Pinterest Made Me Do It

It's a new series! Welcome back to my blog. I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving as well as some relaxing days off.

Over the weekend I was thinking of what I wanted to plan for my blog in the upcoming weeks. I was making my grocery list while looking on Pinterest and of course pinned SO many holiday treats, crafts, and more. Since I was heading to the grocery store anyways I decided to pick up ingredients to make on of the things I pinned. That's when I thought of doing a series called "Pinterest Made Me Do It." Like I said, this series will include not just food but also crafts - maybe fashion looks? We'll see with that one but definitely food and DIY!

I decided to start with something that wasn't too overwhelming. My first recipe in this series is a Loaded Cookie Bar.

This recipe is by no means healthy (obviously) BUT it's delicious and a little goes a long way. It's loaded with mini chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and m&m's - oh my! This is a perfect dessert to bring to a holiday party, cookie swap, or just to make for your family!

Let's start off with prep and ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a 9 x 13 baking sheet.

The ingredients you'll need are:

• 2 sticks of butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• 1 cup of firmly packed brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups of all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 1/2 cups of M&M's , plus more for topping
• 1 cup of mini chocolate chips, plus more for topping
• 1/2 cup of white chocolate chips

1.) In a mixing bowl, beat butter and both sugars until fluffy.

2.) Add in eggs, and vanilla while continuing to beat

3.) Lower the speed of the mixer and add in flour, baking soda, and salt - mixing until combined

4.) Add in M&M's, and mini chocolate chips (saving a little to top it off) and reserving the white chocolate chips to add on top as well. 

5.) Transfer dough to greased baking dish and press remaining M&M's and white chocolate chips on top. 

6.) Bake for about 35 minutes or until golden brown

And there you have it! My first Pinterest Made Me Do It project...and it's delicious! This one is definitely a thumbs up in my book. Only thing that would have made it better is if Wegmans had plain Christmas colored M&M's! Or maybe they did and I didn't notice but either way this still came out amazing and definitely rich! If you have a sweet tooth like me, these will blow your mind. 

Be sure to let me know if you make these too! Be on the lookout for my next "Pinterest Made Me Do It" post! These are fun :) 

Waking Up with The Skimm

Hello everyone! Long time no see! Is it just me or can you not believe that Thanksgiving is TOMORROW!? I sure can't! Hope you all have some exciting plans coming up. Mine will include going to not one but two Thanksgiving's - Benson's family first and mine later! I have to say that our family plans could not have worked out better. His family likes to do dinner early in the afternoon and my family eats around 6 or so. I love that we're able to spend the holiday with both sides and that we all live so close. Can't wait for my grandma's stuffing (which is the best part of the Thanksgiving meal if I do say so myself!)

For today's post, I wanted to share one of my must-have's every weekday morning which is The Skimm.

Just what is The Skimm? It's a newsletter that's delivered to your inbox every weekday (mine comes in at around 6:30 in the morning) that covers the most recent news broken down into easy to understand and witty paragraphs! I love that I can stay up to date on everything that's going on and it actually makes me enjoy reading the news. It's no more than a 10 minute read so it's perfect to read on your way to work, while you have your morning coffee, and get ready! 

I've been reading The Skimm for about 2-3 years now and have been a Skimm'bassador for a year. A Skimm'bassador is someone who has gotten at least 10 people to sign up for The Skimm using your unique link (see mine below!). Once you have at least 10 people, you're sent a cute tote and officially added to the Skimm'bassador Facebook group and LinkedIn page. They have milestones for different referral counts that include a t-shirt, wine glass, umbrella, cellphone case, apparel and more. I love being a Skimm'bassador and connecting with others in The Skimm community! It's a great way to get involved and connect with people who have similar interests as you. 

Another great reason to sign up for The Skimm is that they do frequent giveaways! By sharing your link and having people sign up you're then entered into their giveaways which have included gift cards, aparrel, TV's and more. 

Lastly, there's an app called Skimm Ahead which is a subscription service ($2.99 per month) and syncs to your phone's calendar that include's events coming up such as sports games, Netflix releases, concert tickets, show specials and everything in between. It's extremely convenient and I love being on top of the things that interest me!  

I highly recommend signing up for The Skimm. It's free and I look forward to getting mine each morning before I go to work. :)

Go sign up for The Skimm and let me know what you think!! (copy and paste link into your browser)

https://www.theskimm.com/?r=31AJK

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!!

Roadtrip Recap via Iphone & Snapchat

It's Tuesday! It's election day! Hope everyone get's out there to vote. No matter who you vote for, just VOTE. 

Ok now that I've said that, I'm finally able to catch up and fill you in on our road trip with photos from my phone! I did take pictures on my nice camera as well but I haven't uploaded them on my computer yet. 

Our trip consisted of going to Maryland to visit Alecia and Nick, then Haymarket, VA to see Casey and Jakob. It was so fun and of course went by waaaaay too fast. This recap may be a little choppy because I was switching from phone to camera so some pictures may be a tad jumpy but hey! It's my blog so I guess it's my rules ;)

Unfortunately I don't have pics on my phone from our time in Maryland. We still had so much fun though including but not limited to: My FIRST Chick-Fil-A experience (amazing), drinking out of "turtle shells", trivia and coming into last place (A for effort?), and a winery! 

Our second half of our second day we drove to VA. Casey & Jakob's house is adorable and definitely gave me lots of decorating inspiration. Their house is Pinterest come to life, I swear! 

The first night we went to a movie theater that serves dinner and drinks! We saw "The Girl on the Train" and I had a delicious wrap and adult milkshake to go with it. I wish we had one of these types of movie theaters in our area!

Our first full day there we explored the cutest little town of Middleburg followed by some wineries.

 

This market was adorable and had lots of local goods. Next time we visit I would love to have lunch here! 

I loved the vibe of Middleburg. It kind of reminded me of Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls! We even went into a store that has a dog named Tiffany.

After getting coffee and walking around it was time to hit up the wineries! 

The first winery had all reds. I love a good red so this winery was right up our alley! My FAVORITE winery was the second one though. 

Yes, there was a dog here too so obviously it was my favorite. Not only that but it was also a cidery along with the winery. I actually liked the cider better than the wine! (gasp!). They had about 10-12 different ciders to try and all were delicious! The best part was that after we tried them all the woman who was pouring (and owner of the dog) let us mix and match our own flavors to test out. I forgot which two I mixed but in the end I ordered a pint of the blackberry cider to sip while we hung out.

We even got to tour the barrel room which was super cool. I think a barrel is only $1,400? I say only sarcastically because when we were here (and maybe a tad tipsy) we joked that we would happily buy a barrel! ;) 

Next stop was Barrel Oak Winery where we tasted and ordered glasses of wine to drink outside because it was gorgeous out. 

59 felt so warm!

#thegreenteam

After a long day of walking around and drinking wine, we headed to a mexican place for a quick dinner then did a haunted maze. I WISH I had pictures from this. It was so funny and yes...scary! It was actually pretty long too. It took about 20-25 minutes to go through the entire maze. Luckily, Casey was brave and led us the whole time ;)

Full Day #2 consisted of walking around in Leesburg which was another little town that had lots of antique shops. I ended up buying a couple things for my mom and a wooden sign for me that says "Farm to Table". I just loved the rustic look of it and knew exactly where I would hang it up at our place. For lunch on this day we went to a cafe called Roots and while we went there with the intention of only getting a snack, we each ended up ordering a full lunch. I had a very good roasted turkey sandwich and pumpkin spice latte. 

On Sunday before we left, Casey and Jakob took us to one of their staples called Trummer's and oh my....this cafe did not disappoint.

Benson and I split a breakfast panini which had ham, eggs, tomatoes, and gouda. My drink was called viennese eis cafe which was icecream and cold brew blended together. It was the perfect way to end such a fun trip!

We were sad to end our trip and our drive home was pretty gloomy and rainy. Once we got home Riley was not so happy that we had left him for 5 days. Dylan however was happy to see us! 

All in all it was a fabulous 5 days and I'm glad we were able to visit with everyone. Can't wait to do it again!