peace out, sweets.

That's right.  I'm giving up sweets for Lent this year.  I'm a Jesus lover and I do believe that in order for us to focus on his suffering for us so that we can have victory in Him, I can't cheat on Sundays.  So, I'm without the magical little sugar calorie demons that sew my clothes tighter in my closet while I sleep until April 8th!

As my last hurrah, I celebrated Mardi Gras down in Mobile (it's way better than New Orleans) with 20892 members of my family and le boyfriend was drowning in questions.  It was hilarious.

To celebrate my body being given back to the Lord (goodness knows it needs to be!) I made chocolate chip cookie dough brownies.  I took several pictures of my process, but none of them look as good as this one:

mmmmm YES.

In the mean time, I'll leave with my latest time waster.  This is my dream-dog and I need one NOW.

gimme. 

party popcorn

After a cute Skype-date with super cute boyfriend, I am officially all Valentine's Day-ed out.  Again, I still love the holiday but it has been a very busy day!

I am a big proponent of homemade valentines, but only as of late- my valentines in first grade were bags of bird seed with a poem tied to them about "Valentines for the Birds".... this is my family, you cannot make this stuff up.

Last night, I stuck to my homemade rule and made Party Popcorn for everyone from co-workers to teachers to doctors... none of them were surprised.   Apparently, it's a very "me" thing to do.  Go figure!

Recipe is super easy- just pop butter-free popcorn and pour on candy melts appropriate for the holiday!  Pink and red dominated this batch, obviously!  Not a bad snack to cut through the super-sugary day!

crafty centerpieces

I'm sitting here on Valentine's Eve watching the show I love to hate, "The Bachelor".  I hate Courtney and I think she looks like the witch on "The Little Mermaid".

am i right?

I am not a Valentine's Day hater... I think it's a little outrageous, but it's not horrible and my house reflects that.  I figured I'd share the centerpieces that have been sitting on my kitchen table for a month!  My roomies love them because they get to have the candy whenever they want so that's convenient!

I love apothecary jars and burlap and I think they're precious!

got luv?

skinny-minis

I have super bad self image but I love to eat so here's my compromise:

"Skinny" Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Here's the recipe I used from Eat Yourself Skinny.  Apparently, they adapted it from Weight Watchers and this is a new favorite blog of mine!

At about 30 calories a cookie, I will DEFINITELY make these again! Obviously "They're no Tollhouse" (compliments from my roomies) but they're pretty darn good for diet cookies!

grownup oreos

The Parent Trap is my favorite movie... No, not the old one- the one with Miss Lohan.  It's a shame she's such a weirdo now because I wanted to be her up until about a year ago...

My friend Alex and I watched this movie at LEAST once a week, only alternating between Madeline and The Princess Diaries, and I can still recite the entire movie (much to the chagrin of my roommates...it's annoying).

One of my favorite parts of the movie was this scene:

I totally get chills at the end... every time.

Anyways, I don't love peanut butter like everyone else I know but I wanted to try this recipe because I do love Oreos and brownies!  They were SPECTACULAR.  The frosting was so creamy and not too peanut butter-y and oh man they were just delicious!  I used this recipe and followed it exactly- they were perfect!