Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!!!!

I am about to run out to my children's school for their parties, but I wanted to wish everyone (both near and far) a very Happy Halloween!! Have fun and don't eat too much candy, ha ha!! I've already dug into the fun-sized bar bag, much to my despair. :)

Have a great spooky evening!!!!

♥ ♥ ♥

Lara

Fall Foyer

I was cleaning up my front entrance, so I thought I'd take a few photos of it to share on my blog. Usually we have a lot more clutter in this area. ;) I have two young children, so you know what I'm talking about. It does feels nice to clean the area up and start with a fresh slate. The little console table, I purchased a couple years ago from Wisteria. It's a pale gray, but looks lighter in the above photo. I have a basket on the bottom shelf for stashing shoes, but with the colder months ahead, I would like to get some shoe cubbies for the garage. I also keep a big jute rug in front of the door, but I just mopped and have it airing outside.

I recently got a French Market bag from the always inspiring online shop... Dreamy Whites. I absolutely love using it as both a shopping basket and as a hanging decoration - two purposes. Currently my beige H&M scarf is hanging on my coat rack - I need to get some winter scarves. I love scarves. And I brought in some nature in the form of autumn leaves in a metal sap bucket.

We had our first frost here today!

Chilly Sunday

Today we went on a hayride at the farm. It was so cold! Nearly all the leaves are gone around here and bare, twisted branches look like a Halloween scene. I have heard Europe got its first light snowfall, but we haven't even had our first frost, which is right around the corner. The hayride took us out to a ride through the woods - over wooden bridges and into a "haunted" barn. In the haunted barn, there were young boys wearing scary masks. Olivia was very frightened by it, so we sat the second hayride out while my husband and son went back for another scare.

I hope you've had a great weekend and night!

I'll be back soon with some foyer photos!

Cozy Autumn Scents

We have been having lots of rain here lately. Over the weekend, the kids and I went to the mall and I took advantage of the sale at Bath and Body Works. I don't really shop there regularly, but around pre-holiday time, I really get sucked into their sales and holiday scents. My kids thought that store was the funnest place to be in. I couldn't resist this White Barn candle in nutmeg and spice - wow, does it smell incredible; the perfect cozy fragrance. The candle inspired me to put together a little decor on my sideboard.

I also got the super yummy smelling iced gingerbread anti-bac soaps in both regular formula (which is great for exfoliation) and the creamy formula for my kitchen. I even got the kids their own little anti-bac hand gels that they can attach with a clip to their school backpacks ~ which has really encouraged them to start using it since they smell so good.



Pumpkin Butterscotch Cookies

Hi and happiest Friday to you!!!

Cookies and coffee anyone? Or cookies and milk? :)

Yesterday I did some baking and made my most very favorite pumpkin cookies. If you like butterscotch and pumpkin pie spices, you will LOVE these cookies. If you aren't a butterscotch person, you can use white chocolate chips instead which are equally as delicious. This cookie has an interesting texture - similar to that of a whoopie pie I think.

I stopped drinking coffee for awhile, but the side effects were pretty awful. Even drinking black tea as a substitute didn't work. Shall we say addiction? ;) Anyway, I'm back to my 2 mug a day creature comfort... I just need to make sure I have protein for breakfast to balance it out.

I used a 1 tablespoon cookie dough dropper to get somewhat of a uniform cookie size. And I slightly dampened a small glass, dipped the bottom in sugar and pressed down on the dough to flatten them out a bit before baking.

They are sooo yummy! I hope you try them!

Here is the recipe...

Pumpkin Butterscotch Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup natural sugar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 cup pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1 and 1/2 cups butterscotch or white chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream together the softened butter and the sugars. Beat in the pumpkin puree and vanilla extract. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, including the spices.

Add the the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until incorporated. The batter will be on the thick side. Fold in the chips and bake for 12 minutes or until cookies edges are lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Enjoy!

Have a great weekend!!!

♥ ♥ ♥

Lara

Pimped Up Pumpkins - in Black and White

Hello everyone!!

I hope you had a great weekend!!

I have done a little "friendly" Halloween decor... :)

I spray painted some baby boos with black chalkboard spray paint and left some natural. I tied up some of the pumpkin stems with gingham ribbon to add to the B&W look. I like how they turned out, but the chalk didn't work well for me with writing on the pumpkins. Maybe they were too cold? I let them dry overnight in the garage... hmm. I'll let the kids scribble on them later. ;)

I love the contrast between the matte black painted pumpkins and the white (cream!) ones.

I need to get some photos of my cat, Merlin with some pumpkins. This is his month being he is all black... so he looks pretty cool right now when he sits next to the pumpkins on the front porch. I'll try.

Have a lovely evening!! :)

♥ ♥ ♥

Lara

Pomegranate

I saw the first pomegranates at the grocery store yesterday, so I grabbed a few. I like how they look as decorations for autumn. A nice pop of deep crimson. :)

I made a little table display using my English ironstone dishes {stacked for height}, pomegranates, baby boos, and some seeds and branches I collected from my morning walk. I put the fall leaf branches in an Ikea Burken storage jar - I love them for vases!

Then I had some pom seeds. :)

These are not as deep and juicy red as I like, but we'll get more as they really come into season very soon.

And I was happy to find the special holiday edition of

Country Home!!!

So much inspiration in this special issue... well worth the price. ;)

I love the pomegranate wreath on the cover.

We just had dinner and are kicking back watching movies here on Friday night.

It's getting colder and I am about to break out the flannel sheets and chenille cozy long socks!

Have a happy weekend!!!

♥ ♥ ♥

Lara

Sweet Pink

Me and my daughter had a little girl time today.

I painted her nails with her favorite girly glitter pink nail polish from Piggy Polish. I don't know why it is marketed for "goes on the toes" because it goes well on both tips and toes. :) The nailpolish is sold with a cute ring on the handle, but since we have had this one a couple years now, it's long gone.

Over the weekend we did some warm clothes shopping at Old Navy. I pretty much always find cute girls clothes there. She is wearing a new berry pink waffle weave top and I couldn't resist getting a puffy vest. I was drawn to the white one! I told her I wanted to take some photos of her wearing it before it inevitably becomes dirty, ha. ;)

I love the look though for fall.

And for the first time, I let her use my tinted Burt's Bees lip balm for fun...

 of course she gobbed it on.

Windy windy windy here today!!!

It's howling outside.

Have a great rest of the week!

♥ ♥ ♥

Lara

Pumpkin Pie Muffins

Hello! Thank you for all your super sweet comments you left me on my last post. :)Yesterday my kids were off from school for Columbus Day and we made my favorite pumpkin muffins. My favorite recipe is from Ellie Krieger and it is called Pumpkin Pie Muffins. They are really fabulous! And they are made only with dark brown sugar, half whole wheat flour, and every scrumptious autumn baking ingredient you can imagine. I am a big fan of all her recipes actually. I added little leaves for muffin toppers.

I ran out of muffin liners, so I decided to try and make my own European style parchment paper ones. Just cut out 5 x 5 inch parchment paper squares. Spray muffin pan with vegetable spray and press in and crease to form the cups. This part was a little tricky, so I used small juice glasses to help keep the liners down until I spooned in the muffin batter. These are very delicious autumn muffins and I like the addition of crunch from the pumpkin seeds sprinkled on top before baking.

I also made a simple fall candle look by scotch taping on small leaves to simple glass votive cups. They look very pretty catching the silhouette of the leaves; especially in the dark.

On Sunday, we went for a drive to a wooded subdivision just a few minutes from my house and there was some trees at full autumn color ~ I just had to take some pictures! This is when I accidentally looked right into the sun for about 2 seconds through my lens. I know better, but it happened. What a stupid mistake! It took me about an hour for my eyes to feel back to normal. I learned my lesson!

I hope you get to try this recipe! I make it every autumn - a keeper muffin recipe indeed! :)

Pumpkin Pie Muffins from Ellie Krieger

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

3 tablespoons molasses (I use Brer Rabbit mild available at Target)

1/4 cup canola oil

2 large eggs (room temperature)

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup (preferably raw) pumpkin seeds

In a medium bowl whisk together: flours, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside

In a large bowl whisk together: dark brown sugar, molasses, canola oil, and ONE of the eggs. Add the second egg and whisk until all combined. Whisk in the pumpkin and vanilla extract and stir in the flour mixture alternating with adding in the buttermilk just until combined. Sprinkle tops of muffins with pumpkin seeds and then give the pan a good few taps to get out any air bubbles.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Enjoy!