Mean Muggin' Santa

So the past few months Lincoln has developed into this bashful little thing. Instead of just hiding his face (which he does also) his reaction to people he isn't familiar with is to give them dirty looks. We call it his mean muggin' face. He does it GOOD. Granted, hes pretty much been doing it since birth, he just never did it as a reaction to being around new people before. It's pretty hilarious...sometimes. Other times I feel awful and apologize because I don't want the people to take it personally.

Well, now onto Santa. We are big, and I mean BIG, Christmas people around here. We usually decorate the first or second week in November because Christmas just makes me happy, I LOVE it, and with as much effort as I put into my decorations I need to enjoy them longer than just 30 some odd days. So we have been decorated over here for a couple weeks now, and I knew I wanted to take Lincoln to visit Santa soon. Mainly because I knew the lines would be shorter. Bass Pro Shop has had Santa for about a week now and we made the mistake on going the FIRST night. My thinking was "perfect, first night no one will be there". WRONG. Every person in Southern California was there. Apparently they had a whole event that night and so we had to turn around and come home. I was super bummed. So we decided to make the trip down there tonight hoping for a small crowd, and that's exactly what we got! A whole FOUR people in front of us. With a toddler a short line is a must. Especially Lincoln, he is SO energetic and never stops. Ever!

I was worried for poor Santa though. I knew what would happen if we tried to sit him on his lap. I didn't want to do that to Lincoln either. Sure, crying pictures with Santa are hilarious...10 years down the road, but I wanted Lincoln to have fun, not cry. We attempted to have him walk up to Santa and there it was...the mean muggin' face. My Dad picked Lincoln up and decided to just take a family shot instead of forcing Lincoln to get on the big scary red guys lap causing melt down central.

We got to look at the photo after it was taken, and there it was. The mean mug. A slightly less dramatic mean mug, but a mean mug none the less.

I asked the girl if that was the only shot they took, she said it was the best one and once I got home and saw it on the computer screen I realized MY EYES ARE CLOSED! CLOSED! I was so bummed. It was a great shot, but oh well. 

We then went and road the carousel after Santa which he really enjoyed and then went and had dinner. It was a great night! Mean muggin' face and all.  

Mom's Famous Strawberry Bread

When I think of Christmas growing up and the things we did or the foods we make, one of them that stands out most in my mind is strawberry bread. My mom made it every year for as long as I can remember. We only make it at Christmas time and I look forward to it every year. Of course it can be made at ANY time during the year. Its funny because every time I mention this bread to someone they always get a confused look on their face and say "strawberry bread?!", it may not be a commonly made bread but it seriously should be!

Serving Size: 2 loaves

Ingredients:
2 containers of fresh strawberries, slightly mashed with a potato masher
2.5 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 eggs
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/3 cup canola oil (or any oil if your choice)
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups flour
1 cup walnuts (I have used pecans too)

Directions:

Grease loaf pans and set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium/large bowl mix strawberries, eggs, and oil.

In a stand mixer combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and nuts.

Add strawberry mixer, stir until blended. 

Pour batter into prepared loaf pans. 

Bake for one hour or until bread passes tooth pick test. 

Your welcome. Don't blame me when you become highly addicted to this stuff! :)

Pumpkin Pancake "Muffins"

So fall is one of my favorite times of the year, I love the change in weather (this cali girl HATES summer, go figure) the smell of fall, the pumpkins, apples, spices. All of it. Especially because it leads towards my FAVORITE time, Christmas time. But that's not what this is about. Usually on the weekend my husband makes a special breakfast. If we don't have time in the mornings because it's busy on the ranch that day, he will make breakfast for dinner. That was the case today. I also decided to make homemade apple sauce in the crock pot so fall was in the air at our house. He mentioned to me he might want to make pancakes but it's such a mess we figured to just put them in the muffin tins. Since fall is approaching, and the applesauce was cooking away smelling SO good I told him we should make pumpkin pancakes since the can of pumpkin puree in our pantry has just been staring at me lately. 

Holy moly. I had no idea the deliciousness we were about to experience. The pancake "muffins" turned out SO good that I had to share them with you all. They would be fantastic to make the night before also and have for quick on the go breakfasts in the morning as well.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups milk

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 egg

2 tablespoons coconut oil

2 cups all purpose flour

4-5 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice 

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In one large bowl mix your milk, pumpkin, egg & coconut oil until combined. If the pumpkin or coconut oil is a little lumpy that's ok. 

In a separate large bowl combine your flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice & salt.

Slowly incorporate your dry into your wet ingredients. The important rule of thumb here is to not over-mix. Once the wet and dry are mixed together you're pretty much good.

Spray your muffin tins with non stick spray.

Use a 1/3 cup to scoop your pancake mix into the tins. All together this ended up making 17 pancake muffins for us. 

Bake for 13-16 minutes, or until it passes the tooth pic test. I want to add that our bottom rack cooks faster than our top rack so watch out for that with your oven. Our bottom rack was done at 13 minutes and our top rack was done closer to 16-17 minutes. 

These were SO moist and delicious. 

But putting a little syrup on top took them to a WHOLE other level! 

Updates, Changes and the Holiday Season.

Hey everyone!

So so sorry I have not been posting...like at all, on here. I really want to try to keep up on this more.

Is everyone ready for Christmas!? I can't believe its 19 days away!! I love this time of year. Although I have to say, I am so not a fan of these colored LED lights. They are so dark, and look like they are under a black light. Sooo many people have them now also (no offense if your one of them lol!) But personally, they don't look like Christmas to me at all. I will say though, I would rather someone have LED lights than none at all. :) But anyway, we have been all decorated for a few weeks now. Christmas seems to FLY by so pretty much a couple weeks after Halloween its Christmas time at our house.

This was my first year cooking Thanksgiving dinner! I had helped my mom a few years ago, but this year I was all on my own. I am happy to say it went off without ONE hitch. Everything turned out perfect! I was so relieved. We just had my parents over, and then went to my in laws that evening. It was a nice day.

Mid November was the midnight release of Breaking Dawn. Most of you probably know I'm a huge Twilight fan and not ashamed one bit about it :) A friend of mine rents out a screen in our local theater and sells the tickets privately to friends and friends of friends so we don't have to deal with the screaming crowds, and that was great. I had given a small Twilight novel wreath as a raffle prize which was fun, I got a lot of compliments on the wreath which was nice.

Late November Louie and I spent a few days in Monterey. We loved it, as usual. Its our favorite vacation spot. Unfortunately the hotel we stayed in was horrendous, and it did rain a little BUT, overall we had a great time.

Probably the biggest change to report on is my husband and I have decided to become vegetarian. I have ALWAYS wanted to, but it seemed to imitating to me. A friend of mine who is vegan sent me a speech that for whatever reason just made me have an epiphany. After sobbing my face off for a good hour while watching the speech I decided enough was enough and I was going to do this. My husband watched it later that evening, and he didn't sob like I did lol, BUT, he got extremely angry and he decided he wanted to do this as well. Basically, to summarize why we are doing this (because there is multiple reasons) is that the satisfaction my taste buds receive from the taste of meat is NOT worth the absolute suffering and horrible living conditions these innocent animals go through. Plain and simple. Like I said, there is multiple reasons behind this, but thats what I have been telling friends and family. Its interesting though how DEFENSIVE people get as soon as you tell them your vegetarian. And how absurd it is to them. I dont understand it at all. Ive never been so happy though, and we are eating SO much healthier now. Plus, so far it seems to be cheaper. Which is always nice. :) I absolutely recommend watching this speech, not trying to convert anyone, but if your willing to eat meat and dairy you should at least be willing to know the truth behind it. Just my opinion. :)

Youtube video- "The Best Speech You Will Ever Hear -Gary Yourofsky

So all in all, thats pretty much been what has been going on! Loving living at the ranch and riding my horse quite a bit. Work has been great for Louie. I've been getting some orders for more wreaths too which is also super great.

Pictures below from all events I talked about above :)....

Horses and Etsy Update

Sorry I haven't been updating

Been spending my days lately working the ranch, riding my horse and crafting A TON! :)

I just made six new wreaths so I thought I would share them!

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