Thanksgivinz

Paul and I just got back to MD from a loooong week. Starting last weekend, we went to Richmond, VA for an early Thanksgiving with Jamie's family. After that, my mom came to our place for a few days until we drove to Pittsburgh. We went to the tree lighting at National Harbor and went shopping at Old Town Alexandria. Good times. When we were in the 'burgh, we had some more turkey at the Haggerty's and hung out with them for a few days. Then this morning we drove back to Waldorf (normally a 4 1/2 hr drive...today, a 6 hour drive...grr traffic!!) and we just got done setting up our pretty tree. yippee- it is so Christmas comfy in here :D

My sparkling snowflake ornament I got at the National Harbor when my mom came to visit. My mom got one too- they were too pretty to resist!!!

Spooky!! He lives up to his name too! Even with my cat whispering, he still attacked me. yikes!

Kitchen insanity.

Mmmm!

My plate. Notice I dont skimp on those potatoes + gravy!

Dessert! Homemade apple pie annnnnnd my pumpkin pecan chocolate chunk cookies with maple brown butter frosting...what a mouthful!! And BOY WERE THEY TASTY!

Ziggy. my friend. He was such a cuddly baby boy :)

Paul and Gavin making a fire.

Leeloo checking on the birdie status.

Christmas decor!

I am Martha Stewart.

I am Martha Stewart. I fancified my room for under $10. yee-hoo.

!!!BEFORE!!!

The fabric I searched high and low for in Jo-Ann Fabrics. It was actually really hard to find a pattern I liked in the color scheme I was looking for...

Razzle Dazzle is right!

All hemmed and hung. I am so proud of myself :)

!!!AFTER!!!

Ta-Da!

Magnolia

So...I acquired the recipe for magnolia cupcakes from a cupcake blog I frequent...and I knew I had to make 'em!! So, I decided to make them TODAY babe. It did require a trip to the local safeway to grab some more powdered sugar for the frosting...but boy-o-boy was it worth it! I made some alterations to the frosting recipe- I added a pinch of butter flavored salt and a vanilla bean instead of extract. I think I made the right choice.

Vanilla extract, a bean and a glass vile of vanilla beans :)
Squashed vaniller bean

Close up of a sprinkly one

The variety

*I should have added more powdered sugar to the frosting so that it was more dense and fluffy...oh well.

REAL magnolia cupcakes.

happy baking.

Old Tahn.

Paul and I went to Alexandria TWICE last weekend and we LOVED it. We want to move there...it is quite expensive and seeing we are barely affording where we are now, we might have to wait. Well. here are some pics of our lovely trip.

The window at the French bistro we stumbled upon.

Aaaand, some fruit tarts we also might have stumbled upon...

Paul sippin on his syrup.


FOR GOODNESS SAKES...white chocolate cranberry, flourless almond chocolate and sea salt, boston cream pie, pumpkin fennel, mexican chocolate, lemon curd.

These were from Lavender Moon bakery.
These were good.
Real good.



Me in Lavender Moon babe.