Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 stick softened butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup Flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 cups peanut butter chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F 
2. Place butter and sugars into a bowl and mix until creamy. Add egg and vanilla mixing until well combined. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt, mixing to combine. Add chips and mix to combine. With a medium cookie scoop, scoop dough onto baking sheet 1 inch apart and bake for 12-15 minutes, until baked through. Let cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. 

Makes about 2 dozen cookies

Recipe adapted from Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Halloween Mantel

Hooray! I didn't spend any money on additional Halloween decor this year.  Just printed off images from here, and stuck them in a frame. Keeping it simple baby!

Drive in the Rain

 More barn pictures!! Shocking right?  Driving out in the misty rain was so much fun.  I played my Halloween playlist and flipped a coin at intersections.  It was lovely.

The leaves are beginning to change.  They will peak over the next couple of weeks.

Not sure what this used to be, See how  the big tree is growing through it, splitting it apart?

Old overgrown school.

Pretty red barn

"Harses,harses,harses,harses." (name that movie!) :)

Awesome old store

Gas pump

Sweet family had this and yellow ribbons all around their home.

Love the red barns!

Have a lovely day!

25 Favorite Children's Halloween Books

I am so happy that we are only a few days away from October!!  I wanted to share some of our favorite Halloween books.  Most are picture books, the last two are chapter books.  Hopefully I have a couple listed that will be new to you.  If you have any favorites that I haven't listed, please share! :)

1.  Good night Goon
2. Room on the Broom
3. The Halloween Kid
4. Only a witch can fly
5. The Runaway Mummy
6. Zen Ghosts
7. Where's my Mummy?
8. The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat
9. The Curious Little Witch
10. Marsipity
11. Jerry Seinfeld Halloween
12. Corduroy Halloween
13. The Little Old Lady who was not afraid of anything
14. Trick or Treat Little Critter
15. Froggy's Halloween
16. The Hallo-weiner
17. Shake Dem Halloween Bones
18. The Night Before Halloween
19. Scary Scary Halloween
20. Bone Soup
21. Ghosts in the House!
22. Happy Haunting Amelia Bedilia
23. Olivia and the Haunted Hotel
24. The Witch of Blackbird Pond
25. The Halloween Tree

Halloween print available here.

Instagram Country Drive

 Today I woke up with a stuffy nose, and a grumpy disposition.  I got my kids off to school, and took a little drive in the country.  I can not believe how quickly it turned my mood around!

 Today I just went whichever way the wind blew me.  I ended up needing my GPS to find my way home.

 This tiny turtle was on the road, he pulled inside his shell when he saw me stop.

 Cows!  Look at the two calves getting a drink.  They starting mooing at me when I got out of the car.

 The country roads in Missouri soothe my soul.  I love them so much.

 Cow and silo.

 I'm not sure what this little building is.  It was in a field with a bunch of cattle.

 Sun coming up over a beautiful rock church.

 I love this barn, it is so completely isolated.  I stood in front of it, for a while.  The only sound was the wind banging the loft window open and shut.

 Awesome old yellow gas station.  Can you see the vines growing out of the windows?

 Love this light blue truck.

Pretty barn way off of the road.  I will need to go back for a better picture. :)

Cherry Street

Today is teacher work day, so the girls and I met daddy for lunch.  My husband works in the historic/hip college part of town.  I love to drive around and check out the cool shops, and awesome old houses.  Today while driving past some old houses, we came across Imo Gene's Beauty Shop!!  I almost flipped.  I think it is gorgeous.  It looks like it was a market before it became a salon.  I can see the word market, but can't quite make out what the name of the market  was.  I found the obituary for the lady that managed this shop.  She retired from the shop in 1970.  I love that it hasn't been knocked down.  It still sits on the end of a residential street. 

 After checking out Imo Gene's shop, we cruised further down the street and came across this awesome old car!  I love it.  Not sure of the year, I will have to ask my dad, He seems to know the make,model, and year of every car from now back to the stone age. :)

Update-I asked my dad, he said it is a 1959 Pontiac Star Chief, his brother had a white one!

 After visiting Cherry St.  We swung in to Funtiques for a minute.  My grandparents had a picture exactly like this.  I LOVE seeing things from my grandparents era.  Brings back so may wonderful memories.

 I think this 1950's dress is absolutely beautiful.  Somebody please buy it and wear it for Halloween. :)

It was a fun stroll down memory lane today.  Wouldn't it be great if these old places/ items could talk??

Linking to:

Weekly Top Shot
Pink Saturday

Baked Potato Soup

Today it is nice and chilly out.  I think it is a perfect day for soup.  Baked Potato soup is one of our favorites.

I think the key is SHARP cheese.  Below is a picture of me tossing plenty of sharp cheese in to the mix.

INGREDIENTS
12 slices bacon
2/3 cup margarine
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
7 cups milk
4 large baked potatoes, peeled and cubed
4 green onions, chopped
1 1/4 cups shredded(I use sharp) Cheddar cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper


DIRECTIONS
Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium heat until browned. Drain, crumble, and set aside.
In a stock pot or Dutch oven, melt the margarine over medium heat. Whisk in flour until smooth. Gradually stir in milk, whisking constantly until thickened. Stir in potatoes and onions. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
Reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Mix in bacon, cheese, sour cream, salt, and pepper. Continue cooking, stirring frequently, until cheese is melted.

Stephen's Candy Cane Hot Chocolate

Stephen's Hot Chocolate is my favorite hot chocolate EVER!  My favorite flavor is candy cane.  Too bad for me it isn't sold where I live.  SO I just discovered that Amazon has it for a decent price and you can get it on auto delivery!!  I will get a delivery of 6 cans every 3  months!  Details here.

Breaking News!

Awesome!  I was wondering when they would start serving Pizza!!!  I saw this little gem while out and about today.  :)

School Lunch

After seeing my friend Angie's post on school lunch, I had to buy some lunch trays! Obviously.

I remember grabbing my milk, placing it ever so carefully on the designated milk square, and then carefully turning  it, making sure the arrow wasn't pointing at anyone.  Did your school do that?  At ours if some poor slouch left the tiny arrow(indicating which end to open) pointing at somebody, it meant you were in love and were teased mercilessly.  Please, oh please, be sure not to wear a dress on Friday!  Friday was flip up day after all.

What about helping the lunch ladies!  Hair net? Yes,please!!!!  My favorite part was scooping up mashed potatoes with an ice scream scoop.  Such fun!

The best school lunch dessert?  Peanut Butter Bars of course!!  I LOVED them!

Then there was the whole lunch ticket thing.  Every week I would go in and buy a nice roll of tickets like this....

I had to buy for myself and my little brother Adam.  Lunch ticket man would say, "If this is Adam you must be Eve." Hardy har har!  He would then proceed to  write "Eve" on my tickets.  Every.Single.Time.

By about fourth grade our school upgraded to a lunch card that would be punched with a hole punch each day.  I shudder to think what happened if you lost your lunch tickets.  That's right!  Crappy sandwich with mystery meat from the cafeteria fridge!

My kids can't believe this archaic system.  My daughter swiped her lunch card in Vegas, here she simply types in her memorized lunch number on a key pad.

On occasion I would do cold lunch.  Bologna on Wonder Bread, drinking luke warm milk from a smelly thermos thank you very much.  Below is what my lunch box looked like.

Of course there were the dreaded food fights!  I took a bowl of jello to the head once. Yikes!  When you hear the trays begin to rattle.  Jump up quickly and get to an outside wall!!  Those were the days right? :)

What about you? What do you remember most about school lunch??

Love this  shop for fun vintage school items!

St. Louis

 We took our first little trip to St. Louis!  I have been before, but only for a lay over.  I was so excited to see the Arch.

 It was SO much bigger than I expected.  For some reason I was thinking it was made of granite.  Nope, steel.  So cool!  I was too chicken to go up on it.  I was content to stay on the ground.  I try to avoid confined/high places.

 I thought the Market St. area was beautiful.  So many gorgeous fountains,sculptures, and flowers.  The blue water fountain was my have.

 Poor St. Louis, it certainly had it's fair share of dumpy areas too.

 I couldn't believe the landscaping.  Gorgeous!

 Loved this yellow building.

 Cool old trolley.

 We lunched at Blueberry Hill.  I thought it was fun, but the food wasn't that great.

 How awesome is this umbrella fountain?

 Freaky bridge over The Mississippi River.

We had fun, I like Kansas City more,  but the Arch is incredible!  I LOVED seeing it.