I look like an Amazon woman next to her.

Next up was Mark, Emily and I.

I finally talked Ethan into getting into the photo booth with me. He's (s-l-o-w-l-y) maturing, and being in a photo booth with your mom isn't exactly cool I guess.

The look on Ethan's face is priceless!

And here's a (bad phone pic) of Emily and friends Kaylin & Kinley, who are identical twins.

So tomorrow it's back to work and I must head back to reality. But, we are having our Thanksgiving luncheon tomorrow. Cookies anyone?

Fall Fun & Christmas Cookies

Emily had her first field trip of the year. They went to a corn maze and pumpkin patch and Mark went with her. Here are a few pics.

Emily & her friend Emma.

Shooting corn husks.

This morning my kids picked a bunch of pecans from the pecan trees by our church. I had them shell the pecans this afternoon and placed them in the freezer for the holidays.

Then I let the kids paint some pumpkins.

Ethan painted 3/4 of his pumpkin purple and said he was done. I finished it for him.

I'm sure he appreciated the big glitter S I put on it.

In true Emily fashion, she took her sweet time with her pumpkin.

Here is Emily's pumpkin.

The other day I went to TJ Maxx and found a cute lantern. I've seen lots of cute lanterns on Pinterest, all filled with Christmas decorations and ribbons, so I picked it up.

I then went to Walmart and picked up some yarn. Emily and I spent several evenings wrapping Halloween colored yarn around balls of paper and putting it in my new lantern.

I then added a ribbon. I love it.

 Lastly, I'm getting my Christmas cookies list together and I'm already trying new Christmas cookie recipes.

I made Jello cookies yesterday.

Really easy and really good.

One batch made like 4 dozen. Wowza!!! I definitely think these are a winner.

You can get the recipe here.

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Back to work tomorrow.

Jennifer

So Random!

This post is really random. Nothing specific, just some things here and there.

In my last post I told you that I hurt my hip. In fact, I sprained by left hip. Not sure how, but I did.  I went to the chiropractor, he fixed my hip right up and I felt great. But then the muscles in my left leg, from my bottom down were so painful and sore, I was in some serious pain, couldn't (didn't want to) move and I was down for a while. My new chiropractor is now my BFF. Apparently, my muscles over my hip seized up when I sprained it and now I'm working on loosing these muscles up.

Seriously, this pain has made me one cray-cray women. I apologized to my husband, kids and co-workers for any unkind words I may of spoken out of pain in the last two weeks. I think I'm on the mend now.

Ethan had a really rough week this past week with his behavior and home and school. He received an "N" (needs improvement) at school, he got in trouble on the bus and failed his spelling test. *Sigh*

All that to say, my kids school had their fall festival on Friday night. The hub and I discussed it and decided that Ethan would not be able to go, due to his actions and behaviors this week.

I really, really tried to talk Emily out of going. I tried to bribe her with a new Barbie and going to get her toenails painted at a nail salon if we could skip the fall festival. You know, I've been a crazy women in pain this past two weeks and I had worked all day Friday and I was seriously tired. Mark has been suffering from allergies and he's coughing his head off and he didn't feel like going.

No go. Once this child has her mind made up, she does not change. So, I put on my big girl panties and took her. She really did deserve to go. She has been doing really great in school and has such a great attitude towards everything.

I'll spare you the details of the festival. It was just like last year. You can read about that here.

I did grab a few pics of her before we left. I think I earned eleventy hundred cool mom points for going.

 Afterwards, I took her to Subway (she loves her some Subway sandwiches), went through McDonald's drive-thru for Ethan and finally took myself home. My bed never felt so good.

In other news, I made a new fall yarn wreath for my door.

Please pay no attention to my ugly door. As I probably mentioned before, I live in the 1970's house from Haides! Everything in this house is brown or harvest gold, and the people who built the house in the 70's never updated anything when we bought it 4 years ago. We're slowly trying to do updates.

Anyway, I found the yarn at Walmart and just made a few flowers out of felt.

My Friday cookies that I make for a local bank this past week were these.

Pumpkin cookies with caramel icing. So good. I mean really really really so good!

You want the recipe, I know you do! Here you go...

Pumpkin Cookies with Caramel Icing
1 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
1 c. pumpkin
1 egg
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 ts.\p. salt

Cream shortening and sugar. Blend in pumpkin and egg. Sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add to creamed mixture and mix well. Drop by teaspoon on greased cookies sheet. Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.

Caramel Icing
3 Tbl. butter
4 Tbl. milk
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. powdered sugar

Cook first 3 ingredients until sugar is melted. Then let this mixture cool. After cooled, add powered sugar and vanilla. Spread a little bit on the cookie and let dry.

I  just dipped the tops of the cooled cookies in the caramel icing and placed on a wire rack with wax paper underneath to catch any dripping of the icing. Makes 4 dozen cookies.


So there you go. A really random post. So Random!

Speaking of random, do your kids watch the show So Random! on the Disney Channel? It's a cute show and reminds me of a kid version of Saturday Night Live, where they do different skits, songs and fake commercials. Here is one of my favorite songs from the show. I'm not sure if it's just sad I like this song and am putting it on my blog or if it earns me more cool mom points.

I think I like this song because back in the day, I totally rocked this look... enjoy.

Thankful Thursday

I'm back in the swing of things at work after our vacation. Just one week ago we were in Branson. Our vacation absolutely flew by.

Well, I did find a few things I'm thankful for to help me through my first week back at work.

Added a few of these babies to my ice cream.

My new favorite gum.

I found this the other day! Heaven...

Thin Mint Nestle Crunch!!

So, since I'm on this chocolate mint kick, the only logical cookies I could make for cookie Friday are these...

Chocolate Mint Cookies!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's a picture of Emily's Popsicle she wanted to show you...

Anyway, I'm thankful for a good week back at work. I'm thankful for the job I have, (even though I'd drop it in a minute to be a SAH mom, if I could!!), and that I found all these wonderful things in chocolate mint.

Oh yeah, I'm sharing my recipe for these wonderful cookies. I hope you like chocolate mint and enjoy!

Chocolate Mint Cookies
Adapted from allrecipes.com

I was able to get about 4 dozen cookies.

6 tbl butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tbl water
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup mint chocolate chips (I used Andes baking mints)
1 egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp peppermint extract
More Andes baking mint chips for melting on top of cookies


1. Heat the butter, sugar and water in a small pot over medium heat; stir occasionally until melted. Remove from heat and pour in both semisweet & mint chips. Stir until melted. Set the mixture aside to cool for 10 minutes.

2. Pour the chocolate into a mixing bowl and beat in the egg. In separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir into the chocolate mixture. Add the extract and stir again. Put the dough into the fridge for 1 hour to chill.

3. Preheat oven to 350. Grease the cookie sheets.

4. Roll the dough into 1-inch sized balls and place the cookies about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Do no overbake.

5. When cookies are removed from the oven, sprinkle some of the baking mint chips on each cookies. Let the chips melt slightly and spread the chocolate with a knife or back of spoon to cover the top of the cookies. Cool completely and enjoy!