Currently...

This is what's

CURRENTLY

going on in my life...right about now.

Loving: my family.  I am continually proud of the choices and accomplishments of my sweet love.  He is an incredible husband, father and friend!  My boys are the most precious gifts I have been given.  They fill my life with joy, love and laughter!  The rest of my family is always giving, loving and willing to help however they can!

Reading: my bible.  Every morning before I get out of bed even if it's just one verse.  Bread of life.

Waiting for: my cake business to "take off".  I'm working on it...one flour dusted day at a time.

Excited about: my sister-in-law having her second girl!!!!  If their second is as precious as their first we are all done for!!  Why wouldn't she be? ;-)  How cute is this sweetpea!

I know!

Missing: my fruit and veggie smoothies.  The blender we have just isn't doing it's job well anymore.  They were starting to come out clumpy no matter how long I blended it.  The chunky texture turned me off so I've stopped making them.  If you'd like to put towards my Vitamix fund I'll happily take donations! :-)

Trying to: get back to the gym and lose a few more pounds.  But who wants to hear about that! :-)

Working on: a plan to raise funds to be able to do about 5 "dessert table-scape" photo shoots in the next 3 months.  You know how you see all these dessert table-scapes with a gorgeous background, beautiful desserts and incredible decorations to pull it all together?  That's my goal!  These will be added to my portfolio so I can more quickly accomplish my "Waiting for" entry above.  A few ideas...

{via}

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Gorgeous right!!

Enjoying: Trader Joe's in my area!  They recently opened and my love and I can't seem to get enough of their "basketful of items" for $50!  Rock on!

Using: my MacBook Pro and loving it!  A gift from my love earlier this year.  I feel I can do anything with it.  Except maybe eat it.  That would be extremely odd and would probably be very hard on my digestive system. ??

Wearing: Vince Camuto perfume.  I love it's fresh sweet scent!  I actually got it this past Christmas and am almost out.  So I think it's time for some more but I'd like to try something different.  Any suggestions?

Planning: a Lingerie Shower for my other SIL.  It's SO exciting!!!!  Eeeeeekk!  The theme is Old Hollywood Glamour!

Singing: whatever my 9 and 6 yr old are listening to and for my 9 yr old, right now, that's P.O.D.'s Alive.  This is what my love and I listened to when we were dating!  We even saw them in concert!

Needing: a mani-pedi, haircut and massage...DESPERATELY!!  I'm up for bartering.

Learning: to use AutoCAD again after 10yrs.  I seem to always be figuring these kinds of things out on my own...PhotoShop, Blogger, iWeb, DreamWeaver, etc...I enjoy learning that way!

Listening: to Pandora...a lot!  FM Radio?  What's that?

Wishing: I could go on vacation.  This summer has not been a vacation for anyone in the Frank household this year.  Adventure, yes.  Vacation, hardly.  Too transparent?  Sorry.

The beach in Cozumel on my girlfriend cruise last February (sigh).

Doing: my best to keep up with house work.  I'd rather be learning AutoCAD, swimming with my boys, planning a shower and baking!  I know I'm not alone in this.

Praying for: continued provision, firm direction and wisdom.  Too vague?  Well, I can't tell you everything!

Dreaming of: one day opening my own bakery!

Natalia Frank...CURRENTLY

I'd love to know what you're up to as well!

{I saw this idea posted by Emily at Jones Design Company but this idea was originally taken from Sasha at Lemonade Makin' Mama.}

As always...be blessed, thanks for stopping by and leave some love!

Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes and Baby Shower

Okay!  I promise this is my last installment of the cinnamon themed desserts!  Pinky promise. :-)

I knew I could make a cinnamon "roll" flavored cupcake but I wanted to do more than just add cinnamon and a sprinkle of brown sugar so I did a little research and found an easy solution from Darla at Bakingdom!  Thank you Darla!  This was just what I was looking for.  I just altered the cinnamon sugar ratios a bit.

I ended up using a different vanilla cake recipe and then added the cinnamon sugar swirl to them.  So here I have my cups half the batter in the bottom and I made a little well to put about a teaspoon of my cinnamon mixture in.  Then added the other half of my batter and made another well to put a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon mixture into.  Lastly, you take a toothpick and swirl it! I love the one in the middle that looks like a heart! :-)  Bake at 350ºF for 12-15 min and they're done!

Now I had to taste one...of course!  So I topped it with a cream cheese buttercream and you know what? Heaven!!!!  These guys are insane good!

Yeah, that's pure yumminess, right there!

Onto the shower!  So I had my FIL make me an oven to go along with our bun in the oven theme, which, I'll be honest, kind of got lost in our preparation.  But I still think it looked super cute and everyone was impressed!  This was our dessert table.  Cupcakes, cookies, marshmallows, oh my!

Below are my cinnamon swirl cupcakes all dressed up with cute fondant flowers and leaves, cinnamon roll cookies in the front, cinnamon marshmallows (white) to the left and the pink things in the glass jar are almond marshmallows.  To the far right are Little Debbie cinnamon rolls!

 Here's the awesome oven that was made for us and you can't see it but there are yellow an blue flames painted on the burners! :-)  How cute is this!

To the left are store bought cinnamon rolls that we warmed, more cinnamon cookies and pink and orange almond marshmallows!  The dish with "cream" in it is the extra cream cheese buttercream that guests can spread on their cookies or add to their cinnamon rolls.  Um, yeah, we had no complaints there!

...and...a few close ups of some of the desserts.  We all love close ups don't we!

Everyone enjoyed themselves and had a good time, especially since this was a couples shower and that can sometimes be a daunting thing for men.  So I was very pleased with how everything turned out!  Thanks for letting me share!

As always...be blessed, thanks for stopping by and leave some love!

Cinnamon Roll Sugar Cookies

I know what you're thinking...Seriously! Cinnamon Roll Cookies!!  Yes!  And they are scrumptious!  So, yesterday I posted about Cinnamon Marshmallows.  Today it's cookies that I will be taking to the baby shower.  I really want to say something funny right now that will make you laugh out loud (lol) and love me more but my brain is on overload and I can't come up with anything witty at the moment so we'll just get to the pictures and retelling of how I made these bites of awesomeness.  Hopefully you'll love me anyway.

I used my go to sugar cookie recipe from LilaLoa who, I might add, is very witty and is always making me laugh. (sigh)  If you've never read her blog you should pop on over and read whatever hilarious stuff she's talking about now.  (whatever) Anyhoo, her recipe is just what I needed for this and I got to work.

Okay, so evidently my brain was not firing on all cylinders earlier either when I took these because I left out the brown sugar, baking powder and salt.  I am...so ashamed.  Not really.  Moving on!

Cream the butter and sugar.  Add the eggs, mix.  Add the salt and powder, mix. Add vanilla, mix.  Then add the flour and, you guessed it, mix.

Roll out half the dough on parchment in a rectangle, oblong shape thingy.

Spread the butter.

Sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon.  Then roll into a log, wrap and refrigerate until ready to bake.

Now I'm ready to bake and here's my cookie log.

I sliced it into about 1/3" slices.  You can see that yummy swirl filling.

They're all on the pan ready to bake at 375º F for 7-9 min.

Ding!  They are golden and still a bit soft.  They didn't come out as "rounded" as I wanted but I think I might have gotten a different result if I'd've baked them right away.  Either way they came out delicious!

I was extremely pleased with the flavors!  You definitely get the "cinnamon roll" flavor!  I did try drizzling a bit of a sugar glaze on a few just to see how it tasted and I wasn't completely sold.  So, I'm gonna wait and ice them with a bit of the cream cheese icing I'm making for the Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes!  I know they are going to be scrumptious! 

Here's LilaLoa's original recipe and my "cinnamon roll" addition at the bottom.

Vanilla Sugar Cookies (my additions)

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon orange (or almond) extract
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
4 (or 4 1/2 cups) flour

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, vanilla, and orange extract. Mix well. Add baking powder and salt and mix again.  Add flour 1 cup at a time. Again, IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE THESE COOKIES RIGHT AWAY, add 4 1/2 cups flour and go for it. No need to chill the dough. If you are not going to use the dough immediately-- stop at 4 cups of flour. Roll out half the dough on a lightly floured parchment paper covered surface to 3/8 inch thick. Proceed with Cinnamon Roll Addition below if making Cinnamon Roll cookies. or cut dough into desired shapes and bake as directed. Bake at 375 F for 7 minutes. Eat and enjoy. Repeat as necessary.

** I use butter that is only slightly softened. Mostly because I don't have the foresight to get it out until EXACTLY when I need it. This recipe is perfect for that. Get your butter out first and then gather the rest of your ingredients and you should be good to go.

** You can see that this recipe really is only a variation of the End-All Chocolate recipe. The texture is the same. The sharp edges are the same. The mouth-feel of the cookies is the same. They are just....you know, Chocolate-Free. I hope that's okay.

Cinnamon Roll Addition

4 tablespoons of soften butter, divided

1/2 C packed brown sugar, divided

2 tsp cinnamon, divided

Spread half the butter onto rolled out dough, sprinkle with half the brown sugar and half the cinnamon. Roll up dough starting from the long side. Wrap in plastic wrap until ready to bake or slice and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet right away and bake at 375º F for 7 minutes. Ice with a cream cheese icing or sugar glaze! Enjoy!

As always...be blessed, thanks for reading, and leave some love!