Hot Chocolate Cookies

Oh wowza, I made some fantastic cookies yesterday and per the request of a reader, I am sharing the recipe that I found online.  It was so easy!  Basically a chocolate chip cookie recipe with some added hot chocolate packets and mini marshmallow bits (which are awesome!).

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 package of milk chocolate chips
• 3 oz of hot chocolate mix (I used 4 packets)
• 2/3 cup marshmallow bits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl for an electric mixer, or in my case, my kitchen aid stand mixer, cream together butter, shortening, and sugars.  Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until well blended.  Stir in flour, salt, baking soda, and hot chocolate mix.  Fold in the chocolate chips and marshmallow bits.

Scoop balls of dough onto baking sheet. (OPTIONAL STEP: I took more marshmallow bits and pressed them onto the top of the balls before baking for the look.) Bake for about 10 minutes.  Allow to cool on baking sheet for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is a great day to take a moment and step back to appreciate everything you have been given, and forget about the pains of the past.  You are luckier than many others.  We all have suffered, we've all lost someone, and we've all experienced moments of self doubt.  But as you sit down today, remember that each and every day that we are given is a gift. All of the yesterdays of our lives, good or bad, were blessings, and we often take that for granted.  And though I hope that people are thankful for what they have more often than once a year, I do appreciate that Thanksgiving reminds everyone to take pause and remember to actually say "thanks."

On that somber note, here are some turkey facts to share with your families today!  I got this list from Aristotle.

• Turkeys have heart attacks.  When the Air Force was conducting test runs and breaking the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead.
• Turkeys spend the night in trees.  The fly to their roosts around sunset.
• Gobbling starts before sunrise and can last until mid-morning.
• A wild turkey has excellent vision and hearing.  Their field of vision is about 270 degrees.
• A spooked turkey can run at speeds up to 20 miles per hour! They can also burst into flight reaching speeds of 50-55 mph in a matter of seconds.
• Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird.

Happy Thanksgiving friends and family.  I am thankful for all of you in my life!

Weekend Recap: November 16-18

We had a great weekend.  I like when friends come home for the holidays!  First of all, Friday night, Ryan and I tried to go see Lincoln, but it was sold out!  Plus, the theater was nuts because it was also opening night for the new Twilight movie, so we were happy to leave.  We ended up going down to 11th Street Precinct and Funktastic 5 (our favorite local band) was playing!  We had a fun night.

Saturday morning, we joined up with friends to "watch" the Iowa game, but really just to eat good food and catch up.  It was a joyous event :)

After our wonderful reunion, I hit up the gym, and then hit up the couch for a nice nap before getting ready for the evening.

Saturday evening, I picked up Hannah and we went to the Holiday Pops concert.  But first, dinner at Old Chicago!

Following dinner, we crossed the river to the iWireless center.  To avoid paying for parking and continuing to wait in the long line of cars, we parked on a side street a stumbled upon a beautiful courtyard to take some pictures on our walk to the concert.

We had a great time at the concert!  It was really good, and we had so much fun.  We even had some dance parties in the car on the way there and on the way home.  What else to do with all of that free time waiting and waiting in the car?

Sunday was a pretty lazy day, which was nice.  Of course, I did have to go to choir rehearsal for a couple of hours, but beyond that, it was pretty uneventful.  All in all, it was a pretty darn good weekend.

Happy Wednesday!

Demolition Time

If any of you got to see our basement after we moved in, you know it was a blast from the past!  Straight from the 70s!  I didn't mind it so much, especially the bar area, but Ryan was not having it...so DEMO TIME!  Here are some progress pics I took (and it's come even farther now).

It's scary and exciting all at the same time!  I'll do my best to keep progress pics coming.  Happy Tuesday!

My Awesome Halloween

My Halloween Weekend was super fantastic this year!  I started it off with a little costume shopping with my Little on Friday night.

After the shopping extravaganza, we went back to my house to watch "scary" movies, which turned into us watching Batman Begins because she chickened out on the scary movie, but still has excellent taste in cinema. :)

Saturday morning, I was up bright and early (and bundled up!) for the Hot Cocoa race with Brooke!  We decided to allow ourselves to be inspired by Jem and the Holograms and sprung for some neon wigs the night before.  We may have been two of the very VERY few people that dressed up, but the wigs kept our heads warm and everyone gave us lots of compliments.  Worth it!

Saturday, after a nice warm shower, Jess came over so we could watch Paranormal Activity 1 and 2, we'll be watching 3 soon.  I was so excited when I found the trilogy at Walmart for $15!

Nick and Emily were in town, so we met up with them and Nick's fam to watch the ISU game (good game!) at a bar in Davenport.  I did have to get my costume on prior to this meet-up, so I felt a little silly while we were there.  Luckily, I could take my fangs out!

Later that evening, we headed to Nicole's husbands last concert, which was unfortunately outdoors, so we only stuck it out for about and hour and a half before we headed home, nearly frozen to death!

Oh yes, I was indeed the only one in costume.  Lame.  Oh well!  I had fun anyway :)

The final thing that made my Halloween quite spectacular was participating in the Redditgifts Trick or Treat Exchange.  Simply put, this was a world-wide secret santa for Halloween.  I was matched with someone in Texas, so I sent him a gift based on his likes/dislikes, and then someone in Ohio was matched with me, and I got a super fantastic gift.  Check out my loot!

I hope your Halloween was equally as awesome!

Weekend Recap: November 2-4

I'm back!  And I promise to post about Halloween weekend soon, I just keep forgetting to upload pictures from my phone since I have several on there...whoops!  Anyway, this past weekend is recap worthy, so here we are.  Ryan and I hosted some family (and family friends) at our new house for a party, well, basically a housewarming party, we just didn't call it that. We had such a wonderful weekend with those who joined us and filled our house with love!

On the menu, we had: Pulled Pork, Maid Rites, Cheesy Potatoes, Corn and Broccoli Casserole, Pasta Salad, Mandarin Orange Salad, Pistachio Fluff, a big ol' cookie cake, veggies, chips, banana bread, and BEER!  We almost didn't have enough beer, I had to send my sis to pick up some more!  I think that means it was a successful party.  We all had a lot of fun, and took a lot of pictures.

We had loads of fun with everyone, and plenty of left overs to provide us some meals for the next few days.  Now we are plotting out our shopping adventure to use the gift cards to every which home improvement store in the area!

Weekend Recap: October 19-21

This weekend at home felt longer than normal (woohoo), due to the fact that I did not have choir rehearsal on Sunday evening.  I love being in choir, but I do not like the rehearsal time, on Sunday from 4:45-7:00, at all.  So this past weekend, there was no rehearsal, so I made the most out of my Sunday, and my whole weekend! :)

Friday night = Girl's Night #1.  Dinner with Nicole and Brooke.  Getting hit on/insulted by a really drunk guy.  Brooke getting told she looks like Justin Bieber by said drunk guy. Meeting Jaqui at Derek's concert.  Dancing to "Gangnam Style" with Nicole's mom. Enjoying the night with girl friends.  Drinking too much.

Saturday night = Girl's Night #2.  Movie night at Jess'. A random/frustrating trip to HyVee. Delicious frozen beverages (Mango Daiquiri, hello).  Watching one terrible movie.  Watching one fantastic movie.  Megan, Jess, and I all deciding to call it a night at 10:30 because we are lame and we were tired.  Taking no pictures. :(

Terrible Terrible Terrible

Great Movie!

Sunday = FOOTBALL.  Cooked all morning.  Mom and Dad joined us for lunch.  We finally got pictures in front of our house.  Took a nap after my parents left.  Ryan's family came over for dinner.  Ate some awesome chili.  Watched football.  Watched 60 minutes.  Cleaned up when they left.  Watched more football.  Enjoyed not having choir.

The bricks on the roof are flattening the shingles. :)

Happy Tuesday friends!

Taco Tuesday

I would just like to share that I love my co-workers, who have become such great friends.  We had a lovely taco dinner on Tuesday night, and I am looking forward to girl's night tonight!  

I couldn't decide which picture I liked better, but at least Theresa's face isn't cut off in the bottom one!  LOVE YOU GIRLS!

The Color Run

Saturday, October 6th: It was cold, Des Moines was nuts, and I was so out of shape...but I had the best time!  Stephanie and I took part in The Color Run, "the happiest 5K on the planet."  

We drove up Saturday morning and got there early so we had plenty of time to pick up our packets and get the lay of the land.  We ended up getting some gear at The Color Run store and eating some last-minute lunch I had luckily packed in the warmth of my car before standing in line for the starting line.

So even though we were the 1:00 wave, they released the starting line in 1,000 person heats.  The disappointing part of the race was the waiting.  It wouldn't have been so bad had we known ahead of time that it would be like that, and also, if it wasn't so cold!  As people became impatient, they were releasing their packets of color before the race even started.  It's probably not a big deal, but I wanted to get by first drops of color on the course, but this is what we looked as we approached the starting line (one hour later!):

Once we got started, we had a lot of fun!  Running/walking/dancing through each color station was like entering this alternate universe.  It was a great moment, and slightly crazy to share with 15,000 other runners.  Of course, this race is untimed, so we stopped several times to take some pictures and even to chat with a friend of Stephanie's.

The finish line was a lot of fun, there was a great DJ playing fun music and announcing times to release your color packets....I don't have the best picture of the awesome color cloud we created with everyone (I was scared to take out my camera), but I did get some pictures of the end product! :)

The Color Run was a great event that encouraged participation amongst all fitness levels and ages.  You get to dress goofy, act like a big dork, and dance to your hearts content, right along side every one else, so no one is judging you.  It was so much fun, we want to do it again next year!  

Post-race, Emily R was kind enough to let us utilize her facilities and clean off!! And then Emily, Ashley, Steph, and I grabbed dinner at Raccoon River (one of my faves!), before Stephanie and I made the drive home.  We clean up pretty well I must say!