Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

First off, I should say that I'm hesitant to even write this up....I was loving these cupcakes and frosting so much, but then I went to Craft Weekend, and Kimberlee made another version of this that was absolutely TO-DIE-FOR...completely negating everything I was thinking about these cupcakes.  However, Mark said that these are still post worthy, so here they are:

Press a frozen Reece's Peanut Butter Cup into your favorite chocolate cupcake batter.

Watch them bake up into these cute things...  :)

Top with amazing Peanut Butter Frosting....and another Reece's, cut in half...you can never have too much chocolate and peanut butter, right?!

Repeat.  Because you're gonna need more than one of these babies!

Here's the frosting recipe (modified from Barefoot Contessa), in case you don't have Kimberlee's (which I don't yet...key word is yet):

Peanut Butter Icing:

• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/3 cup 2% milk

Place the confectioners' sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

Craft Weekend!

I was so fortunate to be picked in the random lotto to go to Craft Weekend, hosted by Meg Duerksen & her amazing sidekicks Kimberlee and Ashley.  So many amazing things to say about this weekend....really great crafts, amazing women that I can now call friends, to-die-for food, and so much fun!  Not a lot of sleep...but hey, you can't have it all...  :)

We were greeted by a super-yummy dinner from Kimberlee and a bunch of great swag, provided by some really great companies....gorgeous stuff!

I love me some great fabric, and there was no shortage...picking was so hard, but I narrowed it down to these...

...and I'm still in awe that in just a few hours, that cute fabric became all ruffled...

...and then turned into this cuteness!  All from a girl who's only ever sown straight-line curtains!

Bear-ly Makin' It Antiques in Marion, Kansas gets a big vote from me...I love how organized this place is!!  Talk about great finds...

And no good weekend is complete without a trip to Sonic...yum!

We all found great stuff...Meg said our group spent the most time shopping, but she also said we came away with the most stuff.  She was pretty willing for us to leave it all in her house!  

I have been looking for Dr. Pepper crates for a while....yay!

Need to take some final pics of the other crafts, along with some other goodness from the weekend....will put that up soon!

The bottom line on Craft Weekend:  totally and absolutely worth it!  It is such a gift, in so many ways...talk about doing your soul serious good.

Fruit Slush Cups

I signed up to bring fruit for my Bible study brunch last week....and while I do love a good fruit salad, it gets a little old, so I wanted to bring something a little different.  And then I remembered these fruit cups my friend Crystal made for my baby shower... probably more of a summer food than one you'd typically serve in February, but honestly, I think they're good anytime!  (And they got rave reviews...Mark said I had made his day by making them because he remembers his mom making them when he was a kid!)  Anyway...here's the yummy recipe, modified a bit from the one Crystal's mom passed on to her.

Fruit Slush Cups
6 oz pink lemonade concentrate, thawed
6 oz orange juice concentrate, thawed
4 bananas, sliced
20 oz can of crushed pineapple
16 oz frozen strawberries, sliced (just the strawberries,    
           not the kind in the syrup)
1 can (12 oz) strawberry soda

Mix all the ingredients together, and pour into 12 individual cups.  Freeze.  Pull out of freezer an hour and a half before serving.

Good Things

Just a few things that I'm loving right now...

Saw on a deals blog that you could get a Burt's Bees $50 grab-bag for $20...it is full of GREAT stuff! 

Mark and I had gotten out of the habit of drinking tea before bed...loving that it's back....yum!

I have always wanted to be in a book club...and my friend Tiffany invited me to join hers!  Yea!  Our first book is a personal favorite...loving going through this book again.

http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Project-Morning-Aristotle-Generally/dp/006158326X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1328214575&sr=8-1

I have been patiently waiting for the day when my kids play games...real games.  That day has arrived!

Santa was a very good listener at Christmas...this wallet makes me happy!

I have been a long-time FranklinCovey user (ever since I worked there for a few years), but it wasn't working the best for me lately.  Erin Condren caught my eye with this fun & colorful planner, and I'm afraid I won't look back!

Some days you get an email and it changes your entire day...I got an email that changed my entire month!  I got invited to a Whatever Craft Weekend, and I am SO STINKIN' EXCITED!  Can't wait til February 17-19...more to come on that later!

Loving how intently this kid plays...he is so into trucks, trains, tractors...anything with wheels!

Cinnamon Critters

Isaac started getting the High Five magazine (little kids counterpart to Highlights), and I might have been more excited that he was....I LOVED getting Highlights when I was a kid!  Could not wait for the mail to come, and then for all the fun games, activities, and stories inside....oh good times!  Well, Isaac yesterday settled down to read this months magazine, do some look and finds, and then he realized there were activities and recipes.  We couldn't make the mushroom bowling game (need to collect a few supplies), but we did have everything to make Cinnamon Critters....a HUGE hit!

In case you're dying to make your own, here's the recipe:

Cinnamon Critters
Ingredients:
Breadstick dough (like the Pillsbury kind in a can)
3 Tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
Mini Chocolate Chips

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Mix the cinnamon & sugar together.  Sprinkle it out on a piece of wax paper.  Roll each breadstick in the cinnamon sugar mix, coating completely.  Place on a baking sheet.  Put mini chocolate chips on for eyes.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Loads of Layouts!

At the beginning of the year I decided to stop card-making and focus on scrapbooking....while I love card-making, it was becoming my fall-back.  Whenever I didn't make time to prep for scrapbooking, I just made cards.  And it turned out I was making LOADS of cards, with no layouts being done at all.  So this year, I abandoned cards (with the exception of a few very important cards), and I've been scrappin' like mad!  Here's some of my latest stuff...

The Non-Girly Baby Shower

Our dear friends are prepping to have a baby (actually, he was born last week, so this post is waaaaay overdue)...well, they were prepping to have a baby, and because it's their third baby, we wanted to do something fun for them, but not like the typical shower you might have for a first baby.  My husband was also very adamant that if it was co-ed, it couldn't include all that girly stuff.  We ended up doing a party with drinks & appetizers, with the "cover charge" being a package of diapers or wipes.  Here's a few highlights:

 Painted Mason jars...my new addiction...thanks to Joy's Hope...

 Mark was pretty mad that I took paint cards from Home Depot...something or other about the price of paint cards going up because I took 15 of each color...sigh...

Yummy raspberry vanilla ice cream cups....delish!

Me, the beautiful mom Kelly, and my fellow co-host & friend Heather

Co-host hubby Brett, dad of honor Brett, and Mark