Monday Things + Cookbook Club Update

Is it just me or is 2018 moving at warp speed? Our Winter here in Charlotte was so dark and dreary it seemed to drag on forever here we are, almost midway through April already! 

We are finally enjoying longer, sunnier days and the blooming flowers make me so happy. Last week is one of our favorites of the entire year. Masters week for Mark and our azaleas going crazy and in full bloom for me. Everybody wins. It was all about the golf last week around here. Mark had Will and Kate out on a little makeshift putting green in our backyard and they were loving it. I think we have two future golfers on our hands. I took the Masters weekend as the perfect excuse to enjoy a few (adult) Arnold Palmers. It just wouldn't have been right without one! These were a random craving late in my pregnancy with Will (obviously sans the alcohol), and Danica and I easily drank 2-3 jugs during her visit for my baby shower back in 2013! I'm a golf fan by marriage and Masters weekend will always have a special place in my heart thanks to my West Coast Sister. Word to the wise though- don't try to be healthy and get the Skinny Firefly. Just go for the real thing.  

I hosted a bridal shower this past weekend for a dear friend and we had the best time celebrating the bride to be! We did a brunch menu which was a huge hit. I did the same thing for my sister back in the Fall and everyone loved it. Brunching is never a bad idea. I got a lot of questions as I posted pics on Insta-stories on Saturday so I have a post I'm working on with menu details and how we pulled it all together seamlessly! 

We also started our weekend with a Friday night trip to Inizio- our favorite pizza! If you are local to Charlotte, their Spring pizza with asparagus and prosciutto is not to be missed! It was beyond delicious.

A quick note about Cookbook Club before I sign off for the day- we are delaying this month's post until next week! Allie and I are both feeling a bit behind so we will post April's club on Wednesday, April 18. Just a reminder that this month's book is Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volumes I or II. Looking ahead, Skinnytaste Fast and Slow will be our book for May and Giada's Feel Good Food will be our book for June. I hope to see some of you back here next Wednesday to link up! Even if you don't have the book, many of these recipes can be found with a quick Google search!  

Thursday Things

We have thawed out from our wonderful and unexpected Snowcation last week and back to our regularly scheduled programming. Charlotte is known for mis-forecasting these things so the amount of snow that we got was a true surprise! 

Local schools closed on Tuesday night in preparation of the storm and it snowed pretty much all day on Wednesday, giving us three consecutive snow days. We did all of the snow day things! Snow angels, snowmen, hot chocolate, Christmas music and lots of snuggling. 

Right before our snowy week, Mark and I spent the weekend in Asheville with friends and it was just what we needed. We stayed at the most spectacular house that used to operate as an inn/bed and breakfast. Everything was decorated so ornate and quirky and it was all sorts of magical. 

A perfectly relaxing weekend with lots of good food, wonderful friends, sparkly snowy skies and THE BEST AVOCADO TOAST OF LIFE. Seriously, if you find yourself in the Asheville area, please enjoy brunch at Sunny Point Cafe. The avocado toast and Bloody Mary will change you for the better.  

We aren't doing a true January Whole 30, but we are trying to stick to it as much as we can. I've found a few new recipes that have been hits with all of us!

- Smoky Chicken Burgers from No Crumbs Left
- Marinated Onions from No Crumbs Left
- Chicken Pesto Paleo Spaghetti Squash from Paleo Running Momma
- Steak with Mixed Olive Tapenade from Cooking Light

I purchased this CC Cream from it Cosmetics a few weeks ago and I am LOVING it. This product has a cult following and it definitely lives up to the hype. Perfect for everyday but still enough coverage if you want a "full face". It's better than a tinted moisturizer but less heavy than a traditional foundation. 

I'm still not giving up on the Golden Milk Latte. This recipe from Ambitious Kitchen is next on my list and I have high hopes. 

SHISHITO PEPPERS! Where have these been all my life. We had these in Asheville and I'm obsessed. Apparently these are hard to find in grocery stores but Trader Joe's almost always has them in stock. Blistered in olive oil and sprinkled with a little sea salt- SO GOOD. I'll be adding these to our regular rotation.

And lastly, a special thank you to Justin Timberlake for this new music!!! I pre-ordered the entire album and it's like a happy little treat the past few weeks as each new song is released. I'm a number one fan for life.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

Kate's Magical Unicorn Sprinkle Cake

I'm not sure how it happened, but our little Princess Kate turned TWO a few weeks ago! Wasn't she just born!? She is just the best little girl in the world and we love her more everyday. I'm in denial that she's less and less baby and more of a toddler. She is sassy, sweet and hilarious. The princess of the family, for sure! We celebrated with family and it was such a special day! Little miss was eating up all of the birthday attention.

Any birthday in this house isn't quite complete without our favorite sprinkle cake. Will has now asked for a sprinkle cake two years in a row and it's looking like this is a Moore family birthday tradition. I took it to the next level and created this unicorn edition for Kate's birthday and I AM IN LOVE. 

A little back story on the unicorn obsession...as trendy as they may be, it was a little bit of an accident how they became Kate's "animal". Before she was born, my dear friend went to England and brought our baby girl back a souvenir. It was a piece of the official china comemorating the birth of Princess Charlotte. The design is a gorgeous gold lion and unicorn- and so the unicorn love started and here we are. 

This cake was not only magical, but delicious, too! I think I've finally found the very best birthday cake recipe. I added sprinkles to the batter making it funfetti, but I used this same cake recipe for my sister's birthday in September and everyone LOVED it. The consistency is perfect- it really is a classic white birthday cake. I'm convinced that Greek yogurt in the batter, plus folding the whipped egg whites in separately at the end makes ALLLLL of the difference here. 

To make the unicorn cake topper, I went back to the clay animal making days of my craft loving childhood. I found a tutorial online and spent a naptime one afternoon molding away. I purchased pre-made white fondant (found HERE) as well as gel food coloring (found HERE). For the sparkly horn and hooves, I used Wilton Gold Lustre Dust (found HERE) and simply painted it onto the fondant. This was my first time ever using fondant and I had so much fun! Any excuse to get crafty is always good for my soul.                                                            

             

  

Kate asked for "puhhhhple " frosting and how could I say no!? I mixed a tiny bit of pink and a tiny bit of purple to get this gorgeous light lavender and I think the color came out perfect. 

The BEST Funfetti Birthday Cake Recipe
recipe adapted from Craftsy

FOR THE CAKE-
2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
4 large eggs, separated
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract 
1 cup full fat Greek yogurt 
1/2 cup sprinkles (jimmies are the best!)

FOR THE BUTTERCREAM-
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
6-8 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
pinch of salt
Food coloring

Adjust oven rack to the middle position in the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease, flour and line the bottom of two 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper. 

In a large bowl, sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer with whisk attachment, whisk egg whites until soft peaks start to form. This will take several minutes. Transfer them to another bowl. 

Switch out the whisk attachment for the paddle attachment on your mixer and in a large bowl (just use the same one that you whisked the egg whites in), cream the butter until fluffy and light, about 2-3 minutes on medium-high speed. Scrape down the bowl as necessary. Add the granulated and brown sugars and mix on medium high speed until combined and smooth, another 2-3 minutes. Add the egg yolks one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each one. Add the vanilla and mix until just combined.

While on medium speed, add the yogurt and flour mixture alternately, in 2-3 additions each. Mix the batter until it is smooth and free of any lumps. The batter will be super thick. By hand, fold in the egg whites gently until no streaks of white remain. 

Lastly, add sprinkles to the batter and mix those in by hand as well.

Divide batter into the two prepared cake pans. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean. Every oven is SO different, but I found that 33 minutes was the perfect amount of time for this cake! 

Once cakes are done, remove from the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes before flipping the pans over and removing the cakes. Wait until the cakes have cooled completely before frosting. 

To make the buttercream, in the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, beat butter for 2-3 minutes until very smooth. Add 2 cups of powdered sugar and the salt and beat until smooth. Keep adding powdered sugar in 1 cup increments, until it has reached your desired frosting consistency. If you find that the sugar is too thick, add milk or cream, 1 tsp. at a time, to thin it out. Add desired color and mix until done. 

Summer Stuff

I have always been a Summer lover, but it's especially sweet with my little sidekicks. It's hard to believe that August is just around the corner!! Thankfully, we still have a good chunk of Summer left. 

We have spent tons of time at the pool, seen lots of friends and have been hitting all of our favorite Charlotte spots. Will and Kate are at such great ages right now and truly so much fun.

Will got some caterpillars for his birthday and we had fun watching them turn into butterflies! The entire process was about 20 days and well worth the wait. We let them go free on July 4, which was fitting since it was Independence Day. I ordered this Insect Lore kit from Amazon and it couldn't have been easier. The kit comes with a voucher to order your caterpillars once you are ready for them. Will is already asking when we can order more caterpillars and we will definitely be doing it again in the near future!

Another fun find of the Summer has been this Ice Cream Ball. I swear, this thing is genius. This was another birthday present that Will got from some friends and it has been a huge hit. You fill one side of the ball with ice, and the other side of the ball with the ice cream ingredients, then roll it around for 20 minutes. Making kids work for their ice cream- this is an idea I am totally behind! 

Mark and I even got to sneak away to Asheville for a dear friend's wedding and it was wonderful! Any excuse for some quality time together and a weekend away with friends. Shortly after that, we spent another weekend in the mountains with some more good friends. Mark played in a golf tournament and Will, Kate and I enjoyed a little escape with friends in the crisp mountain air. There is nothing like the mountains in the Summer! 

I think that my favorite part of the Summer has been watching Will and Kate become best friends. They have always loved each other, but their little relationship has grown so much over the past few months and it brings me so much joy to be a part of it. Their conversations are pretty hilarious and they ADORE each other. 

I want to remember these sweet Summer days forever. Hope you all are enjoying them, too!

Save your Summer Memories with Chatbooks!

I love everything about Summer. The lazy days, the longer nights and plenty of sunshine to enjoy. We are making so many wonderful memories and I am soaking it all in as I know these two little ones of mine will only be this little once. Can't Summer stay forever!? Luckily, I have tons of photos of their sweet smiling faces and all of the fun we are having. 

I read an article once about how photos rarely get printed these days because we just take SO MANY OF THEM. Out of the whole article, this line has always stuck with me; "don't let your photos grow up to be jpeg files". I say that in my head nearly daily as I snap photos of moments that I want to remember, both big and small. With our cameras quite literally in our back pockets at all times we are hoarding ALL THE PICTURES. Get those files off of your phones and cameras and into photo books for your family to enjoy for years to come.

A few years ago, I discovered Chatbooks and immediately fell in love. They make it so easy to get your photos printed and bound and shipped right to your door. I subscribe to my Instagram photos, which immediately get shipped to me every 60 photos, and I have made a few other custom books, too. We have quite the collection now and Will and Kate LOVE looking through them- they are perfect for tiny hands. They have become my favorite memory books to flip through.

These cute books also make great little gifts!

The Chatbooks Semi-Annual Summer Sale is live now and you can get 20% off of EVERYTHING through July 31, 2017.  The sale includes their new collaboration with Rifle Paper Company which I cannot wait to get my hands on! I am drooling over all of these gorgeous floral prints. Use code: GROW 

Download the Chatbooks app to get started. Don't let your Summer memories hibernate on your phones and cameras!

*This post is sponsored by Chatbooks. All thoughts and ideas are my own. I received free product for writing this post.

SlimeTime

We are a few weeks into Summer here and our days have been carefree and easy. Will's favorite thing to ask me when I tuck him in at night is "what are we doing tomorrow", and it's been fun planning our days together. He gets so excited about the little things and is always up for an adventure, whatever it may be. I have a huge list of indoor activities I want to do with Will and Kate this Summer and the first on our list!? SLIME TIME!

WE HAVE ARRIVED and we are becoming slime making experts around here. Perhaps we have a future selling this stuff on YouTube like the cool kids!? We made our first batches last week and Will is loving this stuff. I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous about the mess but we have had zero slime hair disasters so far so I'm calling it a success.

Mixing it up has been the most fun for Will. He likes to pour the glue, add his coloring and dump in the baking soda. When that's all mixed up, I add the contact solution a little at a time. This is a great rainy day activity for your little ones. We've had our slime in ziploc freezer bags for a week now and it's still just as good as the day we made it! This is the recipe from Elmer's Glue and I followed it exactly the first time. It came out a little too hard so I added less contact lens solution- the most random ingredient of all- and the result was much better. 

Elmer's Glue Slime

12 oz. Elmer's glue

1.5 Tbsp. baking soda

food coloring

3 Tbsp. contact lens solution

In a large plastic bowl, dump glue. Stir in baking soda and food coloring until combined.

Add contact solution, one Tablespoon at a time, making sure to mix quickly. The mixture will become hard to stir and this is when the slime forms. I have found that about 2.5 tablespoons of contact solution is just the right amount. Slime will form into a ball- remove from the bowl and knead a few minutes to get it to the right consistency. Store in an airtight container or ziploc bag. 

For more recipes, it's Slime Central over on the Elmer's website!