Spiced Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

As I promised, I am posting a new find! This is a recipe that I found on Pinterest that sounded delicious! And guess what? They were!!! Please make them because you will just love them I am sure. That is assuming you like pumpkin just as I do.
The original website is this: http://www.reciperoll.com/2012/10/spiced-pumpkin-muffins-fall-recipes.html....have to give credit!

HOWEVER, I had to add chocolate in some way...so here is MY version of the muffins :)

Don't they look delicious?!?!?...Well, they were!

SPICED PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS

ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbs baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
•  1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup cooked or canned pumpkin puree
• chocolate chips--as much as desired :)

directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients. In another bowl whisk

together eggs, milk, oil, sugar and pumpkin puree. Add this to the dry ingredients, stir until well blended. Do not over mix. Stir in your desired amount of chocolate chips. Divide the batter among the muffin tin(s), bake about 15 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Let them cool and enjoy them!!!! They go great with a glass of milk. 

Pause on College Life

Last time I posted I was still in the midst of my adventurous BYU life. Now I am sitting at my kitchen table back home in good old KANSAS. Having my mom close to me again makes me a lot more productive. I mowed the lawn, vacuumed and washed the van, babysat 4 of my nieces (2 of which are newborn twin girls!), turned in a job application, did some laundry, and now I'm wasting time on my computer. Phew. I am tired.

Aside from that my freshman year at BYU was absolutely fabulous. College is something that cannot be put into words. It is seriously a totally different world. It's so great. Those who are at a college or have been, you know what I'm talking about.

So now I am living at home for the summer and putting my college life on pause. Definitely weird to be back home and back to my other life. It was way more difficult to say goodbye than I thought. I cried my eyes out when I had to say goodbye to EMILY ATWOOD and RYAN HAMMAR. Especially since I won't be seeing Ryan for a couple of years since he's going to NEW ZEALAND for his church mission! Allie Jensen is also in that group...but we live like a mile away from each other. :)

On our last night together...ever :(

So now I'm just living it up...at home. My family is moving to St.Louis at the end of June so I will be helping out a ton with that! I am excited though. This summer will be a nice break from all the school and crazy stuff. But with all this free time now I plan on making new recipes and crafts and things, so I will make sure to post  my new finds and discoveries. 

But in closing, here is a video from our last night together. We thought it would be fun to record the crazy things we do...haha. Basically this video defines my freshman year (not!) of boys chasing after me. What can I say??? All the boys love me ;)

thattallgirl:)

Baking Adventures

As every human being will agree, cookies are oh so delightful. Allie and I decided to come up with a cookie that contains quite a few of our favorite things: pretzels, chocolate, peanut butter, and caramel. We call them Kallie Cookies (pronounced like Allie but with a "K" in front).

So, being the wonderful person that I am, I have decided to share this beautiful creation with you. The recipe for it that is.

Kallie Cookies
1 C. plus 2 Tbs. butter
1/2 C plus 2 Tbs. sugar
1 C packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 Tbs. water
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 C flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 C broken pretzel pieces
1 C semisweet chocolate chips (not mini)
1 C peanut butter chips
Caramel pieces...do however much you want...we did approximately 1/4-1/3 C of chopped up caramels

Preheat oven to 350 degress F. Do not grease cookies sheets.

Cream butter in large mixing bowl until soft. Add sugars and beat until well mixed. Add eggs, water, and vanilla. Beat until fluffy. Add flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until well incorporated. Add pretzels, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, caramels and mix briefly. Scoop and drop onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake till they're done. duh. (jk...the recipe says like 10-12 minutes...lesbe honest...take them out when they're ready).

Well, Allie and I devoured some when they were done. Results = PERFECTION. You will enjoy them..unless something is wrong with you.

I shall be posting something real about my life sometime soon. I just have a crazy awesome life so I don't have too much time on my hands.

Anyways....

thattallgirl:)

Feel the Need

Even though there hasn't been a ton going on in my life....okay that's a lie. I have said this so many times, but I will say it again. My life > your life. Sorry. But it's probably true.

These past two weeks have been very hectic for some odd reason. Probably because all my classes decided to give out tests. Another thing is that I have been doing a lot of fun things. I went karaoke singing for the first time ever! It was for a group date which was basically comprised of a bunch of my friends. My friends Dane and Ryan wanted to sing Love the Way You Lie by Eminem and Rihanna. So we ended up singing it in the competition and we won!!!!!! So on February 19th we are going to the final round for the chance to win an iPad Mini...so stoked. HOPEFULLY we have a chance. Cuz that would just be sweet.

Then lately I have just been hanging with a bunch of cool people. New friends, old friends...it has just been awesome. But tonight I'm doing something adventurous :) Stayed tune for what it is...it's a surprise.

But probably the most exciting thing of late is my niece Avery Jade Barber was born!!! She is probably the most precious thing ever. SO tiny and SO cute. Don't worry...I have provided pictures. So while you are admiring her and her cuteness...have a lovely day.

thattallgirl:)

Avery and me...I'm the favorite aunt.

Me with the new parents.

She's just so tiny and adorable!

Return of the Routine

Wow! Long time no see....or more like read? Bleh. That was lame. Anyways....I received a friendly reminder that I have not posted in a while, so I thought I would take the time to do so!

Now that I have started the new semester here at lovely, frozen, snow-packed, freezing BYU, I am once again living the day-to-day adventures of college life. SO thrilling...I know. Once again I'm eating too many sweets and staying up too late. Oh how I've missed it. Procrastination is once again my middle name and I've managed to exercise at least once now! PATHETIC. I don't even try to deny it.

A surprising thing, though, is managing to go to bed around midnight almost every weeknight! That's a new record for me seeing as last semester it was more like 1:30 or 2:00. Terrible...terrible. I think what has changed is that EMILY is now an official roommate, rather than a visiting friend till 2:00 in the morning. So her moving in has been way more beneficial than I imagined!

One thing I am looking forward to is this coming Saturday. It marks the 19th Birthday of my all-time favorite person...ALLIE!!! My bff, roommate, soul sister, confidant, giggle buddy, occasional mother hen, and so much more. The girls and I (Allie, Karissa, Emily, and me) are having a sleepover the night before her birthday so we can get up early to go to Salt Lake City for the day! We are going shopping for literally an entire day. To say I'm not excited would be such an understatement.

Well that's all for now...but here is a picture that makes me laugh every time I see it. So I thought I would share the love.

thattallgirl:)

Home Sweet Home

My first semester of college is officially over. Wow. Crazy. Still can't believe that I'm in college. Yesterday was a traveling day. All. Day. Long. So exhausting. But now I'm home in Kansas and loving it. Such a great comfort. You don't realize how great it is to have a mom who makes food for you and has a warm, clean bed ready for you. But now that I'm home it feels like my first semester was just a dream. I feel like everything I did was just part of my imagination. It is seriously such a different world compared to home life.

This past week a few friends of mine and I went to the Salt Lake Temple Square to see it all lit up with Christmas lights. Sooooo beautiful. It was such a fun night. I will seriously miss my friends over the break, but they will still be there when I get back so it's okay.

I'm finally getting back into the swing of blogging...let's just hope it stays that way. You will be hearing from me again soon though. I plan on baking and cooking a lot, so I will share my recipes. I will also be doing a lot of fun things with family so I will share pictures from that. Hope your day is fabulous like mine always is. jk...but really.

thattallgirl:)

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...

Wow. It's already finals week for my first semester of college. Dang. Time has flown by sooo fast. I wish I had blogged more about the things I did. I have met so many incredible people and have grown so close to the friends I already had and the new ones I have made.

But finals week is going so well actually. It is only Tuesday and I only have 1 final left! Party! I haven't been stressed out almost this entire semester at all. College is just awesome.

At the end of this week I get to fly home to Kansas! I'm so excited to go back home and be with family and enjoy home cooked meals and doing absolutely NOTHING for about 3 weeks. It's gonna be soo nice.

To get into the Christmas spirit though....I thought you might like to enjoy this video from Miranda. She gives proof that Santa is real....? Guess she would know!

Well I plan on posting more frequently now that I remembered I have a blog.

Have a fantabulous day!

thattallgirl:)