Wordless Wednesday ~ Fall Fun Revisited

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Jackie

Fall is my favorite time of year and one of the things that we do together as a family is go to Crossroads Village a couple of times during the year. At Halloween they decorate the entire village and have trick or treating for young and old alike…. dressed up or not! This year it happened to be over 80 degrees that day so the costumes we had picked out just weren’t going to work! We improvised though!

The maze was fun for the kids even if you could see over the top of the walls! Although I’m not sure what’s up with that look she was giving me.

As you can see she was excited for lunch!

I’m hoping that she doesn’t visit my blog all that often or else she is going to be pissed at me for posting this picture for the world to see. Although… better here than Facebook, right? And she refused to smile nice anyway.

He had so much fun running through the maze over… and over… and over again. If there wasn’t a way out I bet that we could have left him there for the rest of the afternoon to play!

Of course the highlight of the trip is riding the old steam locomotive! This train is an original that has been fully restored and is run several times a day taking riders for a 40 minute journey through Crossroads Village, past Mott Lake and by the county fairgrounds. The entire ride is narrated and complete with music as well as decorations along the way for the holiday and well worth the trip to Crossroads!

Okay…. so much for wordless, huh? Good thing that I’m linking up with Seven Clown Circus and Parenting by Dummies for WordFUL Wednesday!

Monday Menu ~ Melt Buttery Spread Review & Recipe

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Jackie

Not that long ago I was asked if I would be interested in trying out Melt Buttery Spread and after checking it out and pondering it for a while I finally said yes.

The reason that I was so hesitant was because I am a big fan of butter. I love the rich creamy taste of it and there is nothing that compares. Nothing. I can’t stand margarine…. at all. The taste is horrible and very much similar to vegetable oil. I was concerned that this was going to have the same taste, but when I tried the Melt Spread I was very impressed. Not only did it taste really good but it had that same creaminess that I like about butter. I’d consider it one of the better butter substitutes out there.

My kids loved it and my husband even kind of liked it too!

So what is Melt Buttery Spread? It’s an organic butter alternative that is made from virgin coconut oil, flax seed oil, palm fruit oil, and canola oil with no artificial colors or additives. It is the perfect blend of healthy fats that can be used just the same as regular butter, whether you bake or cook with it or even spread it on your toast it really is one of the more healthy oils that you can use.

We used the Melt on zucchini bread, crescent rolls, bread, in oatmeal, and of course I had to bake with it.

With the fall season upon us I made a wonderful pumpkin crunch cake that if I must say rivals all others. It was amazing!

Pumpkin Crunch Cake

Ingredients
2 cups of Flour
½ tsp. of Salt
1½ tsp. of Baking Soda
1 can (15 or 16oz.) of Pumpkin
2 tsps. of Baking Powder
1 cup of Melt Buttery Spread
4 Large Eggs

Topping
1/2 cup Melt Buttery Spread
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
2/3 cup Oatmeal
1 tsp Cinnamon
Mix everything together in a bowl. I doubled this so the cake would have lots of crunch topping.

This pumpkin cake recipe is intended for either a tube pan, a bundt pan, or a 13″x9″ pan.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease and flour your baking pan.
Combine all of the above ingredients in a large bowl.
Mix together thoroughly until entirely moistened and well-blended.
Pour your cake batter into the prepared pan.
Place the topping on the cake all over the place.
Bake for one hour or until you can insert a toothpick and pull it out clean.
Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Then, remove it from the pan and allow it to cool on a cooling rack for one more hour.

I created the topping because I didn’t have the ingredients to make frosting and wanted something more for it. If you don’t want to use the topping then leave it off and you can frost it with a cream cheese frosting or a simple dusting of powdered sugar. No matter which way you serve this cake it’s delicious! It’s moist, flavorful, and lasts this way on the counter for a few day.

The only issue with the Melt Spread is that I’m having trouble finding it around me and I only have a little bit left.

Have you tried Melt Buttery Spread?

The best fall treat ever ~ pumpkin s’more bars

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Jackie

I am doing something that I don’t normally do…. posting on a Sunday and mid day. I always take the weekends off and make sure that when I do post that it’s ready to go at 6am.

But today I am sharing a recipe that I shared in Instagram yesterday. And there was an outcry for the recipe…people falling over to get it…… drooling on their phones and computers when they saw it. Alright, so maybe that’s an exaggeration.

Ingredients

1/2 cup of butter
1 can of pumpkin puree (150z)
1 can of sweetened condensed milk (the small one)
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 cup of Graham cracker crumbs (about 12 squares
45 graham crackers (approximately)
9 cups of mini-marshmallows (entire bag)
2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips (add more if you want!)

Instructions

Preheat over to 450F.
In a small saucepan on medium heat, combine the butter, pumpkin mix, milk, cinnamon and bring to a boil.
Remove saucepan from heat and stir in Graham cracker crumbs. Place aside.
Spray a 13×9 baking pan with cooking spray or line with waxed paper.
Line the pan with graham crackers – I had to cut a couple for the last row.
Pour 1/3 of the pumpkin mix over crackers and spread.
Top the pumpkin mix with approximately 2 – 3 cups of marshmallows.
Sprinkle evenly 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips.
Repeat steps 5,6,7, 8 twice giving you 3 layers.
Bake for 4 minutes.
Let it cool and set for 3-4 hours to firm up otherwise it will not cut well into squares. I placed mine in the fridge for a little bit.

Pumpkin S'mores fresh out of the oven

Having the graham crackers in squares really helped with the cutting since I didn’t have to cut through them.

These were a lot better than I had expected them to be. They were rich, airy, and very delicious!

I ate this one!

Because this recipe is so awesome I am going to link up with Kludgy Mom for her Fall Food linky so I can share it with everyone!

Wordless Wednesday ~ 1 year old

Posted on January 26, 2011 by Jackie

Tomorrow my little guy will be one year old and sometimes it’s hard to believe how fast the first year went by. It feels like I’ve missed something and that it can’t be a year already.

He didn’t want to really wear the hat! He liked playing with it a lot more so I didn’t get the pictures of him in it that I wanted, but that’s fine. Wrangling a busy 1 year old was a challenge all it’s own!

Wordless Wednesday – Fall Fun

Posted on November 3, 2010 by Jackie

A glimpse into the past week or so.

Ghosts of Halloween Past

Posted on November 1, 2010 by Jackie

I recently happened upon this awesome contest that the SITS girls hosting and knew that it was one that I couldn’t pass up. I mean who wouldn’t want to win an awesome new camera! Wondering who SITS are? Check them out! They have some great blogging tips & ideas and link you up with other great bloggers.

So, Halloween has come and gone and we had a pretty good time this year! Looking at the pictures of this year and of years past make one a bit nostalgic. I miss how cute and cuddly my kids were when they were little! You could just hug and squish them! Now they try to get away and look at you like you’re really weird or something.

Here are a few pics of past Halloween’s.

This is Natalie and she loved Snow White! She loved her so much that she had to be her for Halloween one year. So being the good mom that I am I made her a costume. It took forever! But it was worth it because she loved that costume and she wore it all the time. As a matter of fact that costume is still around in the dress up box!

This is my little Lauren and isn’t she adorable! She was dressed up as a puppy and it was another costume that I made with the help of a friend. There’s a hat that goes with her costume but she didn’t want to wear it all the time, it was damn cute though!

If you’re interested in taking part in this great giveaway go here! Now I know you don’t want to because you all want me to win this pretty cool camera!

Wordless Wednesday: Fall Color

Posted on October 20, 2010 by Jackie

Tweet A view from my front yard.

10 reasons I’m glad that it’s fall

Posted on September 30, 2010 by Jackie

This is gonna be short and sweet! And it’s because this is an easy prompt and I just love fall! As a matter of fact I haven’t found a single person that doesn’t! And if you happen to be one of them that dislikes fall share with me the reason you don’t. I’m curious!

This list is in no specific order.

1. Apple cider. Especially if it’s fresh from the orchard. The stuff from the store is alright but it just isn’t the same.

2. Fresh picked apples from the orchard. The smell, the colors, the taste. Mmmm..

3. Things made from those apples. I really love apple pie.

4. Cooler weather. After hot, humid Michigan summers I’m ready for a change.

5. High school football games. I love to go and support my kids school. It’s fun, we see a lot of people we know, and we have an awesome band!

6. Fall colors in Michigan are amazing! Especially if you take a trip up north. It’s beautiful. Trust me.

7. Pumpkin. Another thing I love! Pumpkin is great in oatmeal, mixed in with a cake mix, and so many other things! And pumpkin pie is my favorite. And you know the worst thing happened last year…. there was a pumpkin shortage! Can you believe it?!?! I almost didn’t have pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. I’m stocking up this year.

8. The smell of fall. You can smell it in the crisp air on a sunny day when the leaves have changed colors and are starting to fall to the ground.

9. Raking huge leaf piles for the kids to jump into.

10. Corn mazes. We don’t get to do it often but they’re a ton of fun!

Actually, now that I think about just baking in the fall with apples, cranberries, pumpkin, and all that is great!

What’s your favorite thing about fall?