Mother's Day Tea

Last mother's day, my sister and I took my mom to tea at a really nice hotel in Boston. She loved it, so we thought we'd do the same this year. Then we got a great surprise when we learned our brother and his family were making a quick trip home. We decided it would make more sense to have tea at home.

We got a little crazy and went all Martha Stewart, which is kind of typical when the three of us are working together.

The menu included homemade apple cinamon scones, chocolate chip hazelnut scones, chicken salad sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, blt puff pastries, fresh berries, desserts from Sugar bakery in Boston, including lots of mini pastries and tarts, cucumber lemonade and an extra special glass of iced pink lemonade for my niece.

 

It was a pretty nice spread, but....



It was really the people that made it so nice. having all of the fam together was great.

 

We took a bunch of photos, so I thought I'd share, especially since I haven't had anything fun to share in months.

How were your mother's days?

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

To kick of the 12 days of cookies, here's one of Jim's favorites......

A couple years ago my mom was gifted an oatmeal butterscotch cookie jar mix as a Christmas gift from my cousin. As soon as we made the cookies, we knew this would be an awesome addition to our normal mix of holiday cookies. Even though we already had an oatmeal cookie in the mix (oatmeal raisin) these were too good not to include. Plus it's a perfect substitute instead of the oatmeal raisin for the non-raisin lovers on our cookie gift list, me being one of them.

These are a great gift already baked, or given as a jar mix.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

Ingredients for jar mix

1/2 cup butterscotch chips

1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup old fashioned oats
2 cups biscuit and baking mix
1/2 cup light brown sugar

　

To prepare:

jar contents

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

　

Cream butter, egg and vanilla. Add the jar mix in entirety. Mix. Shape into one inch balls. It helps to use a table spoon to get the perfect size. Place onto un-greased cookie sheet. Bake for ten minutes or until cookies are light golden brown.

Bake 10 minutes.
Do you have any favorite jar mix recipes? If you have a link to the recipe, please share!



12 Cookies of Christmas

I love Christmas countdowns, like the 25 days of Christmas on ABC family. So I thought it would be fun to do a countdown of 12 cookies of christmas. Most will be family favorites and others will be new cookies I find and try for the first time. Christmas cookies are a huge part of my family's Christmas traditions. I shared a post about it last year.

 

Some people think we're kind of crazy, but it really is fun and it doesn't feel like Christmas without  a ridiculous amount of cookies. It's my favorite gift to give and I've been told by some people it's their favorite gift to get, so every year we make a minimum of a dozen kinds. It seems like it grows every year though, especially the more flavors we try. Not all flavors make the cut each year, especially because there are so many now we tend to forget a few.

 

One of my long term goals has been to make a recipe book (using blurb or my publisher or something similar) with all of the recipes for my sister and brother, so we'll always have the recipes. Hopefully I'll be able to check that one off at the end of the season, but it also means we have a lot of cookies to make and photos to take. Hopefully this countdown will motivate me to get it done!

 

Here's a peak at last year's cookies, which are all documented, photographed and ready for the recipe book and blog.

On December 1st, I'll share the first recipe.

What's your favorite holiday tradition? Do you have any cookie recipes you think I should try (links are appreciated!)? or any recommendations on photo book companies?

Pumpkin Pecan Cookies

We went apple picking a couple weekends ago and ever since then I've been in a fall baking mood. This past weekend I decided to move on to pumpkins and made a family favorite, pumpkin pecan cookies. They are so delicious on their own, but the brown sugar butter frosting really takes them up a level. I have a habit of losing recipes, so I decided to start posting my favorites to the blog as a point of reference. So I hope people who are reading like pumpkins as much as I do. This might be my favorite pumpkin recipe of all time.

Cookie Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup chopped toasted pecans

Brown Sugar Frosting Ingredients:
6 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons hot water

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, allspice, and sugar. Heat butter in microwave for 50 seconds. Mix in butter, egg and pumpkin mix. Chop pecans and toast in a small pan on the stove for about 60 seconds on medium heat. Add pecans to the mixture and stir in.
3. Using a tablespoon to measure, drop dough onto cookie sheet about 1-2 inches apart.
4. Bake cookies in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes. Makes about 40 cookies.
5. After the cookies have been baked and cooled, make the brown sugar butter frosting. In a small-medium saucepan heat the butter, then mix in the brown sugar. Remove mixture from the stove.Stir in the sifted powder sugar, adding a little bit at a time. Add the vanilla and hot water and mix until smooth. Frost the cookies immediately. If needed add more hot water to make smooth.

Do you have any great fall recipes to share? If you have any posted on your blogs, please share a link! :)

Let's Do Brunch

Today we celebrated Easter by hosting brunch at our house. It was the first time we decorated for the holidays with our diy chalkboard gallery wall. We have a lot of traditions between our families, so it's been fun to claim one of our own. We decided last year that we would host Easter brunch. It was our second year and it was a success. I forgot to take photos, except for the gallery wall, but I had taken lots of photos last year at our first Easter brunch.

We got bunny plates from Pottery Barn last year. When we registered for dinnerware for our wedding, I specifically chose a basic everyday white china, so we could include fun elements at the holidays. I found this Pottery Barn bunny set right when our completion bonus was about to run out and splurged. I was excited about it because it was the first thing we bought that felt like it will stay with our family for a long time.

I love starting new traditions, but I also love continuing with the old ones, too. Jim's family gets seasonal shaped butter for holiday family gatherings, so last year I saw lamb shaped butter when shopping for our first Easter brunch, I couldn't pass it up! I was hoping to keep this tradition going, but I forgot it this year. Next year we'll be bringing this back.

The second brunch was just as successful as the first. I'm looking forward to lots of memories on Easter morning in our home. My favorite part has been the Easter egg hunts with my niece.

Do you host any family holidays? Do you prefer to be a guest, or the host? What are your favorite holiday traditions?

New Year, New Projects

Happy New Year!

This year we had big ides for our little home. Due to the plumbing fiasco of 2011, we had to hold off on many of these projects. However, we were able to accomplish a few things like refinancing the house, painting the shutters, makeover the craft room, paint the dining room, paint our master bedroom, hang some curtains in the living room, renovate some furniture pieces, make a chalkboard refrigerator and start a chalkboard project for the dining room. After a pretty long hiatus, we have lots of work to do to accomplish the projects on our to-do list. Many of these won't happen this year, but I think 2012 will be a big yearin our house.

The major one will be renovating the bathroom. It is currently a pink, floral, handicap bathroom. Not really our style. It desperately needs to be updated. We're hoping to tackle this project sometime before the fall. The main goal is to get rid of the handicap "tub". I say "tub" because although it is shaped like a tub, it can't actually be used as a tub due to the dip to get in. I also want to change the color scheme, get rid of the wallpaper and make it more functional. Right now we have no place to hang towels and the only storage is underneath the vanity.

Another big project is the guestroom. It's actually not that big since we already purchased all of the main components. We really just need to paint and decorate. However it feels like a big project because the room is a pretty empty space right now, so this room will seem like a big change. It looks a lot like the before picture in the home tour:in the beginning post, except there is hardwood flooring in it now and a lot of boxes that need to go to the attic.

Our biggest project that we're dreaming of is a kitchen renovation. The kitchen was renovated less than two years ago by the seller. However, the sellers were the children of the original owner who is deceased, so they went the cheap route on updates. It looked pretty nice when we purchased, but 1.5 years later and everything is falling apart. The covering they used on the pink counters is chipping (it gave a granite effect). Plus all the drawers and cabinets are literally falling apart, breaking, or sagging. It's too expensive of a project for the near future, but it's something we're dreaming of doing nonetheless. While we won't be starting this project in 2012, we will start pricing it out, so we can start budgeting and savings and get a more realistic timeline.

Those are the big projects, but we have lots of little things to come. We're in the middle of one of my favorite projects right now, which I hope to share soon.

What are your goals for 2012? Any home projects on the list?

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays! We've been busy enjoying all of the holiday festivities. We had a busy season between hosting our first ugly sweater party, making 12 different types of cookies, seeing the nutcracker, attending holiday parties, wrapping presents, making holiday cards, outlet shopping and of course, chopping down our tree. 

We went for round two this year and had a blast.

We hope you had a wonderful holiday, too! 

Tree Decor: DIY Newlywed Christmas Garland

Last year we purchased our first tree together. We didn't have a lot of ornaments since we never had our own tree so I came up with an idea to craft a wedding photo garland. I knew it would be time consuming, but I was really excited to include our wedding photos in our holiday decor.

So I purchased red and white cardstock and bakers’ twine. I then resized and printed off a ton of pictures of our families from the wedding.

Then, I used some craft punches to cut out scalloped circles for the “ornaments” and attached the punched out photos, and finally, I strung them together with the bakers’ twine to create a garland.

I loved looking at our tree decorated with family faces.

Especially photos of our family on the happiest day of our life (so far).

We then needed a tree toper. I wanted to be traditional and get a star, but couldn’t find any we liked. So we tied two Starfish left over from the wedding with the bakers’ twine to create our “star.”

Our tree was filled with love and wedding memories. So, here we are a year later. It seems funny to have a newlywed tree, since we aren't newlyweds anymore. Instead, I'm thinking of exchanging some of the photos with every day pictures because I love it too much to just not use it. Plus we don't have a lot of ornaments still. So it looks like the garland will be around for a bit while we work on building our collection. Jim's birthday gift to me this year definitely helped.

How'd you start building up your ornament collection?

O' Christmas Tree

Clark: We're kicking off our fun old fashion family Christmas by heading out into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most important of Christmas symbols.

Audrey: We're not coming all the way out here just to get one of those stupid ties with Santa Clauses on it are we?
Clark: No, I have one of those at home.

Jim  and I bought our first tree together last year. It was probably my most exciting newylwed moment. After about 7 years of dating, 5 years of living together and 2 months of marriage, we finally did it. Not only did we buy it, we also cut it down, true Griswold style. Except, instead of driving to the middle of no where, forgetting an ax, and having to dig it up- we just drove to the local Christmas tree farm and used a sawzal. Maybe it wasn't true Griswold style, but it was as close as I'll ever get.

We made an event out of of it. Jim and I had really wanted to cut our own and while we were chatting with some friends, we found out they did too. So we did a little research, picked a place and planned a date.
We started off by stopping at Starbucks to get some hot chocolate- true yuppie style. I used to buy my tree in the parking lot, but after we moved to the burbs I felt the need to be a bit more fancy. Starbucks seemed more appropriate than Dunkin Donuts.

Once we bought our  hot chocolates and lattes, it was time to take care of business.

We drove for about 20 minutes (this is how you know you live in the burbs), then pulled into the tree farm's parking lot that looked packed. Luckily this was decieving and it wasn't too crowded. We were all amped up thinking we'd find the perfect tree in no time. We were sadly mistaken. Instead we roamed the farm for over two hours finding short trees, fat trees and short and fat trees.

Nothing that fit my images of "Griswold style" tree. If we wanted to go "Charlie Brown style", there were quite a few of those. I wanted big and perfect. Not too skinny, not too leafy.

Jim told me we had to go "where no man has gone before- you know, like outer space" to find the perfect tree. By outer space he meant down the hill and to the trees near the main road. I have to give him credit, he was right. After the two hour search, we finally saw some decent trees.

After we thought we found the one, we got a call from my sister and were told they found tons of amazing trees. So we dropped ours like a bad habit and headed to the other side of outer space. There they were...they were magnificiently...short. But they had to do, as they were the best on the lot. They didn't look so bad.

It was pretty appropriate that out of all the trees on the lot, my sister and I chose two trees next to each other. Typical.

I decided I wanted to cut our tree down. Jim laughed and said alright, I told him not to worry, I'd start it and make it easy for him and let him finish up.

But, since we had  a sawzall I was able to do it all by myself. Even thought it was ridiculously easy, I felt a huge sense of accomplishment.

So much so, I felt the need to carry the tree over my head in victory to the car. Until Jim let me know I looked  ridiculous. So I put it down and realized I had about a hundred pine needles in my hair.

While the guys packed up the car, my sister and I picked out our wreaths. We both debated going basic and decorating our own, until I found one that fit our red, white and snowflake theme. Once my sister realized she'd have to decorate hers on her own, she went pre-made, too.

When we got the tree home and set it up, I realized just how small it was. I should have figured this out by the fact I could lift it over my head. Oh well, Jim thought it was perfect and it grew on me.

Around the time we went to get our tree, I realized we didn't have the tree basics. I told Jim, "we really need to get a tree skirt". He told me, "Our trees gonna be a man, it won't wear a skirt." Where does he come up with this stuff?

And that is the story of our first Christmas Tree.

Have you ever cut your own tree? We're going for round two this weekend, it'll probably become a tradition around here.

Christmas Baking Extravaganza

It's that time of year! As the holidays quickly approach, I've been planning my upcoming weekends and it's time to plan out a cookie date with my family.. Every holiday season my mom, sister and I have a cookie baking extravaganza. It goes on for days. We pretty much set aside a few Sundays in the month of December for cookie prep.

We have the system down. We spend the first day making all of the doughs. Last year we made sugar cookies, chocolate chip, snowballs, molasses, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter blowouts, peanut butter kiss, mint chocolate, and Cinnamon sugar to start. Then these all get frozen until ready to bake. Last year we decided to do double, sometimes triple batches of each cookie mix. We then divide them up and labeled freezer storage bags, so we know which is which later. The second day we get together is to make the Sugar Cookies. These are the most time consuming, but they last longer than the other cookies.

Last year, my Mom decided to make our annual event a bit more special. When we arrived at my sister's house, she had a surprise for us. She bought matching holiday aprons from Etsy seller momomadeit.

I love anything cheesy and over the top when it comes to holidays, so I loved it.  Good job, Mom. Once we were all decked out in our new attire it was time to cut, bake and decorate.

My Mom always gets stuck with the "boring" jobs. She rolled out all the dough, while my sister  and I got to do the fun parts and decorate.

 

Most of the cookie cutters have been around longer than I have, but a couple years ago my mom gave me mitten and snowflake cutters from Crate and Barrel. I think these are my two favorites.

My mom is partial to the nostalgic ones and loves the holly and the tree.

After lots of rolling dough, cutting out shapes, and sprinkling non perils, sprinkles and jimmies, it was time to get these guys in the oven.

We have a big cookie debate every single year on the length of cook time. I like mine kind of fluffy, so a bit undercooked, while my mom and sister like theirs crispy. Usually they ignore me and make them all crispy, but last year we compromised and made about a 3rd the way I like them.

These ones were perfection:

After lots of baking, we took some time to get a couple photos in front of the tree with our new aprons.

I can't wait for this years bake-a-thon.

What holiday traditions do you have with your family?