YUM-LICIOUS!

Last week we met for our Monthly Book Club and the book we discussed was The Help, (check out my review here). And since this was the first month that I hosted that I knew I could incorporate the book into the food I was STOKED!! I immediately started looking up recipes for Minnie's Infamous Caramel Cake.

And I found the most perfect recipe from Alpaca Farm Girl's blog. It's SO EASY too!!! Just the way I like things in my life - Amazingly Tasty and Easy!!

To make the cake part you only need: Vanilla Extract, Boxed white cake mix, whole milk, eggs, and butter.

Mix it all together really good!

Pour into your cake pans, that have of course been sprayed with Baking Spray and then lightly dusted with flour.

Then pop those babies into the oven at 350 degrees for 28 minutes!

I let the cake cool over night so that the frosting didn't melt over the top! But I was SO EXCITED to whip up the frosting the next evening, before the ladies arrived of course!

You need: whole milk, vanilla extract, light AND dark brown sugar, butter, and powdered sugar.

First melt your brown sugars and butter in a saucepan over medium heat!

Once those are melted you add in the milk. Remove from heat and then mix in your vanilla and powdered sugar!

And you end up with this drippy looking frosting. Yes it will be dripping but have no fear it dries wonderfully!!

Then just get to frosting. This had to be one of the funnest ways to frost a cake because you just put it on when the frosting is warm and drippy and let it coat your cake! I just kept adding to the top and letting the frosting ooze down the sides. In order to keep it mess free I put aluminum foil underneath all the "sides" of the cake and then when the frosting dried I removed the foil and VOILA -

Isn't she so pretty? Yet another food item I'd love to have as a wall color in my house :-) This cake was so easy to make and so easy to frost. Now I was just hoping it was delicious!

Of course it was delicious people! I mean come on I made it, how can it go wrong?? HAHA Just kidding I've had plenty of bad food experiences but O-M-G this was NOT one of them! This cake was AMAZING!! And I'm not a huge caramel lover but I could've eaten the entire thing!!

This is all we had left after each of us (total of 7 including Chuck) had a slice and then I had to send some home with everyone :-) I am dead serious that was all that was left of the cake Thursday after the book club ladies had departed.

Oh YUM!! Excuse the slice of bread but check that out! It makes my mouth water right now, in fact I wish I could go home and whip up another one but I know it's probably super unhealthy!!

Thanks to Alpaca Girl for providing me with such an AMAZING recipe for what I'm sure is what Minnie made in The Help. For those of you who've read the book YOU MUST MAKE THIS CAKE, for those of you who have not read the YOU MUST READ THE BOOK AND MAKE THIS CAKE!!

Y-U-M-M-Y!!!

2 Year Anniversay Celebrations

Over the weekend I SCRAPBOOKED A LOT!! I was able to scrapbook on Saturday and Sunday afternoons and it was SO NICE!! One of the layouts I finished was pictures from our 2009 2 Year Anniversary!

I started with an awesome Storyteller's Pack and then let the creative juices start flowing!

You'll have to excuse my appearance in the pictures. I was actually really sick for this anniversary but we still wanted to celebrate. My honey even made us a special Anniversary cake!

And of course we did gifts, Chuck a new statue and me a photo frame I'd been eyeing for weeks :-)

It was so much fun working with PINK!!

Hippity Hoppity

Another Storyteller's pack here for you! I had this adorable Easter related pack sitting around waiting patiently for me to crack it open! So I did and what better to use it for then EGG DYING!! (Crack, egg, get it?)

In 2008 we had an egg dying night at my parents and the pictures are pretty cute! Here is the two page layout of us dying the eggs! I just love Storyteller's embellishments! For someone who is against kits I love these cause I can arrange it however I want and it still looks awesome!

That picture of Chuck and I is one of my favorites so I was super happy to get it into my scrapbook!

Doesn't Chuck look hard at work? He's such a sport and gets into these things just for me! Although secretly I think he likes getting to act like a kid again! Oh yeah and check the picture of me, Chuck and Mandy. Our faces really tell it all!

Since I had leftover paper and a really cute Easter title embellishment I had to create just one more page! Having only 2 pictures from Easter 2008 I didn't want the hear to be forgotten so I cropped one and then just added in the other. It's a simple one page layout but it's so darn cute!

I am so happy to be getting back into scrapbooking! I was working diligently on my best friends album that I haven't done anything else and was feeling a little burnt out on all the wedding stuff, so to get down to business and do some random layouts has been AWESOME!! Now I really can't wait for the crops that Mom and I have planned to go to!!

The Last Song

I hope everyone had a FABULOUS weekend! Mine was actually very productive as well as fun! I was able to scrapbook a bunch, but I was also able to check another book off my list!! Sunday morning I woke up at 7:30 and immediatly dove in the book The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks because I knew I wanted to not only finish the book but also watch the movie version that morning!

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First off I am so HAPPY I did not finish this book while at the gym. For the last 20% of the book (yes the Kindle does it in percentages) I cried my eyes out. I must have had to put my Kindle down at least 5 times to get my eyes to quit dripping and start focusing! Had I been at the gym bawling my eyes out while on the treadmill I'm sure they would have asked me to leave :-)

This book was, as almost all Nicholas Sparks books are, phenomal! I wish I had been able to read it when I was 17 instead of now at 24, but nonetheless I was still touched by every moment in it.

It's the tale of a young rebellious child named Ronnie who is forced (along with her younger brother) to spend the summer with her father that she hasn't spoken to in 3 years! From the get go you can almost predict that there is going to be some sob ending that has nothing to do with the love story that begins but I won't spoil the heart wrenching storyline. Just know that along with the love you get to see develop between Ronnie and (the complete opposite of her) Will, but you also get to see a broken bond between Father and Daughter mended! This book is a light fluffy read that I'd recommend for summer. Maybe if you read it out in the sun while at the beach, the pool, or just out camping you may not cry so much! Laying in bed while the weather is clouded over didn't help me much! HAHA!

Now onto the movie. I will never understand why Nicholas Sparks lets these damn movie people change his story so much! Yes most of the big parts were the but this movie does not do the book any justice at all. It reminded me A LOT of A Walk to Remember. The book is 200% better than the movie and I would never recommend that you watch the movie first for this one. The book has to be read first and then if you really want to I'd say watch the movie, honestly I'd skip the movie altogether!

First - ALL of the acting was pretty horrible. I understand it's not meant to be as dramatic as the book and it's appeal was really to the younger crowd of teenage girls but seriously the acting was HORRIBLE! I was let down by ALL of the actors! I don't think they cast the roles very well either, Miley Cyrus definitely was not the best Ronnie I could chose, they needed someone a little les Smiley :-) and a little more sullen! The father role was totally off balance, I mean come on! If you read the book you picture him completely different than Greg Kinnear, but I will give props to Greg Kinnear, at times he was able to pull of the clueless Dad who gives you a chuckle once in awhile. The character from Will wasn't too bad, essentially throw any good-looking teenage actor in there and you've got what you're looking for, but again the acting was pretty craptastic. The only person I felt was cast correctly was the little brother Jonah. The actor they got for him (he was also the kid in Martian Child) was pretty good, not quite as the book described, but the playfulness and cleverness was there!

I understand why Nicholas Sparks let them turn his books into movies, I really do, but I will never understand why the movies can never do the book justice. I mean seriously his books are so emotional and so heartfelt that you'd think they'd be able to pull it off a little more in his books. BTW I'm excluding The Notebook from this opinion as I felt that movie was phenomal!

I'd give the book a solid A and the movie a B. Don't get me wrong I didn't care for the movie that much but I can gurantee that teenages ate it up! I know if I was 16 or 17 I wouldn't have loved it!

Next up I am going to start a book called Julia's Chocolates, a great friend recommended it! And I'm also reading Diary of a Mad Bride right now! It's a library book so I can only read it on my lunch break or at home since it's impossible to read paperback at the gym!

Anyone else read The Last Song and/or saw the movie? I'd love feedback about what YOU thought!

Birthday Bash!!

It's BIRTHDAY TIME!! No not really but I was pretty excited to finish up the layouts for my birthday BBQ at my parents last year! Remember the croquet layout? Yup these are all from the same day! But these are ALL ABOUT ME!!

Since I knew I wanted to do something with some cute BBQ stickers and I knew they wouldn't work for my gift pictures I figured what the heck, use the same background paper and solid colors and then have fun! That's exactly what I did, no matchy matchy for me this time!

I just LOVE this page! Not only did I get to use fun paper and a nice picture of my Paps but I also got use AWESOME BBQ stickers! I found these a long time ago and I've been dying to use them!

And then I wanted to do more girly for pictures of me opening gifts! I got these little embellishments from some random pack of cut outs! I love them!

The final piece to a birthday layout is of course the Cake!! I found some awesome funfetti paper awhile back and since my Mom knows how much I love funfetti we of course had a funfetti cake for my birthday! Hello perfect opportunity to use some funfetti paper!!

Beautiful cake right? I know my mouth was salivating the whole time I was working on this layout!

In case you didn't notice (I'm sure you did) this layout is not a Storyteller's pack, it's just my own creativity with my limited supply of birthday embellishments! But because I had to get creative what did I turn to? My cricut of course! I used the DoodleCharms cartridge to create the party hats and then used Star brads as the toppers!

Can you tell that I love pink, green, and yellow! I think for my next birthday layout I'll need to be brave and try new colors!! :-)

Croquet Time!

I am SO EXCITED about this layout! I used another Storyteller's Pack to start creating it and I just LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE how it turned out! I still need to finish the journaling but that will only take a few minutes!

Here's the first part! It was for my Birthday BBQ and we had to play some croquet!

Isn't that Backyard Fun embellishment so cute? I loved the colors that Storyteller's included in this pack!

Check out the cute croquet mallet stickers! Mom and I found those awhile back and I was so happy I finally got to use them!

The second part of the layout!

Of course we had to showcase the Winners! Yup Mom was #1

I love how this layout turned out!

What do you think?

Stars & Stripes!

Since I got super inspired to scrapbook again after going to the Expo I decided to spend some quality time in my room on Sunday! Needing to break away from working soley on my best friends Wedding Album I decided to break out some cute little pages that I got from the awesome Storytellers Club to see if those helped me get my scrapbook groove back!

And yes Kendall got her groove back! I was able to complete a 4 page layout of our 4th of July pictures from last year when we went out to see my parents! Excuse the mess in the pictures as I didn't feel like cleaning my scrapbooking table before taking pictures..

I just love that Storyteller's gives you some paper and the embellishments so you can either take their idea for their layout or you can create your own! I'm not usually a fan of kits but I do love how these turned out and I was able to alter them to how I want them :-)

These are pictures of Chuck and I playing Ladder Ball!

The second 2 page layout! I used just plain background paper on this one as I didn't have enough of the pattern paper from Storyteller's, these were a basic kit but the deluxe kit gives you more paper!

I really loved the embellishment down at the bottom cause I was able to add each couple's names! YAY!

 

I still think I want to add a little something to the red stripe at the top but I'm just not sure what! For now I can check this one off my list of layouts to do!!

It's obvious I slacked on my 2011 Scrapbooking goal for the past few months but I'm okay with that as I'm making up for it now, stay tuned for my Birthday BBQ layout and my Easter Layout!!

CUPCAKE TIME!!

Since these turned out so cute and so delish I just had to share a picture!! It was one of my coworkers 1st year anniversary at our company so we decided to celebrate! Me being the official office baker I was happy to whip up some of these yummy cupcakes!!

I just used a Butter Yellow Cake Recipe (out of a box) and then Milk Chocolate Frosting!! I added the little pink dots on the top to add some color!

And because I've been doing really well with my healthy lifestyle I only ate ONE of these cupcakes!! ONLY ONE!! To avoid eating more I didn't bring any home and I took the remaining four that didn't fit in my carrier down to my Mom's house for them to have as a dessert!!

I have decided though that I LOVE cupcakes so much more than cake. I know it's not a big difference but they are just the perfect size dessert and easier to pawn off on other people :-)

It's That Time of Year Again!!

So this past weekend guess where I got to go??? To the Scrapbook Expo!!! My Mom, Aunt Stacy, and Cousin Jayleen and I all went again this year!! Only this year we left even earlier because we all took classes at 9 AM!!! You'd think we'd plan it so we all took a class together but nope, we all took separate classes!!

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The class I took was called Yummy Layouts put on by Melissa Frances using the Kitschy Kitchen line!!

I am not usually a fan of classes, in fact I only took this class cause my Mom was really wanting to take a Copic class at 9 am and we like to shop the floor together so I figured why not take a class and then her and I can get our shop on!! I just loved this class. The instructor was really awesome and the layout turned out ADORABLE!! I'm actually going to use the layout we made to scrap my pictures from the class, even though it's for a recipe, I thought what a fun way to scrapbook the expo :-) Once I get it scrapped I'll post pictures!!

Even though I was dead tired from spending all those late nights finishing the Hunger Games Series I still had a blast!! Granted by 2 PM I felt dead so I grabbed a Mocha that gave me a little pep in my step but man oh man did I crash hard. I guess I had too much caffeine (a giant redbull first thing at 7 AM) and then the mocha cause I only got a little jolt of energy from my coffee and then I was pooped!! Mom was patient with me though and we both had a successful day of shopping!!

I scored A LOT of wedding related stuff which was SO EXCITING!! But I also scored some AWESOME baseball stuff, including MLB Oakland A's and Baltimore Oriole's stickers that are AMAZING!! I can't wait to scrapbook the next set of baseball picutres for my Paps Album!!

Anyone else do anything exciting over the weekend?

All Good Things Must Come to an End!

I finished the third book YAY!! Friday night I hunkered down and read the final book of Suzanne Collins Hunger Games series!!

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I just loved this entire season but I'm not going to lie I was a little let down by the ending of the book. Like in my other post I don't want to put too much summary for those who are going to read these books so I'll keep this short and sweet!

Despite being somewhat disappointed in the overall ending of the book I still LOVED these books and I'm just dying for them to make the movies. I'll be waiting on pins and needles for them to finalize the casting list and then impatiently waiting for the movies to get filmed!! Everyone needs to jump on this bandwagon and read all of these books!! Another A++ for Suzanne Collins!!

Flew Right Through It

WOW, JUST WOW!! There isn't much to say other than get your butt to the bookstore or hop on Amazon.com and get these books NOW!! I finished the second book Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins and I'm already over 50% through the third book!

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I don't want to say much about this one as it's part of a set and I don't want to give away anything for those who are planning on reading this but A++ to Suzanne Collins. I was so hooked on this book that I even stayed up super late to finish it! Even though I was totally exhausted the next day I could not wait to start the third book, yes these books are that good. The author sets it up so that it doesn't feel like you are ending the book, you are left wanting more and you want it now, so congrats Ms Collins you know how to end a story :-)

For those of you who are planning on reading these books you will probably want to make sure you have all 3 so that you can just start the next one right away. Maybe you won't be quite as impatient as me but I just haven't been able to get enough of these books. In fact I'm somewhat sad that I'm so far into the third because I know it will have an ending this time!! Stay tuned....and while you are waiting I'm serious go get these books!!

It's All About Survival!

Last night I finished another book off my list YAY!! And I have to say that when my sister recommended this book I didn't really ask what it was about and just put it on the list. Then at our most recent Book Club meeting she started describing what the book was about and I'll be honest it sounded HORRIBLE!! But knowing my Sister she wouldn't have recommended a book to me unless she was pretty sure I'd like it!

And a bonus was I scored this book for only $5 on Amazon.com awhile back. I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins!

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There is honestly no way to describe this book without it sounding like a weird, brutal, horrible book!! I really have no way to make it sound as wonderful as it is but here goes:

The book takes place in the future and boy has the world changed! To put it as nice as possible it SUCKS!! The "Capitol" has taken over and has divided the population up into 12 Districts! 1 being the best District to be in (other than the Capitol) and 12 being the worst! Apparently there was a 13th but it no longer exists!

Every year the Capitol holds what is called the Hunger Games and every year 2 people from each District (Male and Female) have to go to the Hunger Games. And just what are these Hunger Games you might ask? They are a savage creation created by the Capitol to keep all the Districts in check. The KIDS picked from each District (oh yes they are kids) are thrown into this elaborately made arena and they must kill each other. Only one person can survive and yes the payoff for that person is riches and their District gets rewarded as well but in order to win you have to kill! It's pretty brutal right? You have no idea!

While there is more to the book I won't give anymore to you :-) I highly recommend everyone read this series, oh yes it's a series and you better believe that I started book #2 last night immediatly after I finished book #1. This book, despite how horrible the main "plot" sounds is really truly amazingly well written and you can't help but love the characters for their strength, passion, and love of their families! Suzanne Collins you get an A++ from me for this one, now I hope you don't disappoint with the next two :)

Oh and I know I said I was reading Moneyball next, obviously that didn't happen and I'm actually sending it back to the Library. I just can't seem to get into it and I have to finish this series now :-) But I am still determined to read it so I'll be waiting until we get into baseball season and give it another shot!

I've Never Wanted to Go to a Coffee Shop More!

Have you ever read a book or a story that has made you want to do something so badly? That's exactly how I feel after finishing the book Why I Love Singlehood by Elisa Lorello and Sarah Girrell!

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This book is about a woman name Eva who has given up her teaching career to open up a coffee shop! While the coffee shop is the hang out spot for her and the regular customers it's more like a home for them all. This coffee shop would make anyone fall in love! It just screams comfort at every moment between the food and the people who wouldn't want to be a part of this life? I seriously fell in love with every character in this book. None of them are complex and so interesting that you want to know more, but they were just so darn likeable! These are the people you would expect to find in a small town that you just can't help but love!

While the book focuses mainly on Eva's life and her current relationship status, mainly about her feelings towards being single and the benefits (and cons) of singlehood, there is just so much more story line than her. You get wrapped up in multiple characters emotions and feelings that I literally wanted to climb into the book and give at least 4 of them big huge HUGS!!

Major props to the authors for creating a sweet atmosphere with even sweeter characters! If you are looking for a light fun read about being single without it being whiny look no further! I am so happy to have read this book and like I said before in another review, I honestly would have probably never come across this book had it not been free (kindle version) at some point on Amazon!! I highly recommend it and I give it a solid A!!

Since I've been reading all these romantical cutesy books I think I wanna change up my selection a bit and read Moneyball next. I'm itching for baseball season to get going anways so maybe this scratch that itch just enough to get me through the rest of the month until the season opens :-)

Friday Night Special

A couple weeks ago I decided to spend an entire friday night reorganizing my pictures! First things first I printed out a bunch of new photo sheets at work and labeled each of them by year!

Then I headed home and created this disaster area:

And then started filling in those sheets I printed out at work! I had originally filled out sheets of these awhile ago but never organized them by date. So I went through and created a sheet for 2007 and earlier, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and of course on for all the pets pictures.

Next I divided up the four new photo boxes I got. And then cut out dividers and started labeling and filing away! This felt so good because I was able to see all the pictures I have left to scrapbook. Which just so happens to be A LOT!! But suprisingly I wasn't intimidated it was more motivating!

And check out the disaster area 3 hours later!! Not a single piece of paper out of place, not a single photo left behind :) I was so excited to get everything boxed up and in order!

The only thing I messed up was that I didn't have a box for my 2011 pictures LOL! Guess I'll have to go back to Beverly's and pick up one more box!

I was so excited to get my photo's organize and now I am very excited to create a goals list for what I want to make sure I scrapbook in 2011!! I am hoping to get one entire year done but we shall see. So on top of organizing my pictures I also uploaded every single picture I needed to still get developed to Costco and that's right folks I developed them all!!! In total it was about 1900 pictures YIKES!! Yup it's gonna cost us a pretty penny but having all my 2007 - 2010 pictures developed and ready to scrapbook for this year is priceless! It will make it so much easier to meet my goals list whatever it might end up being!

Anyone else done a reorganzing with their pictures? Anyone have any 2011 scrapbooking goals?

RUN, DO NOT WALK!!

You must get your butt to your nearest book store to pick up this book. I wouldn't wait on your library either as I'm sure it's got holds up the yin yang for this book, I know ours does.

Over the weekend or should I say Friday and Saturday I finished the book The Help by Kathryn Stockett (it's our book club book for March) and it was AMAZING!!!!

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The story takes place in Jackson, Mississippi in the sixties and it's about the lives of the colored maids, along with one white girl who believes things need to change. Let me first say that it was extremely hard to remember that this story takes place in the 60s because of the very clear division of race. While the maids were paid they still were treated extremely poorly. Because I didn't grow up in a time where race was so divided I cannot ever fully understand why people would act the way they did, but to know that this happened during a time where my own parents were alive is beyond me. I cannot believe that it was still so shitty down there. I know it was not like this throughout the country but to know it was still going on just shocks me. Aside from trying to remember the time that it takes place this book was excellent.

It was a pretty easy read but the way it was written keeps you wanting to read. The author gives you the story from three different characters view and as any good author will do she leaves you wanting more the minute she ends one persons section and starts another, forcing you to power through the next 50 pages to get back to where you were itching to know what was going to happen. Even though I say "power" through the next 50 pages don't take it as it was a struggle, because the author doesn't make any chapter or section boring. This book moves at a great pace and I never found myself feeling like the book was dragging.

I highly recommend this book and I give this book an A++++! Great Job on your first book Kathryn Stockett, I look forward to whatever else you publish!!

Ingredients For Life

I've finished another book! YAY! I am so excited to be getting through my list quicker this year than last year! Last year it took me the entire month of January to complete one book and if I remember correctly I may have read one or two in February!

Anywho I just finished reading Life From Scratch by Melissa Ford last night!

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This book is about a food blogger!! That is the ONLY reason I chose to read it!! I don't think I would have come across this ever had it not been a free one offered for the Kindle at one point in time! I seriously am scoring with these free Kindle books!

Anywho it's about a woman named Rachel who goes through a divorce and then decides to take time off to teach herself how to cook and blog about it. To be honest this would probably be a book that makes most bloggers dream of having her life, aside from the divorce of course :o)

But without exposing the end if you love blogging and dream of ever making it into a career I'd steer clear. This book might make you a little jealous and bitter! On the other note I absolutely loved it! I love to blog just for fun and yes of course who wouldn't want to wake up and stay in their sweats and blog about their life and get paid...Sure I'd be lying if I said that I'd turn that down, but because the whole point of my blog is to have fun and listen to myself "talk" I really enjoyed this book and was insanely happy for the character.

The character is extremely likeable and honest and I was hoping at every page turn that Rachel was based on a real time in the author's life. Boy was I let down when I found out the fictional book I've been reading turned out to really be fictional. I know it seems silly to be let down by that but I was so hoping this was book similar to Julia and Julia or Eat, Pray Love. I wanted to so bad for the main character to be real and be based on a real person's life that when reality hit me at the end of the book and the author thanked all these people in her life who she makes a point of saying are nothing like the peope in the book, I got a little bitter. It left a bad taste in my mouth because I couldn't believe Rachel and her friends and family vanished into thin air!

That being said I still recommend this book to everyone who blogs! It's really cute and like I said the characters are so likeable, even the ones you don't really care for turn out to be okay. It's a light read with gut wrenching emotion and honesty! I give it an A+!

P.S. Check out Melissa Ford's blog here.