Me

Cinnamon Browned Butter Icing (for Spiced Sugar Cookies)

Rolling out fall spiced sugar cookie dough

The other day I ran across a recipe for spiced cookies. I thought… mmmmm those sound good. Problem was, they called for 3/4 of a cup of butter. I hate when recipes make me cut a stick of butter up like that and don’t finish it off. Silly I know, but true no less.

So I continued on my day and ran across another recipe for spiced cookies, this time it used 3 sticks of butter (1 1/2 cups). Okay, so that’s better. But truth be told, I prefer to use my butter in even numbers. I’m totally weird.

All day for 2 days I’d randomly look back at these recipes thinking, boy they sound good but the butter amounts are bugging me. Finally, I decided to make the batch that used 1-1/2 cups butter, but possibly use the seasonings in the smaller batch. They were different after all. So I pulled 3 sticks of butter out of the refrigerator to come to room temperature. Then I went back to staring at the recipes at hand. Both of them. That’s when it hit me… It’s just a sugar cookie recipe that they are doctoring up with spices… why not use the sugar cookie recipe that is my own unique one?

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Raising Money for Christmas {Last Three Months of the Year}

It’s no surprise that I LOVE CHRISTMAS. I do. I can’t hide that fact. Some people ask why I like it so much. This is kind of hard to put into words but I’ll try. There is something so magical around the time of year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There is something in the air. The air is crisp, which it is also known I hate cold weather, but that time of year you know you need snow so that Santa can deliver his presents. Duh!

But there is a spirit among people. Yes, a lot of people are stressed out by Christmas and they say that the suicide rate is up around this time of year, but there are a lot of happy people around this time of year. They are out and about shopping for just the perfect present for their loved ones and friends. There is Christmas lights and Christmas music and little kids getting so excited that Santa will visit.

That is the thing though… Little kids get extremely excited about the thought of Santa visiting. Some little kids though are sad at this time of the year. Their family is going through some struggle and the thought of Christmas is far from their mind. That’s where Santa’s helpers come in to play.

There are organizations that are working year round to make sure that every little kid knows what Christmas is and knows that they aren’t forgotten. Santa’s helpers run fundraisers and ring bells, and everything else to raise money for presents for those deserving little kids.

I’m sure we all know this, right? So why am I discussing this? Well, because the last few years I have been working with one of those organizations. I have been volunteering my time to help raise money. To help raise awareness. All little kids are deserving all year round, but I want them to know my favorite time of year and have fond memories of it just like I have.

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Stream of Consciousness

I was actually questioning my self on spelling consciousness correctly. Oddly enough, I did. So a new piece of information about myself I don’t think I’ve ever shared… back in grade school when we had to do those spelling tests, I always complained. My dad told me I needed to learn to spell and I remember clear as day smarting off at him, “Why does it matter if I can spell, it’s not like I’ll ever write a letter to the president of the United States.” That has always cracked me up. And prior to the last few years, I was a really good speller, now I’m just a decent speller.

For the last few days I have been writing blog posts in my head, but they haven’t been put anywhere but in my head. That makes me sad. I really like blogging, but in the last few years, my readership has gone down. Maybe that’s because I’m not a good blogger? Maybe not as many people read blogs? Maybe it’s a combination of both… I’m not really sure. It makes me really sad though.

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You have to Dance at Dance Class

Wednesday night my baby girl started dance class. Yes, I know, we’re about a month late, but every time we talk about putting her in dance class we forget about the sign-up date. Luckily we found out we could still enroll her, so that’s just what we did. She was officially enrolled in dance class Tuesday and Wednesday night she had her first dance class.

I was in ballet for 10 years while I was growing up and loved it. Although I do remember sitting there at times wishing that the hour dance class would be over because I was bored. Things you remember…

She was quite nervous. So they put the littles in the smallest room. The rooms all have video cameras and so you can watch their lessons on a tv monitor. I saw that the teacher gave them all a circle that they went and placed on the floor. That was where they were supposed to sit. My poor baby must either have extremely good manners or was extremely scared. She sat while the other girls sat, did summersaults, spun around, etc. She just sat there.

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In light of recent events

Looking on to the Vegas Strip toward Bally's and The Perisian

Yesterday morning I woke up like usual, Before I needed to, and decided to lay in bed and scan through Facebook quickly before telling myself, “Get out of bed and be productive.” I was reading through all the new meme’s that appear daily, hourly, minutely (word?), even secondly (not as in 1st, 2nd, but seconds on a clock). That’s when I saw, “Prayers for Las Vegas.”

Oh crap, I thought to myself. What’s happened now? Don’t you think that is a sad thing to think to yourself? What’s happened now? Are we so conditioned to that? Unfortunately, I think we are. Another shooting. Yet another massacre. Even worse, another round of innocent lives lost. Of course when you see the “Prayers for Las Vegas” you immediately have to go and see what is going on. I do anyway. I want to be in the “know” I guess?!

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Fall Y’all

Guys, it’s fall. The weather has even cooled down, at least in the morning. Our days, well they are hit and miss. Some days it’s warm and some days it’s cooler. Never cool, just cooler.

By the way, I may type y’all sometimes for effect, but I don’t really say that word. It tends to be hey guys or you guys or you all or something. Just a random bit of information about yours truly to bring us closer together. If you hear me say the word y’all, I’m usually just being silly.

We’re headed into the last quarter of the year. How is that even possible? It feels like we just had Christmas or New Years or Winter or something. I guess technically not because winter implies cold weather and it’s been hot around these parts this summer… but at the same time, we had such a mild winter last winter that was it even winter…? Things to ponder.

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Milk and Cookies Cupcakes

So I have created a little bit of a monster at my house… a baking monster that is. My little one absolutely LOVES to bake. Every morning she wakes up, looks at me, and asks, what are we going to bake today mommy? Can I let you in on a little secret? I absolutely LOVE it. I always hope she wants to continue to bake/cook with mommy!

These cupcakes… I didn’t really have high hopes for them to be honest. I wasn’t sure about the milk on top (look at the last picture). I wasn’t sure about the cookie. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure about the sweetened condensed milk in the cupcake and icing. A lot of people would probably think these would be the best, but I was quite worried…

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Life Lately

So what have we been up to around here? Good question. Life is never the same from day to day or even minute to minute. Last week we worked with trying to trailer break Little Pi. What on earth does that mean?

Well it means, we were spending time trying to get her in the trailer. Why? Well, because we finally found someone to break her to ride. Unfortunately she’s a little behind in the training aspect for Cutting horses. Sad but true and that’s our fault. Usually a colt is broke late  (I’m talking late fall) of their yearling year or the very first part of spring in their 2 year old year. Shortly after (no real given time frame) they start cutting training. A lot of colts are trained and shown for the first time their 3 year old year in what is known as a Futurity. There’s a huge one in Ft. Worth the end of November/First of December, otherwise a lot of associations have smaller futurities in the fall every year.

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