It's Wednesday and at our house, all good things happen on Wednesdays. I decided to take the boys to get cupcakes from a local bakery. Why not?

Wouldn't it be lovely to have your very own glass case at home? And what's better than that is to have it filled with red velvet and key lime cupcakes with cream cheese icing!

Look at that face ... is it happy, is it wicked? "Mama - can I have two?"

Chocolate & buttercream filled cookie sandwiches - sandwiches are healthy, right?

Meanwhile, Owen decides that these would be perfect cakes for Mrs. Lynn.

Back to the gloriousness ...

And the perfection...

After much coercion on my part, I convinced my two accomplices that these decadent treats would taste much better at home. It was a hard sell. At long last ...

(Nope, Daddy would not approve of this outing - in the middle of the week and everything!) ha ha ha ha ha (this is my evil laugh) ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Look how happy my child is...

Now, was there any doubt that Owen would choose the humongoid cookie sandwich? Taking bets on who thinks he can finish the whole thing in one sitting ... anyone?

... 

It must be pretty good

Finally, he took a break - just in time for mommy to sneak a bite!

Hello, Beautiful... Where have you been all of my life?

Just look at how lovingly someone iced and sprinkled...

Oh dear ...

Now how did that happen? I was standing right here the whole time!

The dregs of the cookie sandwich - not even my Cookie Monster could finish the whole thing...

My Owen - the caregiver.  Sometimes when Jim is out of town, Owen will decide it is up to him to take care of us.  Last night, before reading stories, he made drinks - and labeled them!  This is what I found when I came in the room.  Isn't he sweet???
 

Santa effectively deals with backorders.  Meet Matchbox Mouse.  This was one of Miles' number one requests for Christmas this year.  (Secretly, it was my very favorite thing too - and that is why Santa was so effective in making sure he got under the tree.)  Isn't he cute?  I think we need to name him, but that might result in the third or is it fifth "baby" with the name "Scraps."  Miles names all of his animals (babies) the same name.  I guess it is easy that way. 


While watching Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and hoping to find a recipe for the heavenly blueberry muffin french toast (iced, I tell ya!) featured on the show, I happened upon the lovely website of Chaps Coffee Co.  - home to the decadent french toast.     

The music and the layer-upon-layer pictures and textures from their website made my little heart SING!

See for yourself - here:

http://www.chapsgirl.com/home/index.html

Now for that recipe - because I do not disappoint!

BlueBerry Muffin French Toast
as created with Guy Fieri from Diners Drive-ins and Dives
by Chaps Coffee Co.

Blueberry Muffin French Toast
6 1/4 c. All Purpose flour
1 Tbl. + 1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
20 oz. Unsalted Butter
3 c. Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla
5 Whole Eggs
1 1/2 c. Fresh Blueberries

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Adds eggs and vanilla.
Beat until incorporated.
Scrape down sides of the bowl.
Add dry ingredients.
Beat until well combined.
Add blueberries. Mix briefly.
Spread into a greased 9x12 pan.
Bake 350 degrees for about an hour.

Cream Cheese Frosting
3 lbs cream cheese
3 cups sugar
2 cups fresh blueberries
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Whip it up and serve on top.

Just keeps on coming...

That pesky Pottery Barn catalog just keeps finding my mailbox! 

This issue is all about my favorite things - comfort food.  In fact, it gives us complete directions on "How To: Throw a Comfort Food Party..."  As if I needed any more big ideas on how to eat creamy, cheesy, naughty things!  (Although, because I think everyone deserves to be all comfy too - here is the link below...)

http://www.potterybarn.com/shop/dinnerware-entertaining/party-planner/?cm_src=comfort_foodparty

First, they give you a whole list of parties you can host - my favorite was a Book Club Party - and then you can download the menu, recipes and even invitations!  Oh the big ideas!

Perfect Baked Potatoes

To bake the perfect potato with a crackly skin, you will need...

Olive Oil
Salt
Russet Potatoes - similar in size

Wash and dry the potatoes, then pierce each potato deeply with a fork or sharp knife several times on each side.  Pricking the potatoes will allow steam to escape during the baking - and keep explosions at bay.  Besides - who wants to clean up an oven after dinner?  Not me!  (If you just happen to have a penchant for cleaning ovens, you can always come over.  I will bake you some potatoes, minus the explosives - and after that, you can clean the oven just for fun!)

Side note - wrapping the potatoes in aluminum foil will produce a soft skin (not crispy). Technically, this is steaming rather than baking (as the moisture in the potato remains trapped) and the light, flaky texture will be missing. The texture of a steamed potato is entirely different from that of a perfect baked potato.  NEVER use aluminum foil when baking potatoes!

Rub or brush the potato with olive oil...

 Then roll the potatoes in coarse or kosher salt...

This makes the skin super yummy to eat - just don't eat it all - unless you want to carry around 5 lbs. of water weight the next day. 

Now bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour to an 1 hour 20 minutes.  Enjoy with some butter, sour cream and cheddar cheese (and maybe some yummy, crumbly bacon - and some jalapenos if you are a Mexican girl like me!)

Ole!

My Milesy is Five!

 My Milesy turned five. FIVE. 5.

 

Sadly, I had to work, but only for most of the day and not all of the day.  Because of the overwhelming guilt for having to leave my child on his birthday, Jim and I decorated the house with streamers - so many of them in fact, that my dining room looked like the BIG TOP at the circus.  This made me happy.  We tied balloons to yarn and then strung that across the entire foyer area and then we hung streamers in every color, layer upon layer from Miles' door - I like for them to have the full effect as soon as they open their eyes. 

I woke him up at 7:30 -because I couldn't leave without whispering to him, "Today, you are five!"  I think that is important - because today will never come again - just like when your brand new baby is only a day old - you just never get that time back.

Like his mama, Miles loves the Marios Bros. game on his wii. 

We decided to have a Mario party and have a Mario cake.  The Cake Corner couldn't make Mario, but did the next best thing - Toad.

You have to turn out the lights to blow out the candles...

He doesn't know it yet, but there are DRUMS inside this box ... he is going to be a ROCKSTAR!

It is sometimes hard to get a normal picture of both boys - maybe this is normal?

Yes, "Candace (really does) Eats Cake"...  This is scary.... ha ha ha!

Easy Cozy Cabin Roasted Potato & Bacon Quiche

So here we are in Tennessee, cozy cabin, a thick dusting of snow outside - no boys, no men - just me and my mom. 

What is the perfect lunch for girls that is super easy and cozy?  Quiche!  So we did what all moms do when on vacation - we sent the men and all of the boys to the grocery store to buy the ingredients! ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! 

List of ingredients:

2 Mrs. Smith's deep dish pie shells (in the freezer section)
12 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk or heavy cream (ooh la la)
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar
1 package Oscar Meyer Bacon Crumbles
Oreida Hashbrown Potatoes (freezer section)
Salt & Pepper to taste

First roast the hashbrowns in the oven for about 20 minutes - or cook in the skillet if you have access to some good ol' bacon grease.  We didn't have any with us so we roasted ours in the oven at 375 for about 20 minutes. 

Next, let those cool a bit and whisk together your eggs and milk, salt and pepper and then add in cheese.  Next add in the bacon crumbles...

Give it a good stir, pour into the pie shells and add in the potatoes on top...

Press the potatoes down so that they are covered in the eggy yumminess.  Place on a foil-lined pan...

(Finally my camera is charged and I can stop with the cell phone pics!)

Now lightly cover in foil and bake at 400 degrees for 1 hour.  Start checking at 45 minutes and take foil off to brown a bit.

This is what you'll get ...

Wasn't it worth it?

Yum!  Enjoy!





Quiche a la Cabin in Tennessee...

Standby for haphazard photos and thrown together recipe for a cheesy-potato-bacon quiche.  And yes, girlie here can blog from a snow covered cabin in Tennessee! 

Come and get it!

P.S.  I am salivating over this pan ... from Williams-Sonoma... to bake my cabin quiche in.  If you do in fact have this pan in your own repertoire, I don't want to hear about it.

June Cleaver or Aunt Bea?

Definition of euphoria - (eu pho ri a) - n. A feeling of great happiness or well-being.

My mom and I are sitting right in the middle of euphoria.  I am on one couch, she is on the other.  I have my laptop (switching between my blog, "Life is Sweet..." and Ree Drummond's blog, "The Pioneer Woman" - can it get any better?)   Mom is reading a cookbook that Grandma VanVonderen sent me for Christmas, commenting here and there about recipes similar to ones we have in the South.  All of the boys (Jim, Tim, Owen and Miles) are on a Walmart run.  Peace and quiet.  So here we are, my mom and I and the plum perfect cabin with the snow outside the windows - all snuggly and warm inside - with a pot of peach tea, the blogs, my latest book - and Andy Griffith playing in the background...

All of sudden Helga (my mom) looks up and out of nowhere says to me, "Now you see, Candace, Aunt Bea used to wear pearls everyday too."

What?  What?  I will tell you what.  My mom is trying to tell me that maybe I should be comparing myself to Aunt Bea, instead of the iconic June Cleaver. 

I give this a half second of thought and then quickly retort that Aunt Bea is short and round - and I'd much rather be like June Cleaver.  June was taller, classy, trim, a wonderful mom - all of the things I try to be.  As I ponder these two women, I realize that Aunt Bea wore aprons too...  hmmmm....  Well, I refuse to think it!  Now where did that feeling of euphoria run off to...?

Tennessee snow and 20 degree weather can't touch my new favorite cheapy (about $6) hand lotion. The best part - it smells a lot like my Bath & Bodyworks Shea Cashmere Lotion (about $16.50.)  

 vs. 

My Jim...

Jim is like no other.  It is Christmas Eve morning and most men would be drinking coffee, watching the Today Show or reading the paper.  Not Jim.  I found his coffee mug and cereal bowl (both left on the coffee table half empty), but Jim was no where to be found.  Sometimes he sits outside in a chair drinking coffee in his own little private garage oasis - away from wife and boys.  Sometimes I go outside and join him there - both of us escaping for a little peace and quiet before the boys wake up.  Not today.  I should have known that because he would have never left his coffee inside, if he was sitting outside. 

When I looked in the backyard - this is what I found...

As I try to sneak across the yard with my camera, I tell him that only he would be raking and burning leaves on Christmas Eve morning.  He says that if we lived on a farm, we'd be working outside right now.  Maybe that means he is practicing for when we do... Merry Christmas everyone!

Piles... Do you have some?

I have little piles all over.  Piles of unread magazines on the chairs at the bar, piles of magazines in the corner of my bedroom, piles of mail on the countertop.  Most recently the most despised pile is the one of Christmas paper, tissue paper and bows beside my dresser - a speedy wrapping station, always at the ready - so functional, yet such a mess!  I wonder if that is the short description of me?

New gray hair...


I think I worry more than some moms.  Maybe more than most moms.  It is a habit that has been fastidiously passed down from 3 generations.  It all started with my Great Grandma Edell - she was a worrier in the utmost sense.  I can remember being bored out of my gourd at her house growing up and one of my favorite activities was to walk circles around her coffee table.  I'd start out slow and then gradually pick up the pace until I was flying around that coffee table like a dog chasing it's tail.  Great Grandma would sit there in her rocking chair and worry the tissue in her hand to death watching me.  She always kept a tissue in her hand for times like this, and also to wipe condensation from the bottoms tea glasses as the women (and little Candace) sat at the table clipping coupons after Sunday dinner.  Great Grandma gave those tissues a work out!  So Great Grandma passed the worrying bug along to her daughter, my Grandma Louise.  Grandma Louise worried, but she wasn't one to sit and worry - that woman would work!  She did her worrying while working - she didn't smile very often and that would let me know that she was worrying.  Grandma Louse then gave my mom the gift of worry and somehow I eventually got it.  It's catching.  I am not quite sure when the worrying started, maybe in middle school, but I have it honed now into a fine art.  (And because I am worrying, I have recently told my mom that she can't worry anymore because I need her to tell me how everything is going to be ok.) 

Over the last few weeks, I've accumulated quite a new crop of gray hair, which I can attribute to Miles' penmanship (or lack thereof.)  The poor little guy just couldn't get the knack of holding his pen/pencil (and usually marker) properly.  This led to shakey letters and that led to pen throwing.  Besides all of that, he looked terribly uncomfortable.  The whole time, of course, I am worrying... and thinking that maybe I should asked Jennifer and Amy J if their kids were writing perfectly at this point.   

Well, I am happy to report that Miles is holding his marker properly - thanks to Mrs. Kelly at the preschool!  (All that worrying for nothing!) 

Just look at him go!

Georgetown Cupcake...

So I think that my sweet friend, Danielle Hobbs - photographer extraordinaire - might live near Georgetown Cupcake!  This got me so excited and I had to look up their website again - to send it to her - and this is what I found - oh my.  Oh dear. Oh me.