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Fall baking has begun!

It is that time of year... cooler weather, pumpkin everything, apple everything, desserts to serve with warm drinks, muffins for breakfast. I L.O.V.E. fall.

So, I've started to pick up my fall recipes again . . here are a few recent ones!

 Pumpkin Spice Cake Muffins! This is Jeff's favorite fall breakfast and it is EASY BREEZY to make.

Ingredients for muffin mix:

• 1 box of Spice Cake Mix
• 1 1/2 cans of pureed pumpkin

 Ingredients for topping:

• 1/4 cup of brown sugar
• 1 - 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon (depends on how much cinnamon you like)

Directions:

1. Mix spice cake and pureed pumpkin and there are very few lumps in the dough 
2.  Spray muffin cups with nonstick baking spray
3. I use a cookie scoop to fill muffin cups about 2/3 of the way (note that the muffins do not fluff much)
4. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon with fork and sprinkle on each muffin
5. Bake at 350 for 18 - 22 minutes

Makes about 18 - 20 muffins

S'mores Cookie Bars

This recipe came from the Hershey website, but I doubled all ingredients, baked it in a 9x9 pan instead of 8x8, and it turned out much better! They were gone in a flash!

https://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipe-details.aspx?id=3834

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine , softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1  egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4  (1.55 oz. each) HERSHEY'S Milk Chocolate Bars
• 1 cup marshmallow creme

Directions

1. 1 Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 8-inch square baking pan.
   
2. 2 Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Press half of dough into prepared pan.
   
3. 3 Arrange chocolate bars over dough, breaking as needed to fit. Spread with marshmallow creme. Scatter bits of remaining dough over marshmallow; carefully press to form a layer.
   
4. 4 Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. 16 bars.

No-Bake Oatmeal Cookies

This is currently the best dessert I can possibly make while pregnant! I could eat them all in a minute! YUM!

 
 I just use melted semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of cocoa (about 1/2 cup). I also add about 1/2 cup of extra peanut butter and 1/2 cup LESS sugar.


http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/cooking-live/chocolate-peanut-butter-no-bake-cookies-recipe/index.html

 

How I told my husband I was pregnant

I haven't had time to sit down and share the story of our little baby who is on the way!

It all began on Mother's Day, May 12th, 2013. I thought there was a little chance I could be pregnant and decided to take a test at 6 am. Guess what? It was positive. I couldn't believe it! I spent most of the morning walking in circles waiting for Jeff to wake up. I wanted to talk to someone so badly. I forgot it was Sunday and a holiday, so who on earth was I going to talk to? And by the way, the only reason I didn't wake Jeff up immediately was because he had worked a 12 hour night shift, stayed up the next day, and went to our friend's wedding. Poor guy hadn't slept in about 36 hours.

I ended up calling my friend Cinnamon because she lives in Germany and would be awake! :) I sent her a picture of my test to make sure I wasn't dreaming or crazy. She confirmed I was neither (at least in this case). It isn't an etch-a-sketch, guess it wasn't going away! This is when I started to freak out and want to wake Jeff up. I decided I better check Pinterest and Google for cute ideas to tell Jeff I was pregnant . . What else was I going to do this early?

I didn't find any ideas that I really liked, but I was starving. Decision made: I'll tell him using doughnuts. Yes, doughnuts.

So, I decided to go get donuts for breakfast (Jeff loves to
eat donuts any day of the week, but especially the
weekend). I wrote in the top of the box and left them on
the counter. It still took Jeff another hour to come
downstairs. As soon as I heard him awake I ran upstairs
to ask if he wanted breakfast. He came downstairs, still
half asleep, and went into the kitchen. He opened the
doughnut box and quietly read the top. It took him a
minute, but then his jaw dropped.

Poor guy had just woken up! We both literally jumped around the kitchen!