Yellow Rose Cake

     I wanted to share some of the cakes I have made over the last few years.  I love baking!  I really enjoying spending time coming up with new ways to decorate cakes and cupcakes.  Here is one of the cakes I have made. 

     This is the cake I made for my Grandma's 75th Birthday.  Her favorite color is yellow so I decided to make a yellow rose cake with matching cupcakes.  I made both white and chocolate cake with butter cream frosting.

Photos were taken by K.M. Robinson Photography.  Katie is a very talented photographer as well as the best sister in the world.  

Muffins

          This past weekend I was craving muffins!  It just so happens I love making muffins.  I decided to make coffee cake muffins with cinnamon streusel and apple cinnamon with cinnamon streusel.  I made jumbo muffins because, let's face it, there is no better  way to make  a muffin.  This is my absolute favorite muffin recipe.  It's one that I can use as a base recipe for most kinds of muffins.

Here is the recipe for the apple cinnamon muffins:

Serving Size: 6 jumbo muffins or 12 regular size muffins

Cook Time: Approximately 20 minutes

Oven Temperature: 400 degrees

Ingredients for muffins:

·         1 1/2 cup flour

·         3/4 cup sugar

·         1/2 tsp salt

·         2 tsp baking powder

·         1/3 cup vegetable oil

·         1 egg

·         1/3 cup milk

·         1 cup apples

Ingredients for Cinnamon Streusel:

·         1/2 cup sugar

·         1/3 cup flour

·         1/4 cup butter

·         1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Grease muffin tin. 

2.  Combine 1 1/2 cup flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, and 2 tsp baking powder.  Mix ingredients together.

3.  Pt 1/3 cup oil into 1 cup measuring cup.  Add the egg into the measuring cup.  Then fill the cup up with milk. 

4.  Mix this in with the flour mixture.

 

5.  Cup apple in bite size chunks.  I coated the apple chunks with cinnamon just to add a little extra flavor. 

6.  I used an ice cream scoop to put the batter in the tin and then added the chunks of apple to the batter while in the tin.

Streusel Topping:

1.  Melt 1/4 cup of butter.

2.  Mix the melted butter with 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, and 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon.

3.  I then spooned the mixture on top of each muffin before baking.

Bake muffins at 400 degrees for approximately 20 minutes or until done.  Enjoy!

High Five For Friday

There are so many things going on.  Thankfully, it is Friday!  I'm linking up with Lauren from Lauren Elizabeth.  Here are the highlights of my week.

1.  It was so nice having Labor Day off.  Austin and I went to the park with Bella in the morning.  We also went to Liberty to walk around campus for awhile.

2.  Austin and I went to Starbucks for awhile on Tuesday.  

We enjoyed some time together and I applied to grad school.  Speaking of which...

3.  I got my official acceptance letter in the mail today.  I'm so excited for school!!

4.  Bella is adorable.  

Bella didn't want to get off the bed when I was trying to make it, so I made her into the bed.  She is way too cute.

5.  I found out my favorite bakery from back home is now making pig face cookies.  For those that know me well, I adore pigs; the cute, stuffed kind.  I actually used to collect cute, little stuffed pigs and figurines.  Anyway, I love that they make these now!

That's been my week.  Now I'm ready for a nice, relaxing weekend!

Changes

          I love this time of year.  It's a time of change.  I love the change in weather, the change in smells, the change in colors, the change in fashion.  I love it all.  This year, another change is taking place this fall.  I will be starting my masters degree.  I love school.  I am so excited to have the opportunity to go back and do some more studying.  I'm thankful for a chance to go back to such a great school.  I did my undergrad degree at Liberty University and I have the privilege of doing my masters degree there as well.

          I will be doing my course work online, which will definitely be different than going to class each day.  I am going to be continuing to work full time as a leasing consultant while doing my masters degree full time online.  It has taken me a long time to decide what to study.  

         I finally decided on a Master of Arts in Teaching in Secondary Education with an English Endorsement.  I can't wait for the opportunities I will have with this degree and I know I will love studying this. 

          It has definitely been a very busy time for Austin and me.  We have been adjusting into our jobs  and our new life here.  Our apartment is coming along very nicely.  We have slowly been acquiring furniture through numerous yard sales.  I am so happy with how our home is looking.  There are still a few pieces we are looking for, but we have really enjoyed hunting for everything and finding great deals.  I love watching our home develop little by little.

High Five For Friday

I'm so thankful and excited for today!  I really needed the weekend to get here!  It's been a pretty busy week for me.  I have a lot going on at work right now and I'm just thankful for a break.  I'm linking up with Lauren from Lauren Elizabeth.  Here are the highlights from my week:

1. My puppy.  I really don't need to say anymore than that.  She is perfect and adorable.

2.  Quiet time.  I have been having some great quiet times this week.  I'm studying Proverbs 31 and I am learning so much!

3. New desk.  Last weekend we bought a desk!  We really needed a desk for our office.  We weren't able to do much in there until we got a desk so this was a very exciting day.  This desk was in great shape and was only $30.  The desk isn't set in the spot we have it now.  I'm still in the process of setting it all up, but this is what it looks like put together.

4.  Sunsets.  I love the sunsets around here.

5.  The weekend.  My husband got scheduled for 9-6 today so we will be able to start our weekend tonight a little earlier than normal!  We are planning to have a fun date night.

Coffee Station

Coffee stations have become an obsession of mine.  Ever since the first time I saw one on Pinterest, I couldn't stop thinking about having one in my apartment.  In our old apartment there was no space for one so one of the first things I thought about as we were looking at apartments here in Lynchburg was, "Where will my coffee station go?".  Is this a dumb way to pick an apartment?  Probably.  Did I care?  Nope, not at all.


The apartment we ended up renting doesn't necessarily have the best space for a coffee station, but we made it work.  We have been looking and looking for what I was picturing for my coffee stand.  I had bought a beautiful off white shelf that I knew would look perfect over our coffee maker.  I just wasn't quite sure what we would find for a stand.  


As we were yard sale shopping a few weeks back, we stumbled upon an old microwave cart.  They were selling it for $8.  Austin and I decided we couldn't go wrong with that price.  Even though it wasn't exactly what I had in mind, for $8 this stand would be great for now.  And if we come along something better, I wouldn't feel bad replacing this cart.  But for now, we have  great coffee station that I am so happy with!  

This is the stand we found when we were at the yard sale.

As soon as I got the stand in to the apartment, I put a table cloth on.  I'm still looking for the right one, but this will o for now.  I also had the perfect basket to store all of our extra K-cups.

We had everything set up except my favorite shelf in this one.  It was a really heavy shelf so I had to wait for my husband to get home to hang that up.

Here is the finished product!  I really like how it turned out!  Its a great size for our apartment and I love how he shelf looks over the stand.

I am loving our new coffee station.  I'm so glad we waited until we found such a great deal on some great pieces!  I am definitely learning the benefits of being patient when it comes to developing our home.

Yard Sales

I love a good yard sale.  There are few things more fun and exciting that finding treasures in other peoples' "junk". 

Two weekends ago, my hubby and I had some great finds.  The day started at 6 AM for me.  After getting ready in record time, an hour, (which is sadly a record for me) Austin and I left to see what we could find.  
For the first 45 minutes we were pretty discouraged.  We didn't even get out of the car.  We continued to drive past yard sale after yard sale, knowing they didn't have what we wanted.  Our goal right now is to find some new furniture pieces; small things like a craft table for the office and a stand for the coffee station that I have been dreaming about for months.  

We finally came upon a yard sale that we thought maybe, just maybe, we would find something.  It was a great yard sale and it's a good thing we didn't stay long.  I'm sure I could have found too many great things there.  I was thrilled to find a microwave stand that I thought could work pretty well for our coffee station.  It's not in perfect shape, but for $8 we couldn't go wrong!  Then I found a cute hanging flower basket filled with pretty purple flowers.  It needs a little cleaning but for $2, it was a great find!

We moved on to the next yard sale.  This one was at a large church in our area and it was huge!  I wish we had had more time to spend there.  Unfortunately, Austin had to go in to work in just a little bit.  Our time there was short, but we found a cute stand for $5 that I can use to put some of my tea cup collection on display.  Our car was filled at this point anyway.  

Austin headed to work and I unloaded our new treasures.  I grabbed my keys and headed back out.  I found one more yard sale where I snagged a cute hanging shelf for the wall for only $2.  

One of my new goals is to paint some furniture.  I haven't ever done this before but I have a few pieces that could use some TLC.  My $2 hanging shelf might be my first project.


This past weekend my mom and sister were in town.  We were able to so some more treasure hunting while they were here.  We found some great lamps for $2 each.  My hubby even got me one for $1.  I also found some cute corner shelves.  They came in a set of three and I was able to snag them for $2!


Going to yard sales is such a great thing to do!  It's a fun way to add some new-to-you pieces to your home for a great price.