Puppy Love

Too Cute

A friend of mine posted this on her Facebook today. She has a little girl and another on the way.  I hope I have a little girl one day so I can make cute things like this.

Prudent Baby's "10 Minute Onesie Dress - Easiest Dress Ever"

I'm really just posting this so that I can find it later because I want to make these one day -- for my own daughter, niece, friend's daughter...

Cookie Mix in a Jar

As gifts for my Baby Shower Hostesses, I made these and thought they turned out great!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix In A Jar
by:Nestle Meals.com

Ingredients In the Jar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (9 ounces) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Quart Canning Jar


Filling the Jar
Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Place flour mixture in jar. Layer remaining ingredients in order listed above, pressing firmly after each layer. Seal with lid and decorate with fabric and ribbon.


Recipe to Attach 
Preheat oven to 375° F. Beat 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) softened butter or margarine, 1 large egg and 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until blended. Add cookie mix and 1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional); mix well, breaking up any clumps. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.


Tips:

• After a test run, I measured out all my ingredients into separate bowls so that I could setup an assembly line… Mom was helping. 
• I found that it was best to slightly pack the flour after placing in the jar. 
• When layering in the chocolate chips, spoon them in gently (as opposed to pouring them in fast) so that they don’t sink into the flour. 
• You can play with the layering… I did two jars as flour, chips, brown sugar, flour, chips, brown sugar and two jars as flour, chips, brown sugar.  The second approach filled the jar better, probably because I packed the flour too much in the first approach (pictured). 
• The key is to always pack brown sugar on top of the chips if you are going to put flour on top.  Otherwise, the flour seeps down into the cracks between chips. 
• And always pack brown sugar as the last layer to seal everything together.

I did a test run of the full recipe before starting the project to make sure the cookies were actually good… they were.  To finish off the jars, I tied a cute spatula around with cute ribbon.  They turned out pretty cute!


Thanks to Suz, Jenn, Whit and Steph for a great shower!

New Phones!!

Two years ago we went to get new phones when our two year renewal discount was available. We left the Verizon store with a Blackberry for Ryan and a little flip phone for me. I was jealous. Lots of our friends were getting Blackberry and iPhones. It just wasn't in the cards for me back then.

Yesterday we went in for our new two year upgrade and I had already told Ryan that I WOULD be getting a smartphone whether he liked it or not! I need to be able to email him pictures of Cason while I was home on leave. And I need to be able to post them straight to Facebook... I NEED to be able to do this!!!!!

So here I am, posting to the blog from my new Droid Eris. Ryan got the Motorola Droid. I love mine and I think Ryan is starting to like his... gotta adjust from the Blackberry.  We've both already spent WAAAY too much time playing with theses phones in the past, oh, 18 hours!