We Have a Nine-Year-Old

I am feeling sentimental. Who can blame me really?

My very first born; the Little Man that made me a Momma; the sweet, cautious, and serious little spirit that has paved the way for the others, he turned nine.

It is beyond cliche and cheesy to say, "Where has the time gone?" or "Time flies."

I find myself unable to express it any other way. The cliche is truth. I really do wonder where the time has gone. There is truth in the saying that days go by slow and years go by fast.

I can't believe that it was nine years ago that I was a fresh 24 year-old Momma (I also can't believe that I am on the doorstep of 33 years-old).

I was cuddling and sniffing my very own newborn baby. A baby that Hubby and I had patiently waited for through heartbreak and trial. Our forever family began with him.

This sweet Little Man.

As my oldest, he will always hold a special place in my heart. He started this whole circus. He is very happily the ring leader and conductor of mischief. He influences and molds. He is our test monkey. He patiently allows us our parent foibles (most of the time). For the most part, he is the first everything. Our first experiences of parenthood are through him.

We learned as much from him as he has from us.

I am so thankful he is our first. I am thankful that he was sent to lead the way for our other boys. I am grateful that he is a good kid, genuinely and deep down to his core. I am grateful his brothers have him to learn the serious to the silly.

Being an oldest myself, I know what it is to be an oldest.

Heavenly Father knew this Little Man was wired to be an oldest. Our Oldest.

Oldest,

We are thankful everyday you joined our family. We are thankful you want to be good so badly. We are thankful for your laughter, your strong-will, your sensitivity, and your influence in our home. We love you and want only the very best things for you. We hope you always feel loved, supported and encouraged.

Remember who you are!

Love,

Mom and Dad

Come by tomorrow for a special Birthday Giveaway

in celebration of this old lady turning twenty-thirteen (aka 33).

Have a great Monday!

Slow Cooker Saturday: Brown Sugar and Garlic Chicken

Slow Cooker Saturday is here. We are gonna make it short and sweet today.

My witty banter and wise insights...okay pretty much just the banter...is going to be in short supply today. I am sure you are super disappointed. Hahaha.

Today we have Oldest's non-party-birthday-celebration which has turned into a little more of a party than first anticipated. I have no idea who's fault that is...

Hubby is pointing at me.

Yup, my fault.

My brain is fuzzy and full of check lists.

Since my head is unable to put together a coherent thought, I am going to tell you...

...this meal is yummy.
...this meal is easy
...this meal is a hit with kiddos

So before I fall asleep and my face gets a keyboard impression in it, I will share this week's slow cooker recipe with you.

ENJOY!

Brown Sugar and Garlic Chicken
adapted from Six Sisters' Stuff 

2-3 large chicken breasts
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 white vinegar
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup diet lemon lime soda
2 heaping Tablespoons minced garlic
2 Tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
1 teaspoon ground pepper
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
2 Tablespoons water
white rice
1 Tablespoon sesame seeds

Spray your slow cooker with cooking spray. Place chicken inside the slow cooker. Mix the brown sugar, vinegars, soda, garlic, soy sauce, and pepper together. 

Pour the mixture over the chicken. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. 

Take pieces out and gently shred into larger pieces. Set aide.

Pour the sauce into the saucepan. Place the pan over high heat. Mix the cornstarch and water together. Whisk into the sauce pan.

Let the sauce come to a boil and let it boil for 2-3 minute, or until it starts to thicken. Remove from heat and let it sit for a couple more minutes to thicken even more.

Pour the reserved sauce over the chicken and toss to coat. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and stir again.

Serve over rice.

Enjoy friends! Thanks for letting me keep it brief today, have a great weekend! 
              

Homemade Heart-Shaped Samoa Cookies

Happy Valentine's Day!

We have already had some celebrations all up in here.

Brownies. Flowers (Did you get that they are named Hot Princess? I think he did that on purpose!). Care packages from Nana and Grandpa. An early valentine from Oldest to me. Yes, it actually says I like when you say yes. I can see he was trying to butter me up, I wonder what he wants. Hahaha. His birthday is in a couple of days. I am sure I will find out soon.

As long as it is Homemade Heart-shaped Samoa Cookies, I can deliver.

Samoas are by far my very favorite cookie. Yup, not just my favorite Girl Scout cookie flavor, my favorite cookie. Ever. Period. End of Story.

End of really yummy story.

Years ago I came across a recipe for homemade Samoas. What?!?

You mean I can have them whenever I want them? Not just when those adorable little elves are barricaded in front of the grocery store with their card table stacked high with cookies.

 Yeah, that sounds delightful.

Weird thing is...

I sort of filed the recipe away and forgot about it. Shocking I know.

I recently pulled it out. I will now never, ever put it away again.

I made them for the teachers at the boys' school. They were quite the hit. A diet was even supposedly put on hold just to have some.

The cookies are a tiny bit of work, but don't let that scare you off. They are totally and completely worth it. 

Have a warm and fuzzy Valentine's Day with those who love you the mostest!

Homemade Samoa Cookies
Baking Bites

Printable Recipe

Cookies:
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3 Tablespoons milk

Topping:
3 cups sweetened coconut
12 oz caramels
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons milk
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar. Mix in flour, baking powder, and salt on low speed. Then mix in the vanilla and milk. Start with 2 Tablespoons milk. The dough should just come together and not be too sticky. You may need to add the other Tablespoon.

Slightly flour a work surface. Roll the dough out to about 1/4" thickness. Use a small circle (or heart) cookie cutter, about 1 1/2" in size. Place on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes until bottoms are slightly golden. Cool slightly on pan and then transfer to a wire rack.

To make the topping, first lay the coconut out on a cooking sheet and toast in a 300 degree oven for about 10 minutes, tossing every 2 minutes. Set aside to col.

Then combine the caramels (unwrapped), milk and salt in a microwave-safe bowl. Cook for 3-4 minutes, stopping every 30-60 seconds to stir. When the caramel is smooth, stir in the toasted coconut.

Using a small butter knife or offset spatula, spread 1-2 teaspoons amount of caramel mixture onto the top of each cooled cookie. Set aside.

Melt the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl in 30 second intervals, stirring each time, until smooth. Dip the base of each cookie into the chocolate and then set on a piece of parchment paper to cool. Place the leftover chocolate in a small baggie, hold closed and cut off the tip to make a piping bag. Drizzle chocolate over the tops of each cookie.

Let set up. You can speed up this process by putting them in the freezer.

Store in an air-tight container in the fridge or freezer...that is if you have any left!

A Pinteresting Wednesday: Brownie Point Teacher Valentine

I had so, SO much fun making these valentine's for the boys' teachers.
 
I pinned an idea for using a brownie box mix and a "Shooting for Brownie Points" tag from Lauren McKinsey Designs onto my Valentine pinboard.

I really like her tags and the idea was insanely cute.

While I loved her idea, I really wanted to make brownies and I wanted to package them differently.

I designed a label in PicMonkey, my online photo editing best friend. They have some fantastic Valentine's overlays, like that arrow. SO cute!

I had these white lunch bags and I remembered reading somewhere (probably on pinterest) that you could print on lunch bags.

So through some trial and error I figured out how to print my newly made Valentine label onto a white lunch bag.

I kind of love it a lot. I will probably be doing this super neato trick again.

In order to make it more of a treat bag instead of a lunch bag, I cut off the bottom and then stitched it closed with a decorative zig zag stitch.

Then came the brownies....

Oh the delightful brownies.

This is my new favorite recipe and if you keep reading, you just might find the recipe at the end.

The brownies are dense and truffle-like.  They are rich. They are glorious.

I tripled the recipe and decided cutting out heart-shaped brownies would be perfect.

Look at all those delicious and cute brownies.

I packed them up first in cellophane bags and some washi tape.

Then I slipped them in the paper treat bags. I folded over the top and, again, used washi tape.

Now they are all ready for Thursday. Hopefully they will earn my Little Men plenty of brownie points.

Did you use Pinterest this Valentine's day? As always, Pinterest is full of ideas. I would love for you to follow along and join me in my Pinterest adventures!

And now, I think I promised you a brownie recipe!

Truffle Brownies

Printable Recipe

1 2/3 cups 63% dark chocolate chips
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter
3 Tablespoons water
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1/4 cup flour

Preheat oven to 325. Line an 8x8 pan with foil, with enough excess to allow you to pull the brownies out by the foil when they are done.

Heat chocolate, butter and water in a microwave-safe bowl for one minute. Stir well. Continue to melt at 30 second intervals, stirring each time until melted and almost completely smooth.

Stir in the sugar and vanilla. Next beat in the eggs one at a time. The batter will be smooth and glossy. Next stir in the flour until just combined.

Spread the batter into the foil-lined pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes until a slight crust forms on the top.The center when tested should still be slightly moist. Place the pan on a cooling rack and allow to cool for about an hour and then either refrigerate for 2-3 hours or freeze for an hour.

When they are set, remove from the pan by lifting out the foil. Then cut the brownies. If they are still too tacky to cut, put them back in the freezer for another 30 minutes.

Enjoy with a glass of cold milk.

Hugs and Kisses Valentine Day T-Shirt

Only two more day until Valentine's Day.

After a lot of patience, my Little finally has his own Valentine shirt. He saw me make Oldest's Love In NYC shirt and Middle's Heartstopper shirt.

Every day he asked me, "Is my shirt done?" "Are you making my shirt now?"

Today he got his shirt. Yippee! Doesn't he look excited?

 I knew I wanted something simple. I had more flocked t-shirt vinyl from Expressions Vinyl. I loved working with it so much on the Heartstopper tee, I started brainstorming how I could use it again.

I came up with this Hugs and Kisses design.

I very simply just typed "XO" five times in one row. I made five rows. I then made sure the image was the width and height I wanted. Mine measured 9" tall and about 7 1/2" wide.

Since this is for a t-shirt vinyl, before you can cut the image out you need to flip the image horizontally.

Then the image gets cut out of the vinyl with the Silhouette. I cut away one set of "XOXO" from the bottom corner.

So when I peeled away the excess this is what the main image looks like.

Then I took the cut away piece and peeled out the letters, creating a stencil.

After ironing the main image on according to the instructions, I put the "stencil" part down and ironed it very, very briefly. Basically iron it only long enough to get it stay in place but not to be permanent.

Just using it for a stencil.

I wanted a little Valentine's red pop.

So I painted the stencil "XOXO" red. Tap, tap, tap-a-roo. Tap that paint in place.

Now here is a "get real" moment.

After the paint was on, I went to pull up the stencil and I had a little mishap. I was just a tad impatient and didn't wait for the paint to dry. Some of the red paint got on the white shirt.

FOR THE LOVE!

Oooh I was so mad. So, so mad.

Thank heavens for teeny tiny brushes, a somewhat steady hand, and white fabric paint.

It is not perfect, but it hides my little faux paux.

With my oops practically invisible, Little's Hugs and Kisses shirt is all ready for Thursday.

 So super duper cute.

The t-shirt is kind of cute too!

Man I could just hug and kiss that Little guy all day.

A perfect tee for my huggable kissable Little Man. I am not sure I can convince him to wait until Thursday to wear it.

Thanks for reading.