Baking with my Baby!

Today I was a baking machine and I had this little girl to "Help" me.

We made Pumpkin Cheesecake, Bread pudding and Buttermilk Pie. I felt like I was back working at the bakery. I was making all of this stuff for my mom. She was hosting a party tonight and needed desserts. All of these desserts remind me that the Holidays are officially here!

Here is the Pumpkin Cheesecake. My FAVORITE!!!!

This is Buttermilk Pie! Its not much to look at but it tastes AMAZING! Its a Southern thing ;)

My Happy little helper!

I didn't get a pic of the bread pudding but its delicious too. Anyway.... Happy Friday Yall!!!!





Show us your life Friday! My bathroom!



So this week's "Show us your life" is on Bathrooms. I gotta tell ya... I wasn't super excited about this one because I mean come on... How exciting are bathrooms anyway. And my bathroom isn't the best in the world but I like it ;) I really like having a separate tub and shower and I love my garden tub. Its so nice to just sit and take a long bath after an even longer day ha! Here are a few pictures of my Master Bathroom.

 Ok.... And now to the "Good Stuff"! This is all of my favorite cleaning supplies I use for my bathrooms. From left to right- CLR, Bar Keepers Friend, Disinfecting Wipes and Clorox toilet bowl cleaner. I LOVE these products! Especially the CLR! It took me forever to find something that would take off all of those water stains on our shower and CLR does the trick quick.

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

This Wednesday I am LOVING my Mom! I love her everyday but I wanted to focus on her today because she means so much to me and she helps me out so much with Hannah. She absolutely adores my sweet baby and I love to watch the two of them together. My mom calls Hannah her Best Friend and I know one day Hannah will say the same thing about her. When Hannah was born I had post-pardom depression and my mom helped me tremendously. She taught me how to be a mom. I had no idea what I was doing and I was TERRIFIED. Instead of saying... "Suck it up" like some moms would,she was incredibly patient and was there for me anytime I needed (Which was a lot) Now she still helps me by taking care of Hannah when I need her (or when she just misses her) and she likes to wash and iron Hannah's clothes (which I am so grateful for b/c I hate ironing) I also LOVE the fact that she is just a little bit obsessed with buying clothes for Hannah! She has probably bought 99% of all her clothes. She likes to find things on eBay and pick out outfits and buy EVERYTHING that matches that outfit. I am so thankful for our new relationship that we have developed since having Hannah in our lives.

I LOVE her!!!

Hannah is 9 months!

My Sweet baby girl is 9 months now! She has been an absolute JOY every day of these 9 months! She is now a Full time walker. She took her first step around 7 1/2 months and started really walking at 8 months. Now, she NEVER crawls anymore. She thinks she is waaayyyy to big for that ha! People cant believe that she is walking so early but I had a feeling she would.... The girl sat up at 4 months old and was also crawling at 4 months. I guess she cant wait to grow up :( Her favorite thing to do is "Explore".She loves to get into everything and touch and taste everything.I have to make sure all of the doors in the house are shut or I will find her going into every room. The main room she loves is our bedroom. She loves to find our throw pillows (which are sometimes on the floor if the beds not made ha!) and chew on the beads.

She is getting smarter and smarter every day. We are doing "Your Baby can Read" and every day we watch videos and do flash cards and to my amazement she has really caught on. Her favorite thing to watch are the videos. They have become a lifesaver. If I ever need to get ready or get something done I can let her watch a "Baby can Read" Video and she LOVES it! We do the flashcards twice a day and I will show her 2 cards at a time and call out a word and let her pick which card goes with the word and she has started to get almost all of the words right every time.We also play the "Color Game" in which I will hold up 2 different colors and say the colors several times and then ask her to choose a certain color and she is starting to get all of her colors right. I just love seeing her little brain go to work.
She has started saying (while waving) "Hi". And the one thing she really loves to do is shake her head "No". It is the funniest thing ever. Sometimes she shakes it so much I think she might get dizzy.

She eats about 4 times a day and has bottles when she wakes up and goes to bed and at her 2 nap times. The one thing I wish she was better at was eating food. She has always been a choker and she has a big gag reflex. I am hoping that this phase will soon be over and she can get better at eating "real food".

Before I know it she will be driving a real car :(

Show us your life Friday! Desserts and Bows!!!



This Weeks "Show us Your Life" is all about what people make! I'm so excited I get to participate in this one! I make Desserts and Bows! I have only been doing bows for the past couple months now but I've been making desserts and pastries since I was 14. I started my own Holiday dessert and pie business at 15 and have always had a love for pastry making. I went to Culinary school and have been a pastry chef professionally since I was 20 years old. My new favorite thing to make is cupcakes. I love to come up with different flavors of cake, filling and frosting. Here are just a few pictures of some of the things I have done.

These are Chocolate fudge cupcakes filled with chocolate mousse and chocolate buttercream.

 These are "Lemon Meringue cupcakes. Lemon cake with a lemon curd filling and toasted meringue on top.

 These are strawberry cream cupcakes with fresh strawberries on top.

 These are my mini chocolate and strawberry cupcakes with fondant flowers on top.

 This is my personal fav! Pistachio raspberry cream cake. Butter cake with a raspberry cream filling covered in pistachios and fresh raspberries on top!

 Top left- Dutch apple crumb cheesecake tart and Bottom Right- Resses Peanut Butter cup cheesecake

Like I said these are just a few of the desserts I've done and taken pictures of. I can pretty much do any dessert you can think of.

And NOW.... for the bows ha! Ive shown you my bows before but I thought I would show y'all a few recents I've done

Happy Friday Y'all!!!

What I'm Loving Wednesday!

So I decided to participate in Jamie's (over at This Kind of Love) What I'm Loving Wednesday! This week I am loving Starbucks! Make that... EVERY week I am loving Starbucks but especially this week because they came out with their annual Holiday drinks and cups!

I have 4 different drinks that I am currently rotating (depending on my mood) They are (in order of preference) as follows...
#1- Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate
#2- Toffee Mocha latte with Whip
#3- Eggnog Latte no foam with Whip
#4- Gingerbread Latte

Recently I am always going with the Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. I love the salty sweet combo but if I need a little kick I'll get a latte.

I am also LOVING these women!

 

For those of you that aren't familiar... These are "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" and yes I know.... There isn't much that is REAL about these women but I must admit that watching the show is my guilty pleasure. I actually love all of the housewives seasons. New York, Jersey and Beverly Hills are definitely at the top of the list (Atlanta is too ghetto for me ha!)

And last but not least I am loving the fact that I get to dress my little doll up in her Fall wardrobe now.

I just love little sweaters and tights and coats! And lets face it... now that its getting colder and sleeveless and strapless aren't options, I can feel free to drink some extra hot chocolates and eggnog lattes because hey... I'm all bundled up!





Out and About with my Best Friend!

I have a new Best Friend now. I have known her for not quite 9 months now but its one of those friendships that you just know is going to last forever. When I first met her I didn't know what to think of her. I guess you could say I was scared of her... make that TERRIFIED! But... as time went on I became more and more in love with her and now she is a friend that I do pretty much everything with. Would you like to meet her???? well her name is.... Hannah Grace! (Big shocker I know ;))

Today was a great day of being out and about in this beautiful weather (High of 72 today) and roaming around Gruene. I am really starting to love this little town just 4 miles from my home. Hannah and I have gone into Gruene every week for the past month and its becoming our favorite place. We started out by going to the Cupcake shop. I LOVE this place! Its so cute and quaint and a fun place to just sit and have a cupcake (or two ha!)

 This is the one we chose... Red Velvet Yummmm!

After that we decided to go over to this place called "The Stone". I  had driven by it several times and never went in until today and I'm so glad we did! Its a Christian coffee shop and bookstore. They had several places around the store to sit and read and they even had a children's section. So we decided to sit at the most precious little pink and green table (which by the way... matched her outfit) and read some books.

I LOVE this shop! I have never seen a coffee shop/bookstore have a little place for children and this place had tons of Christian children's books. We are definitely going back!

Its a Hannah Pumpkin!

We were so excited to carve a pumpkin with Hannah this year. My husband had the idea to do a pumpkin in true Hannah style (one tooth and a big bow on top). We had been keeping the pumpkin for a while and wanted to carve it right before Halloween because they mold so easily (although I was told that if you cover the inside with cinnamon it prevents the mold) Anyway we carved it on Saturday night and it was BIG fun!

She didn't really know what to think of the insides. Of course she wanted to eat it though ha!

 Daddy's "Helper"

 Our Hannah Pumpkin

 By the end she was a little tired though.

My First "Show us your Life Friday"!!!

We moved into our house in January of 2008. We had already started TTC and as soon as we closed on the house I knew exactly where my future baby's room was going to be. Unfortunately it took longer than we had anticipated and I remember so many nights that I spent in that empty room crying and praying that God would give me the baby I so desperately wanted. I would do all of my nightly devotions in the room and I would spend most of my time on my knees asking God to rescue me. I started thinking that I would never bring my baby home to this room. BUT.... God had a better plan and it took me a while to see it. So as soon as we found out we were having a girl it was already decided that the room was going to be Pink, Pink and Pink (big surprise I'm sure)

Here is her room's view from the doorway.

 My friend Desiree made this "Tutu table" I saw something similar on etsy and she made me a better one. She used 400 yards of tulle to make it.

 My friend Emily painted this for Hannah. This is my favorite verse and its even more special to me because Hannah (from the Bible) actually was the one who said this verse about her son Samuel. I named Hannah after her and I'm so glad we could incorporate the verse in her room.

 My grandpa (Daddad) Made Hannah's bookcase and changing table.

Her bedding is a mix of pink stripes and pink nursery rhyme toille.

I feel so blessed to be able to walk in this room now and see it filled with my sweet baby's things and to hear her laugh and play. God really is always faithful even when we are not.

My little "Angel"

Well.... It's Fall Festival time at our church and this year was the first year that I was able to have a little one of my own to dress up. I have been excited about this for months (or maybe even before she was born) anyway... I couldn't wait! Of course naturally I obsessed over and over on what I wanted Hannah to dress up as. Halloween was never a big deal around my house and my mom never really got into buying us really elaborate costumes. Most years my sister or I would go as a "Make-up Artist" which basically meant we would wear all black and do our make-up extra dark ha! So I was really excited to pick out Hannah's first costume. So I went with an Angel, because well... shes my little angel (and I really wanted a big poofy costume and thought an angel would fit the part ha!) So I asked my good friend Desiree to make her costume. She has made Hannah tons of stuff including bows, shirts and tutus and I just had to have her make her first Halloween costume.

 Our little Family

 My Husband (Brian) and Han

 These are some of Hannah's friends... Kinley, Harris and Rachel.

 This is what the back looks like. I LOVE the wings!!!

It was a fun night. Hannah did great except she wanted to walk everywhere but had trouble walking in all that tulle. I say she better get used to it because this wont be the last time my baby wears 100 yards of tulle ha!