Chocolate Sugar Cookies

I've always loved sugar cookies. You really can't go wrong. I mean, you can make them into any shape you want (Yoda, anyone?). And you get to decorate them and make them pretty with frosting and sprinkles. 

I also love chocolate. That one's pretty self explanatory. And I began to wonder a few months ago what it would be like to combine the two??? Amazeballs. That's what. They were so good, I took them to our Friendsmas and did a "decorate your own" and they were mostly gone that night. Then I took them to my in-laws and they were most definitely gone. Very quickly.

I found the recipe from Smitten Kitchen and they turned out great. A fun new twist on the classic Christmas sugar cookies. Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

// 350 degrees // 8-11 minutes //

Ingredients

3 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup butter, softened (I used sweet cream butter)

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

Directions

1. Mix butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and cocoa

2. Add in flour, salt, baking powder (recipes usually say to combine the flour mixture first, but I never do and it usually turns out fine!) and mix until smooth

3. Wrap and place in fridge to chill for an hour or so

4. Roll out dough using flour so it won't stick.

5. Cut in desired shapes

6. Bake on parchment-lined baking sheet for 8-11 minutes

7. Enjoy!

Busy Season's Coming...

Husband is home finally. It's been a rough week. Rough. Week. I'm finally feeling a little better after staying home sick from work four days last week. Ugh. Isn't it the worst? Something's going around and there was no way I was going to be "that person" that still goes into work when sick. OK, I did try to go in on Thursday for a couple hours, but that plan failed and I was soon back on the couch at home. This, whatever it is - flu, bronchitis, etc. - was nasty. I was hacking up a lung, nose completely stuffed and utterly exhausted. Probably top three worst times I've been sick in my life. And Zach was gone (he's in Shelton for five weeks doing his OBGYN rotation - luckily home on the weekends). 

But now he is home and I am happier. It's just nice having that support from him to help out with the pups, pick up my trail of kleenex (if the pups haven't gotten into), and cook me a non-saltines and gatorade meal. I'm so glad he's home and so glad he's so good at taking care of me when I need him to. 

So that's where I've been for the past week... how have you been? I'm looking forward to getting back into blogging after a little bit of a break. I think I have some fun projects in the works! 

But, busy season is coming. So I'll be working a lot more with a lot less time for blogging/ projects/ cookies (booooohooooo). Probably my least favorite time of the year, but at least at work I can stay busy and feel like I'm accomplishing a lot. 

So fear not, if I'm posting less, it's just because there are not enough hours in the day and I want to try and put awesome stuff on here! 

I hope your new year is starting out better than mine right now!

Pretty flowers found here.

Happy New Year!

Hey guys! It's 2013! Can you believe it? So glad the world didn't end, because we had a pretty awesome holiday season with our families. We spent a few days with the Kane's and had so much fun. I love our loud and crazy family! We always have so much fun. We ended up having Christmas Eve and Christmas morning a day early since we left on Christmas Eve to head over to my parents' house. It worked out really well and it was fun having two Christmas mornings. 

At the Kane's, we frosted chocolate sugar cookies, ate way too much, made cute stocking place settings, and Buster enjoyed chillin' in his cousin's bed #awkwardpuggle.

On Christmas Eve we went down to Centralia and had a great time with my parents. More games, laughing, a couple movies (Django Unchained - yes, The Hobbit - Eh, I might have fallen asleep). We even got a White Christmas!

We rounded out the break at home with a chill weekend complete with Friendsmas, a Seahawks victory, a fun New Year's Eve, and a Homeland marathon. That show is good.

And I can't end a family holiday post without a shout out to my favorite boys (yes, that's a puppy mug I made for my husband) #christmasbeard.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. Here's to an amazing new year!

Our Quick Trip to Leavenworth

Last weekend we took a super quick trip over the mountains and through the snow to the cute little town of Leavenworth. It had been a long time since we'd gone to Leavenworth and if you remember last year we almost got there. So I was pretty excited. 

We arrived on Sunday afternoon and checked in just in time to watch the last of the Seahawks game (GO HAWKS!). We stayed at the Enzian Inn and I would highly recommend it. The rooms are comfortable. The lobby and the rest of the hotel is pretty sweet. Decorated like a Christmas lodge it was so warm and cozy, complete with a sleigh and a two story tree in the lobby (literally a tree went through the floor!). You even get free snowshoeing and the continental breakfast is amazing (complete with a make-your-own-omelette bar). 

After the game, we bundled up and went downtown for the last Tree Lighting Ceremony of the season. The main drag was blocked off so people could walk freely down the snowy street. There were even a few free standing fire pits in the middle of the road for people to warm up. We stopped and got some hot cho and wandered through all the cute shops. All the shopkeepers are so nice! 

There were so many people, especially for the tree lighting. The street was packed, the snow was falling, and we were freezing! It was so cold! Tons of kids were sledding down the small hill in the park. They had a stage set up in the main park with the high school carolers singing Christmas tunes. When the tree lighting ceremony began, the whole crowd joined in and sang along with the carolers. It was pretty awesome when they first lit the big Christmas tree, then the row of shops along the main street, then the rest of the trees in the park. I loved it! If you don't know by now, I LOVE Christmas lights! They make me so happy:). 

After the tree lighting, we grabbed some yummy sausages at the Munchen Haus. Then we had to go back to our room to warm up! It was so cold (did I mention that?)! I just brought my rain boots so I was dry but freezing. We hung out for a while and then went back downtown after the crowds had cleared to take some pictures and walk around.

The next morning, we had amazing omelettes and coffee, walked around some more downtown and then packed up to head home since the passes weren't looking great. We ended up driving through a blizzard on Stephens Pass! It was quite the experience, but Curvy did great with the All Wheel Drive (and Z was a rockstar driving!). 

Here's some pictures of our trip!

We had a great (quick) trip and we can't wait to go back. Leavenworth at Christmas really is amazing!

P.S. 4 Days til Christmas!!! Hope you are enjoying the holiday season with your families and friends!

DIY: Tree Leftovers

We don't usually have this problem. Usually we buy a tree that is an appropriate size for our apartment or house. This season, we ended up buying a tree that was a little too big for our little house. I don't have a before picture, but we trimmed down the bottom portion so now it looks like this:

and the aftermath of what we cut off looked like this:

It was actually Zach's idea that we use the leftovers to make something festive. I think I'm rubbing off on him. :) And so it became my mission to make something festive. I landed on a centerpiece for our dining table.

1. I trimmed off smaller branches, so they were easier to weave together.

2. I got out my candles and lantern and started weaving. One piece at a time, I placed the chopped end of the branch under the three-branch end of another branch and they kind of attached to each other because of the needles. Keep weaving all the way around the candle until it is complete! It's that easy.

Plus it smells amazing. I don't think I could ever give up having a real tree for a fake tree. They smell too good to pass up. 

The arrangement looks great all lit up. So festive!

DIY: Reindeer Glitter Art

I know, I know, I owe you guys a post or two on our new re-upholstered curvy wing back, but it's taking a while to get all our pictures loaded, edited, etc. So it will be soon! Hopefully really soon! :) I promise, the wait will be worth it.

A couple weeks ago, I whipped up this quick and easy reindeer glitter art to get in the Christmas spirit. This was a little Pinterest project I found, originally by Kelsey of the blog Daisy Dreaming (see her original post here). Notice her Anthro Inspired snow globes like I made last year? Great minds think alike!

Supplies: 

1. Canvas - I had bought a pack of 8x11 flat canvases a while back, so had this on hand.

2. Paintbrushes

3. Glitter - in any color, I chose red

4. Mod Podge (like Kelsey, you could also use glue) - I liked using the mod podge because it dries clear and I had a lot on hand from other projects

Step 1: Print out a reindeer stencil. I used the same one Kelsey did (find it here).

Step 2: Cut out the stencil and trace onto your canvas with a pencil.

Step 3: In segments, apply mod podge within the lines as best you can, then apply the glitter. Make sure you put some newspaper underneath, because glitter is messy! After I was done, if it looked a little thin, I just applied some more mod podge and repeated the process.

Step 4: Let it dry and frame it or leave it as is.

Ours is now sitting on our bookshelf behind my favorite nativity scene.

Project Cost Breakdown
Canvas - already had on hand
Mod Podge - already had on hand
Glitter - $4
Frame - $2 at IKEA
Total Cost - $6

What Christmas crafts have you been up to lately?

Zoolights

Hi there! How was your weekend? I hope it was filled with lots of Christmas lights, hot chocolate, warm fires and maybe some shopping (I definitely prefer shopping of the online variety this year). We had such a fun weekend. I took Friday off to catch up on life and use up some of my vacation days. It was much needed, especially this time of year when we are crazy busy, but in a good way. 

Saturday we had our friends, Kim and Jake, over for dinner and then went down to Tacoma to Zoolights. None of us had been before and it was so much fun! They sell discounted tickets online and at Fred Meyer, which I would highly recommend since the line was really long when we got there. Also, there's not a lot of parking. We got in the park about 8 and stayed until 9:15 even though the park closed at 9 (there were still lots of people there). 

I was in love with this green and purple tree. When we walked by, we even saw a couple that had just gotten engaged by the tree! So sweet.

The best part was the baby tigers! There were two baby tigers and right as we walked up the zookeeper went in their cage to feed them! When we saw them, Zach and I both thought they were just like Brody. Haha. Huge, gangly, clumsy, rambunctious. They were so cute! 

We had such a great time! We would highly recommend going to check out Zoolights. Hot chocolate, Christmas music blasting throughout. It was pretty busy, but you could definitely just walk around at your own pace. The only bad part was the penguins... if you know me, you know why... and they smell horrible! 

Go check out Zoolights (here's a link to buy them online).