I know my last post was about scones, but since I've been busy with training for my half-marathon, going to yoga and working, it leaves very little time for other things.
I don't know about you, but baking is a big stress reliever for me. Last Thursday I was having a rough day at work, so that night I decided to do some baking. I've been on a scone kick ever since I made the cherry almond scones from this post. About a week prior, I was thinking about other flavor scones I could make and I stumbled upon this cinnamon chip scone recipe. I was planning to make them that weekend, but cinnamon chips were nowhere to be found! I searched several grocery stores and could not find them so I ended up buying them off of Amazon. Thank goodness for Amazon Prime! :) I ordered the Hershey's brand cinnamon chips which came with 6 10oz bags, so I should be stocked for awhile.
Cinnamon Chips!
That Thursday after work I decided to make a batch of the cherry scones and a batch of the cinnamon scones to bring into work on Friday. Since I've made the cherry scones a few times I felt comfortable bringing them into work, but the cinnamon scones were a first for me so I was a little apprehensive to share them with co-workers. Dave tested them out and of course loved them. I had a little piece and thought they were pretty good. I think next time I won't use the whole 10oz bag of cinnamon chips it called for because it was hard to keep the dough together with so many chips. So, Friday morning I brought the scones into work, being a little skeptical of what people were going to think. I love to bake but I'm a tough critic on myself so I get very nervous sharing things with other people because I'm afraid they might not like my baking. I got nothing but positive responses and people asking for my recipes. I don't know if they were just being nice or if they truly liked them; I like to think it is the latter.
Description cards to bring into work
Cherry Almond Scones
Cinnamon Chip Scones
The final product!
My father-in-law made the cherry almond scones and said they were the best scones he has ever had! That meant a lot to me since he is an excellent baker. I'm hoping to do some baking this weekend - maybe try out some treats that would be great for Valentine's Day. If anyone has some great recipes they would like to share, I would love to try them!
Dave's good friend, Jared, moved to the area this past week. He was coming over on Sunday to watch the Patriot's game with Dave so I decided I would make him some yummy treats to welcome him to the area. I got most of my cookie ideas from my Pinterest board.
A little drinking & baking with my hunny!
The best sous-chef!
First I made the dough for sand dollar cookies from the recipe I found here since it had to be refrigerated for at least 2 hours (I ended up refrigerating it over night.) Next it was onto the pumpkin snicker-doodle cookies. This dough needed to refrigerate for at least an hour so while the dough was cooling, I decided to whip up a batch of classic chocolate chip cookies. Dave was a tremendous help throughout the whole process by measuring out ingredients, cleaning up after me and keeping me company. It was such a fun night of baking together. Once we were done with the chocolate chip cookies, it was time to bake the pumpkin snicker-doodle cookies. Before I could put them in the oven, I had to roll the dough into little balls and dip the balls into a cinnamon sugar mixture. After that, I took a small wine glass and rinsed the rim with water then dipped the rim into the sugar mixture. I took the bottom of the glass and pressed down on the dough to form flat cookies. Once I finished this process it was time to put the cookies in the oven. The cookies made our home smell like fall...it was fabulous.
Flattening the pumpkin cookies
Pre-bake
Delicious pumpkin snicker-doodle cookies
Sunday morning we finished making the sand dollar cookies. These cookies were not the easiest cookies to make because it involved trying to find the perfect almond shapes and pressing them into the cookie deep enough that they would stay put but not hard enough that they would break. The sand dollar cookies tasted ok, but I prefer my Martha Stewart snicker-doodles any day!
Sand dollar cookies - NOT worth the effort! :)
Jared's goodies! :)
The next task for the cookies was how was I going to give them to Jared. I had seen on Pinterest a wrapped Pringles jar to put your baked cookies in. I picked up some wrapping paper from The Container Store, along with some tins and gift tags. I bought some Pringles, something we never have in the house, took out the Pringles and put them in a Ziploc bag and cleaned out the Pringles container. After I dried it, I wrapped it with wrapping paper, made a gift tag and tied it onto the container. I put the other cookies in separate tins that we also picked up at the Container Store. It was such a fun project that I got to do with my husband. I hope Jared enjoys his cookies and his new home!
This past weekend was spent in New Jersey celebrating the marriage of my beautiful cousin, Lauren, and her now HUSBAND, Neil. My parents came up to our place on Thursday and we brought them to Founding Farmers for a delicious meal. My dad absolutely LOVED their cinnamon sugar popcorn and the chocolate mouse we had for dessert! After dinner we took a stroll by the White House so my mom could get a couple pictures.
At Founding Farmers
My parents after dinner
The next day we drove up to New Jersey, stopping in Philadelphia to pick up my sister from the airport since she was flying in from Austin, TX. That night was the rehearsal dinner which was at a lovely Italian restaurant. There was lots of great food and even better company. It was a great night to start off the wedding weekend!
The beautiful bride walking down the aisle with her dad
The wedding started at 7pm on Sunday and it was at a beautiful winery.; the view was breathtaking. Lauren looked absolutely STUNNING and Neil was just as handsome. I'm so happy for them; they are truly the perfect couple. We had such a fantastic night celebrating, dancing and photo-boothing. Thank you Lauren and Neil for letting us be a part of your *special* day!
At dinner!
Photo-booth fun!
It was such a wonderful weekend surrounded by family and love! Now it's back to reality - taxes and schoolwork! :(
This past weekend was filled to the brim with a lot of fun activities! Since we knew that Saturday and Sunday were going to be super busy we decided to have a relaxing night in by watching The Lorax and The Hunger Games I had watched The Lorax as a kid and enjoyed it but wasn't too impressed with the new movie. I would give it 3 stars. I haven't read The Hunger Games but decided to watch the movie with Dave. I really enjoyed it and want to know what happens next, so it looks like when I'm not studying for school, I will be reading the books! We also took a break to get some fro-yo...yummy!!! :)
Saturday morning we drove to our jeweler so I could pick out a simple wedding band that I can wear when I'm exercising, at the beach/pool or doing other activities that I don't feel comfortable wearing my original ring since it has a lot of tiny diamonds and is very delicate. It was fun to be back at our jeweler...I mean what girl doesn't like to look at jewelry?!?! :)
Guitar-Shaped Margarita/Strawberry Daiquiri and a Funnel Cake! Concert FOOD!
Dancing to "Then" in the rain <3
Jeff & Susanna being cute! :)
Saturday afternoon we headed out to Bristow, VA for the Brad Paisley concert with our friends Jeff and Susanna. We tailgated for a little while and did a lot of people watching (OBVIOUSLY this is a must for country concerts!) Easton Corbin opened up as well as The Band Perry. They both were amazing and I especially loved The Band Perry. Their song, Postcard from Paris, has become a favorite of mine. Brad Paisley was out of this world! He's such a good performer, seems so genuine and has an amazing voice. This was my 3rd time seeing him in concert and he was just as good as the first two times. Unfortunately, it rained but that didn't stop us from enjoying the concert. The highlights from the concert included: being able to experience Jeff's first concert with him :) , dancing with Dave to "Ticks" (the night we met, we played this song on Guitar Hero together), dancing with Dave in the rain to "Then" (our first dance song), Carrie Underwood coming out and singing with Brad Paisley and just having a wonderful night with great friends!
The Band Perry: "Postcard From Paris"
Pulling up to Cirque Du Soleil!
Sunday afternoon Dave surprised me with tickets to Cirque Du Soleil Totem. This was the first time for both of us to attend one of their shows. We had such an amazing time; the tricks that they did were phenomenal. We kept looking at each other in awe of the performers. It was such a fun date and something different from what we usually do.
It was such a fun-filled weekend with great friends and my wonderful husband. Now we have my beautiful cousin's wedding to look forward to this weekend in New Jersey.
Okay, so I wrote this post earlier this week but hadn't gotten around to adding the pictures, so please forgive the delay!
This past weekend was P-E-R-F-E-C-T! We started the weekend with a fun game of Top Golf on Friday night with our good friends, Jeff and Susanna. We all took golf lessons together this summer and wanted to practice what we had learned. Even though I forgot some of the things I learned during our lesson it was still a fun night with great company!
Dave & Suman at the aquarium!
Saturday we drove up to Baltimore to visit our friend Suman and his girlfriend Rupal. It was so good to see them again since we hadn't seen them since our wedding except for about 5 minutes back in December. We decided we would spend the afternoon at the Baltimore Aquarium. I had never been to the Baltimore Aquarium and was really looking forward to it! My favorite exhibit was definitely the shark exhibit...man, are those things creepy looking!!
Dave w/his "grape soda"
Yummy baked gnocchi
After a fun day of exploring the aquarium we were all famished! Rupal found the perfect little Italian place for dinner. I had baked gnocchi which was TO DIE FOR! Dave thoroughly enjoyed his "grown-up grape soda!" :) The food, drinks, conversation and company were amazing!
After our big meal we decided to walk back to the Inner Harbor. As we strolled we came upon this little park that had instruments you could play and the craziest walkway I had ever seen. We hung out there for a bit before we decided to grab a drink.
Rupal & Me playing in the park!
I swear I'm only squinting b/c there was a huge fan over my head!
We walked by Dick's Last Resort and I was immediately drawn to the ginormous margaritas with beers in them! We decided to get a drink there so Rupal and I each ordered a margarita and shared it with our guy! :)
What a wonderful day it was with great friends!
Sunday was spent relaxing at the pool and catching up on chores. All in all I would say it was the perfect weekend!
Life has been busy lately and I LOVE it!! Last weekend we went to the Outer Banks with Dave's aunt and uncle and his cousins and had a wonderful time! We relaxed, swam in the ocean, visited the dunes, had a few cocktails, played some games and overall had an amazing time; I was sad to come back!
Having fun at the dunes!
I've also been busy with school, which is not fun, but it just means I'm that much closer to getting my CPA which is exciting. We've also been taking golf lessons every Saturday morning with another couple which has been quite the learning experience. I've learned so much over the past few weeks, that I think I might want to continue taking lessons every now and then. We have our last lesson this coming Saturday which makes me sad, but hopefully I can takes some more lessons in the near future!
Since we were hit by that crazy storm on Saturday, we decided to do some outlet shopping with our friends instead of sitting inside our houses with no power. It was so much fun and I came home with a few goodies! ;) I think even Dave had a good time!
Celebrating my promotion!! :)
Saturday night we relaxed, celebrated my promotion from work and watched some swim trials. I've been hooked on the swim trials which makes me super pumped for the Olympics! I can't believe how young some of these swimmers are and the times they are putting out. It kind of got me thinking about joining a Master's swim team....
Relaxing by the pool on Sunday afternoon...
Our summer is pretty packed but I love it! I'm looking forward to a short week this week and New Jersey the following weekend! I hope everyone has an amazing Fourth of July!!!
Recently I stumbled upon this website, StickyGrams that takes your Instagrams and transforms them into magnets! I thought this was a brilliant idea and I needed to try it right away! I logged into my Instagram account on StickyGram's website, picked some Instagram pictures to be magnets and just waited for the magnets to be sent to me. It was simple, quick and I'm so happy with the results! I will definitely be using this again in the future! The magnets come in multiples of 9 and the process is quite painless! For all of you out there that are mildly "obsessed" with Instagram, I suggest you try this. You won't be disappointed; I promise!
Mario-themed cupcakes!! (They are supposed to be the mushrooms!)
So I forget how this idea even came up, but Dave and our friend, Jeff, decided it would be fun to have a game night. They wanted to play Mario Kart for Nintendo 64 and some other games. This wasn't my idea of a good time but thought I would make the best of it. Much to my surprise, the night turned out FANTASTIC and we all had a blast!
The foods we prepared for the night were your typical "party" foods, just the lighter version. We made the Skinny Taste version of buffalo wing dip and boy was it a hit! You couldn't even tell that it was the lighter version. We had different kinds of tortilla chips along with celery to go with the dip. We also made healthy baked chicken nuggets from Skinny Taste with an assortment of dipping sauces. Beverages consisted of beer andpiña coladas. Susanna, Jeff's girlfriend, and I opted for the piña coladas for the first couple rounds! :)
Yummy piña coladas
We decided to show Jeff and Susanna how to play crokinole. I don't know how to explain the game, it kind of reminds me of shuffle board for your table (I suggest you go Google it!) We had so much fun playing it! Jeff and I were paired up together and Dave and Susanna were paired together. Unfortunately, Dave and Susanna beat us in the end but it was close! I really think they enjoyed playing it and we will definitely be having a re-match one of these days!
After playing several rounds of crokinole, Dave and Susanna made a pizza. Jeff and Susanna made this to-die-for strawberry salad to go along with our pizza, which I will be replicating in the near future! After dinner it was time to play Mario Kart! Susanna killed us all in almost every round we played!!! She was amazing! I think I need to brush up on my Mario Kart skills! :) We also played 007 which wasn't as fun as most of us remembered. The highlight of the night was playing my dance game for Kinnect. Dave and Jeff were H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S! I haven't laughed that much in a LONG time! :)
Jeff and Dave dancing (sorry it's so blurry)
Jeff and Dave
I decided to make cupcakes to go along with our "gaming" theme. I decorated the cupcakes to look like the mushrooms from Mario. I think they turned out great!
