Christmas Food "Hacks"

I hope that you all had and awesome Thanksgiving yesterday with your family and loved ones! I know we sure did at our house. I'm still cleaning up from it! :)

However, it's officially Christmas time!!! I adore this time of year! Everyone is always so cheerful and nice and the weather is wonderful (in my opinion) and then don't get me started on all the Christmas decorations that we get to put up and see!! I love it! Along with all those wonderful things comes a busy, busy few weeks as well... Especially for moms. We are constantly planning and prepping and cleaning and cooking and entertaining and wrapping and the list goes on. 

So, to make lives a smidgen easier this holiday season I've found some pretty creative hacks to share with you all! Some of these we've all seen before and some of them I've never even thought of doing! (And those that I haven't thought of before, were pretty spectacular in my opinion.)

Here you freeze chocolate into tree shapes and then add some icing to the backs and place them on a flat white cake to make it shine a little!

Fill empty condiments bottles with icing for decorating sugar cookies with the kids!

Dip cookie cutters in flour first to help the sugar cookies retain their shapes!

Look at this simple center piece! White candles and peppermints! Love it!

These are frozen dollops of coolwip/whipped cream to put in your mugs of hot cocoa! Such a great idea!

Three small candy canes glued together makes the perfect place card holders for your holiday tables!

Use the bottom of a crystal glass to make a unique design in your sugar cookies.

These were just a sampling of the hacks that I found on Buzzfeed! 

You can check out the rest of them over here: 38 Christmas Hacks

I hope that some of these come in handy throughout your busy holiday season this year and help you cut some corners!

-Stephanie

A Fun Cheeseball!

Have you ever been sucked into the black hole that is called Netflix?? You have!!???! Then you'll understand me when I say I'm sorry for my extended absence, because that's exactly what happened. Netflix.

I am going to try and do better. My time management skills have been severely lax these days... SEVERELY!!!

So, here is something I found recently that I couldn't pass up sharing with you all:

This looks divine!! And I plan on trying it soon!

All it is, is that wonderful funfetti cake mix, butter, cream cheese, and a fair amount of sugar! You mix all the ingredients together, freeze the ball for a few hours and then roll any color sprinkles on it for fun!! 

Serve with graham crackers, fruits, or vanilla wafers like the picture suggests!! SO ingenious! 

This would be perfect for a birthday or maybe a girls night or book club meeting!! Give it a try! I know I am!

Here is the link for the full set of instructions for this amazing looking cheese ball:

Colorful Cheeseball

Go check it out and try it at your next hosting gig!! :)

-Stephanie

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Just threw these together!! Apple Cinnamon muffins with a cream cheese cinnamon/brown sugar icing on top! They were really pretty good! I thought the flavors were all a little strong for me, but my husband LOVED them!!! I definitely think I'm going to make cupcakes with these flavors next time! They'd be so delicious!

The muffins were from one of those Martha White mixes (I know, I cheated!! I'm bad!), and I added a good amount of cinnamon (enough for it to show in the mix) and then a tiny bit of brown sugar into the icing. I piped it onto the muffins and then sprinkled brown sugar on top of them! Yum!! :)
Hope you enjoy!

-Stephanie

S'more Cake Please

These really remind me of s'mores and who doesn't LOVE a good s'more!!! I have been a Girl Scout my whole life and one of my favorite things at camp was always the Saturday night camp fires with those delectable treats, and songs and games! So many great memories were created on those nights with some of my best friends!! I loved going to camp! I can NOT wait for Jocelyn to be able to join the scouts!! I really hope she likes it! Her dad was a Boy Scout as well, so it's in her blood... Maybe!! :)

These delicious looking cupcakes look like something super unique to do during the fall for a party or celebration of some sort!

I unfortunately wasn't able to find a recipe. Boo. :(

I do know that the cupcake is chocolate, with a marshmallow filling, obviously. I just don't know what kind of icing they used here. I would guess a chocolate butter cream icing, maybe. You could totally make this your own, though!

We attend a small group every Wednesday night where we bring a dish to go with dinner... Being us sweet tooths we have brought a lot of desserts to far... I'm so putting these on my list for in the next few weeks to make and take with us!! I was considering going with the chocolate butter cream and then crushing up graham crackers and sprinkling them on top of the cupcakes! 

Either way, these babies look awesome! I can't wait to try them!

- Stephanie