Natural Elements & Easter

Here in Pittsburgh everyone has been crossing their fingers hoping for just a peek of spring weather. We've had the craziest winter--cold, rain, 50 degrees, 12 in. snow... just the most inconsistent winter season you could imagine. I woke up yesterday and had to clean off an entire foot of snow off my car! Now it's all melted and about 40 degrees, and this weekend is supposed to be almost 60. I've hated this winter more than any other. Spring is what's on my mind. It always feels like a fresh start--new clothes, being outside, better attitude. With spring comes one of my favorite holidays, Easter. Christmas Eve church service will always be my favorite, but I love Easter Sunday. Everyone comes to church in their pastel colors, beautiful spring flowers are on the altar, and you leave feeling happy, blessed, and thankful. With Easter comes another chance to decorate! You know I love decorating for the holidays, and Easter time is a great way to tie in natural elements to your decorations. Here are some ideas I'm excited to recreate. Click the images for more information.

All images from Terrain.

Merry Christmas.

We hope you have the Merriest Christmas with the ones you love!

XOXO,

Katie & Chloe

DIY Crayons

I always like to make a couple handmade gifts during the holidays, and this one is one of the easiest. After some of my work events, I was left with tons of broken crayons. Why throw them away when I could make recycled rainbow crayons? My mom did this with me when I was little, and it's the first time I've made them since. I made up two bags and bought some coloring books--one goes to my cousin Avery, and the other to my boyfriend's two nephews. Here's what to do:

1. Get your crayons together--I soak them in some cold water first, this makes taking off the wrapper much easier. You can cut them into whatever size pieces you'd like.

2. Line a muffin pan with foil. Make sure there are NO holes--the crayons melt all over your trays and that is no fun to clean up, trust me. You can also use a cupcake liner. I did both--but even when I used the cupcake liner, I put a small piece of foil in the pan first.

3. Fill each space with crayons. If you're doing rainbow, make sure to mix the crayons up well--the darker crayons tend to overpower.

4. Bake in the oven for 6-8 minutes or until completely melted. Let cool and remove from tray.

Giving Thanks II

I had the most perfect Thanksgiving. I was off work Wednesday-Sunday which was AH-MAZ ing. My mom and I cooked a lot of the day Wednesday and Thursday morning. We eat at my house in the afternoon, then my sister and I head up to Kittanning to enjoy a second dinner with my dad's family.

We were crazy this year and went out at ten PM to go shopping! My mom, her friend Jackie, my sister and I all went out and made it all the way until 7:30 a.m. We had a little moment when we went to Denny's around 5 a.m.--falling asleep at the table, they were out of eggs, the place was dirty, cooks were fighting--basically a big disaster. We stopped at JCP afterwards and decided to call it a day, or night whatever. I slept great until about 3 o'clock, then WENT SHOPPING AGAIN! How that even happened I don't know. Good news is that I'm pretty much done with Christmas shopping. I counted up my receipts yesterday--sjflksdjflkdsf is all I can say about that. It's kind of sad how much we spend on this holiday when it has nothing to do with the real meaning of CHRISTmas. I do love getting gifts though--and for those people who say they love giving WAY more than receiving, you're full of it. I love receiving gifts too. I appreciate how creative people can get with their gifts--creative and personal mean the most!

Anyway, here's some of the deliciousness we had on our table. I made the pumpkin pie, brussel sprouts, and pumpkin dip--oh and the crescent rolls. My mama can take credit for everything else.

The pumpkin dip was super easy--here's the recipe:

1-8 oz cream cheese

1 container cool whip

1 box vanilla pudding mix (just use the powder)

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice

2 cups powdered sugar

1 can pumpkin

Beat the cream cheese with the powdered sugar, add the pudding powder, spices and pumpkin pie mix. Fold in the cool whip. Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving. Serve with graham crackers!

Giving Thanks.

I always love helping my mom get ready for Thanksgiving. I've been making a new dish every year to go along with our traditional dishes. Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays--yes, there's preparation when it comes to food, but really the rest of the day is about hanging out with family, relaxing and watching football. No gifts, not much traveling, just the chance to enjoy good food and your company.

Thanks to Pinterest, I've been spending hours looking at table scapes, side dishes, and other decorations. Here are some of the things I'm loving:

A Pittsburgh Christmas

I have the wonderful pleasure of working in downtown Pittsburgh 

(which of course comes with the not-so-wonderful rush hour traffic). 

But none the less, it is still pretty neat seeing all the sites in town every day. 

I’ve been downtown in the past for Pittsburgh’s Light-Up Night, 

but never really took in all the beautiful holiday decorations until now. 

During a few lunch breaks I took a stroll around the city and 

snapped some great images of all the holiday decorations. 

Here are my favorites:

The Allegheny County Courthouse aka my work: courtyard Christmas tree, beautiful gallery, holiday choral proagam, and the door to my office!

The beautiful manger set outside the US Steel tower--& it plays music!

Oxford Center.

PPG Place & Market Square--thats me with my cousin, Richie at the ice skating rink!

The City County Building, US Post Office on 4th, a window at Macy's, the Frick Building and BNY Mellon.

One of my favorites in the city, the William Penn Hotel: amazing lobby, gingerbread replica of the hotel, and an outisde banister. This hotel is gorgeous all year-round!

Click on pictures for a larger view.

Wish List

I didn't really want much this year--in fact I'm not really sure if I even told anyone about the things on this list. I guess I'll just cross my fingers & hope someone read my mind!

1. Hunter Green Hunter Wellies

2. Fire & Rain:  The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel,

James Taylor, CSNY and the Lost Story of 1970

3. Halston Heritage Sleeveless Faux Fur Gilet--

Really any faux fur vest that looks like this.

4. The Band’s The Last Waltz record

5. Forever 21 rings

6. Hue tights—these are the best tights I’ve found for a decent price. 

I wear tights 3/5 days of the work week during the winter months, and these are a great quality.

7. Hobnail Pitcher in blue from Anthropologie – 

this will match the dinner sets I just bought!

Hope you get what you're wishing for this holiday season!

Cookie Post #1

I found this recipe while on Pinterest (of course--I think everyone and their mother is addicted to this site) and it looked SO easy I just had to try it. I've been wanting to bake some cookies to take into work for the holidays, so I was glad when I stumbled upon this recipe. When I say SO easy, that might be an understatement. This was a four ingredient recipe--yes, baking delicious cookies that only require you to buy four things.

Here's the recipe.

1 box lemon cake mix (I used Duncan Hines)

1 8oz containter of Cool Whip

1 egg

1/3 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat Cool Whip, egg and cake mix in a bowl. It's important to note that you mix just the powdered cake mix, not the additional ingredients listed on the box. The batter will be very thick and sticky--I stuck mine in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Roll into balls and coat with the powdered sugar. I found it easier to spoon some of the batter into the bowl of powdered sugar, make sure it was coated and then I rolled it into a ball. It was less messier this way and the batter seemed to roll nicer.

Place them on a well-greased cookie sheet. I would even space them a bit further apart than I did--they expand quite a bit so some didn't have enough room. Bake for 10-12 minutes and let cool before removing them from the cookie sheet.

Here they are! They turned out perfect. Very moist and fluffy--I will definitely be making these again. 

P.S. See the red cookie in the picture? 

Those are Red Velvet Cheescake cookies--post coming soon!