Bridal Shower Towel Cake

I made these for my Sister in Laws Bridal Shower but you could use them for house warmings, wedding gifts, bridal showers, bachelorette's, first apartments, high school grads moving out ect.

Its pretty simple
You need:
6 Dish towels
5 Kitchen Wash cloths
Utensils
Ribbon and any other decor you want (for decoration)
Safety Pins

Take your 6 dish towels fold them long way into fourths, then attach them with safety pins end to end. Then roll them fairly tightly and pin the roll together.
Do the same to the Wash Cloths but folded into thirds.
Now for the Utensils you want to have a spoon, whisk or something that will go through the centers of both the wash cloths and the towels to attach them together. Then decorate!

You can also do this with Bathroom stuff, and of course diapers, receiving blankets ect for a new baby!!

7 Layer Cookies.... ummmm yes please!

So for my Sister in Laws bridal shower we were asked to share a recipe so I asked my husband what I should  share... he suggested either my twice baked potatoes ( you have not had twice baked until you have had these) or my dads 7 layer cookies. Well since she already has the twice baked cookie recipe, I went with the cookies and decided to share the recipe here. I promise you they are heaven on earth, I have never gone anywhere with these and not been asked for the recipe by every person who has one!!

What you need
1 stick of melted butter
2 - 2 1/2 cups Graham cracker crumbs
1 bag of semi sweet chocolate chips
1 bag of butter scotch chips
1 bag of  shaved (flaked) coconut
1 package of sliced almonds
1 can of condensed milk

• Preheat oven to 350
• You want to take a 13 x 9 inch baking dish (I prefer glass), spray it with non stick spray.
• Add the stick of butter and then the graham cracker crumbs. I usually add the crumbs slowly (1/2 cup at a time and spread and press in the dish) you want to cover the entire bottom of the dish and still have them be hard pressed together with the butter, that is why I don't use measurements, it will come out to about 2 to 2 1/2 cups. 
• Add the entire bag of chocolate chips level out evenly
• Add the entire bag of butter scotch chips level out
• Add the entire bag of coconut
• Add the entire bag of almonds
• Pierce two holes in the condensed milk (one on each side of the top) then drizzle out of one of the holes the milk all over the almonds
• Cover with foil and bake at 350 for about 25 minutes

***The picture is a generic I found online because I didn't make them today but had to share the recipe, yours will be much thicker!!! I promise you will thank me!

Our Newest Man!! Yep No Pink here... EVER :)

Ok so its been a while since I have posted mainly its because I have been busy....

Yep.. Real Busy :) That is our newest Younghans.. Tyler he was born on May 2nd... and to say it was a complicated pregnancy is an understatement! We lost our Dylan in August (when I was 20 weeks pregnant) to potters syndrome. It was a very hard and tough loss, but even before I could blink I was pregnant again. We found out October 2nd... SHOCK! I was soo excited but extremely high risk. I was under a major microscope and at both maternal fetal medical offices and normal obgyns on almost a weekly basis. Then in March we moved to New York... BTW NEVER MOVE DURING A HIGH RISK PREGNANCY!! Because of my risk level (did I mention I had a complete Placenta Previa as well) no doctor would take me and I ended up going to the hospital weekly for appointments. Well after 2 one week stays in the hospital and multiple times on Magnesium Sulfate (which makes you feel like you are on fire) I had an emergency c-section on May 2nd and our little man came!  My c-section was traumatic to say the least, the spinal did not work so they put me on Ketamine which made me hallucinate, (my poor husband) I could not tell reality from my dreams, thought I was dying (and pretty ok with it in my little world), though my husband was a cartoon, baby was a teddy bear, forgot I was pregnant, had no clue where I was, thought I was in a comic book and my hubby had four eyes... fun stuff! My poor husband was completely freaking out, they brought him in for the section and I was completely whacked out of my head, then our little man came and he was whisked away before my husband could even see him. Then poor Will was rushed out of the room because I was loosing blood and needed a transfusion.... Our little Tyler was one tough cookie, he had Respiratory Distress Syndrome, was on BiPap, C-Pap, had a shunt in his lung, a blood transfusion, Jaundice and 6 weeks premature and still made it home after only 2 weeks. He was healed before I was ... after two natural births I can honestly say C-Sections SUCK I ended up needing a blood patch because of the botched spinal and was in a fair amount of pain for about 5 weeks. But our littlest man is here now and perfect and was worth every crazy minute of my pregnancy!  The big boys are amazing big brothers, very helpful and love him soo much (occasionally too much).. I forgot how wonderful babies are and if it weren't for the risk of another extremely high risk pregnancy I would have 4 more :)....

Meet Bob.. Our iRobot 770 by Roomba

Meet Bob! Our iRobot 770

Meet Jewel (the reason we needed Bob)

We purchased our iRobot 770 by Roomba three weeks ago so now it is time for my review! I LOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEE Bob (that is our iRobots name) he is absolutely amazing!

Some of his best features are: 

1. The ability to schedule a cleaning time, it could be daily, weekly, every other day, what ever you choose!
2. It self Docs YAY!! When it is low on battery or done cleaning it takes itself back to the doc and charges
3. It alerts you if it is stuck (and then stops) and also when full
4. It spot cleans
5. It comes with 2 virtual walls which allow you to prevent it from going into places you don't want it to go\
6. It actually holds quite a bit of stuff

Some down falls to Bob are:

1. He is pretty loud
2. Sometimes I don't think he gets all the places (we have a VERY large open great room floor plan)
3. Sometimes he gets stuck under the dining room table with all the chairs there.

Over all.... BOB IS AMAZING!! Since we have had him I have not had to sweep up dog hair once! It is all gone, and Jewel our Golden Retriever sheds like a champ! All I do is my weekly mopping now. I would highly recommend this product to anyone who has pets and/or a lot of hard surface flooring. I am not sure how great Bob would work on carpets because we don't let him in our bed rooms (I still don't think his sucking ability will top my Dyson's for carpets) but he is worth every dime!!! So if you are thinking about it... get that Roomba!!!! http://store.irobot.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11305110

Pot Roast... Its whats for Dinner :)

Sooooooo... I LOVE POT ROAST and since it is finally getting cool enough out to bring the slow cooker out of hibernation... its time to roast :)

This time I scoped out Pip and Ebby's Slow Cooker Pot Roast its was super easy and extremely yummy!!!

Below are Pip's directions and my comments (in italics) and her pics.. because I was super lazy :)

You will need:

A 4-lb. roast (I like to use tip roasts, but the options for this are plentiful) -I used a 2.5 lb roast because we are a family of 4 and 4lbs is a lot of food :)

One 10.75-oz. can cream of mushroom with roasted garlic soup

One 1-oz. package dry onion soup mix

1 1/2 cups water (for me this did not look like a lot of water)

Throw all of the ingredients into a slow cooker and cook on low for 8-9 hours.

Periodically spoon the gravy over top of the roast.

After about 4-5 hours of cooking, add carrots and peeled, cubed potatoes to the slow cooker, if desired. (I added 3 cut up carrots and 2 large pealed and cut potatoes)

***** Me and My Younghans Review*****

For me it was very yummy... I am thinking next time around I may use a touch more water (about 1/2 cup) and also I think I am going to use an additional can of soup to make the gravy thicker. The flavor was good but not as strong as I like it.

Daddy Younghans loved it! Wouldn't change a thing...

Steven and Zack both tolerated the pot roast, but neither would normally be big fans of any sort of pot roast, they are just not old enough to appreciate its glory :)

Over all I give it 3.75 out of 5 stars, due to it just not being quite as flavorful as I would prefer, we will try it again with some modifications. 

Million Dollar Spaghetti... or not???

As an avid Pinterester.. I love discovering and trying new recipes... tonight our family verged out on our normal blah spaghetti and went for Ashley Kaitlin's Being Grown Up Blog's Million Dollar Spaghetti.  I went line by line and direction by direction to follow her model... Below are her directions and my pics :)
 *** NOTES IN ITALICS ARE MY COMMENTS ON THE DIRECTIONS!

Ingredients
1 lb. of Ground Beef
1 can of Spaghetti Sauce
8 oz of Cream Cheese
1/4 cup of Sour Cream
1/2 lb. of Cottage CheeseWhole Stick of Butter
8 oz. of Noodles
Bag of Sharp Chedder Cheese

First: Go ahead and put your over on 350! Boil those noodles!! 

While they are boiling go ahead and mix up the cream cheese, sour cream and 
cottage cheese!! Make sure that it is mixed up VERY well! -I used my kitchen aid mixer to make sure I got it good and mixed

Then.. go ahead and cook that meat!

 Make sure its good and brown and drain it!
Then pour your spaghetti sauce over it! -Issue I saw here was there was no specific size noted on the "can of spaghetti sauce" Cans and Jars very alot, I just a 24 oz jar, because I buy in bulk but only used 16 oz of it because that is a standard Jar Size.

Take a few slices of your butter and put them in the bottom of your casserole dish -Again no specific amount but being butter was used twice in the recipe I used half (1/4 cup) here. 

Then layer HALF of the noodles in the bottom of the dish! - There was no dish size specified I used a 13 X 9 however based on the differences in coverage between her pics and mine I am guessing hers was a 11x7. The only difference I see is that my coverage is thinner than hers. 

Pour that nicely mixed up creamy mixture on top of the noodles.

and SPREAAAAAD it all over!

Then add the rest of your noodles and put a few slices of butter on top of those noodles. -Again I guessed  1/4 cup

Now pour the red sauce and meat on top!

and once again SPREEAAAAD

Now place that awesome casserole in your oven for 30 minutes!

After those 30 minutes take the dish out and pour some chedder cheese on the top and put it back in the oven for 15 minutes! Now there were no specifics on the size of the bag of cheese or if you should use it all so I just covered the top like I would with a lasagna and it seemed to do the trick (about 2 cups), I didn't want it to end  up over cheesy or greasy. 

Then your DONE!

*** Now for Me and My Younghans Review****

It smelled AMAZING!! Sooo good!! 

I loved it, it was super cheesy and creamy which is just my style. I was a huge fan of the texture too.. nice and thick! This is a great dish for a larger family or a potluck because of the amount of food that you have at your disposal and also its a great dish to alternate with the normal lasagna. 

Daddy Younghans liked it but wasn't 100% sold. He is of Italian decent and usually likes his food more authentic and less creamy. But he said he would definitely eat it again and went back for 2nds..but did ask that next time I hold back on the Sour Cream and Cottage Cheese.

Steven... ATE IT ALL.. but he is my eater and loves all things food (its amazing he is sooo skinny).

Zachary (THE PICKIEST EATER) ate it... had to bargain toward the end for him to finish the meat but he liked the noodles a lot (and that is a huge compliment because he does not eat anything).

Over all... 4 out of 5 stars, the loss of one star was due to the vagueness of some of the recipe which made it difficult to follow without playing the guessing game, and because Daddy thought it was a bit too cheesy. This will be a recipe that makes its way into our rotation!! 

I fall for FALL!

Rock and Roll!!
So we have kicked of the 2012-13 school year with a bang! Steven is now a big Second Grader and Zack is rocking out in Kindergarten which means Mommy is home ALONE (for now). We are loving living the North Carolina life style and loving Fall!!! Because with Fall comes: Soccer, Football, Pumpkins, Halloween, Thanksgiving.. and soo much more!!!

So for that I wanted to share my favorite of favorite Fall snacks:

MUDDY BUDDIES!!!
What you need:
9 cups of Rice Chex cereal
1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Measure the chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter and place them in a microwave able bowl for 1 minute, stir, then continue (if needed) to microwave for 30 seconds until it is smooth. Then add the vanilla and mix well.

In a large bowl pour the 9 cups of Chex mix and then pour the chocolate over the Chex and and mix until the Chex is well coated.

Now I use a large cereal Tupperware box and put 3/4 cup powdered sugar pour the chocolate Chex mix into the box and add the remaining powdered sugar on top. Cover the box tightly and shake, shake, shake!! After the Chex are covered in powdered sugar, refrigerate for at least 1 hr and enjoy. I keep them in the fridge after because they are just better that way!