Mint Chip Cookies

I saw THESE yummy mint chip cookies on Picky Palate and thought they would be fun to try out! They are absolutely delicious! And don't worry, the mint flavor is not overbearing. It is absolutely perfect!

Rocking Chair (Completed)

I finally figured out what to do for a seat cushion on our rocking chair! I found a CUSHY seat pad at Cost Plus and made a slipcover for it! It was very simple to make and I think it turned out great. Now our rocking chair is PERFECT and COMFORTABLE for all of those readings, late night feedings, and rocking our little one to sleep.

Here you can see the glossy finish that my husband added!


A close up of the seat cushion!


Gearing up for story time!


And preparing for the late night feedings and rockings to sleep!

Basket Liners

I have been doing finishing touches on our baby's nursery and one of the things I wanted to do was buy baskets for his toys and make cute basket liners to tie in nursery colors. I really love how they turned out and I love the fabric.

Now he has toys and books ready to go!


A close up of the liners!

I am also using this same fabric for my seat cushion on the rocking chair (coming up soon)! And we are thinking about using this fabric for the bassinet skirt and bumper pad! I can't wait to get it all finished and see the nursery complete!

I used THIS tutorial, for the liners, from "Make It and Love It." I found it last summer and made these...


for my snack baskets in the kitchen. Keep in mind that we live in an apartment so that is why we have our food storage out in the open for everyone to see. I at least tried to make it look as cute as I could. Of course how cute can you really make cans of food look?

Lemon Poppy Seed Bread

I saw this delicious recipe from Your Homebased Mom and knew that I had to try it! I love poppy seed anything, but especially lemon poppy seed bread! It was delicious! We kept two mini loaves and gave away the other two! I think 4 loaves was a bit much for just me and my husband!

Lemon Poppy Seed Bread

Land O’Lakes Best of Baking Recipe Collection

2 1/4 C all purpose flour

1 1/4 C sugar

1 C butter, softened

3/4 C milk

3 eggs

2 Tbsp poppy seeds

1 Tbsp freshly grated lemon peel

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Glaze

1/2 C sugar

3 Tbsp butter, melted

4 tsp lemon juice

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom only of four (5 1/2 x 3 inch) mini loaf pans. Set aside.

Combine all bread ingredients in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often until well mixed.

Spread batter into prepared pans. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Stir together all glaze ingredients in small bowl. Drizzle over warm bread loaves. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pans.

Rocking Chair

For the past few months we have been searching for a rocking chair for our nursery. We finally found one on Craigslist for the right price ($25)! However, it was bright red. We snatched it up and decided we would sand it down and paint it green! Fortunately for us, my mother-in-law knew about a specific Primer you can use instead of sanding everything down. We found it and my husband got to work.


We forgot to take a Before picture so we got one before we finished the primer.

After the Primer coat!


All green now! We love the color and how it turned out! Now we have a beautiful rocking chair to rock our little guy to sleep! We also put a gloss coat on the top to finish it off, but I haven't taken a picture of it in the nursery yet. Now it just needs a nice, soft cushion to make it perfect! Anyone know how to make a seat cushion?

Pizza Sandwiches

Growing up my mom used to make these delicious pizza sandwiches! They are super easy and absolutely delicious!

Take two slices of bread and spread pizza or spaghetti sauce on one side of each slice. Layer mozzarella cheese and your favorite pizza toppings (I like plain pepperoni because we always have it on hand). Then put the two sides together, and spread butter on the outsides of the sandwiches. Grill in a sandwich maker, or on a griddle like a grilled cheese sandwich.


Serve with sliced fruit and veggies and dip! Enjoy!!!

ABC Letters

I finally finished and hung the Alphabet letters in the nursery! They turned out so cute and I am so excited about them. Every time I walk into the baby's room I smile because they look so darling on the wall!

Now the other walls need some serious help in comparison. Boring, blank, white walls just won't do next to these...


Sorry the lighting is not fantastic. Once the entire room is finished we will try to take some nice photos with natural sunlight and everything!

Sugar Cookies

For our fun Easter celebration I really wanted to come up with a fun activity we could all do after dinner. I thought about dying eggs but decided that would be too messy with little kids that were coming so we decided to frost sugar cookies instead. There weren't too many adults that frosted cookies (mostly they were just chatting), but the one little three year old we had attending went to town with the frosting. It was a good trial run for me to learn how children react to frosting cookies!

These are just a few of the shapes that we used! Flowers, eggs, bunnies, butterflies & ducks. They turned out really cute on top of tasting delicious.

This recipe for sugar cookies is incredible. They have a little bit of lemon extract in them so they have a subtle lemon flavor. Combined with the frosting from THESE homemade oreo cookies the sugar cookies turned out heavenly! However, I am still searching for a lemon frosting to go with this recipe. I think that would make them the best sugar cookies ever invented. Anyone have a lemon frosting recipe?

Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter – softened

1 cup granulated sugar

3 eggs, beaten

3 ½ cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

½ tsp lemon extract

½ tsp almond extract

Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Add dry ingredients and extracts. Chill dough one hour, then roll to ¼ inch thick and cut with cutter on floured board. Place on cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. When cool, frost or glaze.

Happy Easter!!!

This year we hosted an Easter dinner at our little apartment. It was a lot of fun to gather with friends (since family is too far away) and celebrate Easter with what our friends like to call "Feaster." Everybody brought food to share and it turned out wonderfully!


Our "dining room" is pretty small but our table can expand to seat 10 (possibly even 12 but we've never tried it). So we had this huge table crammed into a tiny little space! Fortunately it all just barely fit long enough for us to enjoy our meal.

To minimize dishes and add color to the table I bought paper plates to put on top of the dinner plates. We used the paper plates for the fruit salad and the veggies with dip. Then we tossed them out and moved on to the main course. We had Boneless BBQ Ribs. I love making them but only do it about once a year. It is the easiest recipe ever! Next time I make it I will remember to take pictures.

And of course we had to have a variety of desserts. I made Homemade Oreos and added some food coloring to the frosting to make them more Eastery. As always they were a huge hit. Some of our friends brought sugar cookie sandwiches with frosting in the middle and a delicious key lime pie. Thanks to everyone who participated and came to celebrate "Feaster" with us! It was a blast!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

Fabric Easter Baskets

I saw THESE beautiful Easter Baskets on the Moda Bake Shop website. I completely fell in love with them and knew that they were the project I was waiting for! Vanessa from V and Co. was the genius behind the design.


I made some minor adjustments to the tutorial. Instead of hand sewing the entire basket I began to get impatient and decided I would try using a glue gun! It was so much quicker and I think they will hold up longer because I used the glue gun. I also didn't want to purchase a honey bun (because I think they are too expensive) so I went to the fabric store and purchased my own fabrics and cut them out myself. I bought 5 different fabrics for each basket and cut out 8 strips, measuring 44" x 1 1/2", from each fabric. I actually bought 1 yard of each type of fabric, but I only used 1/3 yard for each basket. Then I had 3 left over strips from each fabric so I will definitely be making more baskets once we have our little guy and hopefully other children as well.

Anyway, here's the "blue" basket for my husband! Our baby boy's will be the same blue and green color scheme.


And here's my girly version! I used the same green polka dot fabric in both baskets to help tie them together better!

PS: I am estimating that each basket cost approximately $8.00!