Cookie Exchange

I went to my very first cookie exchange on Friday with a group of ladies from my church. This exchange was super cute and super fun! Each lady brought in her own batch of cookies along with a enough recipes to pass around. Now my cookbook is filled with more cookie than dinner recipes, and thats fine with me!

For my cookie, I made and brought in Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. You're definitely going to need a big glass of milk for these.

Below I will show you how I made them :)

For your ingredients you will need:

1 stick of butter

1/2 Cup of chunky peanut butter

1/2 Cup of sugar

1/2 Cup of brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/4 Cup of flour

1/2 tsp of baking soda

1/2 tsp of baking powder

1/4 tsp of salt

1 Cup of chocolate chips

This will make about 18 cookies

Mix together the butter, peanut butter, and sugars.

Then add the egg and mix until fluffy.

In a separate bowl, blend the flour, baking power, soda, and salt. Then add these dry ingredients to the butter mixture.

Add the chocolate chips, mmmm :)

Then scoop out blobs of dough onto a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 350*F

Don't let the edges get too brown, and if the tops of the cookie still look like dough, thats ok! You're cookies will remain soft after they cool, which I LOVE!

After they cool plate them up and they are ready to eat!

Or take to a cookie exchange!

As I mentioned above this was my first cookie exchange, so I didn't know how to bring them, but I was told the way they were packaged was fine :) LOL

The exchange was fun, and I had a great time laughing and hanging out with a wonderful group of ladies. I hope you enjoy this cookie and surround with uplifting and genuine friends.

Skylar's Homemade Honey Butter

This is my beautiful baby girl Skylar. She is in the first grade and when she grows up she wants to be a chef! She loves to help mommy in the kitchen, and since she was 3 years old she's been creating her own little recipes. All of which I must admit were nasty, such as mixed eggs, flour, sugar, and whatever else she would mix in there, microwave and then expect me to eat, with a smile on my face. So I started teaching her how to make some yummy edible creations. For Christmas her grandmother, who she calls GiGi, got her an apron to wear in the kitchen, and whenever its time to bake, cook, or create, she puts it on eager and ready to go. 

One of her most recent creations was Homemade Honey Butter. Skylar made this all by herself and below she will show you how. This butter was delicious! 

The ingredients and materials you will need are:

A clean jar

A marble (optional)

Heavy Cream

Salt

and

Honey

Now lets get started!

Have your materials and ingredients ready

Fill your jar halfway full of heavy cream, then drop in the marble (the marble just helps with the mixing).

Then start shaking!

You're going to be shaking for a long time, so you might need a friend (or a mommy) to take turns with you when your arms get tired.

Half way through, your mixture will look like whip cream.

Keep shaking and have patience!

And soon, after all of your hard work, that white cream that has coated your jar will soon clear your jar and you'll have a large yellow lump in there, and thats your butter!

Spoon out the butter from the liquid thats left in there. That liquid is now butter milk! You can save that for other recipes.

 You will need to also take that butter and squeeze out any butter milk that is mixed in over the sink. Try to squeeze out as much as you can. Mom needs to help with that.

Sprinkle on some salt

Then drizzle in some honey. We eyeballed it to taste.

Mix it all together

Then spoon your mixture into a container that you can keep in the refrigerator 

And then you're done! Now you have some of the most amazing honey butter. This stuff is great on toast, dinner rolls, muffins, you name it! We ate it on toast for dinner that night and finished it off on toast for breakfast the next morning. Skylar was so proud of herself as we ate the butter and praising her for a job well done. I hope that you or your little ones have fun making this yummy treat! 

Enjoy your babies, have patience, and have fun in the kitchen! :)

Chunky Junk!

In James 1:27 God tells us to look after orphans and widows.

LOVOSO does just that! Love Orphans, Visit Orphans, Serve Orphans.

LOVOSO is an amazing ministry that sells Chunky Junk jewelry to help those in need. Half of their profits go straight to orphanages and to widows in India, Haiti, and Ghana. They don't only raise money for these orphanages and other ministries, but they also visit and serve in these areas as well.

Their jewelry is beautiful, unique, and of course CHUNKY. These pieces will look fabulous on you and will make for a great conversation piece. I don't know of one lady who hasn't worn a necklace, ring, or bracelet who hasn't received a compliment on it. Not only will you being wearing a rare piece of jewelry you'll also help fund orphanages around the world. Above is a picture of one of their bracelets that I love to wear. Amy over at The Hickman Happenings hosted a ladies night fund raiser dinner called "This Night" where the Chunky Junk jewelry was featured. I was able to pick out some great pieces and then give as Christmas presents to all the ladies in my family. The gifts were a hit!

I hope that you will check out their website and pick a piece or two for either yourself or for someone you love. With each purchase you'll be able help support orphans in need.

Click these links to visit their website  LOVOSO and their facebook page Facebook Chunky Junk

As you can see below, Haiti has a special place in my heart, as I was able to visit there last July and love on some amazing children in need. I plan on returning soon and I cannot wait.

Easy Homemade Pico De Gallo

I made this Pico De Gallo for our Super Bowl dinner on Sunday. It's an easy, fresh, yummy, spicy treat!

Here are the ingredients:

1 (maybe even 1 1/2) tomato, diced
1/2 onion, chopped. (Make sure you have more tomato than onion)
a few sprigs of cilantro, chopped
4 to 6 green onions, chopped
1 jalapeño, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
garlic powder to taste

and 1/2 green pepper (I didn't use a green pepper in the pico de gallo that I made Sunday, but that's only because I forgot the pepper at the store...it was still good though).

Chop, dice, and season your ingredients, and mix them up together in a bowl. Customize it by adding more of the ingredients that you like best and then refrigerate for 30 minutes to a hour. Then serve with tortilla chips, I like the scoops kind.

Enjoy!

Super Bowl Sunday

For the past week I have been surrounded by the flu. My husband and both of my babies were sick. Thankfully I was able to avoid it! Last week I had to clean up snot, a pee pee accident, and throw up! Gross! But nothing this momma hasn't done before (not even the worst). We've also had to miss out on a lot of school, miss church and even miss out on a birthday party. By the end of this weekend however everyone finally started feeling better. We were invited to a Super Bowl party, but we decided not to chance taking anyone out since they weren't a 100%. So I went to the grocery store, picked up a bunch of junk food and ingredients to whip up some dips and we decided to have our own Super Bowl party at home. Last minute we also invited our neighbors over whose family had also been sick all week to join us. I figured if we've all already had the same thing, it wouldn't hurt to get together with just each other...right??

Anyways, Mitch and I were pulling for the Packers, just the be pulling for someone really. We didn't really have a "dog in the fight" with this game, but loved an excuse to eat junk food for dinner and spend time with friends.

Here are some pictures of our night.

(above) Skylar and her friend Cadence :)

(above) Gabriel and Maddox. While taking this picture I was saying "smile Maddox! Please smile, come on smile!". This is his I refuse to smile face, stinker :/

Yummy food and a great time with friends and neighbors :)