"Tikvinki" or "Pumkini's"

This is one of my favorite snacks from childhood, The crispy, flaky crust filled with warm squash. So good, my mouth starts to water whenever I think of them.

I serve these with some soup on a rainy day. ( unfortunately we still have lots of rainy days here in the NW)

PRINT RECIPE HERE

First make the dough:

1 egg

1 cup water

1/2 tsp salt

3 1/2 cups flour

Knead the dough and leave to rest while you prepare the squash.

Peel and seed the squash, and shred and add 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper:

Prepare the butter. Take 1/2 cup of salted butter. Cube 1/4 of the butter and melt the other 1/4:

Take half of the dough and roll out to 1 cm thick and butter with the melted butter:

Roll up the dough:

Cut into 1 inch sections:

Press each section into flour:

Roll out each section to about 2 cm thick

Put one butter cube onto the dough and 1 TB of the squash:

Fold each piece up like so:

Place on a greased sheet.

Beat one egg and brush each pumkini:

Bake at 350 for 24 minutes, or until slightly golden. Then take the melted butter and brush each pumpkini:

All Done:

Yummy!!!

My Baby Boy is One!

My little Baby Boy has turned one year old! I still can not believe how fast the year has gone!

I am so grateful that I have been given the opportunity to stay home with my children this year, being a stay at home mom has been truly a blessing, I get to see my baby's firsts myself, I get to cuddle in bed with my kids in the morning, most of all, I get to give them the care and attention they need.

A few updates on the little man:

He walks while holding on to things (couch, wall, chair) but still not by himself

He stands up and manages to stand for a few seconds on his own

He climbs upstairs and down stairs all by himself

He gives kisses and waves good bye

I am still nursing him, although a lot less since he is eating more real food

He takes 2 naps a day (usually at 11am and 5pm)

We are still cloth diapering

He is such a sugar booger, I love him so much !

Here is my little guy at one month:

Our Half Bath

Today you get to take a peek into our down stairs half bath

I am really pleased with the outcome, considering that it took us only 2 days to pull it together.

We spent $500 on this update. More then I wanted to spend, but you should see the before, the whole thing had to go!

Here is the before

Huge vanity, big old mirror, wooden towel rod, wooden toilet paper holder

(oh yeah, this house had wooden toilet seats when we moved in, that was the first thing we replaced. LOL, It just didn't seem sanitary)

Gosh, I hated this bathroom!

I was going to just paint the vanity, but I could not find a counter/sink in this size

Then we thought about tiling the counter, but that seemed like to much work.

So we decided to rip it all out

The vanity was $129 at IKEA

The sink/counter was $100 at IKEA

I fell in love with the vintage inspired faucet at IKEA, which was $69.99

I used left over paint for the walls

I used this FREE template for the stenciling

I saw this Martha Stewart light fixture long before we started working on this bathroom, I just fell in love with it and I knew right away that I wanted to use it in my bathrooms

Well, that wraps it up

Thanks for visiting

Vanilla Cupcakes

This is my go to recipe for delicious vanilla cupcakes, I have tried lots of recipes and this one beat them all. The cupcakes smell delicious, they taste scrumptious!

CLICK HERE TO PRINT RECIPE

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups of cake flour

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

2 cups Sugar

1 TB Baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) softened

4 large eggs

1 cup of 2% milk

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, mixing until just coated with flour.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla. With mixer on medium speed, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated do not over beat.

3. Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-23 minutes, or until a tooth pick comes out clean.

4. Once the cupcakes have cooled, frost with this frosting:

Vanilla butter cream

1 cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks) Softened

6-8 cups of confectioners sugar

1/2 cup of milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

In a bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter until creamy (2-3 minutes)

add 6 cups of confectioners, milk and vanilla and beat on low until light and fluffy.

If necessary add remaining 2 cups of the confectioners sugar until you reach the desired consistency.

Our Dining Area

Welcome to our dining area

We don't have a huge house, so we do not actually have a formal dining room.

Which I love, since a fancy dining room would be a waste of space,

because we don't have fancy dinner parties.

My daughter plays at the dining table (usually on it) while I prep dinner.

I love how open it is to the kitchen.

I hope you guys like it:

Here is a the before, or actually the "during" remodel

I bought my table, chairs and bench at IKEA

It expands, so it is perfect for lots of family and friends

The chandelier is from overstock, and I have to say.. I LOVE it. I am so glad I found this and didn't settle on something from home depot.

Where the kitchen and dining area meet

(I still need to find some stools. I am thinking metal stools... hmmm..)

The curtains are from IKEA

They come 96 inches long,

I just hemmed them and created loops on the top to get this neat look:

Well, that concludes our dining room tour :)

Thanks for visiting.

Painting our Kitchen Cabinets

We recently remodeled our kitchen. We were on a tight budget, so to keep costs down we decided to paint our own cabinets.

It was a lot of hard work but certainly worth it.

Take a look at the before:

Before:

First thing we did, was take down all the doors and drawers and gave them a good sanding.

We sanded all the way down to the wood

We used a 80 grit and then a 180 to smooth out the wood using a mouse sander

We used this sprayer, which I have to say worked very great for the price

(the important thing is to clean it well after using)

First we put a coat of Valspar Latex primer using the sprayer

The spray gun gives a nice thin coat

While I was priming the doors, hubby was installing crown molding over the cabinets

First step:

2nd step:

The primer dries very quick, I was able to prime both front and back in a few hours:

Then we did two coats of Valspar Kitchen and Bath paint (color: blanched pine) , using the spray gun:

Its a good thing it was nice outside, so the doors could dry fast:

After the cabinet doors were drying, I taped off everything and sanded everything down.

So after sanding, I prepped my painting tray and primed and painted the cabinets using a foam roller and an angled brush:

I did one coat of primer and two coats of paint

Ok, now back to the cabinet doors.

After two coats of paint with the spray gun

you can see a slight wood grain, since with the spray gun, the paint didn't seep into the wood grain:

This is where I took my foam roller and rolled on a coat:

Much better:

Finally after everything was painted, I cleaned out all the cabinets and out

new contact paper in.

All the drawers and cabinets were organized

All the hard work pays off:

Just a FYI, we started this project on Sunday and hung up the cabinet door on Thursday.

I was painting the cabinets on my own, while taking care of two little kids.

So if I can do it, so can you!

Thanks for visiting. :)