Eight years ago today...11/23, I met the man who stole my heart, the guy who loved me more than I ever knew someone could be loved, I met the man I was going to marry. Our life together has been something unexpected, and something no one believed in at first except us. It isn't perfect, and it's messy at times, but there is always love, honesty, and trust. I wouldn't change one day, because every day with him is another day I am loved by a man who inspires me, by a man who encourages me, by a man who is my husband! Forever n Always my love.

So for our Anniversary I contacted Linda of Frog Prince Cake & Cookie Design and gave her an idea and well let me tell you... her cookies blew me away! She took my idea and created something so amazing, and breathtaking. The horseshoe feather design represents our last names and I knew she would be the perfect person to help create the cookie I was looking for! I sent her a photo of my husband's tattoo and she even replicated the colors! 

This morning Mike made me french toast and tonight we're going out to our favorite local restaurant! Do you still celebrate your dating anniversary? 

Wordless Wednesday: The Hunger Games Edition!

Five Things

My fabulous fashionista mama friend Tairalyn over at Little Miss Mama  always does a "5 Things I Love This Week" post, mostly fashion or gadget items, sometimes other things as well like bloggers she loves. So I thought I would join in and write one too. 

1. I was writing a post for AWS last night about how we can help the Philippines and another one about ways kids can appreciate the true meaning of the holiday season and it got me thinking! I would love to just donate this year to another family in need rather than exchanging gifts with my own family. There are so many out there who are less fortunate who don't get to pick out a Christmas tree or buy gifts for their children. I'm blessed to be apart of a local women's group who actually does just that; last year we adopted three local, needy families for Christmas and gave gifts to the kids and the single mothers who were raising them. So if you are fortunate enough this year, don't forget about the children and families who aren't. Also, please help support efforts to help the Philippines if you can. ( see previous post for info)

2. Speaking of Christmas, I'm guilty of already turning on the holiday music on my iTunes and Pandora! It really helps when writing posts about Christmas...so if you are putting together a post about holiday decor or the like, turn it on! 

3. I am not a fan of the stores who are opening on Thanksgiving, it's bad enough that people act so horribly the next day on Black Friday trying to get into the stores after eating together with their families and being thankful for what they have. Now, we are taking people away from celebrating with their loved ones so people can act this way on the holiday? SAY NO to SHOPPING on Thanksgiving! 

4. Wow, it has been 8 years since I met my husband...time flies when you're having fun! On the 23rd of this month we'll be celebrating our dating anniversary. It's been a crazy ride, but I wouldn't change one day. You are who you are because of the experiences you have lived through. I love this man and wouldn't be me without him by my side. Do you still celebrate your dating anniversary? 

5. If you haven't checked out East Coast Creative yet and their TV show Knock it Off, you're not going to want to miss tomorrow's new episode, which is already live on the LiveWell Network's website. It's a Christmas episode featuring a guest appearance by a sweet little guy at the end! 

So what are 5 things that are on your mind this week or 5 things you love this week? I realize these aren't necessarily 5 things I love...since I'm not loving the idea of shops being open on Thanksgiving, but these are 5 things that were on my mind...take it or leave it! ;) 

For the Philippines With Love...

 

To Donate

Worthwhile Wear

Would you believe it if I told you there was still human slavery and human trafficking going on, and not just in third world countries...right here in the United States as well. It's pretty terrifying, especially when you have kids of your own and the reality of this sets in.

Have you ever watched the movie Taken with Liam Neeson? His daughter goes on a trip to Europe with her friend and they meet up with a few guys, who they hardly know. The next day while she's in her room and on the phone with her dad she is kidnapped and put into a home where they use girls as sex slaves.

It's a harsh movie to watch, but the truth is...this is reality. This weekend during a fundraising event, I learned a little bit more about an organization who is trying to help girls just like this. They teach them skills and set up safe places for them where they can learn. They are putting together a home right here, in the Philadelphia area, but they need help. Check out Worthwhile Wear and donate, volunteer, and shop for items that are handmade by these beautiful girls who need your support.

 I helped the ladies of East Coast Creative decorate for the Worthwhile Wear fundraiser event. We spray painted these stones and asked guests to write a message on them. The stones will be placed in the garden at the new home for the girls in the Philadelphia area. 

Photobooth fun with my guy at the Worthwhile Wear event! 

By ourselves we can't do much, but together we can help rescue these girls and stop human trafficking. 

Wordless Wednesday: The Little Things in Life

Happies & Crappies

It's that time of week again, time for Happies & Crappies. If you ever want to link up head on over to Steph's blog at The Vintage Modern Wife or Amber over at Brunch with Amber .

Happies:

1. This weekend we finally don't have anything planned and we get to just relax at home! I love hanging out with family and friends, but sometimes you just need those weekends where you do absolutely NOTHING!! 

2. Remember that photo I posted last Friday, the one of the Lake and the gorgeous fall colors? Well, a local newspaper was hosting a contest on their Facebook page and whomever won best photo of Fall foliage would get their photo used as the newspaper's cover photo. Guess who won, ME!! They may even publish some of their favorite photos in the paper as well! 

3. Saw the sweetest tweet today from my AMAZING friend Katie over at Vintage Vinyl Journals! Beneficial Bank is one of the sponsors of the PA Conference for Women that was going on today and tweeted, "We believe in the power of possibility. Tell us about a woman who has motivated you to unlock your potential – we’ll RT you! #PennWomen" My friend Katie responded with, "@BeneficialBank @WorldAroundHer inspires, motivates and encourages me with my business. She's a hard worker & maintains a great attitude too" Well if that didn't make my year! LOVE YOU KATIE!

Crappies

1. Monica over at East Coast Creative hasn't been experiencing the best week, along with her little one. He was admitted to the local Children's Hospital and had to have surgery. He is doing much better, but was in the hospital all week and for Halloween as well. It always hurts my heart when kids get sick and have to have surgery. They have a great support team though, with lots of love and prayers from the online and offline community, which is always nice to have in times like these.  

I can't really complain about much myself, after hearing updates of her little guy in the hospital, I am pretty thankful for everything and everyone in my life. 

Today is November first, can't believe it! Everyone is starting their 30 Days of being thankful on their Facebook pages, so I'm going to post on my blog thankful notes too! 

Day 1: I'm thankful for a beautiful and warm Fall day of almost 70 degrees...which is very rare here in the northeast. Last year it was snowing, and if it wasn't that warm today, the rain we had would have been snow! 

I get to look at this view from my home office window! Have you downloaded the Rhonna Designs app yet, I love the quotes and adorable little graphics! I hope you have a great weekend!

Wordless Wednesday: Halloween Edition!

Happies & Crappies

I'm trying to keep up with my blog, so I thought it would be fun to link up with one of my favorite bloggers, Miss Stephanie over at The Vintage Modern Wife. So link up with her and post your list of Happies and Crappies from your week! I have to say I am very blessed with many happies lately!
Happies: 
1. It's Fall y'all! Like I mentioned in my previous post, I really love this time of year. We were considering getting married in Fall, but pushed the wedding back to the following Spring so we could have a bigger budget! I loved our colors for Spring, but deep purples would have been gorgeous with the beautiful Fall foliage. 

So pretty and peaceful, I took this photo at the lake near our house. 

2. We finally picked up our pumpkins for carving! Last year we never carved or purchased any pumpkins and my youngest step-daughter wasn't too happy about it, she told us this year we better get them! I'm still not sure if I want to carve or just create a pretty design with some washi tape and paint/markers? What do you think? 
3. Tomorrow we are going to a Halloween birthday party and we get to dress up! This is the first year we have actually dressed up as a couple, twice in fact! A few weeks ago we went to my husband's cousin's kid's 4th birthday party...that's a mouth full huh! I dressed up as a retro/ Sandy from Grease type of chick with a bandana in my hair and wore black tights (yoga pants), with a black top. My husband was a biker, and looked pretty cool too! This weekend the theme for the party is witches and vampires, I'm so excited! 

My outfit didn't really stand out as a costume, so I'm excited to really get into character this weekend! 

Crappies:

1. The weather has been so bizarre this season. I had a cool, dark denim jacket I was going to wear for the Halloween party mentioned above and it ended up being 80 degrees that day! It was earlier this month, but still crazy hot for October! Oh, but now it's 50 degrees out only a few weeks later, and in the 30's at night! This is a definite crappy!  

2. Right now I'm not too happy with my food habits and lack of fitness routine. I know I shouldn't be too hard on myself, because I still fit in the clothes I was wearing last year, but some of the sweaters are a little snug. I just don't want to go back to the unhealthy state I was a few years ago. It can be hard to keep up, especially when you work from home. But I am now on my fourth day of getting back into doing my Jillian Michaels DVDs, love them and her! So I'm on the right track! 

3. My hair is in the middle of a transition, it isn't long and it isn't short! LOL! OK, it's still short, but it just has this awkward look going on. I'm not sure how to style it, so pretty much I just straighten it or blow dry it, but it seems to be laying weird. I miss my long hair, so I think I want to keep it about shoulder length. GROW HAIR...GROW! 

Leaving you with a little happy for your weekend, how cool is this guy?! 

I took this photo a few weeks ago at our local park, I love my Canon camera!  OK, go link up and have a great weekend! 

Are you dressing up for Halloween or any parties this year?

What Fall Taste Like!

Who doesn't love the taste of Fall, if you don't well too bad because that's what my post is all about! Pumpkin flavor is everywhere, it started last year with pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin donuts, and pretty much pumpkin everything! So we thought we would jump on the bandwagon and make pumpkin cookies, they were okay but not the greatest. A few weeks ago I noticed we still had an unopened can of pumpkin puree sitting in the cabinet and I kept thinking, "How can I one up that cookie recipe!"

Last year I had pumpkin pancakes at an adorable country restaurant and have been dreaming of them ever since. So, I thought why not make some myself...with the help of my hubby! The recipe was a winner, which made me feel much better about baking more with pumpkin puree, I just couldn't leave that bad cookie recipe hanging over me and haunting my pumpkin dreams!

Easy Pumpkin Pancake Recipe

The pancakes only called for 3/4 cups of canned pumpkin, so what was I to do with the rest of the can? Cupcakes first came to mind, but I'm pretty cupcake'd out at the moment. Then I thought, "How amazing would a pumpkin spice muffin be in the morning with a cup of pumpkin spice coffee!" NAILED IT!! OH and do I mean, I nailed it! 

Best Pumpkin Muffin Recipe EVER!

Note the actual pumpkin in the photo is not what I used....just for looks! I knew the true test would be how well my daughters liked them, and when they said they loved them...well now Mama knows what she'll be making more of! 

It's a pretty simple recipe, however I did notice that in the ingredients it only called for baking powder and in the directions it mentioned the powder as well as baking soda. What was I to do? So I read the comments to see if it was noted and one reader mentioned that she used 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda....sometimes it's the smallest ingredient that can throw off your recipe! 

The recipe also called for pumpkin spice, which is noted in the comment section is a blend of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice. Well, mama didn't have all of those ingredients so she improvised and just added an extra teaspoon of cinnamon to the recipe, the other teaspoon of cinnamon is for sprinkling on top. Check out Smitten Kitchen, adorable blog name, for this recipe and many others. Right now she is featuring a homemade pizza...dough and all!

What recipes have you tried this Fall? What have you been dreaming of tasting, but haven't had the chance to try yet? 

Where Have I Been?!

Things have been a little quiet on my blog again, sorry for leaving you hanging....if anyone is still out there reading!

I have some really awesome news to share with you, I have been interning for a new blog....told you it was awesome! I am helping them out with social media, emails, and tweaking their posts. It has been a little over a month now since I started and things couldn't be better! Oh, so I guess I should share with you who they are, well they are the ladies of East Coast Creative, and would you believe they also have a TV show called Knock it Off! Check out their blog post where they mentioned me!

Here they are: Monica (left) & Jess (right)

They are super cool, easy going (but hard working), inspiring women who are taking over the DIY world! Would you believe Monica has four kids and Jess has three, I told you they are hard working! So if you need some inspiration, if you're feeling stuck and need a little push, let their story, their blog, and their TV show inspire you!  

Yep I just used three exclamation points in that paragraph, I'm not excited or anything. 

PS: I'm still writing over at All Women Stalk as well...in case you were wondering. 

Breaking Out of My Cooking Shell!

I'm usually not too adventurous when it comes to cooking and baking. Okay, so I did make those amazing peppermint sandwich cookies around Christmas time, but since then I really haven't made anything new. When it comes to dinner I usually just make the same thing, chicken or pork and two sides....how boring right! So, I still made chicken and two sides, but I decided to spice it up with a Campbell's soup recipe; Asian Chicken and Rice Bake. The recipe includes Campbell's golden mushroom soup, soy sauce, honey, garlic, cider vinegar, and paprika. The recipe says to pour the uncooked rice in the dish with the chicken, however there are comments on Campbell's recipe site that noted to cook the rice on the stove top instead. It turned out pretty good but it tasted a little bland, which I was surprised about since the recipe included so many great flavors. I usually make broccoli with dinner, but I have a new favorite vegetable thanks to my Florida bestie Casie who introduced me to Edamame! What are some of your favorite chicken recipes, would love to try something new?

I also tried a new cookie recipe tonight for my women's group picnic meeting. I wanted to bake something really fun, but I didn't get around to making the cookies until tonight and needed something quick. Luckily I found a three ingredient recipe that didn't include any butter, flour, or egg...just what I was looking for! I present to you Banana Oatmeal Cookies...the two main ingredients of course are oats and bananas, and the third being anything extra you have in your pantry; chocolate chips, walnuts, or Hershey's Heath Toffee bits!

I tried to up the recipe with a 1/2 cup more oats than it called for and three instead of two bananas, but I think the third banana may have been too much. No one mentioned anything about them at the picnic like they had the peppermint cookies at the Christmas party, so I'm pretty sure they weren't a crowd favorite! Better lucky next time. Do you have any quick cookie recipes up your sleeve?

Trying to Figure it Out...

I want more and I'm trying to figure out what it is that I want. I want to push myself to do more, be more, and accomplish more. I feel like I'm in the transition period of my life, waiting to find myself and who I want to be. Do I want to continue doing what I am doing now or do I want to do something else? Have you ever had this lost feeling? How did you find yourself and figure out what it was that you wanted to do?

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Celebrating 30!

I always neglect my personal blog when my life gets busy, but I'm still here and you can visit me over at my full time job too on All Women Stalk! If you are new to my blog; I write, edit, and am the face of the All Women Stalk social media. So hop on over to say hello...I write mostly wedding posts on there. On Facebook we host a lot of giveaways and post theme days like #Workout Wednesday, Thrifty Thursday, etc. We're also on Twitter!

So how is your 2013 going? It's almost April and it's still pretty chilly here in the Northeast. Other than the cold weather, life is pretty amazing right now. I turned 30 this month, and if you recall last year I wasn't looking forward to it. But I have since embraced 30 and learned that I need to stop being so negative about it and push forward. I may not have done some things I thought I was going to do by 30, but wow I have accomplished other things that I never even dreamed would happen for me. Also, it helped that my husband, family, and friends really made my 30th birthday one of the best birthdays I've ever had!

Did I mention I have the best husband ever! He surprised me with Broadway tickets to see Wicked!!! 

Meet Katie, she's AMAZING!!! Oh and she is having her first child, a baby girl!! Check her out, she repurposes unplayable vinyl records into journals! 

She made me a cake and cupcakes with little owls on them! 

My sisters and family friend (who is like a sister!) PS the one to the far left and the one standing next to me are my sisters!

The crew hanging out at my favorite place for dinner and drinks!

That's little me about 27 years ago, I believe I was three in that photo and all dressed up for my dance recital! 

Did I mention my obsession with owls! I received all of these from my in-laws! 

My mom in the middle photo, dad next to me in the bottom, and step-dad to the far right in the bottom photo. 

My older sister (the blonde) and I are two years and 1 day apart: March 11th and March 12th. So naturally we celebrate together! The restaurant brought out ice cream sundaes for us both!

Food!

I also took my annual birthday trip to the Philadelphia Flower Show with my mom!

This year's theme was Brilliant! In translation...all about London, England. This Alice in Wonderland exhibit was one of my favorites...

Alice!

Time for Tea!

Oh yes and we met Sandra Lee of The Food Network! Very nice and beautiful! 

 PS thank you to all of my amazing blogger friends who sent me cards and gifts for my birthday. It makes me feel like the luckiest girl to know so many amazing women and inspires me to make this and every year after the best years of my life. When you put that positive attitude forth, you feel it and everyone else feels it. I told myself this birthday was going to be great and it was and still is!!