Everyday Live Happy

My cute husband indulges my love of decorating for holidays. He never complains and often helps me get things done. Luckily for him he likes Halloween. His birthday is at the first part of October and he always asks for a different kind of cake. This year though my daughter and I decided that he was going to get a Halloween themed cake. We even picked out a monster looking one that we wanted to try. Then my husband decided that he wanted to have a cake that we refer to as Brownie Delight. It is yummy layers of yumminess! But it has to be made in a regular cake pan. So our monster idea was out. But I was still determined to add a little Halloween to it. We decided to make a graveyard on top, but weren't exactly sure what we were going to do when we started to make the cake. The entire recipe is at the bottom of this post but here's how it goes together. I forgot to take a picture of the first layer. It is just a brownie layer. In fact the recipe calls for your favorit...

A few years ago I got a recipe that has become one of my family's favorite treats. It is a recipe for peanut butter cups. The first time I made it, it was amazing! They taste exactly like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! What's even better is that it only has a few ingredients, it's no bake and it's really fast. You simply make it on the stove top and then put it in the fridge. It only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish. It does take a little time to set up though. After about an hour in the refrigerator it is ready to eat! Here's how you make these yummy treats. You start with one cup (2 sticks) of margarine or butter. I use margarine. Put in in a saucepan and then add 1 cup of peanut butter. I use creamy, but I'm sure that it would work with chunky too. Stirring often, melt the margarine and peanut butter together. It will become really smooth. Once it's all melted remove the pan from the heat. The peanut butter in Reese's Pea...

My daughter has been begging me to try a treat that she had at day camp last month. She had told me all about these mini banana cream pies. There was no recipe but she explained it pretty well. She told me that we needed to buy a sugar cookie mix and some banana pudding. Okay that's easy enough. Right? Well today we decided to find out. My daughter was pretty specific about what needed to be done, so I stepped back and let her go for it. We used the Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie Mix in the large pouch. She made the cookies following the directions for cut out cookies. After the dough was made, we needed to put it in a mini muffin tin of course. It took a minute to figure out which scoop gave us the right amount of dough in the cup. We didn't want so much that they didn't keep their shape, but we also didn't want any part of the cookie too thin. The amount we used was a little bit more than our small scoop. She gently pushed the cookie dough into the grea...

Today I asked my daughter what she wanted to do for Thinking Thursday. Usually it's more of a science type day, but she said that she was "thinking" about making lemon donuts. Mini donuts to be exact. After chuckling I said "okay." So we went to Pinterest in search of a recipe. Well we went to my Cinnamon Rolls, Breads and Donuts  board. We found one that looked simple from Made to Be a Momma  and decided to try that one. It used a lemon cake mix in the recipe. I had the mix so we got to work. A few years ago I got one of my favorite kitchen tools. It's a mini donut maker by Bella. Think waffle iron that has seven mini donut shapes inside. It cooks them very quickly (literally in about 2 minutes!) and they come out great. Which is always a necessity. It made so many donuts! It's good that we like them! They do get a little darker on the bottom than they do on the top. So when it was time to glaze them we usually put the darker side ...

Ever since I was a little kid, I have loved ice cream. I think it's because I had a mom who loved ice cream so we always had some in the house. It's a tradition I guess because my kids all love ice cream too. Creamy, delicious, almost any flavor goodness. It makes me smile just thinking about it. Yum! One of our favorite flavors is mint chocolate chip. So on a recent shopping trip, my daughter chose a bucket of that. (That's right, a gallon bucket of ice cream.) Today after running errands, cleaning and doing chores, we decided to have some. It was nice just sitting with my daughter enjoying cold yumminess on this hot day. She told me about some of her ideas for paintings that she wants to do. We talked about a day trip that we are taking and how much fun it will be. She told me about a book that she just started reading. We just talked. I think that sometimes we forget to just relax and visit with our kids. Our lives have been pretty stressful and packed full this p...

Oreos. We love these cookies at my house. A stack of Oreos with a glass of milk is one of my kids favorite treats. Oh who am I kidding? That's one of my husband's and my favorite treats too. What's not to like about two chocolate cookies with frosting in the middle? What could you do to improve upon that? Well they have tried lots of ways to expand the Oreo. There are different frostings - mint, strawberry, cake batter,chocolate, peppermint and more. They have covered them in fudge. They even made a vanilla Oreo cookie. The Oreo section at the store just gets bigger. The other day I saw firework Oreos. They have pop rocks in the frosting! We have a favorite Oreo treat at our house. They are called Oreo Balls and they are "little balls of heaven!" (That is an actual quote from someone after eating one of these yummy treats at luncheon I was asked to bring a dessert to.) We don't have them a lot so that makes them even more special when we do have them. They a...

We love cookies at our house! Chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies, peanut butter cookies! Our favorite cookies though are applesauce cookies. It has always been a hit at our house with my husband, my kids and all the neighborhood kids at our house. They aren't picture perfect cookies, but they are simple and yummy. This week I walked my daughter through the recipe and let her make them herself. She read the recipe. She measured out the ingredients. She also put them on the pan, put the pan in the oven and set the timer. She did a great job. She still doesn't like to take things out of the oven so she left that part to me. When we were done our entire family started eating them. Luckily it makes a lot so I still had some left to take a picture of them. (Like I said, they are not very pretty cookies, but they are really good!) Here's our yummy recipe Applesauce Chocolate Chip Cookies      1/2 cup margarine, softened (has to be margari...

At our house we like to bake. Well maybe I should say that I like to bake and so that's what I tend to teach my kids to do. We usually make a "treat" once or twice a week. What ever we make does not last long at all. It's usually gone within a day or so. We often share it with others - especially my kids' friends when they are at my house. We like being able to do that. I asked my daughter (S) what she wanted to make. She didn't even have to think about it. Brownies. Now I will say this, usually when we bake we make things from scratch. I even have an amazing brownie recipe from my mom. It's all of our favorite kind of brownies. However, they take quite a bit of time. So when we are just looking for quick brownies I actually reach for a mix. I like Betty Crocker's Fudge Brownie mix Quick and easy. We do like to "dress" it up some though. After the batter is spread in the pan, we put our own spin on the treat. We usually sprinkle some kind o...