Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't snow tomorrow. The weather forecasters went from saying that we would have little accumulation and now, they are talking about possible blizzard conditions. I'm not looking forward to trying to drive in the snow. It's something that seriously makes me nervous!

Today I have another video for you. After making this video, I realized a couple of things:

1. I need to learn to edit videos.
2. I talk extremely fast.
3. Talking to a camera (instead of a person) is much more difficult than I thought.


The recipe for the cookies can be found here. It's a tradition for me to make these cookies at least once a year. They are so good!


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Question of the Day:
Is there any chance of snow in your weekend forecast?

Have a fantastic weekend!

Until next time!
~Anne Marie

Thankful Thursday

I think I say this every Thursday, but I really like these thankful Thursday posts. I'm not kidding when I tell you that every day, I look for little things to be thankful for. I knew that I found the idea for this post last Sunday, and I couldn't wait to share it with you today.


Today, I'm thankful for unexpected messages. On Sunday morning, as I was making breakfast, I noticed that the paper towel roll was empty. I picked up a new roll, loaded it on the dispenser, and was greeted with this message.

Cute, isn't it?

Now, this may not seem like a big deal to you, but it was a huge deal to me. You see, I am a mommy's girl. From the moment I was born, I was inseparable from my mom. I even had a difficult time going to school because I wanted to be home hanging out with her. I eventually grew out of that phase (even if it wasn't until sixth grade), and our relationship turned from one of mom/daughter to best friends. When I say that my mom is one of my best friends, I honestly mean it.

The husband and I never lived together before we got married, and I had never lived on my own. My first night in our house, I cried. Even though I'm only forty minutes away from home, I felt like it was hours. After many discussions with my mom, she told me that it took her almost a year before she felt like she adjusted to life with my dad.

I couldn't even imagine an entire year of up and down emotions, but here I am, a little more than a year later, and I am adjusted. I finally feel like my home is truly my "home sweet home" and I love being there. I'm just lucky that I had a very supportive husband who loved me through all of the emotional craziness.

Seeing that little message on the paper towel really made me smile. I'm thankful for it for sure!

Speaking of unexpected messages....

On my birthday, my brother and sister-in-law gave me a card from my nine month old nephew. They held the pen in his hand and signed his name. I'll be keeping this card forever. I cherish the little writing, even though my brother was holding his hand to do it. I love my nephew, and am so smitten with the little guy!

I don't think I'll be taking down this card any time soon!

On a side note, I'm taking off from work the week between Christmas and New Year's. I'm not sure how my blogging will be, but I'm hoping it's not too sporadic. If anyone is interested in doing a guest post, please feel free to e-mail me at abinns3142@aol.com.

Question of the Day:

What are you thankful for today?

Until next time!

~Anne Marie

The Wonderful Clock

On Sunday, the husband and I had a Christmas party to attend. I volunteered to bring a dessert. I've been wanting to try this recipe for Mini Brownie Candy Bars, and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do so.

I was a little leery because it doesn't remind me of a brownie or a candy bar, but more like a blondie.


Before going into the oven.


All cut up and ready to go.


I got a lot out of that little pan!

I thought that they could have tasted better, but the people at the party gobbled them up like they were going out of style. My guess is that it's because I prefer chocolate over vanilla. I think I would make them again, but I'd have to be in the mood for them. They certainly were easy enough!

At the Christmas party, everyone was asked to bring a gag gift. We all drew numbers and picked out our presents. My husband was so excited when he opened the gift and came across this clock.



The happy husband with the lovely clock.

We were told that the clock didn't work, but the husband was determined to prove the former owners wrong. As soon as we got home, he found some batteries, and lo and behold, we now have a working clock! You should have seen the look on his face when he realized it worked. He was more excited than a kid at Christmas!

Needless to say, we still haven't hung up the clock for fear that the once an hour chime will keep us up all night. Some day, though, it'll grace our walls with its presence. haha.

Question of the Day:
Chocolate or vanilla? Which do you prefer?

I love chocolate, and I always opt for it over vanilla.

Until next time!
~Anne Marie

Birthday Party Madness

Today I woke up ready to start the day. I drove down to my mom's house in the morning only to find out that the train was almost an hour late. Oh joy and rapture! Oh well, at least it's Tuesday!

Let me take you back to my Saturday night.  The husband and I invited my immediate family over to our house for dinner. The husband did a fantastic job of setting up the house and making dinner. While my mom and I were out doing some Christmas shopping, he was home getting things ready.

Table one

Table two

We are lucky to have two tables at our disposal. Whenever we have family over, we have to break out both of them to make sure we have enough room for everyone!

By the time my mom and I came home to my house, the husband had already made three trays of baked ziti.

It tasted as good as it looks!

I cut up the bread.

I love having bread at dinner. It's so, so good!

After cutting the bread, it was time for my mom and I to take a picture in front of our Christmas tree.


Even though she probably doesn't want to be on the blog, I think this is a great picture of her, and I'm so proud that she's my mom :)

After some picture taking, my mom went off to the kitchen to decorate the cake. She wanted to make my birthday cake, which I thought was super sweet. She made the diet coke cake recipe and topped it with fat free cool whip and strawberries. It tasted amazing!


Mom working on the cake

A shot of the strawberries.


The finished product!

Before we knew it, it was time to sing happy birthday.

The husband putting twenty seven candles on the cake.

He kept joking that he was going to burn his hand with all of the candles. I kept reminding him that he is the older one!

I can't even believe that I am going to post this picture, but I think it's hilarious. My brothers were making some sort of comment about me blowing out all of the candles on the cake in one breath. Clearly, I thought I was strong enough to do so.

Yeah...this is me....

Last, but certainly not least, we decided it was picture taking time with my awesome nephew.

My brothers, me and the little guy.

A shot with me, the little guy and the husband. My brother tells me that my nephew needs a cousin to play with. Someday, maybe!

It was such a treat to have my family over to my house on Saturday. I love when we all get together and spend quality time together.

Question of the Day:

What is something that you love?

Until next time!

~Anne Marie

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Hello everyone!


Since the weekend was jam packed with events, the husband and I took the day off from work. I will post a recap of the weekend in tomorrow's post, but for now, I wanted to share with you a recipe for tuna noodle casserole.



A few months ago, while I was cooking out my freezer/cabinets, I came across a box of Tuna Noodle Helper that needed to be used. You can read all about it here. While it wasn't necessarily terrible, it wasn't anything stellar either. I don't know whether it was because I never really grew up eating the stuff or because I don't particularly like tuna noodle casserole, but I wanted to give it one more shot. This time, however, I decided to go the homemade route.

I found the recipe online here. Since I wanted it to feed the husband and I for three days, I doubled the recipe. It's quick, easy and cost effective! In fact, I had most of the ingredients on hand, so it only cost me $3.34 to make the entire meal.

The recipe called for 10 ounces of pasta. I wondered what that looked like, so I weighed it.

It's much more pasta than I thought!

The only thing I would change about this recipe is that there are a ton of breadcrumbs on top. I only used about 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs, and even that amount was pushing it!

See what I mean?

Since there's not much to look at, I took a picture of it when I was ready to eat. Please excuse the ketchup and hot sauce. I'm an addict of both.

Not the best picture, but at least you can see the noodles and peas!

All in all, I thought it was a great meal for the price. It was much better than the Tuna Helper that I tried a few months ago, and obviously healthier too!

Question of the Day:
What's your favorite kind of casserole?

I always bake my ziti in a casserole dish, so does that count? haha

Until next time!
~Anne Marie

Cauliflower Rice

Yep, you read that right. Last week, I was reading Healthy San Diego Living's blog (which you should check out-it's amazing!) and came across this recipe idea for turning cauliflower into rice. From the moment I read it, I knew I wanted to give it a try. I thought it would be such a cool idea to make a faux rice out of something so healthy.

I wanted to challenge myself to make this work for one reason and one reason only: the husband despises cauliflower. He'll eat almost anything, but if there's cauliflower on his plate, he avoids it like the plague. For the first year of our relationship, whenever I would make him dinner, he would gag down the cauliflower because he felt bad. I used to by the Steam Fresh mixed vegetables and never caught onto why it took him forever to finish his vegetables!

I took this big guy and paired him up with my cheese grater.



After making a mess, I ended up with this.



Doesn't it look very similar to rice?

I added some chili powder, garlic powder and soy sauce, and it turned out like this:


Little darker in color, but still looking good!

I served this along with a wrap. I told the husband that it was rice, but he knew that I was going to use cauliflower somewhere in the meal. I didn't say anything to him as he tasted it. He looked at me and said "you mixed cauliflower in the rice, didn't you?" When I told him it was only cauliflower, he was surprised. He was definitely fooled! He ended up finishing his entire serving of the faux rice, and told me that he would eat cauliflower in rice form any day.

As for me, I thought it tasted like doctored up cauliflower. I loved it and will definitely be making it again. Next time, I'm thinking of adding some onion and other veggies to give the appearance of fried rice.

This is one of the main reasons why I love blogging/reading other people's blogs. There's so many creative people out there!

Question of the Day:

Any fun weekend plans?

I hope you all have a fabulous day!

Until next time!
~Anne Marie

Thankful Thursday

Here we are again at another Thankful Thursday! I can't tell you enough how much I've been enjoying these posts. It's a lot of fun going through my days looking at all the things I have to be thankful for. You should try it some time....it's pretty addictive!

Today I am thankful for the first snowfall of the season. When it comes to snow, I'm normally not a big fan. Yes, it makes everything look beautiful, but I'm terrified of driving in the snow. I've tried driving in it a few times, but the minute the car starts slipping, I freak out.

On the other hand, I'm thankful for the first snowfall of the season this week because it was simple and pretty. Even though it was coming down in droves, the ground wasn't cold enough for it to stick to the streets. What we ended up with was just a hint of snow around us. It almost had a magical feel to it.


I tried to take a picture of it snowing, but as you can see, it didn't turn out that well.


This one's a little bit better. See? Not much snow at all.

How do you feel about the snow? Love it? Hate it? Indifferent?

On a different note....

I'm super excited for this weekend, even though it'll be busy. Tonight I'm going food shopping, tomorrow is dinner with the hubby and in-laws, Saturday my family is coming over to my house for my birthday and Sunday (my actual birthday), the husband and I are going to another Christmas party at night. Thankfully we have Monday off from work. Sometimes you just need a weekend from your weekend!

Question of the Day:
What are you thankful for today?

Until next time!
~Anne Marie