Deliciousness!

Hello all! Hope you are having a lovely little Saturday! Today, I wanted to share this yummy fall recipe with you all. Let me know what you all think!

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

(Courtesy of www.dashingdish.com)

Ingredients 

Cupcakes:
1	(18.25) box Duncan Hines spice cake mix
1 cup	Pumpkin
1 cup	Water
Whipped Frosting:
1	(1 oz) Box instant butterscotch sugar free pudding mix (or vanilla or cheesecake pudding mix)
1	(8oz) Container light Cool Whip or Tru Whip
1 cup	Fat free milk (or milk alternative)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 (12 cup) muffin tins with cupcake liners. Combine cake mix, pumpkin, and water in a large bowl, and mix until batter is smooth. Bake cupcakes for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Meanwhile, to make the frosting, combine milk and pudding mix in a medium size bowl. Whisk until pudding mix and milk are well combined, and mixture is smooth. Fold in the cool whip.

To prepare the frosting to pipe on the cupcakes, take a large ziplock back and turn it ‘inside out’. Using a spatula, scoop the frosting into one of the corners of the bag. Then turn bag ‘right side out’, and push frosting all the way down into the corner of the bag. Set frosting bag in the fridge until you are ready to frost the cupcakes.

Once cupcakes are completely cooled, you are ready to begin frosting! Take the frosting bag out of the fridge, snip the corner of the bag off with sharp scissors. To frost the cupcakes, squeeze the frosting out of the bag while making a swirling/upward motion and lift at the peak! Garnish with sprinkles or cinnamon if desired! Serve immediately, or keep in fridge to keep frosting chilled until serving!                       

Friday's Fashion Finds- Guest Post from Shelby at I Am the Daughter of a King

Hello everyone! Hope you are having an awesome Friday! So today for my Friday's Fashion Finds, I am so excited to welcome Shelby from I Am the Daughter of a King! Shelby is such a wonderful girl, and I just love her beautiful blog. I honestly have to say that because she's my sister! Yes, Shelby is indeed my big sister. So everyone read this post and go check out her blog! Enjoy!

Hi everyone! I’m Shelby Miller (Madison’s sister). I’ll be guest posting for her today.  You can come and visit me at www.iamthedaugterofaking.blogspot.com to find fashion ideas, recipes, thoughts and so much more!

Today I’m going to be posting about the biggest fall trends that have walked the runways.  First of all, lets talk about the biggest fall makeup trend going on right now.  If you watch any fashion show for Fall 2012 or winter 2012 you going to see a majority of basic eye makeup. A unique streak of eyeliner or wearing it all natural is what you’ll be seeing. Check out these photos:

The next trend I would like to present is color. One of the biggest color trends this year is royal blue.

The last trend I’d like to discuss is presence. You can have all of the clothes in the world, but if you don’t have the correct presence and attitude…those clothes are worthless! If you watch any fashion show today you’ll see paper thin models with “perfect” figures. Even when you look around in your local town, the fashion icons still have this perfected look. Sometimes I get down about  it…but then I realize that it’s the presence that matters. You don’t need to be paper thin to be beautiful or well known.  You don’t even need this season’s latest look. All you need is what your creator blessed you with!  Your smile and your words will be remembered far more longer than your outfit will. Trust me :)

Around the World Thursday!

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a lovely little Thursday! So today for Around the World Thursday, I wanted to show you all Tuscany, Italy. Tuscany is such a beautiful city, no? Let me know what you think!

DIY Headband

Hello all! Hope you are having a lovely Wednesday! Today I found this awesome DIY headband, that I really want to try to make. Let me know what you think about this DIY!

(Courtesy of www.fineandfeathered.com)

A.R.K.

Hello all! I hope you are having a fabulous Tuesday! So today I thought I'd post a few acts of random kindness (or A.R.K for short) that I most certainly will be doing sometime! These ideas are especially great for kiddos. Let me know what you think!

Writing Inspiration

Hey everyone! Hope you are having an awesome Monday! So today for my writing inspiration, I thought I'd share one of my own writing tips. What I do to find inspiration for writing is simply go outside! Just grab a journal and a pen and head outdoors. What I do is sit under my favorite tree in my backyard and begin writing down things I notice. This is a great tip for writing poetry. I especially love doing this in the fall, when the leaves are changing and the weather is just a little cool. I hope this helps any of you writers out there!

Deliciousness!

Hello everyone! Hope you are having a great Saturday! Well, today is the first day of fall. So, in honor of that, I wanted to post this yummy looking recipe for Pumpkin Chai Cookies! Let me know what you think about this fall recipe.

Chai Pumpkin Spice Thumbprints (Courtesy of www.passthesushi.com)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup chai concentrate
• 1 large egg
• 1 teas vanilla extract
• 1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teas baking soda
• 1/8 teas salt
• 1/2 teas chai spice mix
• 22-24 Pumpkin spice Hershey’s Kisses (found at Target in the early fall)

Preparation:

Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer and cream at medium speed until fluffy, or with a hand mixer, for about 2-3 minutes. Add the egg, chai concentrate,  and the vanilla, mix until combined. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt, scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl as necessary. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Using your hands, roll the dough into 22 to 24 1 inch round balls. Place the dough balls on parchment paper lined baking sheets and sprinkle chai spice mix lightly over cookies.

Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes. Meanwhile, unwrap kisses.

Remove the cookies from the oven and immediately place pumpkin kisses in the center of each cookie. Don’t touch or the kisses will turn into puddles! Cool completely.

Finally Friday!

Hello everyone! Hope you are having a great Friday! I'm so glad the weekend is finally here. And I decided to start it off right :) Here's what I've got planned for this awesome Friday night.

Pizza! Okay so it's not like Little Caesar's or anything but it's pizza......and it's all mine. 

Drake and Josh! I've been dying to watch this show lately :)

Chill outside and read for a while! Come on, who doesn't love reading a good book on a Friday night? :)

Manicure time! Thought I'd experiment with nail polish by putting these two together.

What could be better than this? Hunger Games and popcorn! 

Around the World Thursday

Hello everyone! Hope you are having a nice Thursday! Today for Around the World Thursday, I wanted to show you all Prague. Prague is such a gorgeous city located in thew Czech Republic. Let me know what you think!

Wicked

Hello everyone! Hope you are having a great Wednesday. So, yesterday, I went to see Wicked! It was amazing! I've always wanted to see this show, so this was a big deal for me. We had so much fun. Here are a few pics. Let me know what you think!

Here's me and Shelby! Shelby sang two songs from this show for her voice lessons (I Couldn't Be Happier and Defying Gravity), so I know she was very excited to see this show!

Here's the stage! Sorry it's a little blurry! :)

And lastly, here's my program! This show was amazing, and I definitely think if you haven't seen it already,  you need to see it! :)

Fall's on it's way!

Hello everyone! Hope you are having an amazing Tuesday! Well, fall is officially on it's way. Can you believe it? Here are a few things I love about fall. What about you?

Writing Inspiration

Hello all! Hope you are having a splendid Monday! So, a few weeks ago I was in sort of a "writer's block". For those who don't know, writer's block basically means I can't come up with anything good to write. As a writer, its very agitating. Anyway, I finally overcame this "writer's block", but not by a way I imagined it. A few weeks ago my sister and I spent the day with my grandmother and my little 5 year old cousin. My cousin is a very creative little girl. My grandma says she's always off in her own imaginary world. That afternoon, she and I played fairies in my grandmother's backyard. At first I was a little hesitant, I mean, what would my grandmother's neighbors think, you know? I was afraid they'd wonder "Why is there a teenage girl waving a stick around in that yard over there?" But I decided to not worry about those things, and have fun with my little cousin. And we did. In fact, we had so much fun that I decided I want to try to write a children's fairytale. Now, I'm not sure if it will be good, or if I'll take a 10 years to write it, but it is an idea. And I hadn't had a good one like that in a while. All in all, I learned that inspiration for stories can come from the most unlikely places, you just have to take a chance and find it.

Deliciousness!

Hello all! Hope you are having an awesome Saturday. Today I thought I'd post a delicious yet simple recipe for homemade Oreos. Let me know what you think!

Homemade Oreos: Courtesy of Eyelikesfood.blogspot.com 

CHOCOLATE COOKIES:

Ingredients:

1 pkg. devils food chocolate cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 c. oil

*mix together.

*use small cookie scoop for big cookies- break that scoop in half for mini's.

*roll into balls and bake on ungreased baking sheet.

BAKE: 350
TIME: 10 minutes big cookies. 8 minutes mini cookies.

underbake cookies and leave on cookie sheet to finish baking.

FILLING:

2 boxes of cake will work with this amount of filling.
4 boxes of cake and you will need to double your filling. 


This filling tastes EXACTLY like oreo filling.


Ingredients: 

1 stick softened butter (unsalted)

1/2 c. shortening

1 tsp. vanilla
3 c. powdered sugar

*cream butter, shortening and vanilla.

*add powdered sugar and cream together.

*fill cookies as soon as they are cooled with a butter knife.

  

Store cookies in an air tight container... leftover plastic ice cream buckets are PERFECT for keeping cookies fresh.

Friday's Fashion Finds

Hello everyone! Hope you are having an awesome Friday. Here are my fashion finds for today, let me know what you think of them!

All Around the World Thursday!

Hey everyone! Hope you are having a great Thursday! Today for Around the World Thursday, I wanted to show you all beautiful Greece. Let me know what you think!

Smiles

Hello everyone! Hope you're having a great Wednesday! I don't know about you all, but my Wednesdays are usually just kind of boring. So today I wanted to post a few things to make you smile!

Healthy Living

Hey everyone! Hope you are having a lovely little Tuesday! Now that school has begun for us students, and schedules begin to get crammed for everyone else, we tend to forget about eating healthy and exercising. Here are just a few tips to keep up your health, despite the business of this time of year.