Pick Up Sticks

So I've been outside a lot lately, well more than a city girl usually is. I don't know if it's the time of the year, who doesn't love fall in the NorthEast?! It's beautiful! All the leaves are changing color. It's nice and crisp in the morning. Everything is Pumpkin flavored. And you have my two favorite holidays almost a week within each other, Halloween and my birthday!! Wooo!

So the Halloween festivities have ready begun and I went as Wonder Woman :)

I had a great time!! Best Halloween Party evvvver! But after the party is over, reality sets back in and I find myself back home, waist deep in leaves that have fallen from the trees. So I have come up with a few tips to clean them up...... 

1. Clean the leaves out of your gutters with a leaf blower, it will save you a ton of time. Please don't fall off the roof!

2. You can also pick up the leaves in the yard with your lawnmower.... Mind blown! 

3. Before you pick up the leaves with the mower, collect all the sticks. You can use them to make other things. Like this pin board :)

I made it for the boys room and it looks great with their teepee. 

I found this old pin board in the basement and didn't want to throw it away. So I took all the sticks and my hot glue gun and went crazy!

It takes a little while but just keep glueing. 

You could also do matching picture frames :)

Tonight is trick-or-treat and I am suuuuper excited!!! Yay! Logan has a parade at his school and I asked him if I should dress up....

Logan- yea! Be a witch! 

Me- a witch!? Ok. Should I get a black hat?!

Logan- yea! And paint your face green!

Oh gosh! Why couldn't he ask me to be the good witch?! Why do I have to be the bad witch??! It's gonna be a loooong day  ;)

XoXOXxo 

Stephanie 

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Kitchen Sink Cookies

Logan had his birthday, over a month ago, actually. And when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday he said cookies. So that's what he got. And I made the best ones evvvvver!!! 

Kitchen Sink Cookies, I call them that because you can put in whatever ingredients that you want. 

This is the basic recipe and then you can add or subtract anything. 

Kitchen Sink Cookies

Yields: 3 dozen large cookies

3 cups flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 Tbsp baking soda

1 Tbsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

3 sticks butter, room temp

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

3 eggs

1 Tbsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

2 cups sweetened flaked coconut

2 cups chopped pecans (8 oz.)

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a bowl.
• In an 8-quart bowl, beat butter on medium speed, until smooth and creamy, about 1 minute.  
• Gradually beat in sugars and continue beating after each.  
• Beat in eggs and vanilla.  
• Stir in flour mixture until just combined. 
•  Add chocolate chips, oats, coconut and pecans- put the coconut and pecans in a food processor and chop them up into finely. 
• Take a ice cream scoop and scoop out the dough. Pat tops of cookiedough down. 
• Bake for 16-18 minutes. 
• Cool on cookie sheet till cool. 

If I don't have enough chocolate chips or something, I'll add a hand full of pretzels or potatoe chips. You can even put in different nuts or dried fruit. 

These cookies are so crazy that my mixer wasn't big enough for them. So please use the biggest mixing bowl you have!

This was before I added the oats!! 

 You can also put them in the freezer and bake them whenever you want!

These are my favorite cookies, for sure. I hope they will be your favorite too :)

XoXOXxo 

Stephanie

Botte Wedding

This past weekend was my last wedding of the year and it might be the sweetest one I've been to. The wedding was on a organic farm outside of Baltimore. It was simple and intimint. I have know the groom since I was 16, we actually drove across country in my Volkswagen beetle in 2003 to see the band Phish. Memories I will never forget.

So when they invited me to their wedding I was very excited to be included in their special day and make more memories. 

They are the sweetest most adorable couple and they just had a even more adorable baby. 

I swear, Brynn looks like an angle. This is my favorite picture from the wedding, by far :)

The rest of the night consisted of catching up with friends I haven't seen in a long time, some I haven't seen for 10 years, crazy. I even made new friends and what's better than that?!? Oh yea, another open bar, perfect! Hahaha. I'm not gonna lie, this wedding was a little better because we were 'allowed' to drink during the ceremony, amazing. I also took my best friend, Andrea, as my date :)

We were totally nuts and I loved it! Best weekend ever. Thanks again Brynn and Michael, I hope you have many happy years together full of happiness, love and lots of music festivals ;)

But for real, I love you guys so much and I'm so glad you found each other in this big crazy world. 

XoXOXxo 

Stephanie