The BEST Fall Cookie EVER!

Happy Monday Everyone!

Friday is the start of fall! I personally cannot wait! I love when leaves change colors, it's so cool that you can leave the back door open so Sophie can go in and out, football is on all weekend long, the crockpot comes out once a week for soup/stews, and my most favorite-PUMPKIN EVERYTHING! I typically do not cook with pumpkin any other time of the year with the exception of fall. I have hit the JACKPOT of pumpkin this year! 

I recently was reading the blog BAKER by NATURE whom I am obsessed with! She had a Chewy Cinnamon Chip Pumpkin Cookie recipe! As soon as I saw it-I knew I had to make it! I changed a couple of the rations of the ingredients just a little!

The best part about this recipe is that it is so easy to make and throw together if you need to take a special treat somewhere,give as a gift, or take to a tailgate! The ingredients are super simple also!

Trusty Assistant!

My trusty assistant also wanted in on the action of baking today. Unfortunately, he didn't need these butter and sugar filled cookies. He got his own cookie of spinach, apple, and kale! They are made by PLUM Organics! They are seriously SO good. He loves them!

Back to the baking-  The hardest part of this entire recipe was finding cinnamon chips. It took me a while to find them. I finally found them at my Target. However-when I went back to get more....they weren't there anymore! So if somebody sees them somewhere-let me know where you find them!

The BEST part about this cookie recipe besides the taste is that this cookie dough does not have to refrigerate for an hour or two. You simply make the dough and scoop it out onto a pan!

 Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
16 tbs butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cup of light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 tsp Vanilla
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
2 1/2 cups cinnamon chips

Instructions: 

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. I used two baking sheets that I had lined with parchment paper.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice in a medium to large size bowl. 
3. In a kitchen aid beat the softened butter until it is smooth. Add the vanilla and sugars and beat until fluffy. You don't need this on high speed. Add the pumpkin puree and beat until it is combined. Very carefully fold in the flour mixture into the wet ingredients a little at a time. It is best to use a spatula for folding in the flour. Fold this until you can barely see the flour anymore. This took a little longer than expected for me. Don't over work the batter but know it will get there one day. Finally-fold in the cinnamon chips.
4. I used a medium cookie scoop to roll the dough into balls. Make sure to leave room in between each cookie on the cookie sheet. They will spread out quite a bit.
5. I baked my cookies for about 15 minutes or until they had darkens on the tops and edges.

 I seriously cannot wait to make these cookies again! Somebody else cannot wait either....

Happy Reading!

Favorite thing Fridays!

I have decided that since Fridays are already awesome! I am going to make a Favorite things Friday list every week. Until I run out of favorite things! Might be a while!

For the first Favorite Fridays list I am going to be talking about food. Everyone loves food right!?!?!

1.  Cookies: Now I have recently discovered these amazing cookies. No, they are not new. No, they are not a new brand. When you have a child browsing through the grocery store doesn't happen as often anymore. This new obsession comes from the brand Immaculate. This particular brand did not start too long ago but have taken the market by storm. Scott Blackwell is the maker of these amazing cookies. I blame him for still not being able to fit back in my pre-pregnancy pants. This brand is certified organic, gluten free (Does anyone really know what this means? I know its a type of flour? As far as I got on my research), and non GMO. They make a variety of cookies, brownies, and crust. I have only gotten my hands on the refrigerated cookies thus far. However-I am looking high and low at other places for the box brownies. I ABSOLUTE favorite are the Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies. It says to cook them for 14-18 minutes. HOWEVER-I am a half cooked cookie kind of girl. And DON'T mess it up. So about 11-12 minutes are the perfect time for myself! Chad and I ventured SO FAR this week and decided to buy the Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. They were definitely good, but I liked my chocolate chip ones better!

2. Cinnamon Rolls: While I am still thinking about sweet things that our Good Lord blessed us with, I will tell you about the second favorite sweet item that I always have in my refrigerator these days. Annie's Cinnamon Rolls. Yes-I switch back and forth from Annie's and Immaculate all the time. This company is also organic and has been around for awhile. They have stormed the grocery store scene also. I buy their mac and cheese all the time also. Grafton loves it! Anyway- Yall these cinnamon rolls are so delicious. They should totally be on that show on Food Network- The Best Thing I Ever Ate (Refrigerator Edition). Something like that. They have the best gooey center of any brand of cinnamon rolls I have ever had. My brother and my dad love cinnamon rolls also. We have eaten lots in my lifetime. They are really "sturdy" if you will, around the outside of the cinnamon rolls. I don't know how you eat your cinnamon roll, but the proper way to eat one is to untwist the entire cinnamon roll until you are left with the golden prize, THE MIDDLE! The icing for these crazy things are so delicious! Yall HAVE to go try some of these! There are only 5 to a pack. So buy two cans if you are sharing with someone! ;)

3. Coffee: The perfect way to round out this Friday's Favorite Things list is to eat cookies, cinnamon rolls, and drink your coffee while you stuff your face! I really love coffee. I drank it every morning before I found out I was pregnant. Then I stopped cold turkey. I didn't want to have caffeine while I was pregnant. Totally my own choice and to each his own. I quickly began to miss it, especially those early mornings going to school. I began to start bring decaf before long. I really enjoy all coffee but my all time favorite coffee is at Fresh Market. It is the Butterscotch Caramel Bliss. Sweet bliss it is. Every time I buy it the check out person is always like, "This coffee smells so good. I want to drink it but I don't like coffee." Although I am still breastfeeding I do enjoy my cup of coffee every morning now!

Caramel Butterscotch Bliss! THE ONLY LEGIT SUGARY COFFEE!

I hope everyone enjoys their Friday and Labor Day Weekend!

Happy Reading!

To be organic or not to be organic?

I feel like this is the new age old question: to be organic or not to be organic?. I obviously want what is best for Grafton and for him to be healthy. We are approaching the 1 year mark rather rapidly. Too rapidly in my opinion. Chad and I have started discussing what kind of milk that we want to buy Grafton. I am honestly leaning towards buying him organic milk. I really have no reason because I haven't done extensive research or anything. I plan on doing that soon. I would love to hear opinions or what you guys do for your family and why!? Please feel free to comment.

Introducing Grafton to the Blogging World

I will most likely be spending lots of time writing about my 9 month old son Grafton. I wanted to introduce him to the blog for those of you who are reading, but do not personally know him.

This is my beautiful little guy, Grafton. He is actually Charles Grafton, but Grafton is the name we decided to call him. I told my husband that I would never call our children anything other than their first name. Being a school teacher to young children, I see that they get a little confused or bent out of shape when you call them by a name they don't usually go by. It can be a little confusing to little ones. However-we decided Charles Grafton sounded better than Grafton Charles. Isn't that so silly? Anyway- Grafton's name came from Chad's (my husband) great great grandmother. It was her last name. We loved it so much that we decided to call him Grafton. Charles comes from a whole line of men on Chad's side of the family. Chad is also a Charles. 

As I was planning the nursery for Grafton, we decided that we would like to go with navy and grey for his bedroom/ furniture. Lots of people started gifting us with stuffed animals that were elephants. I loved the idea of elephants being a type of accent detail around his room. Chad and I learned later from his grandmother after Grafton was born that Chad's great great grandmother, whom Grafton is named after, also collected elephants. She collected these little figurine elephants. We learned that the superstition was that the elephant trunks are suppose to face the door at which guests arrive through into the room. It is supposed to bring happiness and prosperity into the home. I thought that was the coolest coincidence. So if you have any elephants in your home, face them towards the door! :) 

Our awesome little guy loves to crawl all over, stand up, eat, and is the happiest baby I have ever been around in my entire life. He has this amazing laugh that makes anyone he is near within ear shot laugh and feel so good. He is very busy! We are in a constant rotation of toys, moving rooms, and inside/outside all day long. Grafton hates to sleep though. So calling any mommies with advice on this topic. Help a sister out! 

Stay tuned for updates on our sweet little monster!!

Happy Reading!

Old Habits Die Hard....

The title of this post could not be more true. Seeing that I go a year or more/less without posting is insane. A lot has changed since that last time I blogged. I am actually hoping to keep it up this go around. I actually did have a baby, not go back to teaching, and am now juggling being a stay at home mom plus doing some other business ventures can take a toll on your girl.

Grafton is getting older now (WHAT!? I know...just a novel thing). I find myself wanting to express myself to more than just my 9 month old child and my 3 year old 4 legged child (Sophie). I started this blog when I went to college in hopes of allowing my family to keep track of my journey through writing. However- if you go back through my achieves, it won't take you long to see that I was not good at keeping up...hence again the title of this post. As little writing as I have done in the past- I hope to focus this blog more on to mommy life, food, and a cool discussion board about mommy life and being a stay at home mom. I will also use this blog as a means to discuss my new business adventure: selling Arbonne products. Let me know if you would like to learn more about this...I will be posting other posts about Arbonne at a later date.

I hope all you readers enjoy my posts upcoming. Please hold me accountable this time! :)

San Francisco Day 1......

It feels so good to be home after a fun filled weekend of vacation. Vacation is always fun no matter where you go. Can I get an amen? However, after about 4-5 days, I find myself thinking, "I'm ready to go home." Then you finally get home. You walk in the door, and you INSTANTLY wish you were back on vacation. haha It is never a true win win situation. Chad and I did go to San Francisco this past weekend. We had a complete blast. Chad had to go for business, and I went to play. (Summer break is AWESOME!) The first couple of nights we stayed at the Orchard Garden Hotel right off of Bush Street. It was a fantastic hotel. The staff were extremely nice as well as the room/hotel itself. One thing I learned from planning this trip is San Fran is similar to New York City as the city is broken down into little "neighborhoods." Our hotel was in the Financial district which was really great. We were able to be right in the thick of everything that was going on and were able to walk to everything that we wanted to get to.

The first morning we were there we woke up early, of course. Our bodies were still on Eastern time. We decided to walk to this little breakfast cafe that was a couple of blocks away. It turned out to be one of the most amazing breakfast places EVER!

Taylor St. Coffee Shop was definitely one of the cutest little breakfast places I have ever been to. There were about 8- 10 tables crammed into this little tiny place. They had the BEST food. Chad got a spicy bacon hash with eggs and an english muffin, and I got the most delicious croissant breakfast sandwich with bacon, egg, cheese, spinach, and tomato!  We also got a side of what they call Millionaire Bacon. Boy did it live up to its name. It was a thick piece of bacon smothered in this spicy spice mixture and brown sugar. It was absolutely the best bacon I have ever had. It was super sticky and just delicious!

After breakfast, we headed down to the Fisherman's Wharf neighborhood and Pier 39. We walked around taking everything in until our audio tour at Alcatraz. 

I realized on this trip that I am horrible at remembering to take pictures. Alcatraz was so amazing and I do not have a single picture EXCEPT.......

We found out upon arrival to Alcatraz that there was a guest on the island. He actually used to be a prisoner at Alcatraz. He never told anyone that he was a prisoner except his wife. His name is Bob Luke. He was put on the island for robbing a bank using a semi-automatic weapon. However, he has been on his best behavior for the past 55 years. Mr. Luke decided to write an autobiography about his time at Alcatraz. Upon writing the book, he was forced to go back and tell his long life friends his most kept secret. Needless to say, everyone was excepting of him. He did write the book and happened to be signing copies of his book the day we were there. He and his wife were as sweet and cute as they could be. It was an extremely cool moment and experience. 

After walking about 6 miles that day, we decided to head back to the hotel to take a little nap. This momma needed a little break after all of that. We decided to go to dinner a little later. We went to the Tadich Grill. It had great reviews on multiple websites. However, we did not have a good experience. Everything from the service to the food was very non-impressive and disappointing. 

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and slept for a VERY long time......

It was heavenly!

Stay tuned for day two tomorrow! 

Schools Out For the Summer!

-Hello World-

Long time....no blogging, right? I fell into my similar routine of not blogging while in school. However, summer break officially started last Friday! I am ready to get back at it! I have missed blogging, sharing recipes, ideas, and my life with whoever wants to keep up with me these days!

Stay tuned for some exciting things going on in the life of the Cone's this summer! Some things to get excited about: 

• New Recipes
• The debut of our brand new NURSERY. (YES- it is true. Chad and I are having a 1st child towards the end of the year.) 
• Reviews of products
• Random Thoughts
• Possibly a child's book in the making
• More house projects
• and of course, VACATIONS!

Lots and lots of exciting things happening in the Cone house! Come join me this summer in making life FUN, LAUGHABLE, and YUMMY! 

Tootles......