2011 November — A Southern Fairytale

Eight

12:05 AM ByRachelFiled UnderBirthdays, Princess

“Mom, Can you believe I’m going to be Eight?”

“No, no my darling girl — I can’t”

Wasn’t this just yesterday?

So much has changed, So much still the same.

The moment you saw the ocean, it was true love. You were a water baby,

and now you’re a Boogie Boardin’ Diva.

Even from the first, you’ve been much more fashionable than I ever was.

nov 18 2005

I’m so glad that hasn’t changed, your fashion sense makes me so happy.

I love how you’ve always marched to the beat of your own drum

nov 18 2006

How from day one you have been strong and confident in who you are.

You are independent and fearless.

Fun loving and silly, you love life and all that it has to offer.

You are your brother’s favorite person

Your Daddy’s little angel

and my … my favorite playmate, the one who made me a Mama. You are my heart and soul in a smart, funny, beautiful, wonderful, blue eyed, freckle faced package.

I am so blessed to be your mother.

There will be times that I will yell at you, there will be times when we won’t like each other very much, there will be times we both say things we don’t mean, but there will never be a time that you are not loved, a time you are not cherished, a time where I am anything but thankful for you.

I have always known and understood love. Your Daddy showed me a different kind of love, but you, you my amazing, wonderful daughter, you have taught me a love like no other.
You are borne of my body, my heart, my soul and my mind and you opened up a place in me that I didn’t know even existed.

You are smart, funny, strong, beautiful, compassionate, silly, confident, loving, temperamental, friendly, energetic, inquisitive, vibrant, frustrating, head strong, lively, independent, fearless and amazing.

I pray that at 18, 28, 38, 58, 78, .. you retain all of these qualities.

I will do my best to stand back and allow you to live, fall, experience, fail and triumph. I will try to never stand in your way, to allow you to stumble and fall because the biggest disservice I can do you would be to never let you fail. That being said, I promise that I will always and forever be there to pick you back up, kiss away the tears, whisper I love you and nudge you back towards the right path.

Happy 8th Birthday to the one who changed everything.

I love you.

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Magical Weekend

12:24 PM ByRachelFiled UnderFamily, Sponsored, Videos

Y’all know that this past weekend Nathan and I were invited to go to the surprisingly historical city of Galveston for a weekend of fun, food, Magic and Music.

I took 800 + pictures.

Made new friends, reconnected with a couple of old ones, hugged an old one for the first time and spent the first weekend sans kids with my husband since having kids.

There was a plethora of ridiculously awesome food

There was a lot- a lot- a LOT of laughter

There was a Haunted Building

There was a gorgeous new Carnival Cruise Ship

And

There was this guy, you might have heard of him

He is the lead singer of a little band called Maroon 5.

We had fantastic standing room only seats on Pier 21 for a very special concert put on by Maroon 5 to celebrate the launch of the Carnival Magic.

This clip of video is from my iPhone, there were some SUPER excited SUPER fans all around us, so please excuse the fact that it isn’t terribly stable

There is so much more to share, but my internet is being obnoxious and I have 927 things to do to prepare for Princess’ 8th birthday on Friday and her party Saturday. {hold me}

ftc stuff: Our travel, food and accomodations were provided by Carnival and The City of Galveston Tourism. I am not required to, nor was I asked to write about this in exchange for the trip. Everything I share with y’all, I share because it excited, intrigued, interested or appealed to me.

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Pumpkin Pie {Spice} Mini Doughnut Muffins

12:14 AM ByRachelFiled UnderBreakfast, Desserts

Tis the season for pumpkin.
Tis the season for ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice also known as.. pumpkin pie spice

Tis the season for Secret Recipe Club, y’all — I am so adoring this Secret Recipe Club thing. Between the recipes, the new blog discoveries and the drooling over possibilities – it is seriously too much fun.

This month I was assigned The Daily Dish blog.

Y’all – I spent so much time on Nicole’s site. She has delicious recipes, engaging content and she’s super savvy. She wasn’t satisfied with the existing Food Blog Search – so she created her own Food Blog Recipe Search Engine! How fantastic is that?

The very first recipe that caught my eye was her Funnel Cake Recipe, but I couldn’t quite muster up the desire to make funnel cake. Now, if BurghBaby were my neighbor, I’d make funnel cakes weekly just to get her to come over.

Then, I saw the mini Pumpkin Pie Spice Doughnut Muffins and they sang their wicked swan song and I was done. I knew that this was the recipe that I had to make for this month’s Secret Recipe Club challenge.

Pumpkin, Sugar, Turbinado, Buttermilk, Flour, Pumpkin Pie Spice and more… these are thick and dense and cakey. They are more doughnut than muffin, and yet their mini size is biteable and poppable and absolutely decadently delectably yummy.

Sift flour and measure out 3 1/2 C, add in pumpkin pie spice and baking soda and baking powder
Cream together shortening, sugar and eggs.

When that’s well blended, add in the pumpkin.

Slowly add the buttermilk and dry ingredients together, alternately – mixing well between each addition.

this photo doesn’t have any reason to be here other than I just like it and wanted to put it here

This is a thick batter, I used my cookie dough scoop to place it in my mini muffin tins.

You have 3 alternatives here:

top with turbinado sugar prior to baking
top with a blend of turbinado and pumpkin pie spice prior to baking
dip the warm freshly baked muffins in melted butter and roll in turbinado sugar after baking

For Nicole’s original recipe – Click Here

Pumpkin Pie {Spice} Mini Doughnut Muffins

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 17 minutes

Yield: 40 mini muffins

Pumpkin Pie {Spice} Mini Doughnut Muffins

Delicious Cakey Doughnut Mini Muffins flavored with Pumpkin Pie Spice, perfect fall breakfast, snack or dessert.

Ingredients

Wet Ingredients

2 eggs
1 C pumpkin (not pie filling)
2/3 C shortening
½ C buttermilk

Dry Ingredients

3 ½ C all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 ¼ tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 C granulated sugar
1 C Turbinado sugar (optional)

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 350 F
Sift 3 Cups flour.
Using a spoon (so you don’t pack the flour down), measure out 3 ½ Cups flour into a large bowl.
Add baking powder, baking soda and pumpkin pie spice.
In a large mixing bowl cream together shortening, eggs and sugar
Add pumpkin
Alternately add dry ingredients and buttermilk to the creamed mixture, scraping the sides and mixing well between each addition.

This is a very thick batter

I used my cookie scoop to scoop the batter into my sprayed mini muffin tins
Bake for 17 to 20 minutes – do NOT overcook these

I made these with 3 different “toppings” my favorite: sprinkling the tops with turbinado sugar before baking 2nd: sprinkling them with a mixture of pumpkin pie spice and turbinado sugar 3rd. dipping the tops in butter after baked and rolling them in turbinado sugar

http://asouthernfairytale.com/2011/11/14/pumpkin-pie-spice-mini-doughnut-muffins/

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