Last weekend we enjoyed our mini trip to San Fransico/Vacaville. Isn’t it beautiful!

We enjoyed a sunshiney day at Pier 39 all bundled up in our fall attire. Unfortunately the Alcatraz prison tours were all booked up through Sunday so we didn’t make that trip (highly recommend scheduling your tour days ahead of time!); it was disappointing but instead we spent the rest of our day at the Exploratorium which turned out to be a laughter filled time that reminded me of our dating days — it was lovely.

All in all the trip was relaxing, as we stayed with my Aunt & Uncle who are always hospitable and fun! My auntie even taught me how to crochet which has become the new venture in my life! It is so relaxing and I can not wait for my first creation to be complete — perhaps a scarf, but more realistically a coffee cozy ;)

When we returned from our mini trip, it was straight to some full-fledged baking since it was my lovely cousin’s birthday that week. Enjoy an awesome recipe that I tried out in honor of her love of Nutella, below:

Banana Nutella Cupcakes

• 1 Batch: Best Banana Cupcake Recipe from Food.com (5 star recipe)
• 1 Cup Nutella
• 1 Batch: Nutella Frosting from BeingElliot.com (my own measurements below for a more icing texture)

Bake cupcakes as directed — Since the recipe is for cake you will need to adjust your baking instruction. I baked my cupcakes at 350 for 16 minutes and they turned out perfectly! Cool completely and use a knife or apple corer to cut out the center top of the cupcakes (save cut out piece). Scoop some Nutella into each cupcake and top with their matching cut out piece.

Mix the following ingredients to create the icing:

• 1 cup Nutella
• 1/4 cup Butter, softened
• Approx. 1/2 can Condensed Milk (pour in a little at a time until desired textured is reached)
• 3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

First cream the butter and nutella together; mix in the powdered sugar one cup at a time, until crumbly. Now slowly mix in the condensed milk a little at a time until desired texture is reached. This creates more of an icing and would be great for a cake! However I wanted to pipe flowers on top of my cupcakes, so this was perfect.

Ice your cupcakes as desired — to ice flowers like my photo above: I used a petal tip (Wilton #125) and put a small amount (1/2 c.) of the icing in the bag at a time. I slowly piped the icing on while turning my cupcake and creating a somewhat scrunched up look for petals until it spiraled into the the center. I then added three small edible pearls in the center to finish them off.

**Note, my hand was killing me after just three cupcakes so beware! …so worth it…

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Hi friends! I have been so busy enjoying Fall and thought I would check in to share some of my fave things about this lovely time of year… including recipes!

Fave Traditions:

There is nothing like a great tradition that you can enjoy with your loved ones each year! Below are three of my faves that are a must do in October.

Trick or Treating (with our adorable nephews!)

Pumpkin Carving (this cute owl was a winner!)

Apple Dippin’! (Sweet times with the fam)

New Faves:

I am proud to say that I have been doing some cooking and baking this season and loving it all! So far no bad recipes which is always a great thing. The recipes below were found online and are linked accordingly (cookie photo is from the original blogger since I never snatched a photo before they were all gone!). Each of these three recipes received rave reviews from family, friends and coworkers and will be permanently added to my recipe collection.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pudding Bars (Picky Palette)

Best Italian Soup (All Recipes)

Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider Cookies (Scrambled Henfruit)

Faves to Try:

I have been finding recipes upon recipes on Pinterest and saving them to my “Cozy Fall” board. There are many more than I could even imagine trying in one season but below are two that I will for sure be trying out before Thanksgiving passes. Check out this board for more ideas and recipes. The photos below are from the original blogger.

Cinnamon Almonds (One Charming Party)

Johnny Appleseed Bars (Eats Well With Others)

I sure hope everyone is enjoying Fall as much as I am! November has finally arrived and I can not believe it is a short three and a half weeks until Thanksgiving! Be blessed and happy cooking, creating and loving!

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Today my husband purchased me my very first smart phone — of course, the iPhone 4… not the 4s because I told him to save the $100! I am so so excited! First line of business is to purchase a case to protect it…. and let’s not lie, just to add a personal touch that will brighten up my day :)

Here are some of my faves

For those of you looking for a fun or cute case for your iPhone, below are the links to the sites that had the best options:

• Society 6
• Cuptakes
• Case-Mate

In the end, I purchased this case because of it’s simple beauty. I don’t want a case that I may easily get tired of or a case that would clash with my random choice of screen background. Not to mention the fact that I do adore gray and this design! I am excited for my new little piece of technology!

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Hi there! Have you joined the Pinterest bandwagon yet?

I am absolutely in love with this genius tool, forum, community — whatever you want to call it! You have to check it out.

First  go here — and see my “Boards” which include different “databases” of sorts that allow me to store my inspirations, ideas, recipes, favorite photos, etc. Each board has a category such as “Christmas Time” to help you find it and know what you are in for.

Now if you are interested, unfortunately you can not just join — you must be invited. And can I tell you how long I waited to find someone to invite me! (Actually, I had no clue I had to get invited, I sent in my email address to apply and never got anything back from Pinterest). So don’t do it that way. You are welcome to leave me a comment on this post with your email address if you would like to be invited and I will gladly send you an invitation!

Here are some snapshots of what type of boards I have going right now:

The best part is that the photo is only just the beginning. If you click on the photo you will also be able to select the link to the original post at the top right-hand corner to see the recipe or instructions or maybe even more details depending on the category of the photo.

This is the perfect database!

You can “Follow” other pinner’s boards so that you can see what they are pinning and even re-post their items (idea-networking at it’s best!). See why I am in love!?

Thanks for letting me share my latest obsession! I will have some new creations up this week so stay tuned!

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Happy Anniversary to my handsome hubby! We have been married for 5 blessed years and I can not wait for much more that is ahead of us!

Five years sounds like a very long time — it kind of is when you think back on everything that has happened or changed in that amount of time, but I can hardly believe that is how long we have been married! It has been a short 5 years! I am so thankful for so many things in our lives and I can definitely say that I love Garrett in so many more ways than I ever imagined possible.

We got married at age 21 (which at the time felt oldddd!) and all we knew is that we loved each other and needed to be together forever. After we had been married a year and learned so much more about each other and the responsibilities of being a husband and wife, our love was so much stronger and complete. It is amazing to think of the blessings God has placed in our lives through that time.

In honor of our 5 years together, here is a little time capsule.

Here we are, the night before our wedding:

Our Wedding Day! ((More Photos Here))

Our 1 Year Anniversary!

Two years of love — 2008:

Happy Together in 2009!

Sweet Times in 2010:

Never Been Better in 2011!

Thanks to everyone who has been a part of our lives and blessed us with love, support, encouragement, good memories, advice and so much more! God has blessed us greatly and I can not wait to see what He has in store for us in the next 5 years!

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