Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes :)

Hello everyone!
Yesterday I made some of these cupcakes and I thought I'd share the recipe. So, here it is! :)

Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 cup powdered cocoa

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1 egg

1/4 cup corn oil (I use vegetable oil)

2/3 cup milk

1 tsp. mint extract

1 cup miniature chocolate chips

Directions:

Heat oven to 375 dgrees. In large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in cocoa, sugar, and cinnamon. In a medium bowl, lightly beat the egg. Stir in the corn oil , milk, and mint extract. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir in the chocoalte chips. Stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Fill greased muffin tins. Bake for 18 minutes or until tester comes out clean. Makes one dozen cupcakes.

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On a side note, earlier this week I made some pumpkin mufins and I forgot to put the sugar in the mixture! When they came out and someone commented on how they tasted, well, sugarlees, I was like, "Oopsies!" So whenever somebody got a muffin they sprinkled sugar on the top. Man, they were gross without the sugar! Oh well, I don't think I'll do that again for a long time! :)

Eldarwen's Giveaway!

Eldarwen over at The Faithful Elven Princess is having a giveaway in honor of her 200th post! That's a lot of posts! She's giving away some really cute stuff so go check it out!

A Really Cute Apron!

I found this really cute apron at the local antique mall a couple of weeks ago! I'm going to make it a cleaning apron. I would have posted a picture of it sooner, but my sister and I kept forgetting to take a picture of it! ;) So anyway, I just thought I'd post a picture of it!

Pretzel Fun

Yesterday me and my sister decided to make pretzels! Since it was cold and rainy, it seemed like the perfect day for it.

Almost done!

We shaped our brother's name. He was pleasantly surprised because he didn't even know that we were making them. :)

This was definitely our favorite ingredient! :)

Done and cooling! Mmm...

Here's the recipe we used:

Ingredients:
2 packages (1/4 ounce each) active dry yeast
1-1/2 cups warm water (110° to 115°)
4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup cold water
Coarse salt

Directions:
In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add flour and salt; stir to form a soft dough. Turn onto a floured surface; knead 4-5 times. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 15 minutes. Punch dough down and divide into 20 equal pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll each piece into a 15-in. long strip; twist into a pretzel shape. Combine baking soda and cold water; brush over pretzels. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Place on greased baking sheets. Bake at 450° for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Yield: 20 (small) pretzels.

Taylor is Having A Giveaway! :)

In honor of her 100th post, Taylor is having a giveaway! She is giving away some really cute stuff, so head on over and enter. :)

Lindsay Has Awarded Me!

Lindsay, over at Content in Christ has awarded me! Here are the rules for this award/tag:

1. Do a post about the person who awarded you, and their blog.

2. Give the award to 5 of your favorite blogs, give a reason, and leave a comment telling them they have been awarded.

3. Answer the 10 random questions.

4. Have Fun!

Lindsay is my big sister, and we are best friends. :) She has a wonderful blog, and I greatly enjoy her posts!

Here's who I'm going to give this award to:

Sarah H - Sarah has a very neat blog. She is a great writer, and I really enjoy her posts!

Hannah Rose - Hannah's blog is very fun and interesting! She seems to be very busy, but always finds time to post. :)

Courtney - Courtney has a wonderful blog, where she posts about everyday life with lots of pictures. She and her family are in the process of adopting an adorable little boy from China. :)

Rachel - Rachel is Courtney's sister. She posts some great recipes and fun picture posts. I really like her blog too!

Callie - Callie has a great blog. She posts about everyday life anf fun tags! :)

Now, for the tag:

1. Have you ever ridden an elephant? No, but it sounds fun!

2. Have you ever eaten squid? Yes, and it was disgusting!

3. What is something crazy you have done with your best friend? I have no idea.

4. Have you ever held an alligator? No, but I went to an alligator farm once. :)

5. Have you ever let a snake slither through your fingers? No way!

6. What is your first and foremost dream in life? Get married, have kids, and whatever God wants me to do!

7. What is your dream vacation? A year-long trip in Europe.

8. What is the funniest movie you have ever seen? Probably Toy Story and Toy Story 2. I love those movies! :)

9. What is your favorite song? That's way too hard! Just go down to the playlists at the bottom of my blog to see some of my favorites.

10. If you could change the world in one way, what would you do? Bring everyone to Jesus Christ and many other things!

Thanks for awarding/tagging me, Lindsay! This was really fun. :)

A Giveaway!

Hannah over at Trusting In His Love is having a giveaway! She's giving away a few things and it's quite fun! So go and enter before it's over!

The Pictures! :)

It's everywhere!

A very snowy road.

Hmm, I wonder how much more it can hold? ;)

Beautiful snow-covered posts...

Me and Josh.

A neighbor dog decided to come visit us. :)

Our snowman and snowlady. :)

This bush is very pretty

Some snow covered fall leaves...

Beautiful branches...

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So those are the pictures fo our first snowfall! All pictures are the compliments of Lindsay.

Guess What?!

This morning I woke up to find that it was snowing! That is very new for me so I was so excited! It's actually been snowing all day, so my brother and I have been playing in it a lot. We made a couple of very funny looking snowmen and have just been playing around. :) My sister Lindsay has taken many pictures and I'll post some whenever she gets them loaded on the computer. It's just beautiful! I love cold weather!

Canned Apple Pie Filling...

Last Saturday I made a whole bunch of canned apple pie filling. I've never made it before, so hopefuly it will be good! I started at nine thirty and it took me two and a half hours to peel and chop up the apples! Hey, it was five and a half pounds! It's just a good thing I like doing that. :) Here's a picture of the finished product:

Only some of the cans! :)

I was sure to label them.

Once we've tried some, and if it's any good, I'll be sure to post the recipe.

So that was how I spent most of my Saturday. I love cooking! :)

Hello! :)

Hello everyone,

Since I haven't posted in a while I thought I'd let you know what I've been up to and what's been keeping me so busy. Well, first it's school. I started In Freedom's Cause by G.A. Henty over the weekend and it's not as boring as I thought it would be. But, since it's a boy book I think it's what Little Women would be like for a boy.

Another thing that's been keeping me busy is apples! I went and picked a lot of them off of our tree last week, so now I am just trying to use them all before they go bad. I've made applesauce, apple bread, apple waffles, etc... This weekend I'm going to make some canned apple pie filling and probably some more applesauce! :) Yeah, I think we're all going to be appled out soon.

Those are the big things that have been keeping me so busy. Besides those it's just the usual stuff like pets, reading, letter writing, responding to e-mails, etc...

I guess I should be going now, breakfast is in the oven and I need to check on it!

Many blessings,

What I've Been Reading

This year in school I'm studying medieval history. I'm enjoying it a lot because it's one of my favorite parts of history. In this post I'm just going to tell you what I've been reading for it. All of the books are really good! :)

The Magna Carta. This book gave a good acount of King John's reign and, I think, portrays what most kings really were like back then.



Otto of the Silver Hand. It wasn't a very long book, but I really enjoyed it.




Adam of The Road. I really liked this book! I think it showed what a minstrel's life was really like. It was filled with adventure!

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So those are the books I've read so far. The next one on the list is In Freedom's Cause by G.A. Henty. To tell you the truth, I'm not really looking forward to this one, because it looks kind of dry and boring, but we'll see. So that's what I've been reading (and what I will be reading, starting tonight). :)