Pumpkin-Swirl Brownies Turned Cupcakes 12/31/2009
Happy New Year’s Eve! For our celebration I made Pumpkin-Swirl Brownies, but instead of making a pan of brownies I made them into cupcakes. One reason being that it would be easier to serve that way. Sometimes brownies really crumble apart when you cut them. Originally I was thinking I wanted to bake something that had either a vegetable or fruit in the recipe, just for a little added nutritional value. I thought about an apple or banana cake, with a little bit of whip cream topping instead of a lot of heavy frosting. When searching recipes I came across the Pumpkin-Swirl Brownies from MarthaStewart.com and thought it would be a fun one to try. I bought a can of 100% pure pumpkin to use in the recipe.  To the original recipe I made 2 changes, I cut all the ingredients in half, because I didn’t want to make as many, as well I did not add nuts. Making a half batch I still filled 10 cupcake cups, which was even more than I anticipated. Here are the ingredients in the proportions I used them: Pumpkin-Swirl Brownies (adapted from MarthaStewart.com) Ingredients: ½ stick unsalted butter, plus more for pan (I opted to use cooking spray for pan instead) 3 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate 1 cup all purpose flour ½ teaspoon baking powder 1/8 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper ¼ teaspoon salt ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons sugar 2 large eggs 1 -1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract ½ cup + 2 tablespoons pumpkin 2 tablespoons vegetable oil ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line cupcake pan with 10 liners and spray with cooking spray. Melt butter and chocolate in a bowl over simmering water; stir until smooth.   In a large bowl combine flour, baking powder, cayenne, and salt; whisk (whisking is a good way to sift the ingredients).   In a bowl using an electric mixer, combine sugar, eggs, and vanilla until fluffy about 4 minutes. Next beat in the flour mixture.   Divide the batter into 2 bowls. In one bowl combine batter with chocolate mixture, and in second bowl combine batter with pumpkin, oil, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Put half of the chocolate mixture divide into cups. Top with half the pumpkin mixture. Repeat with remaining chocolate mixture, then pumpkin mixture. Use a knife to swirl the 2 batters. Bake about 40 minutes until set. Cool on a wire rack. Here is the before picture.  This is my first time making this recipe so in the next post I will let you know how well they came out. I plan on topping them with a dollop of whip cream and colourful sprinkles to make them more special for the kids. Enjoy your evening, and have a very happy New Year’s Eve!  1 Comment Fit to Wed: Sigg Om Bottle Giveaway 12/30/2009
Katie, the author of the blog Fit to Wed, and who also attended high school with me, has a fun giveaway on her site today.  By visiting her site and leaving a comment on the post Sigg Om Bottle Giveaway, you will be entered for the chance to win your very own Sigg Bottle. The Sigg water bottles are great because they are PVC and BPA free, so you can cut down on your exposure to harmful chemicals. You are eligible to win this giveaway if you are a resident of the US or Canada (except Saskatchewan). Pretty cool she mentions you can win it from Canada! Not something I can normally find mentioned with giveaways. J It is a great blog, so follow the link and pop on over to visit her site for your chance to win. You have until January 4th. Fit to Wed: Sigg Om Bottle Giveaway
Favorite Things 12/30/2009
 A few top favorites · Laughter · Hugs · Kisses · Big Smiles · and the words I Love You How many times can you fit these into your day? Here is a mini goal suggestion. Take a moment to consider how many times these occur in your day, whether it is 1 or 100; make it a goal to increase it. The more you think about it, the more you will draw it into your day. Next thing you know, you will find yourself creating more happiness in your life!
More On Why: Personal Development 12/29/2009
 Painting by Big Brother Today when I was checking my email and doing my normal internet browsing, favorite blogs, Google reader, and so on, I came across an advertisement for personal development. The add stuck in my head throughout the morning and I later decided to Google it. The web page I ended up at most likely had nothing to do with the add, but I am glad it worked out that way. I firmly believe in the intricate workings of the universe, and that things can happen for a reason. The site I ended up at was Dr. A.J. Schuler’s Personal Growth and Development: How to Maximize Your Strengths article. The first piece of information and bottom line in his article on personal growth is to “identify what you do best, and do more of it. Identify what you do worst, and stop doing it.” I was instantly intrigued. My thoughts ran something like this: How simple, it is so logical, and I want to keep thinking about this. Is this something most people know and practice in their lives? What a great thing to share for those who have not considered it before. Although I have not wrapped my mind around it 1000% yet, it makes a lot of sense to me. I am all for doing what brings you the most happiness in your life. What is more important than love and happiness? Think about how you feel when you do something you do best, usually it makes you happy. And when you are spending time doing something you are not good at, a lot of the time you are simply unhappy. To create more happiness in your life it makes sense to focus on the things that make you feel good, like your talents. We have all been told that practice can make you better. So what if practicing, or devoting a lot of time to something you are not good at doesn’t make sense, or make the most of your life? Do you really want to spend your time and energy devoted to something you don’t like just to lessen the impact? Of course there are times when doing something we aren’t good at is essential in life, and warrants our energy. Otherwise most of us might have cooks, or a cleaning staff. With my sense of direction, I would have a driver for sure. But, hey I don’t want to close any doors ;-) What if each time we find ourselves engaged in an activity we dislike or don’t have a talent for, we make a conscious decision. Is partaking in this activity essential, or am I just draining my happiness by doing it? The beauty in the world being filled with infinite kinds of people is that we don’t all have to be good at everything. So why focus on being good at something you are not, and put a better use to your energy whenever possible? As much as you can, spend your time on things you are passionate about, things you would do no matter what. This relates to the purpose of my blog in that I love to share! It is a passion of mine. Writing for me is not my passion, or something I consider a talent, its greatest importance in my life is that it is a means of sharing. That is what I love. I became particularly interested, on a more serious level, to personal growth with the birth of my kids. This came from the biggest desire that most of us parents have, that we want the best for our kids. What exactly is the best? Well to me it is that my kids are happy and loving individuals. All the rest is pale in comparison. The next step was what is the best way to ensure that my children are happy and loving people? It was then that I fully, deep down realized, the best thing I can do to help my children achieve this is to lead by example. The reality is my husband and I are the single biggest influences on our young children. I need to work on my own personal growth, not only for my sake but for theirs. After completely coming to terms with that realization, I decided to spend more time reading about personal development. The books I choose to read; when I manage to squeeze it in, mainly revolve around this. The blog comes into play because not only do I care about my personal growth, and the growth of my children, I care about yours. I truly mean that. I am passionate about sharing, and hope that in time over seeing my development, it can help someone in their growth. Well, then all the hard work, and time devoted writing will be worth it! This blog is my way of giving back, in exactly the capacity I am capable of doing with focusing on 2 young children. It is my way of giving love, and creating happiness not only for myself, and my family, but in my greatest hopes for all of you. Thanking you for reading, for enlightening me, and for the help on my path. Wendy Irene Are there any thoughts on personal growth you would to share? .
A special thank you toDr. A.J. Schuler for your article on Personal Growth and Development: How to Maximize Your Strengths.  Thanks to a wonderful reader who contacted me, thank you very muchJ, I got just the motivation I needed to add an email subscription to the blog. If you would like to subscribe to Give Love Create Happiness so that you receive blog updates direct to your email all you need to do is enter your email address in the subscription box below. You will be asked to verify your subscription. Following that you will receive an email from FeedBurner in which you will need to click the link to confirm your subscription. You will receive blog updates daily when there is a new post. I am very excited to have this option up and running. With a little help from Google, FeedBurner, and a demo on Web Tech Gurl, I was able to make this option happen. It took me a few days because I had a few glitches with the Blog title. Fortunately, the nice folks at Weebly helped me with out with some technical support. Pretty awesome considering it is a free service. If you would like to subscribe at a future date, a subscription box has been added to the sidebar on the right hand side. I look forward to and appreciate your feed back! Wendy Food and the Holidays 12/28/2009
Today’s lunch was a wonderful salad. I can’t tell you how happy I was to go back to having a salad for lunch again. I missed you salads!  The salad was baby romaine lettuce, with apple slices, raw almonds, cherry tomatoes, and applewood smoked cheddar. Applewood Smoked Cheddar is my absolute favorite cheese! The smoky aftertaste is delicious. As far as cheddar cheeses go it has a pretty strong flavor which means you only need to add a little bit to go along way.  Our favorite way to add cheese to salad is to add a small handful of mini cheese cubes on top. For anyone who hasn’t tried Applewood Smoked Cheddar I strongly recommend it. It is available in British Columbia at most major grocery store chains, so I don’t think it would be very hard to find in most locations. I actually bought the cheese for a Christmas appetizer, but we were already having so much food that day we didn’t feel we needed an appetizer. After the salad we enjoyed Tazo Green Ginger Tea. I am already feeling so much better after one veggie packed meal with tea. No matter what your diet has looked like you can always turn things right around by making your next meal a healthy one.  Similar to how one unhealthy meal can really drain you, and make you not feel at your best, one healthy meal can be just as powerful. It can make you feel renewed. Ever since I started paying close attention to how I feel depending on what I eat, it has significantly helped me to want to eat healthier foods most of the time. That is not to say I don’t like to splurge, because I do! I don’t want to miss out on foods I really enjoy, like chocolate chip cookies J I just don’t beat myself up about it and try to make my next food choice a healthy one. During the holidays this is easier said than done. It feels like you go from one heavy meal to the next, and who doesn’t like to celebrate!   A trick that works for me around the holidays and throughout the year is to try as much as possible to splurge on just my absolute favorites. For example my husband loves Nanaimo bars, and although I like them I won’t usually have one because it is not something I enjoy so much that I feel like I am missing out if I don’t. I try to consciously make the decision of how much do I really want to try something that it is worth the extra calories. Sometimes it is completely worth it, but you would be surprised how often when you think this way you don’t mind passing foods up. What things do you do to deal with food and the holidays? All You Need is Love 12/27/2009
Lil Sis has really started to make big progress today with her walking. Much of the day she chose to walk from one place to the next, instead of crawling. At one point I counted 10 steps in a row. She started taking steps before, but usually only a few at a time. Today it was walk, fall, walk, fall, over and over again. Lil Sis does an adorable zombie walk with her hands straight in front of her, as she wobbles from side to side. The hands out in front so that she can catch herself when she falls. While writing this blog I have the (Starbucks)Red CD All You Need Is Love playing in the background. With each CD Starbucks contributes $1 to the Global Fund. Part of the slogan is “wish to make a difference”, “wish for love.” I am already fond of Starbucks and find the Starbucks Love project touching.   Probably one of the things I find most appealing about Starbucks is that each time I go in their store I feel a renewed love for whatever season it is. Starbucks really knows how to make one appreciate the season, from their seasonal drinks; pumpkin spice and gingerbread to name a few, to their mugs that reflect the colors and pictures of the season, not to mention the cute store decorations. Needless to say when I received a Starbucks gift card for Christmas I was very happy, thank you! It makes me happy when products purchased also help to give back, which makes (Product)Red something I heart. An added bonus, red is my favorite color and I am a big fan of anything with the word love or heart symbols on it, and the act of spreading love in any and every way you can. Hence the name of the blogJ. For me just reading the word love brings warm feelings. Words are powerful. So when I found red pajamas with hearts and love written all over it, I knew they were the perfect Christmas Eve gift for my daughter.  Check out this adorable bib a good friend gave my daughter for Christmas.  It is perfect, right up my alley, and I love it, thank you! One of the things on my To Do list today was filling in my 2010 calendar. Ideally I would like to have the information; birthdays, appointments on my phone as well as on my hanging calendar. I managed to write everything down on the calendar today but not update my phone. I believe that will take a lot longer.  The option to send alerts to myself and be able to view my calendar no matter where I am is appealing. Also, once I put the information in the computer/phone there are some things I will not have to enter again if I select yearly, such as birthdays. I realize this is not new but I am a little behind on fully using the technology. It crossed my mind to use only my phone synced with the computer, but I find it is much easier for me to glance up at my calendar each morning. Maybe it is the big visual that makes it a better reminder for me. There have been times when I only had something on my phone calendar and found it easier to forget. Or perhaps it is partly because as soon as I close the alert it leaves my mind much faster than seeing it over and over again on the wall. What works best for you, a digital calendar, a wall hanging calendar, or both? Changes 12/27/2009
I am working on making changes to my blog, and will be running some test posts. Sorry for any inconvenience! Wendy Boxing Day Got Us 12/26/2009
It is Boxing Day today! A fun holiday I took on when I moved to Canada with my husband. For those of you who have not heard of Boxing Day, it has long time traditional roots, but today is known as a shopping holiday here in Canada. It is similar to Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, in the US. Click for an interesting Wiki definition of Boxing Day. We spent another long morning in PJs (which you know I love J), just playing this morning. It was great family time! Following the lovely lazy morning, Big Brother had another ride on his bike today. It was cold but he didn’t mind at all. After his bike ride he took a moment to hit a few tennis balls. Daddy pitches the ball to him, and he basically hits the ball as far and as hard as he can. The smile on his face when he hits a big one is priceless. When baby woke up from her nap, we did venture out to the mall, with a quick stop at Michael's Craft Store on the way. I had a great coupon for 50% off one item; however, I did not make a purchase because I was pretty determined not to spend in there. The Christmas shopping wore me out. We left the few items that needed to be returned at home for another day, probably a good one to do without kids for those lines. Our main purpose for hitting the mall today was to search for a birthday present for Lil Sis. Her birthday is less than 1 week after Christmas. It is going to be an adjustment for us. My due date for her was Christmas Day, but fortunately she didn’t put me through labor then. We found a cute card.  Although we didn’t go to the mall to do anything other than look for a great sale item birthday present, Boxing Day got us! We purchased a new 6Qt Crock pot. If you saw my previous post The Sunday Before The Big Day we wanted to purchase a new crock pot. Our old one had a broken lid, and we thought it would be nice to not use a wine stopper to keep the heat in, and have a larger size to cook bigger meals now that we have kids.  Fortunately, gifts from family helped fund our impulse purchases. The rest we are planning on saving for an Arizona vacation/trip to see family in March. The other purchases we made were a dessert whip dispenser, and much needed batteries that Santa forgot for a certain toy...whoops!  For Lil Sis’s birthday I have been thinking about possibly making an applesauce or banana cake with whip cream instead of frosting. After all these Christmas goodies I am kind of sugared out. You know you have had A LOT of sugar if you are looking for a break from it. Homemade whip cream, although it isn’t healthy, it is lighter on the sugar, so I thought it would be a good alternative. The dispenser will make it super easy to apply the whip cream to the cake, and the advantage of making your own is there won’t be any preservatives. Plus it was on sale at the front of London Drugs, and seemed like a great idea with my idea of whip cream on the cake. Boxing Day definitely got us! It is funny how after all the Christmas spending you can still manage to find reasons to buy something the very next day. I must say I am excited to try out my purchases. Stay tuned later in the week to see how well the whip cream cake does or does not come out... What does the day after Christmas look like for you? Any shopping involved?
Merry Christmas 2009 12/25/2009
Merry Christmas! From my family to yours we wish you good health, happiness, and much love!  It was a wonderful Christmas day. All 4 of us received so many wonderful gifts. Thank you so much to all our family for your generosity and thoughtfulness! We woke up, opened our stockings. Then came downstairs, saw that Santa was here. We had cinnamon buns and coffee for breakfast, while opening our cards to each other. Then the gift opening festivities began. Baby had so much fun crawling over and tossing gifts, and Big Brother thoroughly enjoyed opening his gifts, as well as his baby sister’s who needed help of course ;-), and then generously offered to help open Mommy and Daddy’s. Phone calls from loved ones. The tree was lit; the fire was going, as well as the Yule log crackling on the TV. In the background Christmas carols were playing. It was fun, and so exciting! After we ate a thrown together lunch, it was outside for a ride on Big Brother’s new bike.  Next came Christmas dinner, squash, carrots, stuffing, a chicken, and rolls.  Following dinner we played our first family game of Candy land. The winner, Big Brother of course, got the first piece of Chocolate Espresso Christmas cake.  A day of precious memories, and lots of love. Soooo tired, time to relax. Merry, Merry Christmas and wishing you a lifetime of happiness! Love, Wendy & Family
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