Hello Autumn: Pumpkin Roll

I love Autumn and Halloween, this is no secret to anyone that knows me. Luckily my boyfriend also loves Autumn! Most importantly, we both love Autumn food. If not for his love of pumpkin flavored things, I may never have received this recipe! 

Instead of a birthday cake last year, his Momma sent me this recipe, and the non-perishable ingredients, to bake for him! Cody mentioned to her that I have been wanting to blog about this recipe, and she so very kindly gave me her blessing to share! (Lucky you!) 

Ingredients: 

 Cake: 

3 eggs

2/3 cup solid pack pumpkin

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 teaspoons cinnamon 

1/2 teaspoon salt

 Filling:

8 ounces softened cream cheese 

4 tablespoons softened butter

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla 

 Other: 

Wax paper 

Aluminum foil 

Set oven for 350 degrees 

1. Mix the cake ingredients in a bowl. 

2. Spray cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray, cover with wax paper, spray wax paper with no. Stick cooking spray. 

3. Spread cake mix on top of wax paper in rectangular shape. 

4. Bake for 15 Minutes, cool for 15 minutes. 

5. Take a (clean) kitchen towel and cover in confectioners sugar, remove wax paper from cake, place cake on towel.

6. Roll cake up in towel. 

7. Let cool completely, use this time to mix up filling ingredients. 

8. Un-roll (gently) and evenly spread filling, re-roll. 

9. Wrap in foil, refrigerate for an hour.  

10. Enjoy! 

(Okay, this one isn't beautiful, but it IS delicious!) 

My boyfriends Mom also likes to sprinkle crushed walnuts inside on top of the filling! 

I hope y'all enjoy this recipe as much as we do! 

Hello Oklahoma!

It was recently my boyfriends birthday, so I made my way to Oklahoma to celebrate!

We celebrated his birthday a few days early by spending the day in Oklahoma City. 

We have a tradition of trying new places to eat every time we get to spend time together... Normally this is not something we honor on OKC visit days.  Normally we stop at the steak and catfish barn for lunch, but it recently closed down so the owners could move back to Italy. (Excuse me while I cry for ever). 

This opens up our lunchtime slot though, and forces us to try even more new places to eat! 

This time we went to a hot dog place!

    www.mutts-hot-dogs.com

His was a buffalo sauce dog with blue cheese. 

Mine was a Chicago dog. 

They were both delicious! We also ordered fried pickles and they passed the test too! (Disclaimer: there is no official test). 

I highly recommend them if you're in the area, they even have vegetarian dogs! 

Then we went and saw Gravity (awesome!) in a recliner theatre (double awesome!) and went to Bass Pro Shop (another thing we always do in OKC) 

For his birthday we went to our favorite restaurant Cattleman's Steakhouse! 

We finished up our evening with a stop by academy sports and then going home to carve pumpkins! 

And that glorious meal? My amazing boyfriend made som delicious pumpkin waffles for dinner one night!

What a wonderful trip! 

 

Adventure On: Fourth of July!

 

We had a Fantastic Fourth of July, and we hope you did too! We celebrated America in style, with Patriotic shirts. I may have gone a little overboard with the glasses, bandeau, headband, and shorts. Pffft, what am I saying? You can never go overboard with America! (Just wait til you see my new Derby shorts!) 

We started off our day by traveling to a town near Oklahoma City, for Fried Onion Burgers at Sid's Diner. Let me tell you, they were amazingly delicious. We also got some amazing malts and fries! Then we went to the local mall and browsed a bit, grabbing C some clothes for a photoshoot the next day! (can't wait to share!) We found we still had several hours to kill, and watched White House Down. We walked in expecting normal theater seating, and found recliners! They were so comfortable, and meant no cricked necks or bumping knees with strangers! 

Then we went to Liberty Fest, grabbed some hot dogs and hopped in the back of the truck to watch fireworks. We can't have fire works here in Colorado, so I was really happy C looked up this celebration.  The fire works were easily the most amazing I have ever seen!
I hope everyone had a great Fourth, and never forget what it is we are really celebrating on days like this.

He looks not so thrilled, but he is, I promise.

 I have a knack for catching him with food in his mouth.

DIY two layer skirt Part 1

      I have not really made clothing before, so this was quite the adventure. I followed this tutorial, for measurements and such, but in my own typical fashion.... made some tweaks to hit my style a little better.

As you can see, I followed the steps up to the elastic waistband, then chose to do a thick outer band. cinching as I sewed it around. This project happened before my birthday surprise of a sewing machine, So I will be redoing the hems and elastic with it and that will come in a second post.

D.I.Y. Bow Tutorial:

     A couple people have asked about my Air Force ABU bow and where I got it. Answer: I made it! I used my fathers old ABU pants, but if you wanted you could find fabric instead. In this tutorial I used a different fabric but it is the same process for any fabric, even lace!

    Supplies: Fabric, Needle, Thread, Fabric scissors, and a barrette.

         1. Cut out two strips of fabric, one to go around the center of the bow (top) and one for the bow (bottom). You want the bigger piece to be double the height you want the bow, and as wide has you want it.

       2. Fold the bigger piece in half, inside out, and sew almost all the way around, leaving enough space to turn it right side out.

       3. Pull it right side out and finish closing it by folding the cut edges in and sewing as seen in the bottom left corner of the fabric.

     4. Pinch! Easy enough, unless your taking pictures of it.

        5. Wrap the smaller fabric around the center (optional: finish the edges of the center fabric by sewing the edged folded over). Push the needled through the whole bow to keep the creases and center fabric on, loop back through several times.

     6. You can attach to the barrette by sewing it in the center, or hot glue it.

   7. If your barrette has these little holes, sew through one layer of the bow and through the hole to attach, or, again, you can use hot glue.

DIY shorts:

Do you want to feel like a fairy? Or maybe you just like lace? Then I have the DIY for you.

By hand this took me about an hour and a half. Not bad at all!

 What you need: some shorts of your color choice, like the soffee work out shorts or you can get a similar pair at Walmart for five dollars. Two spools of lace like the one shown. I used two for a size medium, a smaller size, kids sizes or less lacey shorts could use one.

Step one through about six or seven is pretty simple, pin the lace to the shorts in the spaces you would like it to sit. Make sure you allow for the shorts stretching and leave a little extra lace on the tail, or you can go back and add lace. Sew the lace in place. Repeat. 

I found it easier to sew on lace one strip at a time rather than pin it all on at once. 

And rock those shorts! 

D.I.Y. Sunday: Shoes

 

     Alright, so you need shoes, sticky foam (or normal foam sheets and glue) wood or erasers to stick the foam to, paint brushes, scissors and paint! As you can see I chose Martha Stewart craft paint.

     Simply cut out the shapes you want and attach them to the eraser (or whatever you choose to use) and paint onto the shapes with a paint brush. Stamp it onto the shoe, and fill it in with a paint brush to help even out the look! Allow them to dry, and enjoy your new, personalized shoes!