Recipe Recruits: S'Mores Cupcakes

S'Mores Cupcakes:

2 cups crushed graham crackers
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
Hershey's kisses
mini marshmallows


Mix the first 4 dry ingredients together. Mix the milk and egg together. Blend dry ingredients with wet ingredients.


Spoon into cupcake papers.


Top each one with 2 kisses and 3-5 marshmallows.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. Enjoy!!

Co Op: Celebrating with the Girls

We aren't ready for Christmas to be over yet so we thought we could still get by with Christmas posts at least til New Years! So here is one of several to come...


We have a long standing tradition of enjoying a family girl's lunch on Christmas Eve. Our favorite spot and the one we visit most often frequent is Bistro VG in Roswell. But this year we mixed things up a bit since we all wanted to see the latest Cirque show, OVO, in Atlanta. We booked our tickets and decided on a cocktail hour with heavy appetizers at my house beforehand.

I made popcorn that I popped in coconut oil and a dash of truffle oil. I tossed it with sea salt and rosemary and served it in paper cones that I made:


I also made a butternut squash, gruyere, and mushroom tart from Food and Wine Magazine:

We toasted with Almond Champagne from Trader Joes that is my absolute favorite:

Our other eats included Bacon wrapped dates grilled to perfection, cilantro shrimp, and of course delicious cheese and crackers. We ended with cookies and goodies from holiday bakes and swaps. For the finale we poured two different dessert sips, ChocoVine and 1921 Crema de Tequila served in edible chocolate cups.

Snow in GA

If you grew up in Atlanta, like I did, snow is a big deal. I love snow. Probably because I have never had to live in real snow. So this weekend, we ventured out to Stone Mountain Park which for a few months each year now turns into Snow Mountain.


There were more snow pants and snow boots and mittens than I have ever seen in the state adorning kids filled with excitement. My kids were bundled too and there is just something about kids in snow clothes that I love...all the mismatched colors and patterns on a tiny body padded to the hilt.

The highlight for us was the family tubing run. With our kids being under 54 inches they couldn't ride the large tubing runs alone but we got to ride as a family in a large tube. It seats six so we all got to ride together along with Brandon's parents. It was a blast.


Once we were completely exhausted from climbing the hill to the top of the run, we moved on to the Snow Angels area where the kids could go tubing down small hills themselves...


Make Snow Angels and throw snowballs....



And build snowmen accessorized from the "snowman closet" they have onsite for you to "shop" in and decorate your snowmen.


It was a perfect winter day in Atlanta. The kind of day we never get. And no one had to shovel the driveway.

Holiday Tour of Homes

Every year a local organization hosts a Tour of Homes in Birmingham..some girlfriends and I have made it an annual tradition to attend. I love seeing the way other people live, even if their tastes are vastly different from mine it is still intriguing, especially during the holidays. The houses are generally pretty impressive in size and decor - ranging from very traditional to modern...and usually always decked out with fab greenery, trees and holiday adornment!
I will say the thought of having my act totally together with my house clean, decorated, shopping done, presents wrapped, cards addressed and then having to vacate so some strangers could walk through and see it all...let's just say that my house won't be on the Tour anytime soon!
Here are some of this year's highlights....

First, from a very modern home...Can't believe how much
I loved the bright orange paint - intense but great..really loved the white clean furniture and REALLY loved that lamp on the desk...and the authentic zebra rug!

Dear Santa....If it's not too late I will really behave this week and I would love that orange and pink painting please!!

I recognized this chandelier as three Ikea lamps strung together as a light fixture..love it!


Ok, this next house is a GUEST house. Yes, you read that right..a GUEST HOUSE...real talk..these people do not play around when it comes to their guests...

It goes without saying that my camera phone did not do this place justice!

p.s. Santa...I would also really like this backsplash!!

All Wrapped Up

I'm a sucker for packaging. My husband says I'll buy anything that looks great on the outside. So I get really excited about wrapping presents at Christmastime. I love wrapping paper and a big day for me each year is when Target starts stocking their aisles with rows and rows of big rolls of glorious paper. One of my favorite blogs, Thompson Family Life, did a fabulous entry of things all wrapped up at her house. I loved her unique take on Christmas wrapping, her use of strings, ribbons, pom poms, and vintage images. I was inspired to take a few photos of my own wrappings this year and here they are:


I loved using glitter feathers and funky floral pieces this year that I found in the bins at Michaels. My kids had their own ideas of what our Christmas wrapping paper should be so under our tree my gifts are mixed with Princess, Dora, and Scooby Doo paper.


My daughter, 3, loved helping with the wrapping this year and kept wanting "her own self time" to wrap a few things that I was not allowed to see. So we also have many things under our tree that look like this:




Merry Christmas and may all your holidays be great on the inside and the outside!

White, Gray, Orange, and Grellow

As I mentioned before, we have been redoing some things around our place. The seven years we have lived here coupled with two kiddos under 4 have done some damage. After drooling over the CB2 catalog for years and visiting the store during travels to lucky cities that have storefronts, I am thrilled to say that we now have a standing store in Atlanta. CB2 is Crate and Barrel's modern cousin.


We ventured there for end tables for our changing living room. The kids had a great time testing each and every bed and chair in the place for comfort. Luckily, Ford wore orange pants and fit right in with every display.


We were also there to purchase a few Flor Tiles. We also have an Interface Flor showroom in Atlanta but they do not stock pieces. It is a mail order only establishment and we were in a big hurry with Christmas parties lurking. Lucky for us CB2 does stock a limited number of options and had just the gray Flor tiles we needed. My son preferred the bold tiles instead and was quite excited with his choice.


The colors of the modern moment according to CB2 are White, Gray, Orange, and Grellow (greenish yellow). We felt a little like we'd walked into the 70's show set but did walk away with 2 Grellow end table on wheels.

Here is our finished room sporting the Grellow tables and Gray Flor Tiles.