A Catch-Up

Holy cow, this month of December has been way too fast! I don’t even understood what happened, but all of a sudden, Christmas has come and pass, and it’s the end of the year! Between the semester finishing, and finals, and preparations for Christmas, I didn’t keep you guys in the loop about anything! So here are the highlights:

I made some awesome Cookie-in-a-Jar jars:

I made Peppermint Rice Krispy treats:

I bought 10 mini jars of Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider because I am impulsive with purchases:

and had a Merry Christmas! I hope you guys all did as well!

Weekly Darth

I hope nobody gets sick of looking at this baby. I don’t get tired of looking at this face. I wish they lived closer, and I could snuggle this baby always.

It’s getting cold, so he has to dress warmly now.

He doesn’t like his matching vest and hat, but I can’t even stop staring at it.

This face is also too much, I can’t handle it.

Stamp while Chatting

Tonight we had Stamp & Chat, and we had an awesome time. We made amazing cards, and had a feast!

See how cute?!

We all brought our favorite treats, so we have here: peppermint chocolate cookies, my peppermint chocolate chip cookies, some sugar cookies (made in Swig’s recipe), a veggie tray, and lemon cupcakes. Delicious!

Chocolate Chip Oreo Peppermint Cookies

I made a new batch of cookies tonight, and I had to mix up two recipes together to make them happen. I took the recipe for my chocolate chip cookies, and added some new things. Here’s the recipe for these delicious cookies:

2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup light brown sugar, loosely packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 tsp peppermint extract
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup Andes peppermint chips
1 cup smashed up Oreos (not completely – you want chunks, not just the fine powder)

Toss together the flour, baking soda, cornstarch and salt in a large bowl. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 325F degrees. In a medium size bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the egg, then the egg yolk. Finally, whisk in the vanilla and peppermint. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together. Pour in the chocolate and peppermint chips. Then, hand mix in the Oreos, and don’t overmix or the Oreo’s will take over the cookie dough. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll the dough into balls, about 1 Tablespoons of dough each. Bake the cookies for 11-12 minutes. The cookies will look very soft and underbaked. They will continue to bake on the cookie sheet. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

These were crazy delicious! Honestly, the peppermint is such a great edition. But truth be told, when I make these in the future, I think I’ll leave out the Oreo. It’s a delish cookie, and I liked the taste, but I want to see what it’s like without it. But otherwise, these are awesome and super tasty. Enjoy!

Festival of Trees

This year, we went to Festival of Trees like always. For some reason, it seemed Extra PACKED this year. I don’t know what was going on, but like, I almost couldn’t see many trees, my heck. But there were many awesome trees, and there were at least 12 Frozen trees. There could have been more, but we skipped a few rows that were too busy to make it down. But here are favorites:

People are so clever! I think I ate my weight in popcorn, but it was so delicious, I just couldn’t pass it up.

Foto Friday

Cookster got another haircut this week (I like that I say another, when it’s been over 3 months). She was sad, in the car, on the way home.

She looked smashing though.

Weekly Darth

I know I just posted pics on here of baby, but I don’t care, he’s aces.

Here is baby in his Thanksgiving outfit. Fancy like people should dress on this day.

And then, ready for sleep in his jam-jams. His eyes are too cute.

Feels Like Christmas

We are super on top of things this year, and basically, we decorated the whole house here in about an hour or so. Husband helped me with loads of it, so now, we’re ready for the holiday! Decorations-wise, at least.

Here’s our fabulous tree, and then I made a collage of the other stuff we’ve done.

We have a couple of mini trees around the house, plus assorted cute Christmas things. Happy Holidays!