What I Wore Wednesday

This week’s What I Wore Wednesday will be the Christmas edition! I wasn’t able to get pictures everyday just because we were too busy doing other fun things, but here are a few days outfits!

Thursday

Thursday we spent running around town getting all our ducks in a row to head home for Christmas. I had the pleasure of fighting the crowds at Walmart 3 days before Christmas…it was interesting.

Sweater- NY&Co.

Jeans-NY &Co.

Scarf-Macy’s

Shoes-Clarks from Marti and Liz

Watch- Fossil (see below for more details)

Friday

If you can’t tell, I am in love with these skinny jeans from NY&Co! They are so comfortable and flattering. I plan on purchasing another pair in the very near future.

Top- Kohl’s

Jeans-NY&Co.

Shoes- Clarks from Marti and Liz

Scarf-Macy’s

Watch-Fossil

Sunday- Christmas!

Here we are getting ready to head to church on Christmas morning.

Dress and Belt-Target

Tights-Walmart (can’t really see them)

Necklace-NY&Co.

Watch-Fossil

Christmas Gifts

I was really surprised this year by Logan’s Christmas gifts. He got me this amazing Fossil watch and bracelet that says Expecto Patronum! If you are a Harry Potter fanatic like me, then you will understand just how awesome this bracelet is!

Happy Wednesday!

As always, I am linking up with The Pleated Poppy for WIWW!

Christmas Recap

Here’s a recap of all this weekend’s fun and excitement!

We spent Christmas Eve with Logan’s Dad, Tim, Step Mom, Kat, and their sweet baby, Lincoln. We had so much fun getting to be part of Lincoln’s first Christmas. He is the happiest baby and made a pretty good looking Santa.

Logan and his little brother Lincoln, so sweet.

Sweet Little Family

Baby Santa

Lincoln on his super cool rocking horse:)

Jack was pooped...and a little upset he wasn't the center of attention.

Next up, we spent Christmas morning with Logan’s Mom, Kristy, Step Dad, David, and sister, Taylor. We aren’t quite awake yet in some of these pictures:)

Trying to wake up:)

Jack being the center of attention.

Vera Bradley Purse

Checking out their new stuff!

Ready to go to church.

Jack posing for some cheese

Last, we went to my grandparents’ house for Christmas Brunch, after church. I think my youngest brother, Austin, was about to have a come apart because he had to wait so long to open his presents:)

Getting ready to eat, yumm!

Can't take the waiting

Opening up presents!

My grandfather, Bop, got a surprise, a new iphone!

Woohoo, a microwave for his dorm!

New Fiestaware bowls!

The wrapping paper aftermath

We had a great time eating yummy food, opening presents, and spending time with all our families! I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend as much as we did!

Our Happy Little Family

Haircuts, Super Saturday, and Panera Bread Knockoff

Today has been a pretty busy but successful Saturday.

I have been putting off getting my hair cut for a long, long time. It has been a year and a half since my hair has seen a pair of scissors. This is partly due to the fact that I have been growing it out, and I didn’t trust anyone to cut my hair. If you have curly hair, I’m sure you’ve had a few bad hair cuts in your life, and you know how hard it is to find someone to do a good job cutting it. I knew I couldn’t keep postponing the inevitable because I was starting to get some ugly dead ends, so my friend Angie, who teaches with me, did a great job. It’s not a drastic change, but I can tell a huge difference. There is just something about a hair cut that makes me feel so much better! Thanks so much Angie!

 

I also got out today and finished our Christmas shopping… for the most part. Wow, it was wild! Apparently, today is  referred to as Super Saturday, the last shopping  Saturday before Christmas. I wasn’t aware of the madness that comes along with “Super Saturday.” It is definitely a rival to Black Friday, and this is saying something coming from a girl who plans months in advance for Black Friday. I went to a few different places around town getting a few little gifts for our siblings, then I went to good ole Wally World. This was a test of my patience and Christmas spirit. I hadn’t prepared myself for the madness that would ensue. I had to constantly keep reminding myself that it was almost Christmas, and it wouldn’t be nice to scream at the people stopping smack dab in the middle of an aisle to chat with their long lost buddy. Oh well, I did find some really good deals on Christmas gifts, so it was worth it all in the end:)

This could have been our Walmart today:) I am somewhere in there taking deep soothing breaths.

One of my favorite places to eat is Panera Bread, and I wish one was close to where we live. I was craving comfort food tonight, so I took a leaf out of Panera’s book. I recently discovered that Campbell’s Cream of Potato soup is a pretty tasty little soup when you don’t feel like cooking. We also made club sandwiches and had a yummy dinner reminiscent of Panera.

I hope you are having a great Super Saturday! We are one week and counting to Christmas! Yay!

Our tree looks much happier now after today's purchases:)

Andes Mint Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies

My favorite part of going to our favorite Mexican restaurant in town is getting 3 Andes mints when we go to leave. I don’t know why I love this so much but I do! This is the only time I eat Andes mints, so when I ran across this recipe I knew it was a winner. Over at The Small Things Blog, she was having guest bloggers share their favorite cookie recipes all week and this is where I stumbled across this little gem. I have really enjoyed sifting through all these fun cookie recipes this week and definitely plan on trying a few more.

Here’s what you will need to round up:

It took a while to get all this stuff arranged just right

Flour, milk, cocoa, Andes chips, chocolate chunks, brown sugar, sugar, baking soda, butter, vanilla

Combine butter, sugar, and packed brown sugar in a mixer. Make sure everything is nice and well combined.

Pour in the milk and vanilla,  mix some more.

Now, throw in flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda. Watch out when you start the mixer or the flour and cocoa powder will end up all over the kitchen and you! I’ve experienced this…not cool.

Last thing to add is the Andes baking chips and the chocolate chunks. I did about half and half of each, so that was 3/4cup each. If you just wanted to use one or the other you definitely could adjust to suit your taste. I also have seen peppermint chips that would also be yummy! Once you’ve added this scoop out the cookies onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Ready for the oven!

This recipe made about 2 dozen cookies.

Yummmm

This was my favorite cookie recipe from the weekend. I usually don’t just go crazy over mint and chocolate, but it was amazing with the Andes mints!

Cookies!!!

I may have a case of cookie overload on my hands! I hope everyone eats them at the Christmas party tonight because I do NOT need to bring all these back home:)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup + 2 TB butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 TB vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 cup Andes baking chips
• 3/4 cup chocolate chunks/chips

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350. Then combine butter, sugar, and brown sugar and mix well. You want to make sure that the sugar and butter mixture is light and fluffy not clumpy. Now, add in milk and vanilla. Once this has combined in, add flour, cocoa, and baking soda. Be careful when you start the mixer back up…no flour explosions! Last, add in Andes mints and chocolate chunks. Scoop out cookies onto a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. This will make 2 dozen cookies.

Hope everyone is having a HAPPY WEEKEND!

Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, tonight we are going to our church’s Christmas party, and I have decided to test out a few cookie recipes I’ve discovered. The first one is Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip that I found here.  This was a really easy recipe and most of the ingredients are already in your pantry.

All you need is red velvet cake mix, flour, eggs, butter, and white chocolate chips.

First, beat the butter in your mixer until soft.

Then, slowly add in 1 cup of flour and a box of red velvet cake mix. Once the flour and cake mix has incorporated add in 2 eggs.

Make sure everything gets combined

Last thing you need to throw in is the white chocolate chips (about 1&1/2 cups).

Final Product! Try not to lick that spoon:)

Now all you have to do is spoon them out onto an ungreased cookie sheet. If you had a little ice cream scoop, that would really help out here. I just used two spoons, but I ended up with some monster cookies. Not that this is a bad thing:)

Here I am scooping away!

This recipe makes about 30ish cookies depending on the size. If mine had have all been uniform, I probably would have had close to 3 dozen. They need to bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

These cookies just look Christmasy!

Santa worthy cookies!

My husband LOVES anything Red Velvet (his groom’s cake was red velvet), so he was really looking forward to testing this recipe out. He seemed to enjoy eating the leftover batter, so I would say this recipe was a success!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 box – red velvet cake mix
• 1 cup – all purpose flour
• 2 sticks – butter {softened}
• 2 egg
• 2 cups – white chocolate chunks {chips}

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350. Beat butter until softened in a mixer. Then, slowly add in flour and red velvet cake mix. Once all this has combined together, add 2 eggs to the mix and mix well. Last thing to add to the mix is the chocolate chips/chunks. Spoon cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes. Let cool and enjoy!

HAPPY BAKING!

Five Things for Friday

 With Christmas quickly approaching, here are five things I want to accomplish before it gets here.

1. Make a Christmas Wreath for our front door

Maybe this one…

…or this one

2. Drive around and look at Christmas lights. This has always been one of my favorite things to do during the holidays.My parents always took me and my brothers driving all over the place to find pretty lights. It is definitely a fail proof way to get into the Christmas spirit and take time to enjoy this time of year with your loved ones. This year I think Logan and I plan on making a trip to Opryland Hotel to look at the lights! Yay! If you’ve never been and you are in the Nashville area absolutely worth the $10 for parking.

Inside the Opryland Hotel, so pretty!

3. Finish our Christmas shopping:) I am usually long done with Christmas shopping at this point, but unfortunately this year I have procrastinated a little too much.

4. Do some baking. I have discovered so many yummy recipes on Pinterest I have been dying to try. I only have 1 WEEK of school  left before Christmas Break, so I have a long list of recipes to try out here are a few:

Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Bun Popcorn…holy cow this looks AMAZING!

Logan and I always make a bazillion peanut butter balls that my Granny used to make. I will probably have a later post about these. I also helped my Matt Matt(other Grandmother) make chicken and dressing this Thanksgiving for the first time, so I have been wanting to try it on my own. Christmas Break sounds like a good time to give it a whirl. Guess I better start baking soon if I am going to do all this!

5. Most importantly, I want to make sure to enjoy the holidays and the time I get to spend with all my friends and family. It is so easy to get caught up in all the craziness that inevitably comes along with Christmas-getting gifts bought, wrapping gifts, going to all the parties, cooking for all the parties, and the list goes on and on.

But, this year I want to just take it easy and enjoy what is going on around me.

HAPPY FRIDAY!!

If you click on any of the pictures above it will send you to the website for the tutorial/recipe:)