Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins and Costco Flowers

According to Blogger, my last published post was February 26, 2014. Huh. I knew it had been a while, but it didn't think it was THAT long ago. Oh, well. Life happens.

RC is in 4th grade (how the hell did THAT happen?) and brings a snack every day. Most of the time this snack consists of granola bars and fruit snacks. I've been trying to think of things for him to take that are easy, tasty (i.e. have chocolate in them) and aren't totally horrible for him. I've made these double fudge banana muffins from Yammie's Noshery and they are fantastic.

I was telling my mom how awesome those fudge banana muffins were and she mentioned the pumpkin chocolate chip ones she made when we were kids. I asked for the recipe last week and finally got around to making them this week. And, they are a hit! Seriously, how can you go wrong with pumpkin AND chocolate chips. It's a match made in heaven.

They are super easy and very tasty.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
1 Box Spice Cake Mix
1 C pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
2/3 C water
2 eggs
6 oz chocolate chips

Mix cake mix, pumpkin, water and eggs together. Stir in chocolate chips. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Makes 12-16 muffins. (I use an ice cream scoop to fill the muffin tins and got 16 out of this batch.)

This was my attempt at food styling. I took a large plate, a cereal bowl turned upside down and a small plate and put them on a beverage stand my sister got for me on clearance at Target. 

On a totally different topic, I love Costco flowers. I'm no Tulipina, but using these flowers makes me happy. (Her arrangements are amazing. Her Instagram feed just makes me happy everyday.)

Our grocery store chain, Hornbacher's does a good job too, but Costco has some fantastic $15 flowers. These are the flowers DH and the kids brought home today. DH was surprised at how full it was. He almost bought two thinking they would make a small arrangement at home. I love them. I think they are perfect. I use a trick I read in my Better Homes and Gardens magazine a couple of years ago. I make a scotch tape grid and fill it in. They always turn out awesome. (And since it's almost Halloween, you have to have Halloween salt and pepper shakers. These guys make me smile.)

Hope everyone is enjoying the cooler weather and beautiful colors this fall. I've also been thinking about the southeast since we have friends and family that are getting a lot of rain and flooding. Stay safe!

hi.

No post since July. I know. I’m a horrible blogger. We’ve had a very busy house the last few months. And sometimes living life is more important than documenting life.
Anywho, here’s what’s been going on.
August
Peachy turned 2. RC started first grade. And I went back to school. At 36. What was I thinking? Oh, yeah. I was thinking maybe it was time to get a degree. So, I enrolled in an online degree program. So far, so good, but it doesn’t leave much free time after working full time and trying to keep things together at home. Sparky’s been great though. He knows just when I need encouragement and support.

I also did a little transformation on an old candle stick and table top. I decided to try my hand at making my own chalk paint. I’m not sure if I’d do it again. It’s ok, but not the exact look I was going for. Definitely good enough for now though! (And now, a few months later, I’m ready to repaint it something lighter and move it to a different spot.)



September
My SIL got married! Yay! RC was the ring bearer and Peachy was the flower girl. And I took the pictures. (Yikes! I was pretty nervous, but they turned out great.) It was a beautiful fall day and we had a wonderful time.


We also did a little DIY in late September. The main floor half bath was driving both Sparky and I ca-ra-zy. The closet and it’s door just weren’t working. We purged, painted and hung curtains. We’ve still got some accessorizing to do, but really love the way it turned out.


October
We decided it was time for a party. So we had an adult only costume party. It was a blast. Sparky and I were The Bundys. I had a lot of fun doing some spooky decorations.  Vivienne at The V Spot was my inspiration. She’s got great Halloween decorating ideas! No pictures of the party itself…needless to say some of the guests wouldn’t appreciate their pictures posted all over the interwebs.
I spray painted some branches from our yard black, spray painted a faux pumpkin white then used $1 Store spiders, bats and webs to finish it off. The raven is from Wal-Mart, the lantern is a left over from my SIL’s wedding, and the candelabra is from TJMaxx. The skull candle holder was a prize Sparky won for best costume at a Halloween party a couple of years back. He was a great Fred Flintstone. (Oh, and the mirror is a new addition over the buffet. We bought it from a friend of my SIL’s for pretty cheap and spray painted it white.)

I’ve been updating the Irish blessing I keep by the door for each season/occasion. It’s been fun seeing what’s out there. I do a Bing search and type it up in Microsoft Word. Then,  I use the same white frame and just swap out the blessing and mat (aka scrapbook paper).


November
Thanksgiving really snuck up on me this year. We hosted my parents and my SIL’s family. The day before I scrounged around the house to find some fall-ish, Thanksgiving-ish decorations. (I should’ve taken a picture of the table all set! It was really pretty. Sigh.) I ended up with burlap, fake leaves, and gourds.

Right before Thanksgiving, I broke out the craft paint and had the kids paint some pictures. I chose fall colors for them to use (green, red, yellow, orange and bronze) and let them go to town. Then, I punched a hole in them and used some twine to hang them up in the dining room. They definitely aren’t hung perfectly straight, but I like them! And RC was so proud to have them hung up.

And now, Christmas is only a few weeks away! AAAAAAA!
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!
And now it’s 2013! Yeah, I started this post a month ago and just got back to it.
Christmas was awesome. We had Sparky’s family here on Christmas Eve and then went to my sister’s on Christmas Day. Sparky’s sister from Florida was up and my brother and his fiancé came from Montana. Lots of laughs, lots of wine and lots of Farkle and cards. It was great.

I had a 2 week break from school and also took 2 weeks off of work. I was actually at home pretty much the whole time with my kids. From December 22 until January 2. Other than maternity leave, I think that’s the most I’ve been home with them. Gosh, that sounds horrible. And a couple of those days, my seester’s kids and my SIL’s youngest was here too. 6 kids 9 and under. 1 – 9 year old, 1 - 8 year old, 2 - 6 year olds, 2- 2 year olds. Yikes! I don’t know how SAHMs do it. I honestly don’t. They had so much fun though! All of them were asking when they’d get to see the others again.
After everyone left and the kids went back to school and daycare, I had 3 whole days to myself. 3 days! 2 of them are gone. And not much but laundry and workouts have been accomplished. Where does the day go? I have one day left. And I don’t really feel like doing anything. We’ll see how it goes. 
I hope everyone has a great 2013 and I’ll try to pop in every once in a while, but can’t make any promises. Applied Statistics and World Religion are in my near future. Oh, and I guess I better get back to work too.

Porch Update

I finally have a couple of updates to the porch project I started a couple of weeks ago.  And my craft room floor looked like this:

Fantastic.

I knew I wanted a wreath for the front door, so I’ve been pinning a lot of wreaths lately for inspiration.

Like, this one:

 Source: Madigan Made via Jill on Pinterest

 And this one:

Source: Little Things Bring Smiles via Jill on Pinterest

 But, I finally decided to tackle this one:

Source: Lisa Leonard Designs via Jill on Pinterest

And it’s probably one of the easiest things I’ve done.

I got the grapevine wreath on sale at Hobby Lobby for $3.50. Then I picked up some nice soft yarn while I was there and used my 40% off coupon.  I also picked up some burlap at JoAnn using a 40% off coupon as well. That’s right, I was a bargain shopper! (So, I’d never bought burlap before. Why? I don’t know. Anywho, the girl that cut it for me was not impressed to be cutting burlap. I guess there is a right way and a wrong way to cut burlap, and the last person to cut it, did it the wrong way. Who knew?)

First, I wrapped the yarn around one side.  Then I cut my burlap (not the right way), and used hot glue to attached it on the back.

My next big decision was what kind of flowers to put on it. I didn’t have any felt, but I did have some plaid fabric from some pillows I’d made a few years ago.  I did a search for fabric flower tutorials, but didn’t see any that jumped out at me. . (There are a bajillion.) I didn’t really want to sew and I didn’t have any buttons. Then, I remembered this fabric flower tutorial from Emily at Jones Design Company. Perfecto!  These were super easy and didn’t take much time at all.  The only issue that I really had was I cut some of the strips too wide and they weren’t very long, but in the end, they worked out pretty well.

I spent maybe an hour total. (And some of that was wasting time cutting circles out of fabric trying to make flowers before I finally broke down and looked online.)

The other thing I knew I wanted to do was use a pumpkin as a planter. I fell in love with them after seeing this:

Source: Martha Stewart via Jill on Pinterest

So, I broke down and bought a couple of pumpkins. (There’s a patch by my parent’s house that’s free pumpkin patch and I was trying to hold out until I made it up there, but I just couldn’t do it.)

I knew that I didn’t want to see the actual pot the mums were in, so I cut the whole in the top of the pumpkin a little bit wider than the circumference of the container.  To keep the container from falling to the bottom of the pumpkin, I stuff the pumpkin with plastic shopping bags.  This was very easy as well and makes me love pumpkins even more.

I’ve got a few things left before the porch is really ready for fall. More pumpkins, maybe a hay bale, some cornstalks…we’ll see.



Linking up with these fab folks!