Minty Nutella Coconut Chunk Cookies

Yum.

Last week I went to the grocery store and bought Nutella. I love the stuff, but rarely keep it in the house because it would be gone like THAT.

It's already gone.

But part of the reason is these cookies.

Thursday was my and the hubb's anniversary, and he bought me a bag of coconut M&Ms. Have you had them? Buy a bag, pop them in the freezer and thank me later. They're pretty awesome. So as not to eat them all in one sitting, I decided to put them into cookies. But I also wanted Nutella cookies. This dilemma equalled amazing results.

Minty Nutella Coconut Chunk Cookies

Ingredients:
1-¼ cup All-purpose Flour
½ teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
⅔ cup Dutch-process Cocoa
½ cup Unsalted Butter
½ cup Granulated Sugar
½ cup Dark Brown Sugar
1-½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2-3 drops Peppermint Extract
½ cup Nutella
⅓ cup Milk

1 egg

2 bags Coconut M&Ms

½ cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Combine flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa in a small bowl and set aside. In a larger bowl, add the butter and sugars and beat on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add the extracts and egg and combine. Add the Nutella and mix until batter is smooth. Alternate the flour and milk and mix until combined.
Fold in the M&Ms and chocolate chips.
On a greased sheet or parchment paper, add scoops of walnut-sized balls. Put into the freezer for 5 minutes, then flatted with the bottom of  a heavy cup dipped in sugar.
Bake cookies for 12-14 minutes or until soft, but starting to set. Remove cookies from the oven and let cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Makes 2 dozen cookies.

I'm linking here, here and here!

Easy Tee to Tank

I love sewing during Project Runway as much as I love eating during Biggest Loser.

It's my new thing.

Anyway, I saw this today and flagged it to make tonight during Project Runway. It was so easy!

I don't have great pictures of the tank I made ...

LOVE this project!

... because I also made Minty Nutella Coconut Chunk cookies (no pictures yet ...) and ran two miles. Oh, and it's the hubbs and my anniversary. In other words, I had a lot to juggle tonight.

But please make the tank. It's super easy and turns out really cute. I think I'm going to make a few for my girl this weekend. And more for me. And if anyone asks, maybe I'll make one for them, too! It's offer-to-make-one-for-someone-else easy.

In other news, guys, this just warms my heart. I'm a Texas girl, a Baylor grad and most importantly, a mommy. I am so thankful for the small blessing this family just received.

Minty Nutella Coconut Chunk cookie recipe to come!

You Should See the Other Guy

I got a call today as I left work on my lunch break. It was from my son's school. I freaked out, knowing it had to be bad. His after-school teacher called to say that he'd fallen at school and had a gash on his face that would likely need stitches. I could hear him screaming in the background. They said he was in the office and they were trying to contain the bleeding. I was 30 minutes away.

Twenty minutes later, I was at his school. I flew. It was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be, but it was nowhere near what I hoped it would be.


My buddy. It wasn't anywhere nearly as bad as when he fell last year and banged up his face on the curb.

Ouch. That was a bad fall.

But it was still really hard. He didn't need stitches, even though my husband thinks the doctor was just trying to get out of holding down a 4 year old. Instead, the doctor gave him what my son called "fire glue" because it burned when the doctor put it on and my kiddo cried for me to blow on his face while he breathed through the pain.

But it's glued and taped up he's good. Clingy and comforted more than usual by his blankie. But good.

Whew.

Ruffle Skirt

I bought a dress at the thrift store about two months ago that I loved. I didn't really need to do anything with it except take out the shoulder pads, fix a small rip and shorten it by about a foot.

But it's so pretty. Black with white polka dots and mini pearl buttons down the front. Love.

I kept the scrap of fabric I cut off the bottom and wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it. But last night, I made a really adorable skirt for my little girl.

Guys, I really need a better camera.

That said, here's what I did, in case you want to make something similar.

Measure your little girl's waist and double it. In my case, hers was 20", so I cut two strips of fabric 40" long and 9" tall. On my fabric, I was able to keep the bottom hem of the dress to use as the bottom of each ruffle. But if you don't have that luxury, you'll need to hem each strip.

For the top of the ruffle, you'll need to fold the top over .5", then fold again another .5", so you'll strip will be about 7" or so, depending on how deep you made your hem.

You don't want to secure the stitch at the top because you're going to ruffle the top by pulling the top string and pushing the fabric toward the center. See here for more specific tutorials on the ruffle. She explained it better than I could! You'll want to continue to gather until the top of the strip is 2" longer than your daughter's waist.

Ruffle each strip, then sew the sides together, making sure you secure the top where you ruffled the fabric so the ruffle doesn't come undone. Each strip should be about 1" wider than your daughter's waist.

Next, I took a pair of bloomers and attached the ruffles to them. One went around the elastic on the top, and the other went about 4" down, right above the leg holes.

And that's it. I put two buttons from the bottom of the dress on the top of the skirt. Now we have matching outfits! So excited!

I added two of the pearls to the front of her skirt. Now we can wear matching outfits! I'm SO excited!

Pleated Scarf

Ala Ruffles and Stuff.

I love this scarf. I'm going to make 20 and wear them all the time.

Probably not. You need 175" of fabric.

But I'll make one for me and some for Christmas gifts, for sure!

I started with this one I did last night for my little girl using old scraps from her quilt. It's cute -- and I can't wait for her to wear it this winter!

It's was really easy. I think it took MAYBE 20 minutes. And cheap. So, a winner in my book.

Old Nailpolish = New Toy

I've seen this a lot of places lately, and thought it was a brilliant idea. My girl is only 3, and still too young, in my opinion, for play makeup. But that doesn't stop her from asking every morning if she can put some on when I'm in the bathroom getting ready.

Enter this quick fix. You take nail polish, old makeup containers and create pretty pretend makeup perfect for little girls.

Start with a cleaned makeup case and your choice of nail polish.

Carefully fill the slots with nail polish.

And let dry. Quick and Easy.

Give it a try! Took less than 5 minutes and now she has something she can use that we're both happy about.

At Least We're Safe ...

We had superheroes visit our house ...

He's super fast.

IRON GIRL.

The fan helps him fly.