Spooky Graveyard Puddings

I'm back WITCHES!!!! Get it, get it, huh??? Lame? Ok, ok, I know. After a two and a half year hiatus, I'm coming back! Why? Well, I missed my creative outlet and the drive it gave me to stretch and push myself and my skills. Plus, it was just plain fun. Two years ago I needed to eliminate anything that wasn't necessary for me to give my time to, but now both boys are in school and I'm ready to start investing time into something I enjoy again.

 I planned on coming back to you with a delicious sushi bowl, but I made these cuties and knew I had to share. They're easy, delicious and kids (and husbands) lose their minds over them!

I made these for our Friday family movie night. We were watching Hocus Pocus and these made me think of Billy. The boys loved it and I of course loved re-watching something from my childhood. It truly is a classic, at least in my opinion. Anything with Bette Midler is instantly a win in my book. 

Can't keep their hands off of them!!!

SPOOKY CHOCOLATE GRAVEYARD PUDDINGS

makes about 12 1 cup portions

Chocolate Stout CakeThe best one bowl chocolate cake in the history of the universe

Make 2-3 dozen cupcakes
or 3 8” round cakes
or 2 9” Round cakes
or 1 9x13 cake

2 cups sugar
1 ½ cup all purpose flour
1 cup dutch process cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs beaten
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup stout beer (Terrapin Liquid Bliss is my fav)
2 tablespoon espresso powder
½ cup vegetable oil
Preheat over to 350 F. Line Pans with parchment or butter and flour.
In a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, beer, espresso powder and oil. Whisk wet into dry. Pour into pans and bake. Bake 30-35 minutes for round pans, 35-40 minutes for rectangle pans. Once cool, crumble the cake and set aside.

*To make it non alcoholic- omit espresso powder and swap beer for strong coffee.  

(I did this this time)

Faux Chocolate Mousse 

aka secret ingredient instant pudding

2 5.9 oz boxes instant pudding
3 cups whipping cream or heavy cream
In a large bowl, whisk both ingredients together.  Refrigerate for about 3 hours to overnight. That's it. No really. Yes, I'm serious. Oh, and don't tell anyone so they'll think you've made this goodness from scratch.

Gravestone Cookies

1 log of sugar cookie dough
1 tube of black decorating gel

Roll log into a tombstone shape, slice into cookies and freeze cookies for a minimum hour. (I totally forgot this step this time and they all lost their shape, baked into a huge blob and I had to cut them into the shape by hand) Bake frozen cookies according to regular directions. If you need to make any adjustments to the shape, do it while they're still warm on the pan. Allow to cool completely before decorating.

zombie hand cupcake toppers (these are the ones I ordered)
gummy worms (I used these because their our favorite)

Then, just layer them into the jars, starting with the cake crumbles, then pudding and more cake. Top with cookies, worms and hands. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

That's it! Easy and delicious!
I'll be back Monday with more deliciousness!!!
Happy Haunting!!!

Snapshots (Christmas Edition)

Looking in the windows down town. 

We went to something called the Christmas Nights of Lights with my in-laws. You drive through the lights and tune your radio to a certain station and the lights flask in time with the music. It was so much fun. Afterwards, there is Santa, bouncy houses and food. I wish I had carried my camera in, but I left it in the car. I think we have a new family tradition!

We went to Rock City with my parents. On it's own, during the day, Rock City is lovely, but covered in lights at night, it is breathtaking. I have so many more pictures that I still need to go through from that night.

Family picture in a sleigh/ Our gorgeous view/ The view looking down the waterfall/ My gingerbread men

So much good food this year!

Crockpot Coconut Hot Chocolate (make it!) / cookies at the mall before Santa pictures (it is a tradition) / eggnog, white chocolate deliciousness / toasting hazelnuts (I made a play on this oatmeal)

Christmas Morning

 I cannot handle the cuteness here! 

We wore coordinated pjs again this year. Instead of a color theme, I decided to pick something all my boys could love and went with a DC comic super hero theme. Caleb and Liam wore Batman, Lee wore the Flash and I wore Wonder Woman.  

Santa has his own plate and glass this year! Thanks Aunt Karen!  (She always finds the best stuff!)
Santa is so polite, he took the time to leave the boys a thank you note.

Waiting for Santa. We left him Browned Butter Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Admiring our new tree

 I think this may be my favorite year for wrapping paper yet. Do you coordinate your wrapping paper too?

I  have always wanted a white tree!

Christmas Bucket List

  Are you ready for the Christmas season? I am. I've been doing my best to hold it in for a month now. I love this time of year. I love the magic and the wonder that is in my kids' faces, I love spending time with my family, immediate and extended. I love the food. The only thing that I don't love is how stressful and hectic trying to plan everything can be. My husband works in retail management and that means a ton of long hours for him and things we have to skip or not attend. Because of his busy work schedule, these days we have learned to plan ahead, make a list of the things we want to do and parties we can try to attend. I love making a list like this and keeping the magic alive for my kids. 

Snapshots

Sally girl previously known as Shark Bite. 

Caleb decided to change her name and went to Nightmare Before Christmas for inspiration.

Salsa before blitzing.

Chocolate Heath Doughnut

Found this shot of one of my iris from this summer. Is it really already fall?

Oatmeal Cookie Granola from: Seriously Delish: 150 Recipes for People Who Totally Love Food

veggie lo mein with a fried egg and black sesame seeds. 

Asian inspired BBQ pulled pork stuffed sweet potatoes with bok choy, sesame slaw.

coconut berry smoothie

 Spinach and Broccoli Cheese Soup (Recipe coming soon!)

Ramen Noodle Bowls with alllllll of the toppings!

This is Denmark. Love her eyes!

Date Night, well sort of...

Both kids were gone to church and I was sick but we were alone for a couple of hours. 

We sat in the floor, ate and watched Selfie. 

You take what you can get. 

OK, last picture of this meal. It was so dang good! I think this recipe will be coming soon too!

Starting him young. 

 I doughnut see you! Get it? Get it? I'm lame...

 Made my Mother in law red velvet no bake cheesecake pots for her birthday. 

 We went to a pumpkin patch recently and the boys LOVED every second of it! 

This slide got tons of use from Caleb.

 Sudden and unexpected naps are the best!

 My newest salad creation. It was missing tortilla chips. I should have hidden them!

It consisted of chipotle orange shredded pork, Monterrey Jack cheese, quinoa, spinach, homemade salsa, cilantro lime puree, avocado and bell peppers. It was sooo sooo good but sooo sooo ugly! 

 Veggies!!!!!!

Whipped cream is the bestest!!!

Happy Tuesday!

xoxo,

Ashley

A Day at the Pumpkin Patch (and how to streamline your scrapbooking projects)

I had planned on a food post for today, but I've been feeling pretty under the weather. Since I haven't been cooking much, I thought I would share some cute pictures and tell you about how I keep my scrapbooks up to date, even when life is hectic.

We recently went to a local farm that does a big pumpkin patch with tons of activities during the fall season. 

The boys LOVED every second of it and honestly so did we. 

   One thing, that I have started doing to keep some of my scrap booking up to date, is making collages using Picmonkey. This isn't a sponsored post, I just use the site all the time. I edit all my pictures either in Picmonkey, or in Photoshop. I then go to Picmonkey's home page and select collage and add all the pictures I want to use. It should automatically come up as a square and I keep it that way for these. I'll be printing them to be 8x8 when I'm done. I build my collage the way I want, then I save it and open it back in the regular editor and add whatever words or journaling, or even decorations, I want, then it is ready to be saved and printed. Another nice thing about this, I can make double copies so that each boy can have his own book and I don't have to make two different pages for every single event. It can be hard to keep up with chronicling all of the big, small, meaningful, silly, fun, serious, heart breaking, fleeting and life shaping moments now that I have so much on my plate, but these are the memories I really need to keep immortalized on paper. This allows me to do that and still enjoy my bi-annual fun field getaway of crafting, eating all weekend, drinking tons of coffee, and staying up all night watching bad movies I call "ladies retreats". I can focus on doing the pages I want to do in 12x12 or 8.5x11 not what I feel obligated to do.

So maybe not really a DIY, but a craft streamlining suggestion post.

Happy Monday!
xoxo,
Ashley

Sprinkles! Sprinkles Everywhere!

"I want breakfast at Mammie's house for my birthday dinner!" 

That is what Caleb said to me a couple of months ago when he was asked what he wanted to do on his birthday.

   Every year we do a combined party in between their birthdays, but on their actual birthdays, we have a few tradtions: sprinkle pancakes (usually with strawberries), a family activity in the middle of the day and a family dinner with grandparents and any available aunts and uncles. We went to Red Robin for Liam's second birthday, back in August and planned on a restaurant for Caleb's. He usually picks a Hibachi restaurant, but this year, he wasn't having any of that. He looked at me and said he wanted a big family dinner with everyone because he loves his family so much, Who can say no to that? Oh, and Sprinkle Pancakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. What!? I made him eat somethig different for lunch, but he did get two meals of his pancakes and bacon. 

I can't believe he is 5! Next year he will start Kindergarten! Where has the time gone?!?! I really want to bore you with 5 years of pictures, but I won't do that. Ok, maybe just a newborn shot!

It was love at first sight, that is for sure. He has not stopped amazing me since. 

I hate how grainy this shot is but I didn't have time to adjust my settings before he blew out the candles and dug in. 

   Honestly, this was a pretty easy dinner to orchestrate and good too! Although, I doubt I'll be making pancakes any time soon. I made around 150 pancakes that day. The 4 of us, plus 8 grandparents and 4 aunts and uncles that could make it (there were 4 that couldn't) and miscalculations on how much one batch makes led to a lot of pancake flipping.  

1. pancakes fit for celebration. / 2. & 3. Blueberries before and after the syrup making process. / 4. browning butter for that fabulous granola. / 5. Prepped pancake batter.  / 6. A mountain of Oatmeal Cookie Granola. 

1. For appetizers we had, pigs in a blanket, sausage balls and a granola station. 

2. For dinner we had pancakes, sausage, bacon, hashbrown casserole, breakfast casserole and fruit.

3. We also had a coffee bar or a gourmet chocolate milk station if you were a child. 

When I asked everyone if they could make to my parent's house instead of a restaurant, they all volunteered to bring things. My mom took care of all meat products and the faux peach bellinis (not pictured) and the hash-brown casserole. One set of in laws, brought breakfast casserole that is a Christmas family tradition. My other set of in laws brought fresh fruit (gots to get something healthy in there), although had I thought about it, I would have had my father in law make his sausage balls. He makes the BEST sausage balls! I could eat my weight in them and I normally HATE them. Finally, my other set of parents brought the coffee bar. When they asked what they could bring, I naturally said coffee since my Dad runs a coffee bar every Sunday at church. Of course, they went full coffee bar for their oldest grandson. I made pancakes and the granola, plus fixings for the parfaits. 

  

 At this point, he was wired and there was no calming him down, but he knew he was loved and that is what really matters. Plus, I think we all spent less than we would have had we gone to a restaurant to eat. 

xoxo, 

Ashley

Snapshots

Flowers from my Mom's garden.

Another view of the flowers.

This is Shark Bite. Can you tell I let my son pick the name?

I found this shot of my peony on a memory card last week. It is from earlier this summer.

Sprinkles for life!

Favorite lunch of the moment.

Blackberry Hibiscus Lemonade.

I basically followed this recipe and just remixed it slightly.

I made this guy this pudding and it was a hit, as you can tell from his face!

This is Fanta, he is my favorite.

This is River, she is named after River Tam. My husband picked this one.

I have no words.

Dough love.

My Mom and I took the boys to see my Granny, She has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's but she was having a clearish day. I was so much better than I had braced myself for.
I was not nearly as heartbroken leaving as I feared I would be.
Alzheimer's is a terrible awful disease that has affected my family too many times! 

Liam wanted to give "geat ganny" a "mooch" and Caleb decided to photobomb. I kind of love it.

 Made some Pina Colada Brown Sugar Ice Cream Sauce.
Not sure if I'll share this one or not. It's good, maybe too good.

 These two went on a midday Daddy date to the movies.

 Breakfast

 Handpies getting ready for their close up.
(Wow, I didn't realize how dirty my windows are. Guess what I'm doing today? It involves Windex!)

Recipe testing with shaved brussel sprouts. To be continued...

Sticky Mango Stir Fry. That one is another you should see sooner than later.
I just want to perfect it first.

xoxo, 

Ashley