Future Blog Update

So yes, I have again neglected this blog but I have a good reason. Over the past year, I have started tackling new adventures besides just baking.

Ben got me a new camera for Christmas this year and I have taken up photography. I am no professional, just a hobbyist, but it is something that I want to share with others. I will be using this venue as a place to display my photos. I am sure there will be lots of pictures of Miller but I have done a few other shoots for others and there are some in the future (hopefully more).

Since Miller has been more active, I have been trying to do some activities with him. I believe that it is important for children to have unstructured play but by doing activities with him, I am helping him to learn other skills and exposing him to new things. I find the activities fun, except for the fact that most of  the time Miller is not impressed and only plays for a few moments. I have been blogging about them on my other blog but I decided to switch them to over here. Most of the activities, I have been inspired by others but I still like to blog about my own experience. It also holds me accountable to do them.

I will of course still be blogging about crafting and baking. Most of my posts for those have been on a blog that I contribute to, Wives Unscripted. I am going to try to post some over here.

I hope you all will keep following. Please be patient because I am working on a new layout, and I probably won't be back to blogging on here until that is done, which will be after the new year. Just stay tuned and I will return!

I am still here, are you?

I really do love this blog. I promise!

I have not actually stopped baking or crafting but since having Miller, it has been hard for me to get back in the swing of things. Recently I have had a resurgence in my creative energy but finding the time to blog about it while maintaining our family blog is just overwhelming. On top of the fact that I am not really sure how many people are actually reading either one of my blogs. It is not that I really care that the world is not standing in attention every time I publish a post and in between them they are waiting with bated breath (I am not that kind of gal), but it is such a hassle to take the pictures, edit them, and write the post, for no one to really be here to listen. I will never stop baking or crafting but it is hard to have the motivation to write a post about a project if there is no audience.  

I have so many ideas for this blog, it is just slow going right now. I am trying to get better at taking progress pictures of my projects so I can blog about them. I have been baking new things lately, cooking new dinner recipes, and starting new rentervation projects in our new house. That is lots of "new"! I hope you will stay tuned because I am going to try to improve things around here, most of all, getting the commenting working.

*It may be cheesy but there is a poll on the right. Please answer it if you are reading  this so I know if I should keep going or throw in the towel.

Irish Cupcakes- 3 ways

Look at the pretty field of shamrocks.

Okay not really. Like Valentines Day, I wanted to make something for St Patrick's Day that had the flavors of the holiday with a little bit of the look. I made Guiness Stout chocolate cupcakes, filled with Irish Whiskey chocolate ganache, topped with Bailey's Frosting. I pieced together the recipe from a couple different sites but they are linked correctly above. 

 I got to use my new cupcake plunger that my stepmom got me. That was so nice and easy!

Holey cupcakes

Filled with the ganache

Even though the cupcakes were not green, I had to make the frosting green. 

I would love to have done more decorating but like I have mentioned before, decorating is not my forte. They do taste pretty good and my kitchen still smells like Bailey's. 

Chocolate Dipped, Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

Happy Valentine's Day!!! So yesterday I showed you the pink champagne cupcakes. Well the other popular flavor of v-day is chocolate, specifically, chocolate and strawberries. Here is what we did.

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= Chocolate Dipped, Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

I took strawberries and hulled them out. I would have preferred larger strawberries but this is what they had in the store.

I got a frozen cheesecake (totally felt like a "Golden Girls" moment) and made sure it was room temperature. I simple scooped up a little with a spoon and stuffed it in the strawberry. I am really spoiled with cheesecake and have been eating my uncles for years. It is so much better than the frozen one I got but I did not want to go through the trouble of making a homemade cheesecake if this experiment did not work.

Here is my batch. I then stuck them in the freezer for about 30 minutes.

I melted a bowl of chocolate chips, then dipped the frozen strawberries.

Once they hardened, I flipped them over and dipped the tops.

Not the prettiest but with this combination, who cares?!

Rather than fight the crowds and find a sitter, we decided to make Valentine's dinner at home. These are for our dessert. I am pretty excited about them but next time I will be making a homemade cheesecake.

Pink Champage Cupcakes

For all holidays when I am deciding what to bake, I am torn between celebrating the themes of the holiday or the flavors. I have determined over the years that I am not the biggest fan of decorating baked goods, and would rather focus on the taste. For Valentine's Day, I had a few options to go with but narrowed it down to chocolate and champagne. I went with Pink Champagne cupcakes because I have been wanting to make them since my cousin Megan's wedding almost two years ago.

These are some really pretty pink cupcakes. I am pretty sure I got a little tipsy from licking the bowl.

Getting ready to make the frosting and decorate.

Pretty pink frosting

Here are some with the basic decor, some pink sanding sugar and candy pearls.

I added some red for Valentine's Day though.

I bought these wrappers a few years ago and finally used them.

All ready to be delivered to the hubby's work.

Here is my Valentine this year (well and the husband).

Anyone still around?

I have a been a bad baking blogger. I have not posted on here for almost 4 months. It is not that I have not baked but because of this


I have not had much time to bake anything interesting. Not sure if anyone out there has missed me on here because I am pretty sure that everyone just follows my other blog, so I never updated that Mr. Miller was born back on October 12th. I am sure I will get back on here and write about some crafts that kept me busy before munchkin arrived or get back to baking eventually. Until then, do not abandon me just yet, I will be back from my maternity leave soon.

Pumpkin Spiced Latte Cupcakes

I was never a big coffee fan but over the past few years I have learned to love the flavor. I could never drink a whole cup and really, the daily iced coffee drink I make is just coffee flavored milk. After a few months of doing 1 part coffee to 2 parts milk we began adding in a splash of creamer to give it a subtle flavor. My husband loves anything pumpkin flavored but our favorite pumpkin spiced coffee drinks are back in Tennessee. It was lucky we make our own and there are creamers out there that can give us our pumpkin fix during the fall.

However, I know there are a lot of people who love Starbucks Pumpkin Spiced Lattes and they were finally brought back this past week. That, combined with the cooler temperatures we had a for a few days made me crave something fallish to bake this week. That is when I came across this recipe for Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes. The only thing I tweaked was that, if I was going to make a pumpkin cake, I had to make a cream cheese frosting, which I did. I did not get a ton of coffee flavor from them, but really did not mind because everything else about them was awesome!

I think they look just as good as they taste.