Fluffy Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies {Valentine's Day}

Sorry for the shiny food pictures. I HATE shiny food pictures. NO BODY wants to eat food that's photographed with a glare, not to mention wrapped in saran wrap. BUT, I was desperate. It was 6 a.m. and I had a nine month old supervisor carefully overseeing my efforts from her orange Bumbo seat. My photography time was limited! The project had to be complete, wrapped and ready for its recipient before he got up for the morning.


So, just imagine that the chocolate is smooth and the marshmallow cream is soft and puffy and that the oatmeal cookies (minus the raisins) are browned to perfection.

The recipe is a Paula Deen recipe so yes, the list of ingredients begins with TWO sticks of butter. A decadent valentines day desert for my valentine. Making them heart shaped was my idea. Turned out rather well. Worth all the effort (I think).

What's inside? Melted chocolate morsels, fluffy marshmallow cream and roasted pecans. 

Here is my version of the recipie. You can find it on the Paula Deen website as well:

Ingredients

1 cup butter, about 2 sticks, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
Semi sweet Chocolate morsels melted
Marshmallow creme, as needed (recommended: Fluff)
Chopped roasted pecans (optional)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease 2 or 3 baking sheets or line with silpats.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until creamy. Add the egg and the milk and beat until combined.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Gradually add the dry ingredients to butter mixture, beating until incorporated. Stir in the oats. Form the cookies by dropping heaping 2 tablespoonfuls of the batter onto the prepared baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet, spacing evenly.

Bake until the cookies are lightly browned, about 11 to 13 minutes. Let them cool for 2 minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer them to wire racks to cool completely.

Spread a small dollop of the fudge on the inside of 6 cookies. Spread a large dollop of the marshmallow creme on the inside of another 6 cookies. Sandwich the cookies together and transfer to a serving platter.

As a special treat for Steven, I added chopped, roasted pecans to the marshmallow cream side of the cookie before sandwiching them together.

Advent Calendar {Spice Tins}

I know, I know, it's December 14th. A bit late for sharing my advent calendar, but well, that's life. My blog isn't the only thing that's neglected. You should see my eye brows! But things are changing, tonight I'm updating the blog. And who knows what tomorrow might bring for my face!

My friend Angie shared this Glittered Magnetic Advent Calendar from Martha Stewart which inspired this year's advent calendar. You might remember my "Advent Forest" made of paper truffle boxes last year. The paper boxes were fun, but I was looking for something more durable. And plus, who wants to do the same thing two years in a row? Gotta change things up, people. So...this year, we went PINK. Yes, that's right, with two little girls in our world now, most everything is pink. I purchased a pink artificial Christmas tree and ornaments to match. Each of these spice tins holds about three tiny ornaments. I purchased the spice tins from Specialty Bottle. The quality was wonderful and they arrived quickly! Each day Marin opens a metal tin and adds new PINK ornaments to her PINK tree. She L.O.V.E.S it! However, her Daddy and I want to throw all 25 tins out the window each time they come clattering off of the refrigerator. Yes, that's right, these pictures make the idea look and sound perfect, which it would be IF I would have used stronger magnets for the backing. I just used magnetic tape on the back and let me tell you, it's NOT strong enough. So, modifications need to be made, but who has time for that? Until next year, we'll enjoy the sounds of Marin's excitement about opening a new "number" (as she says) and the clatter of metals tins falling to the floor each time the fridge door is shut just a tad too hard.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Your path of motherhood has always been one I've felt comfortable to follow. The choices you made, the actions you took and the love that you gave unfailingly.

Today I recognize and am thankful for your patience, sacrifices and joy.

I love you, Krystina

Easter Fun! {Easter Egg Animals}

Marin and I made these animal Easter eggs last night. Marin was in charge of spreading felt and pom poms all over the floor and telling me if the animal was cute or not. She really wanted to use the hot glue gun, and didn't appreciate me hogging it. Once they were complete I had to hide them away for Easter morning, otherwise, I'm not sure that Bunny, Chicken, Mouse and Pig would have survived "playing."

These were designed so that the plastic egg still opens. My plan is to fill them with goodies and place them in her Sunday morning Easter basket. She'll be excited to see them again!

Only items you need to make your own are: plastic eggs, felt in various colors, scissors, a hot glue gun and your imagination.

Merry Christmas!

Thank you Katherine for taking our family pictures. Merry Christmas everyone!

Advent Calendar {Or Advent Forest}

I LOVE the season of Advent. So weeks before Thanksgiving I began scouring the internet for advent calendar ideas. My favorite was a calendar that another graphic designer, Julie Ree, had created using paper truffle boxes. Our calendar is a variation of her design. When I saw her pyramid shaped boxes I immediately envisioned a forest of Christmas trees.

If you visit Brownie Points, they have a downloadable pdf file of the truffle template. It's funny how a simple box template can inspire so many fun ideas!

To create our advent calendar, I recreated their template and scaled it to four different size templates. Then I traced the templates onto colorful scrapbooking paper I found at wal-mart. Many evenings in November were spent cutting, scoring, folding and hot gluing. Each "tree" is filled with a tiny treat. Stickers, new socks, finger puppets etc. Finding numbered stickers is impossible, so I created my own numbered star stickers.

Today we opened the first of 24 advent trees. Christmas is on its way!

Trick-Or-Treat {Halloween 2009}

Marin is in love with the movie 101 Dalmatians so I thought an appropriate costume would be a Dalmatian puppy. Why the tutu you ask? Well, Marin also loves dancing, so we morphed her two loves into one costume. If a costume isn’t fun, then what’s the point…right?! We enjoyed the hospitality of friends and went on a hayride trick-or-treat expedition through Lakeside Village subdivision. Marin was the caboose of the group and was most always last to reach the door and the last one on the trailer. However, she was the first to yell “YES” when the group was asked if they wanted more candy.

Cutest moment of the night? When Jesse asked Marin if she would share her Skittles and she told him “No, my skibbles.” She would, however, gladly share her breath mints and tootsie rolls. Oh! And she LOVED the tail on her costume and was convinced everyone else had tails as well. She must have asked Steven 20 times “Daddy, do you have a tail?”

Pumpkin Carving Party 2009 {aka PCP '09}

I'm slightly embarrassed by the lack of photos from this year's party. I was so focused on actually carving MY pumpkin I didn't even think to take photos. Everyone had a great time. The food was wonderful, the pumpkins were clever and there was a MARRIAGE PROPOSAL!?! What? At our annual pumpkin party?! Wow. Too exciting. My Sister and her boyfriend Jesse have been dating for years and he choose our party to pop the question!!! A very clever proposal that included the carving of an abstract pumpkin made for an extremely happy Katherine.

If you missed this years party you missed tons of fun. Who knows what excitement next year holds. So, mark your calendars now. PCP is always on the Saturday before Halloween. What will you carve?

P.S. If you took pics at the party please share them with me!

Happy Father's Day Steven

I'm sure Steven would have rather been sailing, or fishing or even taking a nap would have been a better father's day weekend activity...instead he rented a jack hammer and took out solid concrete steps from the back corner of our house. We have plumbers coming tomorrow...oops, well, technically today since it's 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday. They'll be installing a tankless waterheater on the wall photographed here and we'll be replacing the siding once they are done with their portion of the work. We needed to remove these steps so that the siding will be even at the bottom and because they no longer serve a purpose. That's why Steven worked on Saturday, in the heat, for seven hours.

Yes, I helped as much as I could. This pile of rocks is my handy work. Moving all of the rubble from the steps into the back of the truck was my job.

Finished product below. I know, it doesn't look like much to you, but that's life in an old house. Working your butt off for hours and days and when you are finished, nobody but you can appreciate the effort and time.

And now, for my favorite part of the day, this picture of Steven and Marin. How beautiful is the connection they have? Steven is such a wonderful father. Marin and I are truly blessed to call him daddy and husband. He is: hard working, resourceful, faithful, loving, funny, talented, dedicated, gentle, strong and courageous. He was by my side throughout the 30 hours it took to bring Marin into the world and he hasn't stepped away since. He is wonderful with Marin and I feel quite confident he does more with/for her than the average daddy does with a 2 year old. I'm deeply in love with you Steven. Thank you for being such a wonderful Father.

Just One Year

Can you believe how much she has changed? STILL working on hair!!!

Easter 2009 - She Wore the Dress!

Here are a few pictures from Easter Sunday. Yes, Marin wore the mini dress. Lot's of compliments. Nobody said anything about it being too short (grin). The egg hunt was indoors.




Once the rain stopped we went outside for more pictures.




How cute are the pictures of Steven and Marin?