Apple-Cranberry Cinnamon Rolls

Amazingly simple and so pretty...

So yummy.

And so dang simple that even i pulled it off.

Ingredients:

Apple Pie filling, dried cranberries, cinnamon and tube of cinnamon rolls.

Yeah.

That's all you need.

Oh, and an oven set at 400 degrees.

Mix 1 cup of apple pie filling with 1/3 cup of dried cranberries and 1/4 tsp of cinnamon. Be sure to cut up the apples into smaller chunks. Mix well and set aside. Grab a muffin/cupcake tin, spray with cooking spray and put your cinnamon rolls from the tube into each little hole. Put the icing that comes with the cinnamon rolls aside.

Smile at yourself because you actually FEEL like a baker...

Place tube cinnamon rolls "homemade" cinnamon rolls into oven for 8 minutes. (note: If you use 3 tubes of cinnamon rolls, you can do two batches that gives you 24 rolls and then you can share them. If you are into that 'sharing' stuff...) :)

Feel even MORE like a homemaking baker at this point...

Pull out cinnamon rolls and inhale the amazing smell. Grab a spoon and make a well in each of the cinnamon rolls. If they look a little doughy-like, it's okay, really. Spoon some of the apple/cranberry mixture into each well and place back into the oven for another 4/5 minutes.

Giggle to yourself as you think about telling folks that you made these from 'scratch'.

Pull out of the oven and run a knife around the sides of your rolls.

Not "your" rolls but the cinnamon rolls....hehee...i just kill me some days....


Place on rack to cool.
This is how beautiful they look. And the smell is amazing, too...

Remember the icing that came in the tube with the cinnamon rolls?

Drizzle that on top of your cinnamon rolls.

Haul to your friend's house or to your MOPS group and snicker to yourself as you tell them at first that they are "home-made".

And then, tell them the truth and share the recipe along with your Apple-Cranberry Cinnamon Rolls.

Because real friends, well, they share even Apple-Cranberry Cinnamon rolls and the recipe that goes with it.

Packing up...

 

 

 

 

...the Halloween stuff has been a challenge. As i put the stuff into it's boxes, a certain someone keeps taking the stuff back out and hiding it in her room. I guess that Emma isn't quite ready to move into the next holiday yet.

The Fall leaves have been really beautiful around where we live. We had to have some of our trees in the backyard taken down, so we didn't have as much color in the backyard but hopefully the trees that we will plant in the Spring will make up for that. I hated to have those trees taken down but they were dying. Better to have them taken down now than in the middle of a storm.

We've collected leaves, acorns and of course, rocks. Not sure what we will do with "our" collection of rocks but i better figure something out quickly as our rock collecting is getting a bit out of hand. Maybe Emma and i can paint the bigger ones red and make ladybugs out of them for the butterfly garden otherwise she will keep putting them into the bathtub as a decoration.

As i'm packing the Halloween stuff, i'm decorating Christmas balls with shiny jewel gems colors and bows. The "other" someone in our home is a bit of a tight wad so it's come to doing 'creative' stuff like this, lol. I hate that the Christmas balls are turning out so pretty as i won't have a lame excuse for the husband as to why i need to buy new decorations. It's fun, though, looking through the stuff that we already have and trying to figure out new ideas to change them. It seems that all one needs is tacky glue and some ideas...

I'm pretty sure that Robert will have a heart attack if i drag out the upstairs tree already. He's one of those "decorate after Thanksgiving" kinda folks which so sucks the fun out of it for me. But with Emma, it's hard not to be excited when you see how excited she gets about the tree and just the thought of Christmas lights. She doesn't get the getting gifts things, but she seems to be over-the-top excited about "da Wesus Birday Cake" that we will be making this year on Christmas Eve. I do hope that i will relax and realize that this is Emma's cake to decorate for "Wesus" and not a photo-perfect cake for me to take photos of.

What? Yes, i'm a control freak like that...don't act like you didn't know that before now...

The Butterfly Garden

I'm not sure when the idea of a butterfly garden first came along. I know that over the years, as i've visited garden shops, i've always loved to be near the flowers and plants that the bees and butterflies were at...it was a peaceful spot to be. In any case, Emma loves flowers. And bugs. And bees.

And dirt.

Such a girly girl, isn't she?

When you put all of those things together that she loves, you come up with a butterfly garden! The hardest part of the planning of the butterfly garden wasn't picking out the plants, but remembering that the plants grow bushy so giving them enough space to grow was important. Most bushes/plants/flowers that attract butterflies and bees spread so the last thing i wanted to do in two years time was dig up and move a monster of a butterfly bush because i planted i told Robert to plant them too close together.

We planned the butterfly garden for the side of the house that gets the most sun. All of the plants are sun loving plants and will enjoy the spot that we put them in. We shopped at Bates Nursery, which is one of my most favorite places. The staff there is amazing and knowledgeable and i love that they have Bella, a sweet dog, who roams the gardens. I wanted to put a tree over there, but in the end, we kept it to flowers and bushes. All that is left to add to the spot to make it perfect is a bench for Emma so she won't continue to sit in the dirt.

The spot turned out really well. Here are the list of plants that we planted:

~butterfly bushes
~lantana (this spreads beautifully, btw)
~sedum (Autumn Joy is my favorite sedum)
~daisies (my grandmother's favorite)
~yarrow
~blackeye susan (my great-grandmother's favorite)

I love planting in the fall as it makes Spring seem not so far away!

While she was sleeping...

...she slept with me.

Emma loves her own "space". She isn't shy about wanting hugs or kisses, but she does want them when she wants them. Which is hard on a Mommy who wants to smoother her with kisses and hugs. To show you how far i'll go to get kisses, i came up with a game where if i "kiss" her, she can wipe it off. But if i "smooch" her, well, you can't wipe off a smooch! Emma now wants to play my 'kissing game' so she can wipe them off.

Back to sleeping...

A few nights ago, Emma told me that she wanted to 'swwweep with Mama'. Me, bieng the sucker that i am, readily agreed. She hopped into the 'big girl bed' and instructed asked Robert to please bring her Pachi. Off went the light, and she and i settled into bed.

Emma: (fake cough, fake cough) I dink i hava cough...(fake cough)
Me: Are you sick like Dada? (smiling to myself)
Emma: No. (fake sniff, fake sniff) But now i gotta snuffy nose. Tissue, pwlease!
Me: Okay...

A few moments later:

Emma: Pachi fweels like dancin' Mama! (Pachi dancing all over the bed...)
Me: Emmie, it's time for Pachi and you to sleep.

A few more moments later:

Emma: Weesus woves me, dis i know. For da bible twelllls me soooo. Wittle ones to Him beflong, forrrr dey are weekkkk and He is stwrongg! Ohhhh, yesssss, Weesus wuffs meeeee....
Me: (whispering singing...) Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me! The bible tells me so.

And then, we whisper sing all of the songs that we sing before Emma's bedtime: Jesus Loves The Little Children, The B-I-B-L-E, He's Got The Whole World, Twinkle Twinkle, Lullaby, The Baby Bug Song, Taxi-Taxi, The Buzzy-Bee Song.

You may be wondering why you haven't heard of some of these children songs before...

It's because i made some of them up. :)

After singing, Emma finally gets herself and Pachi comfortable and falls asleep. I stay awake for a long time, just listening to her soft breathing, and praying over her. I am beyond grateful for this little child. I may be teaching her Spanish words and not to fart in public and laugh hysterically but she is also teaching me to slow down. Slow down and look at and smell the flowers, rocks, bees, trees, leaves, dirt, the sun, the moon and the stars. You know, the things that sometimes loose their magic as you get older? Seeing everything again through her eyes reminds me of the true beauty of the world around me.

I finally doze off, only to be waken by an arm across my leg and Pachi on my face. Emma has decided to take over the king size bed, it seems. So i do the only smart thing to do: i go upstairs and get Robert to sleep with her. Thankfully, he falls for my sad story, lol, and goes to sleep with her while i sneak into her room and sleep on her amazing mattress.

So, while co-sleeping didn't quite work out like i had envisioned it, it was a sweet time spent with my tot and her Pachi, for which i'm grateful. I have always prayed over Emma, and it was nice to be able to do it laying next to her hanging on to my side of the bed. And singing with her in the whisper voice is always something that we do before bed....it is a perfect way to end the day and i cherish hearing her little voice singing. I know that one day, she won't want me to sing her to sleep, so it's best that i sing as much as i can now.

Now if i could just stop her from growing up so fast...

From baby to little girl....

 

 

 

 

Black and White...

 

 

 

I rarely mess with black and white in photos. Not because i don't think that photos are amazing in black and white, but because i think that you need a strong photo to pull it off. I am in awe of photographers like Ansel Adams who have taken photos in black and white that literally take your breath away. His photography is amazing to look at and study...

These black and white photos of mine are not of that caliber. In fact, they are even close! But, i love them anyway.

And it doesn't hurt that the photos are of my favorite little tot.

A Happy Halloween....