How 'bout Them Apples

The exciting part about going apple picking is coming home and having to come up with different ways to use your apples. The first thing Max and I made was Apple Crisp, no recipe needed because we cheated and bought a pre-made mix ;)

Picnic

I finally got to use my new Picnic Basket from The Nantucket Bike Basket Company and my monogrammed picnic plates! It was a beautiful fall day by the river, complete with some Graul's Market snacks and Martinelli's Sparkling Cider, which always makes me feel like a kid again.

Apple Picking

One of my favorite things to do every fall is to go apple picking. It makes me feel like a kid again, I love the fresh country air and the excitement of coming up with ways to use all of the freshly picked apples. Max and I have gone up to Brown's Orchard in Glen Rock, PA the past two years, it is quite the hike to get up there, but the orchard and family market (we bought the best homemade chocolates this year!) are totally worth the trip.

More Pumpkin

             Even after making the pumpkin cookies I was still craving pumpkin so I decided to make some pumpkin butter. I had never had pumpkin butter before, but all of the recipe's I had looked up included most of the ingredients from pumpkin pie filling, and I LOVE pumpkin pie. I also love the consistency of apple butter, so it seemed like a win-win thing to make. It was very easy, and sooooo delicious. I have been eating it on toast in the morning and even put it between two pumpkin cookies to make my very own version of a fall chipwich!

Ingredients:

1 can (29 oz) pumpkin puree

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup water

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp. allspice

Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan over medium/high heat and bring to a boil.  Once it reaches a boil, lower the heat to low/medium and simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring frequently.

Fall Sweet Treats

Fall, the best season, has officially settled in Maryland. There is one problem though, it has been endlessly raining. In order to cheer up the dreary weather my sister and I decided to make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies, and of course set out some of my favorite candy corn :)

The cookies were delicious, we had never made them before, but they turned out to be little bites of pumpkiny goodness, super moist and fluffy.

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)

1 tablespoon pumpkin-pie spice

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, pie spice, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

2. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar on medium-high speed until smooth; beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in pumpkin puree (mixture may appear curdled). Reduce speed to low, and mix in dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

3. Spoon onto baking sheet. Sprinkle cinnamon on top. Cook 12 minutes.

September Playlist

So much for posting in September.. I decided that I was not really a fan of my blog, so how could anyone else be? The month of October is going to focus on a blog revamp, which I am hoping will make this blog more interesting. But for now, here is my September playlist which I listened to on repeat all month long. 

1. Lost In Time - Whitely

2. Lost In My Mind - The Head and The Heart

3. Life Magazine - Cold Cave

4. The Life I Keep -Whitely 

5. Last Night - The Morning Benders

6. In Love, Not Limbo - Of Oceans

7. Hours - Tycho

8. History Book - Dry The River

9. For 12 - Other Lives

10. Figueroa - Hotels & Highways

11. Faded High - Gayngs

12. Doorways - Radical Fear

13. CPR/Claws Pt. 2 - Typhoon

14. Born - Starfucker

15. Barton Hollow- The Civil Wars

16. Barely Legal - Real Estate

17. Baltimore Bound - Supervisor of the Loveless Average

18. Apathy - Mikal Cronin

19. All of Us - Painted Palms

Photo: dress, design, decor

August Playlist

I love this one..

1. Wrong Side of Love - Augustana

2. Winter Beats - I Break Horses

3. When I'm Small -Phantogram

4. We Can Stay Away the Sound Underground - Supervisor of the Loveless Average

5. Vessel - Zola Jesus

6. Twenty Questions - Hotels & Highways

7. Tulip - Here We Go Magic

8. Trap The Mouse - Winter Gloves

9. Sweetness - Peal and the Beard

10. Sweet Impressions - Hjaltalin

11. Surgeon - St. Vincent

12. Stitches - Stolen Jars

13. Steal Your Heart - Augustana

14. Some Children - Holy Ghost!

15. Say Something (Ukelele Version) - Ian Axel

16. Saw You First - Givers

17. So Close to Paradise - Elite Gymnastics

18. The Piper's Song - Gypsy and the Cat

19. Pacific Sun - Ian Axel

20. Night - Zola Jesus

21. New Ceremony - Dry the River

22. Nail In My Coffin - The Kills

23. Monopoly - Danny Brown

24. Money - The Drums

25. Midnight City - M83

Photo thanks to Dress, Design & Decor

Party Animal Cake Toppers

These DIY gold animal birthday candles from "The Sweetest Occasion" are so incredibly easy to make and perfect for party animals of all ages! (I love the squirrel!)

Supplies -

• plastic animals
• plastic candle holders
• drill with 1/8″ drill bit
• pliers
• gold spray paint

1. You can use any type of plastic toy animal, it is recommended to use animals with flat backs in order to keep the candle holder steady.

2. Using pliers to hold the animal in place drill a hole into it's back, it only needs to be big enough to hold the candle holder. Make sure you do not drill through the other side!

3. Using metallic spray paint spray all of the sides of the animal evenly. With metallics you do not need to use a primer, but if you want to use different color varieties a primer is necessary.

4. Spray paint the candle holders and once dry place inside the drilled hole.

and ta-da..now it's time to celebrate!

We Finally Have Power!

Hurricane Irene had me terrified; hiding on the living room sofa away from my bedroom from 3am until 6am. I waited and waited while the storm passed my house which is surrounded by giant trees. (My bedroom is the two windows you can see in the linked photo). When I finally fell asleep I had the weirdest dream that a  tree fell into my house and inside was a talking owl that reminded me of  X the Owl from Mr. Rogers. I was definitely sleep deprived.

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Love Birds

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Creepy Cool Family Resemblance

How strong is your family resemblance? I would say I am a mixture of both of my parents equally, and I really don't look too similar to any of my four siblings. People have always said we look related, but the resemblance isn't shocking or incredibly noticeable in my family as with others. One of my good friends,Carter, and her two brothers, Rustin and Jackson, could be triplets there resemblance is so strong.

Photographer Ulric Collette has created a series of portraits called Genetic Portraits. He takes two family members faces, whether they have a strong resemblance or not, and puts them together making them into one portrait. Below are a few of my favorites, see more here .

Sisters - Catherine,23 and Veronica,29

Brothers - Christopher, 30 and Ulric, 29

Father/Son - Laval, 56 and Vincent, 29

Father/Son - Denis, 53 and William, 28

Son/Father - Nathan, 7 and Ulric, 29

Kardashians

The Kardashians are my guilty pleasure, I love them. I follow their twitters, I watch their shows, I even check their blogs every once and a while. I am personally a huge Kourtney fan - she's the most stylish in my opinion and I am very very entertained by Scott's antics. I am beyond excited for Kim's wedding premiere in October! Until then the pictures will have to do...

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Selfies with The 8.

As everyone heads back to school I cannot help but be sad and depressed. This is the first time in 18 years that I am not going back to school, which means I am not going back to school shopping AHHHH, the horror!!! I'm seriously upset. Here are some self-timer pics from before our Senior Bar Crawl just before graduation this past May. I wish I was back there now.