Something Sweet Sunday

Hello everyone! I hope you all had an amazing week. Things were pretty boring in the Johnson household (well as boring as they could get with a newborn), but we enjoy the slow life here. Before we get started here are my favorite pictures from our week. The many faces of Owen. Life with a newborn is so much fun... we are getting good at this!

 

 

  

He cracks me up! 

Anyways, for this week's 'Something Sweet Sunday' I made a blueberry-cream-cheese-croissant-bake! For names sake, let's just call it Blueberry Bread Pudding, because that's what it pretty much is.

This was such an easy dish to pull together and with my little guy, easy and quick meals are a necessity. My favorite part about this is that it serves well as a breakfast or dessert dish (at least it started out as breakfast and I found myself eating it later for dessert.. Haha). 

Okay moving on to the recipe.

Blueberry Bread Pudding:

• 3 large croissants (I had 6 smaller sized ones)
• 1/2 cup of honey
• 3/4 cup of milk
• 1 16oz package of cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon 
• 2 eggs 
• 1 package of blueberries (8oz, fresh or frozen but, fresh is best, frozen blueberries tend to retain a lot of water)
• Powdered sugar
  
  ** if you want to use regular sugar it's 3/4 cup of sugar and 1 cup of milk

 I'll start with my ingredient picture, doesn't it all look so pretty together? Haha, anyways, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and gather all your supplies! 

Now get to whipping your cream cheese (so there's no clumps!) and always make sure it's room temperature.

Mix in your honey with the cream cheese until combined, then add the rest of your ingredients. 

Then put your croissant pieces in a bowl (or you can put them in an 9in square pan and skip the nonsense) and then add your cream cheese mixture and let sit for 20 minutes.

Then sprinkle your blueberries all over. I put half the blueberries in first and kind of mixed it in with the croissant pieces and then topped the rest with the remaining blueberries. Then put in the oven for 20-25 minutes. YUM! Almost there...

Okay, now let your beauty cool just a bit... and get the powdered sugar ready! (I love my oven mitt and I thought it looked good with the picture :])

Cut a nice slice out and powder it up! Of course you can always put maple syrup as well, or you can eat it plain. Either way, it will be great! The cream cheese definitely makes this recipe shine. Yum, yum, yum! 

Next step, EAT and enjoy!

Something Sweet Sunday

Hello everyone. I hope you are enjoying your Superbowl Sunday (& Groundhog Day, too!). This week I have been wondering what to post about and while I came up with a couple good ideas (I'll save those for later), I wanted to find something to inspire me to continue to post on here and I thought what better way to do that than by baking!

Over the past few months, I have found that I have not been baking nearly as much as I'd love to and of course since having the little guy, there really is not a ton of time to get that done. So, my recipe collection has continued to grow. To eliminate this problem I have decided to set aside one day a week (or maybe more) to make one of the delicious foods I've been meaning to! So, this Sunday will mark the beginning of that journey for me and I thought that it would be a pretty great thing to blog about since there's no better inspiration than food.

This Sunday I made Oatmeal Cake w/ Coconut Pecan Frosting! Ahhh, I have been meaning to find a recipe like this since me and Tyler went to San Francisco for our anniversary this past July. We stopped by an adorable little (seriously.. it was maybe 150 sq ft) coffee shop, Hollow. At Hollow, we enjoyed this cake, coffee, and endless conversation. Ah, I love San Francisco. It brings out a whole new personality in me and Tyler. We need to go back soon!

Anyways, this past week, I saw that a friend had pinned a recipe for that cake that I forgot about and I knew I had to make it this week!

So here it is--

Oatmeal Cake:

• 1/2 cup quick cooking oatmeal
• 3/4 cups boiling water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup of butter

Coconut Pecan Frosting:

• 3 tbsp melted butter
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Now gather all your ingredients and take hundreds of photos of them! Haha... I'm kidding.. sort of. ;)

Then combine your oats & boiling water and SET ASIDE.

 

Take the remaining ingredients and combine well. 

 Then add in your oatmeal mixture and it will look like this picture above. 

Butter & flour an 8x8 pan (square, circle, whatever floats your boat) and pour mixture in. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Gather all your frosting ingredients!

And combine until it looks like this.. just take a spoon and mix it all together.

 Then once your cake is out of the oven, spread this on top and send it back in on BROIL until the coconut is browned (this part goes quick, so keep an eye on it), then VOILA, you have a cake.

 

Then the hard part comes and you have to wait for it to cool. Yep, awful.. to speed the process along, I usually just set it in the fridge because I'm impatient and tired of waiting! 

Once your cake is cooled, cut that bad boy up and serve with a couple shots of espresso or a big glass of milk. Or whatever you want. I don't mind.

Welp, that's all I got for this evening. Tyler and I loved it and I haven't officially had a slice yet so I better go do that before the babe wakes..

xo

The Proposal

It wasn't too long ago that I proposed to Michelle and saw the tremendous amount of happiness in her eyes, but time is flying quick (already 7 months until the wedding)!

Anyways, for those of you that haven't heard how it all went down, this is the post to read:

Michelle and I had a camping trip planned at Huntington Lake, nothing out of the ordinary, just another regular camping trip we wanted to take like all of the others we love so much. I figured that that weekend would be the perfect opportunity to pop the question; us being in the mountains and surrounded by trees, it's everything we love. 

So I decided that I would place the ring on top of the frosting on a cupcake since baking is her biggest passion (it's what she's basing her life around anyways!) But that wasn't easy, I had to sneak over to buy the cupcakes without her noticing or finding them in the fridge since I had bought them the night before. The next day came around and I was glad she hadn't found them yet, but now I had to sneak them into the car with all of our camping stuff and hope she wouldn't see them again, and thankfully it worked out... again.

As the night rolled on and we were all settled in at the campsite after a fun day, I got more and more nervous to get the cupcakes out, set the ring on top, and bring it out to her in a cute and romantic way. Eventually when the time was right, I walked over to the car and opened up the cupcake box and opened I up... they were both melted to the point of looking like hot fudge splattered all over the inside of the box. My heart was racing and I had NO CLUE what I was going to do now. The night was coming to an end and we sat inside the tent talking before bed like we usually do, but my mind was so pre-occupied I couldn't really concentrate and felt like she could see something was wrong. 

The next day, after a lot of thought, I figured that I would just take her for a drive and see if I could find a cute, secluded and elevated area to pop the question. We drove around and eventually came to the Huntington Lake dam and decided we should walk down and just relax by the water. We found an area just past the damn with a secluded shoreline where we could just sit right by the water and hang out. I finally realized that this would be the perfect area to propose, but there was only one problem. The ring was still hidden in the car (from me thinking there would be nothing special by the dam). I needed a reason to go back to the car to get the ring, so I made up an excuse to head back to our camp a mile or two back to get my swimsuit, which I really didn't have and needed. After we got back to the dam I made sure to stuff the ring in my shoes in our tote bag. 

The view from the dam

We hung out by the water for 30 mins or so and ate some snacks and tried to catch minnows with Ziploc bags (for Michelle, I swear she insisted we catch one). I eventually noticed that to the right of where we were sitting the shoreline stuck out a bit (to where you couldn't see what was around it) and then back again. So I tucked the ring box into my waist band of my swimsuit and walked across the rocky shoreline to the alcove (while almost dropping the ring in the water) and saw a perfect tiny log to place the ring on. So I set it down on top of it and tried calling Michelle over to me to sit where I was and hoped that as she came around the bend she would notice it and I would ask her those four words. But she didn't want to come over at the moment, so I walked back to her and sat for a few more minutes. 

Proposal right around the corner!

Eventually I said we should go to where I was because there was shade and we didn't have sunscreen. She finally gave in and began walking over while I walked right behind her. She got about halfway over (right to the point where you could see around the bend) and stopped. I could tell she noticed something weird. 

Turns out she was just pointing out some trees along the water that looked like they grew cotton on them... great, she didn't even notice the ring! A few second later after admiring the trees she asked me what the heck was over there and I told her I have no idea what you're talking about. She said, "Ty, I think there's a ring over there, OH MY GOD I think somebody was going to propose here!"

She had no idea!!!

Just as I came up right behind her to pretend to see what she was talking about, she turned around and saw me on one knee. I told her how much I loved her and asked if she would marry me, and I was only able to make it about halfway through before the tears started flowing (and she almost got me going too!).

And I don't know why so much nervousness had built up inside me all weekend from just the thought of me asking her, because of course she told me yes, albeit in the midst of her crying.

I swear we spent the rest of that weekend camping just looking at the new ring on her finger with huge smiles on both of our faces; we couldn't stop talking about it! But I guess that's what happens when you decide to spend the rest of your life with your best friend and the most amazing girl in the world. 

Insider Edition

If you want to get an insight of our relationship,
here are three things that allow us to enjoy life just a little bit more. :)

1. Written By A Kid - Ep. 1: Scary Smash

They turn kid's funny stories into actual little movies. As their slogan goes "we make videos based on what they say", it's seriously the cutest & funniest thing.

2. Coffee, coffee, and more coffee (specifically iced)

 Okay, so there's some hot coffee in there too, but if you want to learn how to cold brew your coffee then click here for the details! Warning: it does take 8-12 hours to go through the complete process but it's definitely worth the time.

3. Ticket To Ride

We recently started getting into board games and can't get enough of this one. Each player draws a couple routes that they try to complete by the end of the game using their train pieces. For every completed route you get points added to your total, but for every incomplete route you have, you get points subtracted from your total. It sounds simple, but chaos ensues as every player starts to get an idea of what route you're trying to complete and tries to block you off. If you want to get a better understanding of how it's played, click here. Thanks TableTop!

Work, work, work!

This week has been insane... from planning a wedding, to saying goodbye to loved ones (only temporarily), to moving & unpacking, to starting up school (YAY! LAST YEAR!). It feels like there hasn't been any chance to catch a breath these past couple weeks but now we're relaxing and just finished up a shopping trip at WalMart (because we're classy).

For those of you who would like an EXACT date of when our wedding will take place... get those calendars out and mark off

MAY 11TH 2013 

and "save our date". We are incredibly excited to keep this wedding planning going and believe it or not, we have accomplished SO MUCH... here's a list so we can see all the progress we've made.

X Found an AMAZING venue (Thanks Kathy & Charlie) 

X Figured out our colors/theme 

X BOOKED OUR PHOTOGRAPHER! 

X Booked the Port-O-Johns :)

X Booked the chair/table rental 

X Made parts of our amazing centerpieces

X Made our backdrop

X Decided on the food..... 

X Set up a wedding registry for one of the two places

X OH AND WE (Michelle) SAID YES.... TO THE DRESS!!!

X ...other things that cannot come to mind. :P 

Here are some pictures of the things mentioned above. Enjoy!! :) 

Where we will be saying our "I do's" 

Really want this chair for the wedding... 

Had to say goodbye to this precious little girl for the next 8 months... :( 

...And an early Happy Birthday :)

While you wait...

If you want to get a feel for what type of wedding this is going to be you can look at both our Pinterest's and Instagram. We update those daily. 

Michelle: Instagram/Pinterest
Tyler: Instagram/Pinterest

:)

Wedding planning?!

As the realization of my new addition to my finger starts to set in, so do my wedding fears. I have been thinking about this moment in my life for years, and now that it is here I don't know where to start! How typical.

As of this moment, Tyler and I are hoping for a May wedding, and as most of you know, I'll also be graduating early May as well. Not to mention that I'll be doing all this planning while living in Riverside. AHH!

I'm not going to lie, I am honestly really excited to start the whole process and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it (as much as I can). If anyone knows any good photographers that are not extremely overpriced then I would love to hear from you! Actually, any suggestions for anything will be greatly appreciated. 

All in all, I'm just happy to be looking at my ring knowing that it's not a dream.
Cheesiness. Yay.

This picture was one of our first pictures taken together. I think I knew that we were perfect for each other by our weirdness and our inability to stop laughing. 

He fell asleep on Christmas. CHRISTMAS!