Pumpkin Cinnamon Streusel Muffins

First off, let me say to the few of you who read my blog. I am so sorry that my blogging has been so sporadic lately. There are simply not enough hours in the day, and while I love blogging and sharing my recipes and what is going on in our lives it is often times takes the back burner...or a burner in a whole other house.

This is the third time that I have made these scrumptious muffins, and there are three things I must tell you about them first.  1.) They are my absolute favorite muffins ever and the hubs loves them too. 2.) I made them wrong the first time. I actually used pumpkin pie filling instead of plain pumpkin puree. Oops. 3.) I loved the way that they tastes, so I have continued to make them wrong ever since.

These amazing muffins come from Two Peas and Their Pod. Again, I have loved absolutely everything that I have tried from Josh and Maria's blog. If you have not been to their blog before, you MUST go now. They blog about pretty much everything, but mainly food. They also have a cute little son named Caleb, who they post about. Here is a link to Maria's original post. You must try to muffins, the right way or the wrong way. They are delectable and make you dream of fall weather while they are baking.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Streusel Muffins

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/3 cup water
1 cup canned pumpkin (or pumpkin pie filling if you  mess up like me. It makes it sweeter and amazing)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling:

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Streusel Topping:

1 1/4 cup oats
1 tablespoon flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into chunks

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Line two muffin tins with liners and spray with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together salt, flour, baking soda, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

In a large bowl (or mixer, I love my KitchenAid for this) mix together remaining ingredient for actual muffins.

Slowly stir in the flour mixture until combined.

For the filling, mix cinnamon and brown sugar together in a small bowl and set it aside.

For the topping, mix together all ingredients except butter. When they are combined well, mix in the butter with your hand until the mixture is crumbly.

Fill the muffin cups half way full with the pumpkin batter. Sprinkle the filling in over each half filled cup. Fill the muffin cups up with the remaining batter and crumble the topping on each one.

Bake for 17-20 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test. Let cool on a rack. Enjoy with a nice glass of milk or cup of coffee.

The Scooby Gang and Arkansas

There is not much to report for our fall 2011. P.S. I wrote this FOREVER ago and apparently forgot to post it. Just before Halloween I entered the pups in the dog costume contest that the dog park we frequent was having.  We didn't win, but it was a lot of fun.  Gus loves wearing clothes! Bella, not so much.  It was a fight to get hers on.  Next year we are going scary!

 

I could not resist doing matching outfits.  Bella was a cheerleader and Gus was a football player.

This is really fitting since everyone says that Gus looks like a big football. We hung out uptown for the contest then hit up the dog park for a while.

  We spent Halloween night at our friends Phil and Alena's house.  They have about 5 acres outside of town and used the backyard for a haunted maze! The guys did a great job setting up and scaring people. My best friend from grad school, Amy, and her boyfriend Kevin joined us for the festivities. Kevin, as you can see, cannot keep his eyes open for pictures! Adam had to go as something "scary", but Amy, Kevin, and I went as part of the Scooby Gang! Amy and I had a lot of fun thrifting for our costumes.

I went as Daphene...It worked out great because the dress is something that I wore again to church not long after Halloween. It was a great $6 buy!

Amy and Kevin went as Velma and Shaggy! I wanted to take Gus for Scrappy, but I didn't want something to happen to him with all the craziness going on.

I personally didn't think he was scary, but don't tell him I said that.  The mask he wore was really creepy looking though.

Our great party host and hostess, Phil and Alena.

The Scooby Gang! Minus Fred because Adam wouldn't cooperate. Oh well, there is always next year.









     For Thanksgiving we loaded up the dogs in the Kia and headed to Arkansas! I had not been down there in years and Adam had never been before.  My mother headed down there from Oklahoma and my grandparents from Nebraska.  Two of my mother's brothers and their families live in Arkansas.  My other uncle, Terry, even drove from Texas to come down there.

This was the first time that I had gotten to see my cousin Plynn's (loving known as my Plynn Twin) new baby and meet his fiance.  Tatum is the sweetest and cutest baby ever. I am convinced! He slept on my lap and the dogs even joined in for a while and napped on my legs!

Mom and Tatum.  He is such a cutie!!! I wanted to take him home!

                                   Too precious!

We all had to check out the Black Friday ads. We decided to make a trip to Walmart for the madness...and madness it was.  This may have been both my first and last Black Friday escapade!





    This is a horrible picture of me! However, it is the only picture that I know of that was taken of Adam and I while we were in Arkansas. We had such a great time seeing everyone and spending time away from Ohio.  The dogs loved roaming in the mountains out by uncle Sam's house, even though I was a little worried. In true Troxel tradition, there were many games of cards played!

My New Favorite Dress Outfit

I have never written a post about clothing or an outfit before, but there is a first time for everything.  There are two reasons that I am blogging this outfit. First, it is super cute and comfortable. Second, it was veeeery cost effective, everything was on clearance!  

I wore this outfit today when we went to get our groomsmen's tux measurements and for my bridesmaid Amy and I to pick up our shoes for the wedding at David's Bridal. I have worn a similar outfit, different cardigan and shirt, in the past, but I love the way that this one came together. I do admit, I wore shorts under the skirt. I apologize for the horrible quality of the pictures. I was home alone and our lights don't light up the living room in the new apartment well.

The best part about this outfit is the that the entire thing (excluding my watch) was less than $50 dollars, and all of the pieces are very versatile.  Everything except the necklace was on major clearance!

                                    Shirt: Sears a while back  ~$7.00

                                    Boyfriend Cardigan: Sears  a few weeks ago  ~$8.50

                                    Skirt: Fashion Bug, about 6 months ago  ~$5.00

                                    Shoes: Target, last year  ~$7.00

                                    Necklace: Fashion Bug, recently  ~$14.00

                                    Total cost for look     ~ $45.00

 

Here is a close look at the shoes. They are pretty comfortable for being as high of a wedge as they are.  The skirt has black, purple, gray, and light pink in it which gives you many options for tops, shoes, etc...

 

 Close ups of the necklace. I love this necklace because it is sparkly and because it goes with almost everything. It is a silver/gray color, but because it is clear it transitions well and picks up almost any color that you put it on.

I love this outfit and think that I will wear it again with my silver/gray flats for a post session for the incoming graduate students in about a week. Have a great week everyone!

Fireworks, Mountains, and Concerts...OH MY!

It seems like we did a lot more this summer than what I can find in photos. I guess that it just seems to escape my mind to take photos all of the time, even when my camera is usually in my purse.  I used to be sooo good at taking pictures! I guess that went out the window after my Doane days.  I guess I will post what I have pictures of and update if I find more later!

This summer we took in fireworks with our good friends Phil and Alena.  We love getting to spend time with them, but with as many nights and weekends as Phil and Adam work (both being chefs) it's hard for the four of us to get together. This summer we got to take in fireworks with them, which was a blast!
 

On a side note, Alena always wears dresses or a skirt when we go somewhere.  This may be a coincidence, but ironically enough I decided to wear a skirt tonight...She was in sweats this once! However, when I told her I dressed up because she usually did, she ended up changing into a dress anyways, lol.

Wow, he actually smiled...after a few attempts anyway!









Right after the 4th of July, we left the dogs with "sitters", packed up, and went to Gatlinburg, Tennessee for a long weekend.  We stayed in an amazing cabin and did so many things.  We used the time to "rekindle" and re-coop from our busy lives.

The first place that we hit up was the Mine Your Own Gems attraction.  Adam used to go to Gatlinburg as a child with his family, so he had a lot of memories that he wanted to re-create.

My care-free as a kid fiance with our finds! We ended up taking most of them home, but made a three stone ring for me out of a few of them.  It's silver with a garnet flanked by two topaz stone.  At first I was leery of Adam's choice, but then I realized they were our wedding colors and agreed that it would look fine.  It turned out beautiful! I don't have a picture of it, sadly. I may add one later.







We spent almost a whole morning and afternoon walking the "strip" of Gatlinburg.  We went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, which was awesome.  We saw so many neat things...

Like this candy art picture of Sandra Bullock, amazing!

















Adam got to stand next to a life size statue of the world's tallest man.

 We went to see the Titanic museum later in the trip. There were so many amazing artifacts from the actual ship.  It was 3 hours well spent! I loved the touch of the iceberg on the outside.  Sadly, we couldn't take any photos inside :(

That night we went to Adam's favorite restaurant in Gatlinburg...Huck Finn's.  It was so good! Adam got the catfish and I had alligator.  They have all you can eat vittles, including: hush puppies, ham and beans, cole slaw, and pickles and onions. As you can see we were stuffed!







This was the view from the deck of our cabin.  It was beautiful! We spend a lot of time in the hot tub out there, listening to the crickets and cicadas.

 

On our last day we made the long, curvy drive to what was supposed to be an Indian reservation.  It turned out not to be what we thought, but the drive made the whole thing worth while!

Yikes! Talk about curves!

Pretty tunnel that we had to go through.

Our last night there Adam made an amazing supper and we spent time in the cabin enjoying the view...

and a little bit too bubbly of a bubble bath.  There was barely any water in the tub!  Oops!







We did so much when we were there that I won't mention it all. Needless to say we loved out stay at Bears Inn and plan on going back at some point before we leave Ohio.  The cabin was absolutely beautiful!  We had a great time getting away from reality for a few days.

 

In August I got to go see Rascal Flatts with  Adam's mom, sister, and his sister's friend.  It was an amazing show and we had great seats! Thanks Monica!

 

Sarah Evan's opened up, and she was fantastic!

I couldn't resist!

The show was amazing.  This was the first time that I had seen either in concert...but the best was yet to come! 

A few days later Adam and I went to see TIM MCGRAW with Monica and his sister Sarah.  Talk about awesome! The best part was that Monica ended up winning PIT PASSES for Tim!

The Band Perry was the first band to go on. They put on a good show with a lot of energy.

Then came Luke Bryan! I didn't think that I knew very many of his songs, I was sort of right.  However, Adam and I are now both HUGE Luke fans.  We are trying to go to another concert soon.  He was amazing.

He jumped and danced around the stage the whole time! I really think that he is going to be battling Sawyer Brown for entertainer of the year soon.  One of the best shows I have ever seen put on!

Sarah and I in the pit for Tim! VIP was amazing!

I have TONS of pictures of Tim McGraw. These are just a FEW of my favorites.

We ended up with 4 guitar picks, which was perfect for the four of us!

I even got to touch Tim's hand! I will always remember when my friend Whitney Wathor from high school swore her hand made it in a magazine.  I can't claim that, but it made me remember her and Rachel's obsession with Tim concerts.

 

All of us in the pit.  We had such a great time, despite the insane heat. 

The Band Perry came back out to sing with Tim....

and so did Luke!

 

Adam's way of thanking his mom. I couldn't resist, although I will probably catch flack if he ever sees this online.  Such an amazing concert even with Tim's bum foot in a cast!