Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Growing up this was my mom's go to recipe for chocolate chip cookies, when I tried making them years ago they always turned out flat and just didn't have the perfect flavor I was looking for. Well, after testing out dozens of chocolate chip recipes over the years I've found that this really is my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe! Especially once I tweaked it slightly, a little baking powder and less shortening made it a keeper in my book. I hope you enjoy it too!

Chocolate Chip Cookies:

1 cup butter

1/3 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

 3 cups flour

1-2 cups mini chocolate chips

3/4-1 cup mini m&m's

**if you use unsalted butter you'll want to toss a dash of salt into the recipe, no more than 1 tsp. If you don't have any m&m's you can use a bag of chocolate chips, I like to use half a bag of mini m&m's and half a bag of chocolate chips, if you like a lot of chocolate use a bag of chocolate chips and some m&m's.**

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Cream together the butter, shortening and sugars, add in the eggs and vanilla till well mixed, then add in the flour and chocolate. The recipe says that you can add an extra 1/2 cup of flour for a softer, rounder cookie, I always use my small pampered chef scoop, all my cookies turn out pretty much rounded without adding the extra flour. Just wanted to add it though in case someone does prefer it with the extra flour! Bake for 8-10 minutes (i normally bake for 8 so that they're nice and soft).

Hope you enjoy these cookies as much as we do!

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Baby Girl Onesies!

Remember my friend I posted about the other day, that was having a little boy? Well she has a sister just younger than her and is pregnant with a little girl! How cool is that, their babies will be super close in age (I think 2 months apart or close to that). So they had a combined baby shower! I went to work "researching" again for cute little girl onesies, and decided on these:

Some close ups:

Rocking horses are classics!

I'm sure she'll be as sweet as a cupcake!

Some daddy love, and...

My favorite! This cute little princess, mommas girl onesie! Again, I did 2 or 3 different sizes so they can spread the love! Hope you enjoyed these! I sure loved making them!

- Cassie 

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Baby Boy Onesies!

I have a sweet friend that I grew up with who is pregnant with her first little cutie! So I wanted to give her a super fun gift! I loved the idea of making some cute little boy onesies for her (and yep, she's having a boy)! I "researched" Pinterest, etsy and Google and decided on these cute shirts!

Now for some close ups:

This one is self explanatory, super adorable!

Who doesn't love rocking horses?!

And of course, he'll be a cute "little stud muffin"!

And then I through in some pacifiers and a set of pants, and Bam! Cute gift done! (The onesies are 2 or 3 different sizes so they can use them over time)

Hope you enjoyed these as much I did!

-Cassie 

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I found something AWESOME!

A few months back I talked with an amazing lady who was selling Thrive, I loved everything about it and signed right up! It's pretty much changed eating for us! Anyone that knows me well knows that I LOVE to bake, but I'm not a big fan of cooking. Over the last few months I've started enjoying cooking much much more! I've started to "thrivalize" our meals, from breakfast to dinner it has made cooking so much easier and better! Thrive foods are freeze dried, have long shelf life's, are convenient, easy to use, get rid of my prep time, save me money because I'm making less trips to grocery store (come on, you know every time you go to the store you buy way more than you need because something looks good or is on sale! If you don't do that you are my hero!), save me from throwing away so much rotten food (again, just because all that yummy produce is on sale doesn't mean it's going to be eaten. It might just sit in your fridge and go bad in a matter or 4 days just because you didn't find the time to wash it and chop it.), AND I'm saving so much time not having to chop foods! I absolutely love that I can make delicious meals in 20 mins! Meals that I would have been missing one or two items to make so I would feed my kids junk food or pick up take out! Ha! See, another way I'm saving money, less takeout! 

Here are just a few pics of some yummy meals we've enjoyed with thrive! 

20 minute Breakfast Hash, I was out of potatoes but I had my freeze dried diced potatoes, plus the eggs, green onions and onions are Thrive as well! The only thing I added was the bacon and cheese! The bacon was some that I cooked up and froze so I didn't have to take the time to cook it.

A quick quesadilla for lunch, I topped the cheese with freeze dried green chilies, freeze dried green onions, freeze dried chicken and freeze dried retried bean flakes! Was so yummy topped with salsa!

Plus I've put together some meal jars full of freeze dried foods, then all I have to do is dump it in water and cook, bam! Dinner done in under 20 mins! Pretty darn exciting!!!

Probably one of my most common uses of the freeze dried blueberries and strawberries is throwing them

into the blender, turning them into a powder and throwing them into our pancakes and waffles! The kiddos get some healthy fruit while eating their yummy breakfasts! And as my oldest always asks, "there's no chunks right!?", right! No chunks when it's blended into a powder :)

Okay, that's my spiel for now! I'm sure you'll be seeing many yummy thrive foods posted here in the future! If you would like to try some samples or order something, I'm happy to ship samples! Or my website is cassiefuller.thrivelife.com

Trust me, you'll love it! It's revolutionary! Like a food revolution! Be excited! We are :)

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Baby Shower Candy Guessing Game!

I've thrown several baby showers, and at each one I've hosted I absolutely LOVE this game. Why is this game so awesome you ask? Well for starters, everyone gets to earn candy bars from it! Plus, it's pretty funny figuring out which candy bar goes with which phrase! I had a gal ask for a copy of it recently, so I figured I'd go ahead and post it here in case anyone else would love to have fun with it in the future. 

Just right click on the image and save to your computer, then you can print as many as you want.  It's great too because it prints 4 to a page so it shouldn't use up that much ink! I found all of these candy bars except the zero bar at Walgreens. I found the zero bar at Quik Mart! That's right, you have to buy all of these candies to hand out as prizes for the game.

I normally hand one out to everyone and give them 5-10 minutes to fill it out (up to 10 since it's a baby shower and we all love chatting and catching up with each other even while filling out a game). Then you can go around and have each person answer one, or you could just have people call out answers. Since there are so many, everyone is normally pretty nice about making sure everyone wins a candy! Once someone calls out the answer, they get the candy they just answered. So if the word was 'twins' and someone calls out 'mike and ikes' then they get the 'mike and ikes'. Get it? Hope so! The answers are listed below in case your not sure about some of them :)

Twins - s - mike & Ike
Triplets - o - 3 musketeer
Conception - p - skor
Breastfeeding - e - Milky Way
Picking a name - g - watchamacallit
Boy - f - almond joy (boys have nuts, this normally causes some giggles)
Girl - i - mounds (same candy as almond joy, just without the nuts, yes, everyone normally laughs at this one)
Epidural - d - lifesavers
Hospital bill - c - 100 grand
Contractions - n - whoppers
Baby poop - j - rolos
Baby giggles - u - snickers
Umbilical cord - a - twizzlers
Pregnant belly - h - chunky bar
Parents - k - nerds
Preemies - b - runts
Delivery doctor - t - butterfingers
Nurses - r - sweetarts
Grandparents - l - smarties
Sleep - q - zero
Nap time - m - take 5

Let me know if you have any questions! Enjoy! -Cassie

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Double Chocolate Banana Zucchini Muffins!

Last week I was looking for a tasty chocolate muffin recipe similar to the amazing Costco chocolate muffins! Only to realize that all the "copycat" recipes require a cake mix, I'm not exactly a cake mix person. Growing up my mom always made delicious baked goods from scratch, so I blame it on my childhood. So grateful she shared her love of baking with me!

Okay, so back to searching for a delicious muffin recipe that didn't include a cake mix. I found this yummy Double Chocolate Banana Muffins recipe, BUT I didn't have enough bananas, I did have frozen shredded zucchini! So I did part banana, part zucchini, it turned out amazing! But they were a little denser than I wanted, and I wanted to add more zucchini, so I tried it again and changed it up some. I've already made it with the changes a few times, woohoo for a good freezer recipe! Love making baked goods, especially breakfast foods that I can easily pop in the freezer easily. I am SO not a morning person, so these are perfect to pull out of the freezer the night before! Fed happy kids makes for a happy mom in the morning!

Double Chocolate Banana Zucchini Muffins: 

3/4 c. Melted Butter (1.5 sticks)

2 eggs

1 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 c. sugar

1 1/2 c. Mashed bananas

1 1/2 c. Shredded zucchini (i used shredded zucchini that i had frozen, I pulled it out of the freezer and let it thaw a little, but not completely, so it was still a little icy when i threw it in)

1/4 c. Buttermilk 

1/2 c. Cocoa

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

3 tsp. cinnamon

3 c. flour

1 1/2 c. Mini Chocolate Chips

1/2 c. Mini chocolate chips to top the muffins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. I melted the butter in the microwave for 90 seconds, stopping every 20-30 seconds to stir, so it doesn't bubble over. Mix together butter, eggs, sugars, banana, milk and zucchini until well blended. Add in cinnamon, soda, powder, cocoa, flour and 1 1/2 cups mini chips. Make sure it's blended well. Drop into muffin pans, I use the large pampered chef scoop - LOVE it - it's the perfect size for muffins and cupcakes! Oh and once you drop it in the muffins pan or cupcake liners top the muffins with mini chips before popping in the oven. It makes them even yummier! Bake for 18 mins, makes about 40 muffins (so then you can share them with a friend or freeze them for future mornings.

You just top a few chips on top of each one before baking like so!

See how much yummier they look with chips on top!

Chocolate muffin perfection! PLUS, they're totally healthy right (wink wink)! Being packed with fruit and veggie, impossible to resist!

Hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

~Cassie 

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Necklace Giveaway!

CONGRATS BRITTANY FREEBAIRN! YOU"RE THE WINNER!
I have an AWESOME Giveaway for you guys today!

My Charming Treasures has offered to Giveaway one of her Personalized Charm Necklaces with up to 3 charms (a 58$ Value)! The charms are sterling silver and come on an 18 inch sterling chain.

 How cute are these! This would make such a fun gift for yourself or a friend, and right around Valentines Day! Be sure to check out her etsy shop and facebook page to see the other cute stuff she has to offer!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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500 Facebook followers Giveaway!!!

WINNER IS STACY WINSTRYG! CONGRATS!!!

(I tallied the votes on here and on facebook since a few people had issues posting on here. Thanks to everyone who entered! Look for more giveaways in the near future!)

Just wanted to say THANK YOU to all of you wonderful people that have liked my facebook page and allowed me the privilege of creating for you! I absolutely love being able to do something I love while still being home with my cute (mischievous) kiddos! I thought I"d do the giveaway a little different this time, I thought I'd giveaway some of my favorite crafting goodies!!! Things that make up my craft room! So hopefully you'll enjoy this giveaway!

-Giveaway ENDS Saturday November 8th at midnight.-

4 ways to enter:

1. Like my facebook page Bedtime Crafts! (comment below when done)

2. Share the link for the giveaway on facebook! comment when done)
3. Pin the Goodie basket image on pinterest! (comment with the link)

4. Leave a comment with your must have crafting goodie!

(leave a separate comment for each of the 3 ways to enter)

Here's a pic of the goodies together! 

(Basket not included, just everything inside it)

 Small Hanging chalkboard sign, little green notebook, black hook (I use chalk on mine), feather earrings, tile necklace supplies.

 Ice cream cups, roll of red bakers twine, package of cute polka dot popcorn containers, chalkboard labeled mason jar, cupcake wrappers.

 water bottle, elmers glue (i have a dozen of these in my craft room for kids activities, love it), black thread, sticky notes, fabric tape, a brand new pair of scissors (I have 10 pairs of scissors in my craft room, use them for everything!).

 Huge roll of polka dot ribbon (love!), Goo gone (a must!), lace footies (these are just so fun!), flowers.

 Gold ruffle ribbon, 4 washi tape (i have so many of these, they're just so cute to collect and use).

Okay, hopefully you all enjoy this giveaway as much as I do!

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December Kick Off - Christmas Quilt!

I thought it would be fun to share something "Christmasy", last year I made this fun Christmas Quilt for my son's Preschool teacher, she absolutely LOVED it, which I was so happy about. I'd never made a "real" quilt before and this was a super simple one. I had some fabric story block fabric, so instead of making a fabric book out of the fabric I made the quilt. I thought it was a super fun and cute idea. I even went and picked up some Christmas panel fabric last week at JoAnn's. I was so excited they still had one left since they seem to sell out of the Christmas panels fairly quickly. So hopefully sometime in the next few months I'll get another Christmas Quilt done that I can use next year :) Super excited for this Christmas Season, the month of December just always feels more magical!!! Definitely my favorite holiday!!!

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Recipe Day:Lemonade Layer Cake

Lemonade Layer Cake
Was supposed to post this yesterday but totally spaced, so it's just a recipe day instead of "Recipe Monday"

Lately I've been on this new recipe kick! I'm loving trying out new recipes! Pinterest has such a wide selection of wonderful recipes linked that I just want to try them all! So I'm trying out at least 1 new recipe a week, of course some weeks I try more :)
I pinned this recipe months ago and finally made it, definitely a keeper! We all loved it and it was the first layered cake I made that didn't break...very exciting for me! So if I could do it, so can you :) it's fool proof! Just click on the name of the cake and it will take you to the recipe!

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Hope you see this!!!

I just got a sweet message from a gal about my "Perfect Marriage" Sign and I get messages about it quite frequently, so I thought I would just do a quick post to let anyone that see's this know, the signs are available in my etsy shop HERE. They are 17$ each and are 10x11 inches in size (Shipping is $9). If you don't have an etsy account message me and I'll paypal you an invoice. Thanks!

To the gal that sent me a message this morning - I hope you see this, I was on my phone and my finger slipped and hit the delete button and I have no way to retrieve it. I hope to hear from you again soon!!!

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Recipe Monday: homemade vanilla!

Over the weekend I picked up a bottle of white rum (it's supposed to be about as flavorless as vodka) and was able to start the process of making my own jar of vanilla!!! I thought I'd have enough for two jars but the one bottle filled the one quart mason jar perfectly. 

I bought my vanilla beans at Costco about a month ago and was excited to use them in a fun recipe! Soon after I saw this post on "our best bites" for homemade vanilla and thought it would be so cool to try making my own! I thought it would be fun to use it as Christmas gifts like they did but I never did order more beans. So I am happy to try it out this time and maybe next year I'll try making more for friends :)

I'll be sure to post how it turns out once it's ready to use next month! For those of you that never knew vanilla was made with alcohol, I didn't know either until a friend made some last year! Most real vanilla extracts are 35-40% alcohol, never knew that before! Hope everyone is having a happy Monday!!!

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Vinyl Wednesday: marriage signs!

I've had a handful of people ask me for some custom wedding signs in the last few months and it's been so fun making them!!! Here's a few of them:

  

This Bride to be wanted a rustic sign to be carried down the isle, as well as a rustic dessert table sign. It was a western themed wedding hence the rustic look.

I absolutely love how the two rustic ones turned out, I used the vinyl as a stencil for the paint then peeled it off and sanded it a bunch, it looked wonderful in person! Even my hubby who isn't so big on all my signs thought they were pretty awesome!!!

A comical sign to be carried down the isle, it made me laugh when they told be what they wanted, I thought it was such a funny sign to do!!!

 Lastly, another "Here comes the Bride" sign, I love the swirly font!!! They had matching "Mr. & Mrs." signs, as well as "Thank You" signs for the bride and groom to hold for pictures. Such cute ideas!!!

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Recipe Monday: caramel!

Oh my yumminess, you're going to wish you'd never seen this recipe! It is seriously addictive!!! Growing up anytime my mom made this around the holidays we would see who would wake up first during the night to sneak a bite, it was always fun to sneak a bite any chance we could!!! Seriously though, even my mom would wake up and sneak a bite! Okay, enough chitchat, here is the delish recipe you're totally waiting for-

Homemade Caramel!

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup white karo syrup

1/2 cup butter

1 large can evaporated milk

1 tsp vanilla

Mix sugar, syrup, butter and half the can of milk in heavy saucepan. Stir on high heat until boiling, then slowly add the rest of the milk. Once boiling again turn to medium heat and cook stirring to 232 degrees (softball stage), add vanilla and pour into buttered pan (8x8 inch pan works great). Place in fridge to cool then enjoy! You can cut and wrap individually once cooled but you'll want to keep wrapped caramels refrigerated. 

I've tried cooking it high to get it to thicken faster...didn't work, it still took at least 30 minutes! Her it is boiling as I constantly stir, maybe put a tv show on or something while you stir, or some music to give you something else to think about besides hot bubbling sugar popping beneath your hand.

It's starting to darken in color, it will also seem thicker and cook down a little!

Have a cup of ice cold water sitting next to you when you're ready to check if the caramel is "hard" enough. If it sticks together in the water and it seems like the right thickness/consistency for your liking then add your vanilla and pour it into a greased pan. Place in fridge (or freezer for a little bit to speed up the process) till it has cooled. Then pull the delectably delicious pan of addictive caramel and grab a spoon! Mmm, so good!!!

Introduced this fine treat to my cute little princess for the first time and she loved it!!! She licked the spoon clean!!!

Hope everyone that tries this loves it as much as we do!!! And yes, I know it seems strange to eat caramel from a pan instead of a wrapper but it is so much easier and you can totally get a spoonful the size that you want!!! Enjoy!

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GIVEAWAY TIME!

I have been terrible at keeping up on posting, but I promise I am trying, life just keeps happening and making things crazy busy! ANYWAYS, I just looked at my etsy shop and I've hit 100 sales! How awesome is that!!! Most of those happened in the last 6 months, so I am pretty stoked!

GIVEAWAY OVER
and the winner is
GIGI
comment number 24
(number picked through random.org)

To celebrate I thought I'd do a quick giveaway for: 

A 20$ gift certificate

 to my etsy shop!

How to enter:

 Leave a comment on this post with what sign you would pick from my etsy shop.

 Leave another comment if you "like" my Facebook page.

Leave another comment if you follow this blog.

Leave a comment if you pin this post on pinterest.

A max of 4 entries per person if you do all of the above listed. Giveaway (extended) will end Monday November 4th, winner will be announced Tuesday November 5th, good luck! Oh and I'll be posting more fun signs on etsy soon, so if you're hoping for some Christmas signs they're in the works and you'd be able to use the 20$ credit on them!

Thanks for being such awesome supporters of my little business, it sure is fun to create for people!!!

Here's a few images of some of my favorite signs that are/will be available in my etsy shop!

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