Cake Batter Bites-OH MAN!!!

Before you read any further, I am giving you a fair warning that these cake batter bites are super addicting! To make matters worse (or better depending on how you look at it), they are small so you won't be able to stop yourself. There, you were warned.
When I bit into the first one to taste test, I immediately thought of being a kid. What kid (or adult) doesn't like cake batter or cookie dough???!! I remember when we were little and had just moved to Parker, Meg and I found a secret stash of cookie dough in the model home fridge that they would bake for potential buyers.  Every day, after school we would walk home and just so happen to stumble in for a little afternoon snack. I have no idea how we never got caught but that cookie dough was so worth the risk :) Even to this day, I always order cake batter ice cream if we go to Coldstone... guess I got addicted at an early age so when I saw this recipe on Pinterest I HAD to try it. The great thing about this recipe is there are no eggs involved so you literally don't have to stop eating them haha! You can use whatever cake mix and topping you want so mine are a little different from the recipe.  Instead of Almond Bark, I used Ghiradelli Bittersweet Baking Chips for the melted topping and for the cake mix used Funfetti. I also did not put cake mix in the melted chocolate, this helped make a smoother topping for the cake bites. These would be great for a birthday party or you could even take the dough and place it in a pan for a legit 'cake batter cake!' Whoa, I might have to try that now! Here are some photos to show how they turned out :)

MMMM!!! I WANT ONE NOW!!!

xoxo Allie

Come get ya smoothies!

For awhile now I have been trying out all kinds of new smoothies and thought I would share my favorites. Banana smoothies have always been my go to. Before I started drinking coffee, I remember always getting just a plain banana smoothie for the Nordstrom E-bar back in the day.  From then on I was hooked! The great thing about smoothies is that you can really put anything in them and somehow they always taste good. It's fun to try and create different combos, although I typically stick to bananas as my main ingredient for fruit. Most of the smoothies I make (with the exception of some naughty borderline milkshakes), I usually pick 1 type of fruit, any kind of milk you want (I use Vanilla Almond Milk), ice, fun spices, and a bonus ingredient. Here are the ones I drink all the time.

Naughty Oreo Smoothie= Adult Heaven:
Ice (6-8 cubes)
1-2 Oreos
1/2 or 3/4 Cup Milk
1/4 Cup Oats (optional)

Chocolate Chip Banana Smoothie:
1 Banana
2-3 Chocolate Chips
1/2 or 3/4 Cup Milk
Ice
1/4 Cup Oats
1 Chocolate Chip to shave for the topping :)

Cinnamon Banana Smoothie:
1 Banana
Ice
1/2 or 3/4 Cup Milk
1/4 Cup Oats (optional)
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon or less depending on preference. You can either blend the cinnamon in or sprinkle on the top.

Peanut Butter Nutmeg Banana Smoothie:
1 Banana
1/4 Cup Oats
1 Tablespoon Peanut Butter
Ice
1/2 Cup Milk
1 Tablespoon Nutmeg (can blend in or put on top of the smoothie).
This is probably my favorite because I LLLOOOOVVVEEE peanut butter!! This one will also a good afternoon snack before a workout :)

Most of these are actually pretty decent for you as long as you stick the measurements and don't go crazy on the Oreos, Peanut Butter, or Milk :) Pass some along to me if you have any good smoothies you LOVE!

XOXO Allie

Spring Cleaning and The Rabbit Hole

Last weekend, we spent the majority of Saturday cleaning out our messy basement and trying to organize all of our clutter. It's crazy how much STUFF two people can accumulate and for some reason it seems to be mostly mine :)  John just laughed with all the fun things I kept finding, "Oh look it's my old cheer uniform! This looks like it was made for a kid!" or John finding a box dedicated to my DOLL CLOTHES from when I was little. I told him, "we'll just give them to our little girl we have one day" and then he says "you mean the little girl we won't have?!" He is going to jinx himself :) It's funny how you forget about all the stuff you put in those boxes but they really do mean a lot! We also moved all of our workout equipment and made a seperate area for that which will be great to have a cool area with summer around the corner. Of course you can't have a workout area without a TV so John made sure to set that up for us as well. Feels so good to have it at least somewhat organized!
After working in the basement most of the day, we made reservations to try a new place in downtown Colorado Springs. I really am not that familiar with that town, but their downtown area is SO CUTE and has tons of fun stores. I am excited to go back! We tried a new place called The Rabbit Hole. It literally is a rabbit hole because you enter the restarurant from the street level and walk down a flight of stairs into the space. You would never know it's a restaurant if there had not been a specific door in the middle of the sidewalk with a little tunnel, I thought it was really a neat place. The vibe was kind of like an underground upscale bar but people were casual and dressed up. It was dark with red ambiant light and their theme played off Alice in Wonderland which was also really cool.  I ordered their signature drink, The Flaming Marshmallow Martini and it was yummy!! I don't typically drink martinis but had to try it. John ate the mallow which was pretty much a straight shot of all the alcohol simmering in it....his eyes got huge when he ate it haha!!  The food was good too and I would recommend it to anyone who is down in the area or looking for something new to try. Here is the link to the restaurant in case you would like to try it out too :)

Yummy martini!

XOXO Allie

Scones, little buggers.

Lately, I have made quite a few desserts with chocolate so I decided I would attempt something very scary in my mind....scones. I'm not sure why they seemed so intimidating, maybe it's because they are so proper and I need a bloody accent to make them....clearly I have neither of those :). They weren't too difficult to make but mine didn't turn out as pretty as the ones you see in bakery that's for sure! If you're looking for less of a sugar rush, these are a good change of pace from really sweet desserts and can always be eaten with tea or coffee. If you would like to try making your own, click here and knock yourself out! I did opt out of the lemon portion of the recipe since I'm not a huge fan of lemon in desserts, but whatever floats your boat :) Also, homemade whipped cream is a must! Unfortunately, since I used all of my heavy whipping cream to make the scones (literally to the last drop), I had to use store bought. Good thing I made some the next day; store bought just doesn't do it justice! Here is how they turned out...

Cheerio Dahhhling!
XOXO Allie

Happy Birthday Michy Michy Moo Hoo!

Today is my friend Michelle's 27th (thank God it's NOT 30 YET!!) birthday so why not write a post about her??! I think I will start doing that from now on for everyone I know as a fun way to celebrate their day :) Michelle has been my friend since the 4th grade which brings us to the 17th year of friendship. That is just crazy to have known someone that long and look back at all the things you have experienced in life together.
To this day, I still crack up about the first time we met. We had just moved to Parker in 1994, back when Parker was literally a horse town with dirt roads. As my parents will tell you, Meg and I pretty much hated it. We had no friends and DESPISED our new smelly elementary school...they actually made us use text books! Coming from Cherry Creek Schools where we never once used a text book, we were in a totally different world. The first day of class, Michelle and her friend Heidi were basically assigned to show me around the school and get me caught up with everything in class.  All I remember is BALLING my eyes out every damn day literally for 2 months straight and poor Michelle had to have thought I was totally insane.  I can't believe we are even still friends after that whole experience :)  After awhile (and I mean A LONG ASS TIME) I finally got used to the school and Michelle and I became really close. Middle school, high school and college were all experiences we shared together. College was by far the best though, but we won't get into that Mich! ;) HA! I'm so glad I have a friend like Michelle who is always positive, makes you laugh, and if you ask her to speak French she will flare her nostrils ;) haha. Hope you have a great birthday Mich and thanks for all the great memories and more to come!

PS: you're lucky i couldn't find any of the REALLY old photos, I need to go on a hunt for those little nuggets!!

 That's hot!

 I wish I still had that sweet skirt!

 I'm seeing a pattern of drinking in these photos

 Having too much fun already

 Classic. Where's you drink Mich??

XOXO Allie

Wanna cookie?

I have come to realize that my sweet tooth is completely out of control...will I do anything about it? Absolutely not. I don't know where along the line that happened to me except that my earliest memories of eating ice cream were Meg and I coming home from school and my dad "letting" us have a bowl for our afternoon snack :) He of course had to have one too so it's not like we had to beg that much :) Wonder if mom knew about that??
This time I decided to go totally off the wall and make, drum roll please....a banana olive oil oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. OK, so it's not really that crazy, so shoot me. If you're looking for something that tastes JUST like banana bread with chocolate chips then this is the recipe for you! It was SUPER EASY and all in all pretty decent for you (for a cookie anyway). Click here for the digs. I opted to use more dry oats to make the cookie chewier and made sure to refrigerate my dough for 24 hours before baking (that's not in the recipe but makes for much prettier cookies in CO). Also, anytime I make cookies that involve chocolate chips, I always go for Ghiradelli Bittersweet Premium Baking Chips. These are much wider than normal chocolate chips and make the cookies plum full of chocolate. Feel free to use a whole 10 oz bag too, not just what they say. Nothing pisses me off more than a chocolate chip with NO chocolate...the more the better!! I think next time I will actually double it because it made 12 cookies which didn't last more than 5 days in our house :) Here are some photos to make you salivate :)

Now that you've seen these, you wanna cookie??? That's what I thought.
XOXO Allie

Summer, where are you??

I don't know about you all, but has this winter been long or is it just me?? The one thing you can count on with Colorado weather is that if you don't like it, wait five minutes and it will change....so true. This whole phase of dumping 8 inches of snow then 60 degrees the next day is really cramping my style. Oh, and the best part is when I'm sound asleep at 2 am and the winds decide to blow 80 mph. I seriously lay there and pray that I don't wake up with shattered windows the next day....shocked it hasn't happened yet.

Ok, enough bitching. This all just makes me more and more anxious for summer and everything that comes with it! As you can tell, I'm already in summer mode with my list of things that always remind me of summer, hope it gets you in the mood for warm weather!

The Smell of Suncreen

Watermelon

Wedges (I'm so addicted right now)

The smell of grass

Hot dogs

Country concerts outside

Windows down

BLONDE hair

Swimming

Eating fresh veggies from our garden

Frozen alcoholic beverages :)

Short shorts!

Rockies games

Turqoise

Tan Skin!

Fourth of July

Ice cream cones

Sunsets from our front porch

Warm star filled nights

A cold glass of white wine

BRIGHT nail polish!

Camping!

I think that about sums it up :) Just waiting on you summer!

XOXO Allie