Thomas Kinkade Post

I love all kinds of art. With this post, I'm sharing some fun Disney themed art by Thomas Kinkade. I have always admired his work and how he is able to weave light into his canvas. When I bought the newest Disney move, Princess and the Frog (love the movie), they had a little pamphlet inside and on one of those pages was a painting by Thomas Kinkade of the Princess and the Frog.  So I went to his website to have a closer look, only to find out that he's doing a 12 painting series, called The Disney Dream Collection. How fun is that?! I had no idea. So here are the 8 paintings that he has published so far from that collection. I wish I could see these in person to see all the little details. I hear he hides tinkerbell in each of them.  :)

Bambi's First Year

The Princess and the Frog

Cinderella Wishes Upon A Dream

Tinkerbell and Peter Pan Fly to Neverland

Pinocchio Wishes Upon A Star

Snow White Discovers the Cottage

A New Day at the Cinderella Castle

Disneyland 50th Anniversary

New Haircut!

Usually this time of year, I'm ready to drastically change my hair.  In the past I usually just chop it really short, close to my ears. Surprisingly enough, for the first time in years, I like my hair long, and I do not want to chop it off. I haven't kept my hair this long in..wow, maybe 8 years? But I still needed to do something different. I decided on long bangs!! crazy huh. I have NEVER ever had bangs in my life.  I even took a before and after picture (and I hate posting picture of me) for those that don't believe me. :)

Before (how I usually wear my hair)

After

Tada!! me with bangs + highlights! A friend of my sisters (and my friend), Katie, does my hair in her home (she is licensed!) when I want to do something different, or highlights, and I love it every time I let her work her magic.  Honestly, I'll have to get used to the bangs, but I'm loving trying something new and different! (and hiding my large forehead. hehehe)

Luck of the Irish to ya

I LOVE St Pattys Day. :)

In past years, before our neighbor moved to Texas, we would go over to his house and have the traditional Irish dinner. If I remember correctly, that was some kind of corned beef, and cooked cabbage.  I have no problem having that once a year, but to be honest that's one tradition that I will probably not keep every St Patty Day. 

This year, I thought it would be fun for the kids to have an all green dinner! (or at least so I thought). On the menu? a yummy green dyed chicken alfredo, 2 layered green jello with homemade whipping cream, green salad, and breadsticks I shaped into clovers! And to drink, Sprite in the mini bottles. :)  I took a picture cause I loved how the clover breadsticks turned out. lol.

The end result? sooo tasty! Well...at least for the adults. The kids barely at anything. Maybe they didn't like the color green in their dinner? thought it was another form of broccoli? i dunno. I ended up sitting with my oldest for 2 hours while she sat at the table playing with her food until it was bedtime. Maybe next year I'll have the luck of the Irish? and my kids will actually eat what I put in front of them. I'll start looking for 4 leaf clovers now. ;)

Giant Cookie Cake

For the last...I don't know how many years...maybe 5 years, I've made this giant chocolate chip cookie for my brothers birthday! :) Sooo easy to make and fun to decorate, so I'm sharing the recipe.

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

3 TB white sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees, spray a 12in round pan with non-stick cooking spray.

1. Cream the butter and the sugars together until smoothe.

2. Add the egg and vanilla.

3. Mix on low, then add the dry ingrediants.

4. Mix in the chocolate chips.

5. Press dough in the pan, but leave space on the sides, since it will cook out.

6. Bake 15-20 min. Let it cool in the pan on a cookie rack for 5 minutes, then flip it onto the cookie rack to cool completely before decorating!

Here is the picture of the dough in the pan after I pressed it down. My daughter loved helping me with this part. Oh and you can use any kind of chips! I used half chocolate and half white, and it tasted delicious.

Here is the cookie after is had cooled on the cookie rack. The cook itself is soft and tasty. I hope you try it!

This is the finished cookie after I decorated it. He asked for back and red, so I did a black birthday box with a red bow. lol. worked out huh. I love making this cookie. (by the way, I have not been successful in making black or red icing, luckily I had pre-made betty crocker squeezable icing in both black and red! wahoo!)

Giant Cupcake cakes

Last week, I helped my sister with a project. My sister was in charge of an enrichment activity, that was a big relief society birthday party (right Amelia?). She asked that I cook 3 giant cupcake cakes. Some other ladies in the area were making couple as well, and then they were using them as the centerpieces on the table. So the day before she wanted them at her house, I honestly spent the entire day making these cakes (only took 5 cake mixes, 15 eggs, 5 cups of milk, and lots of butter...voila!). Here is the picture of the 3 cakes put together at my sisters house. For the cakes, I used the funfetti, devils food, and a marble cake flavors. (marble is by far my favorite!) and then I mismatched the tops and bottoms to make the cakes more interesting.

Here is my sister Amy working on another project while I decorated the tops of the cakes. She had this clever idea to make a cupcake "liner" by taking colored paper, painting designs on the paper, then folding the paper like fan to give it that cupcake liner look. Here are some before and after pics of the cupcake cakes.

purple cupcake #1, attempted to pipe stars.

blue cupcake #2, piped zig zag lines red (turned kinda rose color) cupcake #3, piped roses/ribbons.

purple cupcake with the paper liner! cute huh!

blue cupcake with the paper liner. red cupcake with paper liner.

Since I was not at the activity, I only heard that it was a success and quite a few showed up!

Great job Aims!

Chocolate Pudding Cake.. in a crockpot!!

Have you tried chocolate pudding cake in a crockpot? I know I haven't, but the first I heard of it I had to try it for myself! My friend Ashlee made it last weekend, and then posted it to her new cooking blog, The Culinary Queen.

She has just started her cooking blog, and she LOVES to cook. I can not wait to try some of her other recipes. Did I mention she likes butter?? ;) Oh where was I, oh yeah chocolate pudding cake!!

This was such an easy recipe and I LOVE chocolate pudding cake. One of my favorites from when I was kid. After trying it tonight, the recipe was very easy and tasty! Thanks Ashlee for sharing the recipe!

Here is the recipe from her blog post, click here or see recipe below.

Easy Crock Pot Chocolate Pudding Cake

1 package (6 serving size) instant Chocolate pudding and pie filling

3 cups of Milk

1 package (181/2 ounces) chocolate fudge cake mix plus ingredients to prepare mix

Whipped Topping or Ice Cream (optional)

Crushed peppermint Candies

1.Spray 4 quart Crock pot slow cooker with nonstick cooking spray. Place pudding mix in Crock Pot slow cooker. Whisk in Milk.

2. Prepare cake mix according to package directions. Carefully pour cake mix into Crock Pot slow cooker. DO NOT STIR!!

3.Cover, cook on HIGH for 1 1/2 hours or until set. Serve warm with ice cream or whipped topping and crushed peppermint candies, if desired. Makes 16 servings.

(just my own little tip. when the time was up, I was worried that it wasn't done cause it looked like the was still uncooked, but don't let that fool you! that's just the pudding. mix it up and it's verrrry good. hope you try it!)

Twilights Eclipse Trailer

First one I've seen so far. My first reaction??? ehhhh. Maybe I will wait until a Matinee. We'll see. :)

But for those that are curious, here it is.

Week 1 Training for 5k

Monday, March 1st. This is the beginning of a few goals that I have set for myself. Funny huh? Since I haven't been keeping up with my New years goals, I'm making some for the month of March.

For example, this month (just a month goal to start), I will not have a carbonated drink which includes my favorite coke slurpee, or any other sugary drink. Just a month, I can do that. Oh and watching more of what I eat. Healthier snacks....and lots of water.

Next I started my 5k training! I woke up Monday morning to an alarm clock at 6:20, and I was out walking/jogging by 6:30. Crazy huh. That's not me, but I'm determined to be more in shape for this 5k run, maybe even jog the whole thing? who knows. My friend sent me this link that is PERFECT if you're trying to get ready for a 5k. The Couch Potato to 5k. It gives you a 9 week calendar to follow 3 times a week for maybe 20-30 minutes tops. You start out small, and work towards an entire 5k. I plan on getting up early MWF and walking/jogging outside, then TTH mornings on the elliptical while the girls are watching cartoons. Then in between in the afternoons walk the girls to the park so they can use some of that stored energy! For those nearby, you're welcome to join me. ;)

I'm sharing this with you 'cause I'm hope it'll help motivate me to follow this through and post progress as I go. Hope that's ok. :) I'll keep you posted!

Making of the Old Spice Commercial

Now I didn't have a chance to watch the superbowl, but I did catch up on the commercials online the next day. I laughed sooo hard when I saw the "your man could smell like me" Old Spice commercial. "I'm on a horse." hahaha. My friend, dunnthat, posted about this on her blog, and I loved it so much I had to share the making of that commercial with my friends. Did you know it's not CGI? it's one continuous shot! Except for the diamonds part.

Here's the commercial for those who need to be reminded.

Here is the making of this commercial. I thought it was very interesting. :) If you're interested, the clip lasts about 20 minutes.

First Attempt at Cinnamon Rolls

On Sunday, I was craving something sweet. I really wanted something with chocolate, but I didn't have what I needed to make a chocolate pudding cake, so my husband suggested making homemade cinnamon rolls. I figured, why not? never made them before, should be fun. So I found a recipe on foodnetwork.com and got started on this new recipe. I made the sweet dough from scratch. I've made bread before..but in a break maker. :) And the thoughts running through my head during this time?? Cookie dough is soo much easier, not so sticky, and it tastes sooo yummy before you bake the dough. Luckily my husband has made this dough before and made sure I wasn't messing it up....cause I probably would have. :) I let the dough rise, kneaded until it wasn't sticky, then rolled it out in this long rectangle. Then, as promised, I didn't skimp on the butter. (I know butter makes everything taste better, but it goes straight to my behind) Anyway, I poured on 1/2 cup of butter on the dough. The shine on the dough was crazy, I could almost see my own reflection in the melted butter.

After the layer of fat, I mean butter, I added the brown sugar (holy crap 1 1/4 cups of brown sugar!), then the regular sugar, and yuummy cinnamon. So far this adventure of mine was good, nothing bad to report. until...This next picture, where I'm rolling up the dough into a log, is where I threw my little child-like tantrum. no joke. I was soo frustrated with the dough I almost threw it away. The dough itself did not want to be rolled up, it was sticky and fighting me every step of the way. When it was rolled up, it was time to cut it into the rolls that taste ohhh soo good. I was asked to try dental floss to cut the dough. HA! may work for your dough, but this dough was not playing along. Then I tried a knife to cut the dough. sigh. Let's just say I made it work. After each cut, I had re-roll that 1.5 inch of dough into the spiral roll.

FINALLY they have been cut, raised, and are ready to cook. At this point I didn't care how they turned out or tasted. The most important thing to remember is that I didn't throw away the dough, which I almost did more than once.

Voila! the final product covered in homemade icing. I guess they tasted ok. My kids have already finished them all and couldn't stop eating them. Then the other response I got from it was, "They are good for your first attempt." HA! like I'm going to make these again. I'd rather get the Rhodes rolls next time. :) I'm a cookie and cakes kind of girl.