Valentine Confetti

What a great Valentine treat to hand out to friends, family, students, teachers, and/or co-workers!



melt and combine with your favorite popcorn

stir the melted chocolate in....and toss in the M&M's

Bag it up for a fun Valentine treat!


For the record I used:
1 bag of M&M's
*Almost* 2 bags of Orville Redenbacher's microwaveable Tender White Popcorn
1 bag of white chocolate chips

TIPS:
*Spread on large baking sheet to allow time to dry before placing it in bags.

All She Wants for Valentine's Day....

...is her TWO FRONT TEETH!

When I picked Ashlan up from school yesterday, she didn't say a word to me. She just gave me a huge smile and immediately made this face!!!

Yep, she lost that last upper front tooth! Finally!


So now, all she wants for Valentine's Day....is her TWO front teeth!

A Day at Fair Park

We finally had a free weekend here! Brent was not on-call and we had NO extra-cirricular activities. Well, actually Nick and Kate did have lacrosse, but they were with their mother this weekend so she took care of that.

We decided late Friday night that we wanted to go away for the weekend. Maybe Austin, or maybe Glen Rose. I actually really wanted to go to Glen Rose so we could take Ashlan to Fossil Rim. We took Nick and Katie there before Ashlan was born and they loved it! But the ONLY problem was - Bismark. We couldn't take him with us (no pets allowed at Fossil Rim) and the kennel was booked. Ugh! So that plan was erased.

So in the end, we decided to take Ashlan to the Dinosaurs Unearthed Exhibit at Fair Park in Dallas. They also have the large IMAX movie screen, which I have ALWAYS been a fan of, so we could do that too! AND there is also the Nature and Science Museum to tour AND the Planetarium. Yep, we did it all! We spent the entire day at Fair Park and it was so much fun!

Here are some pictures from the Dinosaurs Unearthed Exhibit...



This was the IMAX movie we chose to see. Sea Monsters!


Ashlan enjoyed the Fossil Dig

Stepping into a dinosaur footprint


It's definitely not hard to spend an entire day at Fair Park! So much to see! I wish I would have taken more pictures!

For more information on Dinosaurs Unearthed at Fair Park Dallas, just click here

Chocolate Raspberry Valentine Croissants

Can you imagine anything more mouth watering than the tangy tartness of raspberries, flaky, buttery pastry, and rich, sweet melted chocolate ? Check this out below! Yum is all I can say!



Of course when I came across that picture above with the recipe that followed, I had to make it!

You'll need raspberries, chocolate chips, an egg, powdered sugar and puff pastry.
To use the puff pastry, simply remove from freezer and defrost approximately 30 minutes.

Get your raspberries and chocolates ready!

On a lightly floured surface, unfold pastry and gently roll with a rolling pin to smooth it out a bit.
I rolled mine until it was wide enough to accommodate my heart shaped cookie cutter.

Sprinkle some chocolate chips and a few raspberries on each pastry heart and then with your finger, paint egg wash (beaten egg) around the edges. This will act as a glue for the top layer.
Place a pastry heart on top and crimp the edges with a fork and give the top of each heart a good brushing with the egg wash.
Do you notice I am using parchment paper? LOVE parchment paper! No burnt cookies ever and no washing the cookie sheet afterward!

Place the prepared hearts into preheated 400 degree oven for 10 minutes.
Allow for them to cool a few minutes after baking and serve with a sprinkle of powdered sugar or drizzled chocolate.
Is your mouth watering yet?

I just bought some heart plates at Target the other day and they turned out perfect to serve this dessert on!!!

How to Say 'I Love You'

I like to surprise Brent on Valentine's Day each year with a special way of letting him know how much I love him. He does the same for me.....generally with a card, maybe a flower, and a kiss. God love the boy. But I like to take it a bit further (probably because I have more time on my hands than he does)
I try to come up with something creative each year to surprise him. A couple of years ago I surprised him with the bathroom mirror full of reasons why I love him.. The large white heart in the center reads "Reasons Why I Love You" and all the smaller red hearts have those reasons listed...


I had written these reasons the day before Valentine's Day, put a piece of tape on the back of each heart, and placed them hidden in one of our bathroom drawers that he never opens. I woke up in the middle of the night, acted like I was going to the restroom, and quietly opened the drawer and put the hearts up on the mirror. Then when he woke in the morning (me still asleep in bed), he flipped on the bathroom light and found all those "Reasons Why I Love" him... He was certainly surprised and absolutely loved it.

With another Valentine's Day quickly approaching, I'm searching for that special way of letting him know I love him again...

I happened to come across this below which is actually how a wife surprised her husband on their anniversary. She had a balloon for each year they had been married with a picture or love note attached to each balloon! What a great idea!

Now, what if I change the green and blue balloons to red and pink. That would make a really romantic and inexpensive valentine surprise too.

I think it's a great idea and can't wait to come up with some special pictures of us together as well as some 'love notes' to attach to the balloons! Now, the real job here is to keep him off this blog until after Valentine's Day so he doesn't know my plan!!!!

Whoopie Pies for Valentine's Day

I came across this wonderful, fun Valentine's Day treat on the blog Paiges of Style!



It looked like a fairly simple recipe and definitely festive, so I gave it a try this afternoon...

Valentine's Day Whoopie Pies

Cake Recipe:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg, preferably room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup buttermilk, preferably room temperature*
1 ounce (2 tablespoons) red food coloring, use the gel not the liquid


Filling:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

* If you don't have buttermilk on hand, you can substitute by making your own with milk and vinegar. Add 1/2 Tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice to 1/2 cup milk, stir and let sit for 5 minutes before using.

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position; preheat oven to 375F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. In medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.

2. In large mixing bowl or stand mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed for 30 seconds, until smooth. Add brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. With mixer at medium speed, add egg and beat until thoroughly combined, then beat in vanilla. Add about one-third of flour mixture followed by half of buttermilk mixture, mixing until incorporated after each addition (about 15 seconds). Repeat using half of remaining flour mixture and all of remaining buttermilk mixture. Scrape down sides of bowl and add remaining flour mixture; mix at medium-low speed until batter is thoroughly combined, about 15 seconds. Now add your red gel coloring and mix it in. Remove bowl from mixer and fold batter once or twice with rubber spatula to incorporate any remaining flour.


3. Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip and pipe your batter into the hearts. (If you need more guidance making the heart shape, you could cut out hearts and trace onto your parchment but it’s pretty easy to do without that) My hearts were about 1.5-2 inches tall and spaced about 2 inches apart.
Also, if you don't have a pastry bag (which I have never), just put all your batter into a large ziplock bag, cut one of the corners off, and just squeeze.



4. Bake 7 to 9 minutes, rotating halfway through, until tops are set. Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Make sure to watch them as they do cook pretty quickly.

5. To make filling: In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar and on low speed, beat until incorporated. Increase the speed to high and mix until very light and fluffy.

6. To fill, dollop (or pipe) cream cheese filling on flat sides of half the cookies. Top with remaining cookies, flat sides down. Do your best to match up similar sized and shaped hearts, it just turns out better that way.

They turned out great!!! Now I just need to find a way to wrap them up decoratively and give them to friends!!!

Snow at the Lake

We haven't been to the lake house in weeks. I miss it. It snowed at the lake, just like it did here in Dallas, but I've been wondering what it looked like with the snow covering. With that being said, I was super excited to open an email earlier this week from the guy who maintains our property. It's like he could read my mind! He had emailed me pictures of the property with the snow covering....
Isn't it beautiful!

You can't even see the driveway due to the snow!


Thank you for the pictures, Terry! Man, I miss the lake!

Olive Oil and Wine Cookies

Brent and I are huge fans of wine and cheese! Sometimes we will substitute wine and cheese for a full dinner and often we have friends over for a 'Wine and Cheese' evening. We love wine and cheese.

So it shouldn't surprise you that when I came upon this strange, but interesting recipe for an Olive Oil and Wine Cookie, I knew I was going to make it. Who knew what it would taste like.... olive oil? wine? I know neither of those tastes in a cookie sound very appetizing...but hey, the recipe made it into a book and had a good review. Therefore, I'm trying it. Besides, I made no effort to go get any of the ingredients. I had them all here already.

Final product: Not too bad. It's not incredibly sweet. I wouldn't make them as a dessert to go with any meal or really even a cookie just to snack on. But I would absolutely make them again as an addition to our wine and cheese evenings. Really, the flavors of the olive oil and wine are understated but you can identify them if you pay close enough attention. Just a quick tip: this is not a dough to let sit; make the dough and then bake the cookies right away.

Olive Oil and Wine Cookies

2 cups all purpose white flour
1 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup dry red wine (I used a Cabernet)

-Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
-Place the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix well.
-Slowly add and mix the olive oil and wine
(Thank you Darin and Dana for the Naple's Olive Oil which I continue to use often and even used in this recipe!)

The dough is difficult to work with. It's not what you are used to dealing with. It crumbles when you try to roll it up in a ball (and the recipe forewarned me of that)....So be patient. Do the best you can. It'll work.

Like I said, it's a little crumbly

But in the end, I thought it was worth it.

Like I said above, I will make them again on the occasional wine and cheese nights...It's a nice addition for sure!


I'm glad the words 'wine' and 'olive oil' in a cookie recipe didn't scare me away. I'm glad I made them. Don't be surprised, when you come to our home for wine and cheese, to see those cookies being served!!!

Ending 2010 with Surgery

Brent has been in private practice for nearly 17 years, in which he spends his days treating injury and disease of the spine and brain. So it goes without saying that my husband has treated thousands and thousands of patients with back pain. Up until a few months ago, Brent had to 'imagine' what these patients were experiencing in regards to pain. Sure he can look at the x-rays, sort through the symptoms of the patient and KNOW that these patients are in pain and rightfully so. But he can't 'feel' their pain. He can only 'fix' the problem where the pain is originating.


When I mentioned above that 'up until a few months ago, Brent had to 'imagine' their pain'......well, he no longer has to imagine. He KNOWS how that pain feels. It all started back in August 2010. He injured his lower back somehow by bending over to pick something up. He remembers the pain from that incident, but it didn't disable him in any way. He took some anti-inflammatories and a muscle relaxant here and there. The pain was on and off and manageable (no need for pain medication either) But as September, October, and November came and went, the pain was increasing. The pain was radiating down his leg, it was getting to where it would take him nearly 10 minutes just to SIT in a chair and to get into his car. We both knew something was wrong because it definitely wasn't getting better.
But if you know my husband, he doesn't stop or even slow down. He works hard every single day. He loves his job and he can't be away from it. I told Brent over and over to go get an MRI done. He kept pushing it off and thinking things would get better eventually... Plus, he didn't have time. And I will kind of agree with him on this. The end of the year is insanely busy for him, and for any medical professional at that. With deductibles and all, patients want to get their care done and taken care of before the new year. So Brent has to double book in November and December to get everyone in and treated before the end of the year. It's the same routine at the end of every year. (And in return, January-March is usually DEAD...hehe)
But with all the working longer hours and on his feet more during the day, the pain became unbearable and scary. I no longer had to beg him to get an MRI. The pain scared him enough to finally get it. And just like he thought (but was trying to ignore), he had a herniated disk that was compressing on the nerve root. And that nerve compression was shooting excruciating pain down his leg.

At this point, the only option Brent had was surgery. He had been taking anti-inflammatories with no such luck. He didn't have time to do formal physical therapy. And after having a few steroid injections which only offered short term relief, surgery was the only option. And we, like every other patient that has medical insurance, wanted to get this surgery done by the end of the year. And that's what we did. With Brent's busy end of the year work schedule but also keeping in mind the fact that we wanted this surgery done before January 1st......we opted to have the surgery on New Year's Eve. HA! Talk about last minute!

Here is Brent during the surgery. Yep, he's awake and talking DURING the surgery.

There's a story behind that. Quick version is: Brent has always preferred to do lower spine surgeries on his patients under spinal anesthesia instead of general anesthesia. The research shows that general anesthesia causes more bleeding, blood pressure issues and we all know that general anesthesia is hard to recover from, in itself. Brent is one of the only surgeons in the nation doing lower spine cases under spinal anesthesia. He is the ONLY neuro/spine surgeon doing them in Texas. He is even writing a research journal on the benefits of using spinal anesthesia during lower back surgeries. He has done over 2,100 spine surgeries under spinal anesthesia (yes, patient is awake) and all of his patients have raved about it. Brent was eager to find a surgeon around here that was willing to 'try' to do his surgery under spinal anesthesia. Brent talked his partner into trying it. Not every surgeon is comfortable with it and that's because spinal anesthesia only lasts so long. You have to be a quick surgeon because you do not have that 'unlimited' time that general anesthesia allows for you to poke around and take your time And honestly, many surgeons are not comfortable with their patient being 'awake' during the surgery. Brent obviously doesn't mind carrying on a conversation with his patient while operating if the patient wants to talk.... So anyways, he talked his partner into doing his surgery under spinal. Everything went great! Turns out his partner, after trying it, wants to start doing more under spinal.
Minutes after surgery and in the recovery room wide awake. No nausea or fatigue from general anesthesia. It was so nice!


Cheers to a successful surgery! No more excruciating back or leg pain! And on another positive note - Brent can relate with several of his patients now on the pain from herniating disks, as well as sharing his experience of having surgery under spinal anesthesia versus general anesthesia. It's the way to go if your surgeon is comfortable with it! But hopefully, you reading this, have never and will never experience any reason to HAVE back surgery!!!!

It's Still Here!

Today is Thursday. It hasn't snowed since Sunday. Yet the temperatures have been around freezing nearly everyday this week so the snow has been sticking around. Since the temperatures have been so cold, the children aren't allowed to have outdoor recess at school. Therefore, when Ashlan gets home from school, she is outside in the snow until dark. Literally.

Here are a couple of pictures I took today. Four days since it last snowed. There is still enough to play in and make snowballs with, according to Ashlan

Lots of snow collected on the outdoor furniture

She comes inside around dark. Those cheeks are as red as can be...

The boots are defrosting near the fire...

The wet/cold coats, gloves and hats are left on the stairs.. (notice the snow on her pink hat!)


It might have only snowed for one day, but it has stuck around all week! Thank you, snow!

Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes

I was craving cookies today. Not store-bought cookies, but homemade cookies. I was in the mood to bake and devour! I jumped online and tried to find a recipe that looked delicious, but instead of finding a cookie, I found a cupcake recipe that I knew I could easily devour!

These Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes!


I baked them myself this evening and they turned out GREAT!!!! I may even make them again come Valentine's Day since they look festive enough for that special day!

Strawberry Margarita Cupcakes

Cake:
3 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup margarita mix
2 T lime juice
1 tsp lime zest
5 T strawberry preserves
1/3 cup tequila
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

-Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
-In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

-Add margarita mix, lime juice, lime zest, strawberry preserves and tequila and mix on low speed to incorporate.


(Mix may appear slightly curdled at this point but don't worry, it will come back together with the flour.)
-Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition.
-Add 1/3 of the flour mixture, then 1/2 the milk, and repeat mixing after each addition until just incorporated, ending with the flour mixture.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake liners and bake approximately 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool approximately 10 minutes and remove from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.


Glaze:
1/2 cup margarita mix
2 T tequila
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Red food coloring

-Add powdered sugar to a small bowl, whisk in margarita mix and tequila to make a thick liquid glaze.
-Add a few drops of red food coloring to desired color.
-Poke 4-5 holes in each cooled cupcake with a wooden skewer.
-Spoon glaze over cupcakes, about a tablespoon at a time, giving the glaze a chance to absorb before adding more. You don't want to saturate the cupcakes so you may have some extra glaze left over.


Frosting:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
4-6 cups powdered sugar
3 T margarita mix
2 T strawberry preserves
Red food coloring

-Beat together butter and cream cheese until smooth and creamy.
-Add margarita mix and strawberry preserves and beat until well incorporated.
-Add powdered sugar one cup at a time until frosting is desired consistency.
-Add a few drops red food coloring to tint frosting to desired color.


-Pipe frosting onto cupcakes as desired. Top with sliced strawberries for garnish if desired.


You won't be disappointed in this recipe!! Try it! I'm glad I did!