Woo anniversary!

Today is the 4th anniversary of my 25th birthday. ;) Ok, ok it's my 29th birthday! I didn't get out of bed til 11 and I'm still in my jammies. Now that's a good start to the day. We did most of the birthday celebrating the last 2 days. Pi spent Thanksgiving weekend with her Dad, so Pi and hubby made a cake and a special dinner on Wednesday.

Yesterday, Piper, hubby, and I went into the city to see my family. Walking from Port Authority to the subway allowed us to see some of the balloons from the parade, which was really neat.

The Pillsbury Doughboy was awesome!



As was Buzz Lightyear. We didn't stick around to see the rest though.



We dropped Pi off at her dad's and she was not happy. We're going to have a second Thanksgiving on Sunday when she's back home, so she doesn't feel like she missed anything.
Then we headed off to my Aunt Aida's house.



As always, Dirty Grandma provided the entertainment. My cousin Michaela is having her birthday on Saturday, so we did some celebrating for her too. Its a biggie...she's going to be 10!



I made a batch of caramel brownies and had 4 requests for the recipe.

They didn't last long.

My sister Jennifer

My parents bought a birthday cake for me. I may have said WOOO very loudly, after I saw what kind of birthday cake it was because it wasn't any ordinary cake. It was a .....

CLOWN CAKE!!! hahahahahaa. I'm 29 and still get clown cakes. How awesome is that?

There's no way they'll ever be able to top the clown cake. :)

Hope everyone is enjoying their day off!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!!!

More tomorrow!

Caramel Brownies

These brownies are known in my house as Jaime’s Brownies. Jaime was a former co-worker who gave me this recipe and a set of mixing bowls as a wedding gift. Jaime was spot on because I use this recipe and those bowls all the time. Thanks Jaime!

Ingredients

1 pack of Kraft caramels
1 small can of evaporated milk, 5 oz, divided
1 box of devil’s food cake mix with pudding in the mix
½ cup (1 stick of butter) melted and cooled
1 cup or more of semi-sweet chocolate chips
Use 9x11 baking pan for large brownies or 9x13 for smaller brownies

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Melt caramels with 1/3 cup (1/2 the can) milk in a heavy saucepan over low heat stirring frequently until smooth, set aside.

Mix remaining milk, cake mix, and butter in a large bowl.

Press half of the cake mixture onto the bottom of the baking pan. Bake for 8 minutes.

Sprinkle half of the chocolate chips onto the top and pout the melted caramel over the top. Spread to edges of pan.

Top with flattened spoonfuls of the cake mixture and press gently into caramel.
Sprinkle remaining chips on the top. Bake for 18 minutes.

A little of this, a little of that.

Can you believe Thanksgiving is this week? Holy cow, that was fast! It feels like Thanksgiving really snuck up on me this year. I had a whole stack of projects that I wanted to try, but am pretty much out of time.

One project that did get finished was a new table setting. I found this really goofy fabric at a local fabric store by my job and just had to have it. Since Pi wouldn't even entertain the idea of a turkey fabric skirt, the place settings were the next best thing.



The setting consists of a placemat (pattern here), cloth napkins (pattern here), coaster (pattern here), and a napkin ring (pattern here). It didn't take very long and I got to practice my binding.

I'm especially fond of the napkin rings because its much easier than it looks and you can recycle a cardboard ring from your plastic wrap. Talk about low cost material!

There's also been baking, lots and lots of it. My jeans are getting snug. But this is not a problem to think about the week of Thanksgiving. I'm sure I've got some sweatpants somewhere. heh.


Blueberry muffins and caramel brownies

To confirm that I'm completely out of mind, I started THIS quilted advent calendar. Nevermind that I've never appliqued or made sashing or free motion quilted. Ummm....yeah....totally over my head.



Man, I love a challenge!

I don't think I ever shared the brownie recipe. If anyone wants it, let me know and I'll post it. They taste as if you spent forever on them, but are super simple. Definitely a crowd pleaser!

Eat, drink, and be happy.

In an effort to be green, my job gave everyone a coffee mug (conveniently branded with the company logo in case we happen to forget where we work, haha). There's not a paper cup to be seen in the entire office.

Granted, the mugs are really nice and they work really well for coffee. But for those of us that drink ice water most of the day, the mugs are a big pain in the badunk a dunk. The condensation that forms is really annoying and we end up using a paper towel under the mug to prevent water from getting all over our desks and documents, which totally screws up the whole green thing.

I saw THIS coaster pattern over at Crochet Cami. My last attempt at coasters was a big old bust, so I wasn't holding my breath on this one either. Thankfully, the pattern turned out to be pretty simple and I whipped out six of them for myself and some of my co-workers, using left over fabric from the wall hangings I made.



Nothing goes better with coffee than coffee cake. I saw THIS pattern over at CookNKnit and had to try it. I used pecans instead of oatmeal and it turned out amazing. It may have been the best thing I ever baked.



Take a closer look. Yummmmm!!!



*drool*



I made this cake about 2 weeks ago and forgot to upload the pics. Just looking at them makes me want to bake this again, right now!

P.S. - Ally, I'm definitely going to be making banana bread for Thanksgiving. Its become a family favorite around here!

I need a new hobby...

...like I need a hole in my head.

Not that I'll let that stop me!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy 46th Birthday!! Love you Dad!!!