Happy New Year!

 

Holy Cow, It is officially the last day of 2010…these years just keep going by faster and faster.

 

I would like to wish each and every one of you a happy new year. I am with the family in Steamboat Springs, Colorado…it is absolutely beautiful up here and it has been snowing like crazy – oh yeah, and negative temperatures…

This is the mountain we are skiing at and every new year they have a torchlight parade with all of the ski instructors and a fireworks show. Other than that we will probably eat and watch football by the fire.

It’s that time to make a new years resolution…I have never been big on making resolutions other than “I will work out more” or “eat healthier”.

This year my resolution is that I would love because He first loved me,  and that would included loving all people even those who it seems hard to and the last, least, and the lost.

Be safe tonight and have a wonderful new year..oh and Roll Tide!

Ut ohhh….

 

Tomorrow I am heading to Steamboat Springs, Colorado to go skiing with my mom, step-dad, and 2 step-sisters. This is the first time I have been to Colorado so I am super excited about it.

Not to mention, we fly into Denver, which I know has an abundance of cupcake bakeries…I pleaded with my step-dad and we are going to make a pit stop after we leave the airport and before we head to Steamboat. Yippee! This is the bakery we are planning to visit, Happy Cakes, I am so excited…they look so cute.

In packing and planning for this trip I have been monitoring the weather…uhh, take a look at this…

Is anyone else bothered by the single digits and negative numbers that appear in this image. I mean I was expecting cold…but oh my goodness. That is freezing, I have lived my entire life on the gulf coast of Florida and I don’t really think I am cut out for such temperatures. I guess we will see..

Not sure that I will be able to blog while I am there but I will definitely update on the trip and the bakery adventures when I get back!

I hope everyone has a splendid New Years!

Lynnlee

Oh how sweet it is

 

While I was in Arkansas… my family revolves around meal times and when we eat one meal, we plan when we will eat the next. That is just how we roll.

My uncle Chad, who is a great chef, definitely covered the “sweet” portion of the trip. A couple years ago he made this pumpkin torte…and it was indescribably good. Well since then and every time I am in Arkansas I beg for him to make it.

well look at this baby…

 

And then…and then… and THEN… he made this the very next night.

That would be a 6 layer heath bar cake with a whipped mocha frosting.  holy bejeezus.

 

You should have seen my eyes light up with, well, both of these lovely masterpieces. If you would like the recipes just leave me a comment or send an e-mail. I take no credit for any of these, I wish I could re-enact but I am too afraid to ruin it.

Uncle Chad, thank you for your above par baking skills and for helping me gain about 20 pounds.

Hart Denton

 

So this past week I was visiting family in Arkansas, thus the lack of blogging. It was a quick but great trip…after a long travel day in the airport and then having to drive the 10 hour drive home, there was never a dull moment.

While we were there we got to go see my cousin Hart Denton play a live gig at a local bar, JJ’s. Hart can be found on MySpace and Facebook and YouTube and his music can also be bought on iTunes (search Hart Denton).

So I might be a little bias, but isn’t he just precious. He is my 17 year old cousin whom is an aspiring musician. I love his voice and he is quite a talented songwriter. He is a junior in high school and dreams of attending Belmont University and follow his love of music.

These are a couple of pictures from the event. I am one of those YouTube junkies that searches for people making acoustic covers of rap/hip-hop/pop songs and this night Hart sang “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz and “Just a Dream” by Nelly in his set list. As you can imagine I was in love with them… I attempted to take video on my camera but it turned out having horrible sound quality and I don’t want top taint the song by showing such a poor video.

Yall need to check this kid out, again I know I might be bias but he really is talented. My favorite original song of his is “Laid Back Lady” and then “Lyla” is a close second.

Here are some videos that can be found on YouTube…

Hart Denton–Laid Back Lady

#fourthannualtackychristmasparty

 

So I have written a number of posts about my group of friends from home…about how I love them and am so thankful that we have remained the s7 (+ the boys) even through the college years.

While in high school we decided one Christmas that, well, we would be original and have a tacky Christmas party. We had a blast with it, more so the adventures to goodwill and the salvation army to pick out clothing. We said then…we should do this EVERY YEAR. Well we then went off to college and I am proud to say that we held strong and we have had the party every year since then.

It has become a potluck affair at someone’s house which equals A LOT of food. This year we were quite late in our planning and decided that we wouldn’t do tacky, well unless you really wanted to, but it was not required. I, myself, decided to go normal.

(I will do a post about the food because…well, it deserves a post of its own)

In the meantime, check out some pics from the event…

Above were the only three “tacky” dressers…well until this guy below showed up…

He said that ever year we left out Hanukkah

Always remember to keep the “Han” in “Hanukkah”

And this is where the group photo escapade begins…

this apparently took some deep thought to arrange

attempt 1 of 397

cool pose linds.. and uhh nancy

And the s7 group only

our boy photographers struggled a little bit..

Myself and Landrew

Nice menorah nanc

since the 6th grade I have like 2 total normal pictures of her.

hahaha, Linds I thought you were not eating anything besides what was on your plate?

 

I love my friends, the hash tag name of this post was our attempt to make our party a trending topic…it didn’t work.

I am sorry the posting has been lacking but we are currently visiting family in Arkansas and thus the time is rare!

Cookie Dough Goodness

 

To add to my baking frenzy while at home over the break… I tested out a new cupcake recipe. That’s right, chocolate chip cookie dough or sinfully delicious. I got the recipe from here which I originally found on the cupcakes take the cake website.

they turned out to be quite scrumptious…I might could have eaten every one of them and licked the entire bowl.

This sort of an in-between pic, you can see the cookie dough filling.

I probably could have eaten it just like this.

This might have been my other favorite part…the picture above was the scraps from creating the holes to fill with cookie dough. It was a perfect way test out the actual cupcake and a great mid-way snack.

And……

VOILA!

I just loved every step of making these and they turned out so well. Everything was made from scratch but after the fact, one could easily use store bought cookie dough for the filling and it would be just as tasty.

I had some extra batter…which ultimately means, mini cupcakes. (they lacked the cookie dough on the inside)

Now these pictures show the inside, it’s hard to tell in this lighting but there is cookie dough in the middle.

I got a little picture happy with these…

Yum…Yum..Yummy

Does anyone else have any fun holiday recipes, or non-holiday recipes? =)

white chocolate bark

 

I tagged this recipe of white chocolate, cranberry, pistachio bark a couple weeks ago from the brown eyed baker because…well it looked tasty.

I am not normally the “bark” or “brittle” lover…but this just looked so pretty to me so I figured that maybe my taste buds have changed and I would give it a shot.

The exact recipe can be found here!

 

To be honest, I didn’t love it. But it still sort of looked pretty. But like I said, I don’t normally like “bark” type candies and so I am not sure why I thought this would be different. It was super easy to make and so if that’s your kind of thing then go for it.

I sent it with my mom to school, I figured out of the mass of teachers there had to be someone that was into that stuff. =)

blogging and baking

 

I know I have been absent from the blog for the past week or so. It was finals week…part of that means I blog more because I am distracting myself from studying..but then reality is I needed to focus on finishing out the semester strong and that did not include blogging. But the great news is… I’m back!!

I am now home for Christmas break and have an entire month with no assignments or readings (except for pleasure). My goal besides hanging with all of my friends and family members is to bake and blog… A LOT. That sounds like the perfect break to me. Thus far I have played with a couple of cupcake recipes.

The first is a mocha espresso cupcake, the recipe came from the pioneer woman’s tasty kitchen blog. I think I messed up with the espresso powder – that there is a difference between powder and ground espresso? – but either way…they still tasted quite yummy and a must try by any coffee lover.

The next is “peppermint”, but I also got this recipe from the tasty kitchen. This is technically a thin  mint recipe that I tried this summer…BUT, I left out a chocolate topping and dying the frosting green, and added a candy cane and VOILA…it’s a peppermint cupcake! These were also festive and tasty…I think tomorrow’s agenda might include chocolate chip cookie dough, just sayin.

20 is the goal.

 

So I have been doing this blogging thing for a little while now…and in the past couple months I have tried to be more serious about it in that I post regularly and have found a lot of new blogs to follow.

Well as you can see I have 17 followers…and I know, in the blogging world and to your major bloggers that seems incredibly lame. But hey, everyone has to start somewhere…my goal is to acquire 20 followers. I would love to accomplish this by the end of this year…I know that is like 3/4 weeks away. So if you do read this regularly be sure to click follow on the right-hand column. It will give you numerous options in which to follow by and please feel free to share my blog with your fellow bloggers.

I hope that everyone is having a splendid Wednesday!

Lynnlee

A Military Town

 

I was raised in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and is a place that I love. It is a very interesting community…it is a tourist town (just a couple miles from Destin) but it is also a town surrounded by military bases. We have two major military bases on either side and some smaller bases there too.

Neither of my parents are/were in the military but a good number of my friends parents or family were. So I never experienced a TDY for myself but I have watched many a people go through the separation for many months. The cool thing about having the bases is that it brings a lot of new and diverse people to the area for months and years at a time…but the uncool thing is that it often takes them away.

Within the last week I have been informed of two families that will be moving within the next 6 months- 1 year due to new military placements. It greatly saddens me…most of these people seem to be previous teachers of mine. I am sort of weird and growing up I could always easily carry on conversations with adults and thus in high school I became pretty close with a number of my teachers and as they got married and started families I loved babysitting for them. Well since 9th grade we have had to say goodbye to about 5 wonderful teachers and their families.

These moves are always understood because it often means that they will get to spend more time together as a couple or as a family but sad for all of us that have to tell them bye and also sad for the school because I know they have all been great teachers.

It is something that comes with the territory and we greatly appreciate these families and the continual sacrifices that they make in order to protect us. So for now…to the Heck Family (click to check out their blog!) and the Outlaw family…I am sad to see you go but I know your new homes will be so blessed to have you!!

“Nobody puts Baby in the corner”

 

As I mentioned yesterday my roommate and I just watched Dirty Dancing…which is one my of my top movies of all time. My roommate had never seen and I had talked it up quite a bit so I was nervous that she wouldn’t like it as much or think I am just loopy. BUT… SHE LOVED IT!!!!

If you have not watched this movie, then you must. ASAP I honestly think I could watch it once a week and it never get old. Watching it now makes me feel nostalgic for Patrick Swayze – I really love so many items of his work.

The movie just has some iconic moments. The picture below is my absolute favorite movie scene ever and since I was younger I have dreamed of performing this dance. Now…I have the worst dance skills and no rhythm what so ever so it is only a dream. But I do just love it.

Just in case you want a sneak peak…

And remember… NOBODY puts Baby in the corner!