Pumpkin Mini Cupcakes

If you're on Pinterest, I'm sure you've seen the two ingredient pumpkin cake.  Thanks to a tip from a friend, here's my little take on the recipe.

Ingredients:

- Yellow Cake Mix

- 15 oz can of Pumpkin

- 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil

- 3 Eggs

- 1 cup Diet Dr. Pepper

- Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

As you can see I have a few more than 2 ingredients.  This is a direct result of the fact that I picked up the Betty Crocker mix instead of the Duncan Hines (which I'm assuming does not require anything other than water).  My friend mentioned substituting the water for diet Dr. Pepper for a little added punch.

I simply followed the instruction on the back of the box, mixing all of the ingredients except for the frosting.  I'm so excited about busting out the Kitchen Aid mixer in the future, but until then my hand mixer did the job.

Since we were taking these to the Halloween party, where there would be other snacks, I opted to make mini cupcakes.  This size was great for people to sample and still enjoy the rest of the edible goodies.

Pop them into the oven at 325 degrees for 15 mins.  While they were baking, I heated up the frosting over the stove on low, constantly stirring. Let the cupcakes cool off before drizzling the frosting.  I made the mistake of drizzling too early on the last batch and the frosting melted off.  I'll chalk that up to being a little lazy after spooning in mix for a total of 96 minis. 

They were a hit at the party, and the leftovers are still a hit in our household!

What are some of your favorite fall foods?

Happy Halloween!!

Although today is Halloween, we partied it up over the weekend at our friends' annual party.

We went as the Blue Barracudas from Nickelodeon's Legends of the Hidden Temple and I was very proud  with our DIY skills to pull the costumes together.  The only thing we couldn't find on the cheap were the gold helmets.  As much as I really wanted them to complete the costumes, $17.95 a piece just wasn't in the cards.

I will admit that I was a little sadden by the fact that not everyone at the party knew what our costumes were, but then realized that not everyone had cable growing up.

There were some great eats prepared by Iron Chef Lora (one of our hosts, which I'm sad I didn't get a picture of).

The night was filled with catch up conversations (amazing how quickly time seems to fly between hanging out with friends), shuffle board and flip cup.

There were some cute costumes including protesters, a Christmas tree, Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation.  The winners for best costume were Salt and Pepper (which is so funny because that was going to be our back up idea if we didn't figure out any other costume).

Hope you have a happy Halloween!

Photo Challenge Day 30 - Self-Portrait

Today's the last day of the 30 day photo challenge.  I've had so much fun taking pictures for this and really feel like I've learned a new trick or two with the DSLR camera.

It was a late night at the Halloween party and I was dragging today, so here's a shot of me from last night.

Challenge originally found here, be sure to follow along with the rest of the bloggers and photographers who are a part of the challenge here.

Photo Challenge Day 29 - Black & White

Gypsy makes the perfect subject if the picture requires her to do nothing but lay there.

Challenge originally found here, be sure to follow along with the rest of the bloggers and photographers who are a part of the challenge here.

Guest Postin' on She Likes Ruffles, He Likes Truffles

I'm so excited to be guest posting today over on She Likes Ruffles, He Likes Truffles!  Head on over there to find the recipe for these tasty pizza bites.

Photo Challenge Days 24-28

The last full week oh the photo challenge, which is sort of sad because it's been so much fun.

Day 24 - Animal

As soon as I saw that it was the day for an animal, I had a mini photo shoot with Gypsy. Her age is starting to show above her nose.

Day 25 - Something Pink

Right after our engagement, Chris and I vacationed at Disneyworld (before a cruise with my family).  These pink tokens are reminders of that awesome trip.

Day 26 - Close - Up

Giving a little close up love to my Aggie ring.  Can't believe it's already been over 6 years since I graduated from there.

Day 27 - From a Distance

Looking down a street, with the highway in the far distance.

Day 28 - Flowers

Not sure if these fall into the category of flowers or plants, but they are a pretty addition to the entrance of our apartment complex.

Challenge originally found here, be sure to follow along with the rest of the bloggers and photographers who are a part of the challenge here.

Getting Creative For Halloween

Every year around this time, Chris and I start to ponder what are we going to be for Halloween.  Well that's a little off, we start thinking about it as soon as we get our annual invite to our friends' Halloween party.  In past years we've gone as FedEx Delivery guys and Velma & Shaggy from Scooby Doo.

We try to keep the costumes on the cheaper end, and this year we even DIYed part of ours!  Can you guess what we're going to be?

If you were a child that watched Nickelodeon in the 90s then you might remember a game show called Legends of the Hidden Temple.  It was part physical activity part quiz show and when the teams won temple games they were rewarded with a Pendent of Life.

My Party Shirt

After ordering shirts online (we can totally wear those after Halloween), I decided that $4 each for the pendents of life would be a waste.  I headed over to Michael's and found a couple of round pieces of wood (they actually are basketballs on the opposite side) for 99 cents each, plus I had a coupon for 40% off.  Using wood stain, paint and ribbon that we had lying around I was able to complete this project for $1.71

Thanks to the powers of google, I was able to find and print the symbol on the medallion and then use the graphic transfer trick that I used for our fingerprint tree to get it on to the wood.

I thought I could just trace one and transfer it to both circles, but sadly that was not the case.  My hand did not thank me after tracing and shading twice.

A little paint later and all that's left is to glue on some left over ribbon.

Sending Chris a picture of my work

Next up were the gloves and elbow pads.  At $7.95 & $9.95 a pair respectively ($35.80 plus shipping), buying them online would not be ideal.  

My Party Shirt

We headed over to Walmart where we found the gloves in a 2 pack for $1.40 and decided to McGuyer some elbow pads out of black men's socks. And bonus, Chris can wear the 4 left over pairs of socks.  He  stepped in to burn off the edges to keep them from unraveling.

 I'll be sure to snap a picture of our full get up at the party this weekend and share with you on Monday :)

Are you dressing up for Halloween?  If so, what are you going to be?