Watermelon madness

SO before the big tooth debacle of last week, I introduced her to a summer favorite: watermelon. And she loved it. Here's to summer!

Photography spot: Blackberries

Opera singer in the making?

I always catch her making the funniest faces. This was no exception.

I just love her little mushroom clip made from a sticker and some felt.

Delicious Desserts: the oreo peanut butter double stuffed brownie

Do you want to try the most ridiculous brownie concoction known to man? I give you the oreo peanut butter double stuffed brownie. And yes, it is that ridiculous. My husband said it was too complex for his likes, but I have to tell you all it was delicious. Amazing. FATtening. Seriously, I don't know the calorie count on this, but I know it's high. Too high. So only make these if you have lots of people to help you eat them. Or you can pawn them off on friends. Because trust me, these bad boys will call your name.

To make them, you just need brownie mix, oreos and peanut butter. I would link to the recipe, but it was just floating around Facebook, so here it is in all its copy and pasted glory:

OREO PEANUT BUTTER DOUBLE STUFFED BROWNIE

Brownie mix (any favorite will do)
Oreo's 
Peanut Butter 
Muffin tin 
Paper cupcake liners

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1). Prepare brownie mix according to directions on pkg.
2). Line muffin tin
3). Spread peanut butter on top of Oreo's
4). Add another Oreo on top & spread with peanut butter
5). Put in muffin tin
6). Pour brownie mixture on top
7). Bake for 10-15 minutes

I'm pretty sure it took about 20 minutes for mine to bake. This recipe is a serious sweet tooth killer. I give it two chubby thumbs up.

Soaking in the sunshine

One ray at a time. With all this 'warm' spring weather, trips outside have been, well, nonexistent. So I thought it was high time we bundled up and went out there anyway. To enjoy the dirt. To practice climbing up and down steps. To pick up acorns and sticks and throw them at, I mean for, the dog!

Look what I found! I'll probably stick it in my mouth now so pay attention.

 Ha! Fooled you, I just want to laugh at how funny this little tiny stick is.

The partner in crime, making certain she didn't find anything too interesting.

 

The Easter bunny came to town

I guess I should start learning how to style little girl's hair because now that she's got so stinking much of it, it always looks like a disaster. Bow and go, that's my motto! Anyway, here are some impromptu Easter shots for your viewing pleasure! Have a great Easter everyone, may your day be filled with great food, wonderful family and friends, and the celebration of our Lord and Savior's resurrection. What a tremendous day that must have been, filled with so much hope, amazement and love. He saved me and hopefully one day this little girl will put her trust and life in His hands as well.

Delicious Dishes: honey sesame chicken

Here's another wonderful simple crockpot dish. The recipe can be found here. I'm a big fan of smelling amazing food all day long. This only takes a few hours to cook, so it's also one of those meals you can wait to prep and toss in the crockpot while the bebe is napping. This is the second time I've made it, and this time I tweaked the recipe and used a little less honey and soy sauce so it was a little less 'strong'. We prefer it that way but try it according to the recipe first and be prepared for chicken that tastes like candy. Chicken candy. Mmm.

All that sparkles

Turns out, having a bebe girl is a whole lot of fun when you get to buy tutus and sparkle shoes and completely justify it all. When you're doing every day things like eating lunch and you look down to see shiny shoes, you can't help but smile.

Delicious Sides: parmesan baked tomatoes

I usually spend Mondays meal-planning and grocery shopping. Well, not the entire day, ain't nobody got time for that. But this particular Monday I couldn't make it to the store, probably some bebe-related excuse but I digress. Tuesday I finally made it but I still didn't have anything extravagant planned for the first 'meal-planned' night. Just a simple baked maple/brown sugar salmon. I wanted to keep consistent with my 'fancy' new cookery {?} so I pulled out the recipe book and decided on a couple of new side dishes. One simple and delicious one is this Parmesan Baked Tomato recipe. I actually forgot to do the last olive oil step, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

It was easy and delicious and looked pretty awesome on the plate. The second was these Roasted Sweet Potatoes, which honestly smelled {and tasted} more like dessert. They were amazing. I think I'll keep them in mind for Easter dinner.

The husband came home and was all like 'Mmmm, lookin' fancy!'. Okay maybe not those exact words but he seemed pretty happy and he's been more than eager to try all these new recipes along with me. So far so good, and we've only had a couple of recipes {out of the last few weeks} that we felt were 'meh'.

Delicious Desserts: Raspberry Oat Bars

One night a week needs to be 'leftovers night', so I don't end up throwing out lots of yummy food. I've learned that the hard way. Tossing old pizza isn't bad, but when you're throwing away meals that you spent time and effort making, it hurts a little more. On those nights I've decided to try a new dessert recipe off Pinterest to keep consistent.

This one came from allrecipes.com and it's pretty good. I like fruit desserts, the only thing I think I did wrong on this one was not crumble the butter into the mixture enough. The top came out of the oven a little dry and 'dusty'. I fixed that by just taking a fork and mixing up the raspberry with the topping while it was still hot. I think next time I'll try to add in some mashed fresh raspberries instead of only using the preserves.

All in all, they were tasty.

Delicious Desserts: Loaded Chocolate Chip Cookies

Meet the best cookies ever. EVER. You want to make some. Now. I think this recipe is originally from allrecipes.com but I can't be sure since I have a printed version that I taped to a recipe card years ago {I'm not the type to claim a recipe is 'mine'}...Well this time I decided to try a more 'packed' version by adding a couple of new ingredients, and I have to say, they're amazing.

Loaded Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups rolled oats {Use 1c if you like more moist cookies, 2 cups makes it a little more dry}
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/3 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
Preheat oven to 300º F. Grease cookie sheets. Stir together the flour, baking soda, salt and oats. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients until well blended before stirring in the chocolate chips, coconut and walnuts. Drop in spoonfuls onto the cookie sheets and flatten to 1/2 inch thick.

Bake for 21 minutes, until lightly browned. Let cool, if you can be patient enough after smelling baking cookies for 21 minutes...

These are perfect on this snow-filled morning. Yes, I'm eating cookies for breakfast. Don't judge me.