Monday, December 16, 2013

|| Christmas Goodies & Giveaway Winner ||

This Christmas has a few firsts in store for me! My first married Christmas, my first time being in charge of someone else's Christmas gifts (so much pressure), and my first time making a Christmas card and sending out treats to give our married friends! So weird. I feel like I am playing house sometimes. Anyone else feel that way? Expect now I burn the cookies, the mints don't harden fast enough, the packaging isn't looking right, and I either make to much or not enough! Playing pretend was a lot easier!

Any who, this year I decided to give out homemade mints. I saw THIS recipe on interest and figured I would give it a shot! Looked easy enough… I was so naive. I spent a lot more time on these little bad boys than I should have. Poor Brett had to deal with my breakdowns… yah unfortunately there was more than one... What a keeper I snagged! Oh well they turned out pretty cute I guess!







Recipe:

CREAM CHEESE MINTS

INGREDIENTS

  • 250 grams Philidelphia Brick Cream Cheese, room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon pure peppermint extract
  • 3 dashes food colouring of choice
  • 5 cups powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS

  1. Line two baking sheets with wax paper, tape down the ends and set them aside. Fit a large pastry bag with a medium star tip.
  2. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and peppermint extract until it's smooth. Add the powdered sugar and and mix it until you achieve the consistency of thick cream cheese frosting. The peaks should remain quite stiff and not melt down when the mixer is stopped. Add more powdered sugar if necessary.
  3. You can tint your cream cheese mints any colour using food colouring. I opted for an icy blue using a few drops of liquid blue food colouring. A little bit goes a long was so make sure not to add too much and make your mixture too thin.
  4. Fill the pastry bag with the minty mixture and pipe little kisses onto the prepared baking sheets. You should get about 250 of them.
  5. Let them sit for about an hour to set then store them in the fridge for freezer. They'll last about a month in the fridge and up to four in the freezer. Enjoy!
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WINNER:
And the winner of the Custom Card Giveaway (drawn out of a bowl by Brett) is….




Also I guess what goes around comes around maybe? Cause look what happened last night! Thanks so much again The Wife Life Blog! They are putting on a great 12 days of giveaways that you should check out!



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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

|| Christmas Card GIVEAWAY ||

***Due to some comment errors, I have installed a rafflecopter to do the giveaway! All those that have entered and your comments are showing below, I will still put your names in no worries! If your comments don't appear please use the rafflecopter! Sorry for the inconvenience!***

 Merry Christmas!! My favourite season is finally here and I am so excited about it. Our shopping is all done and we are ready to back our bags and fly back to the mother land to spend the holiday season with the people we love most! Since we don't leave for a few days I have some spare time and I also wanted to do a little something to give back this Christmas, SO here is what I came up with….

A FREE CUSTOM MADE 
CHRISTMAS/NEWBORN/ENGAGEMENT
/NEW YEARS
 CARD GIVEAWAY!  

So basically any kind of custom card you would like me to make : ) I know it's almost christmas and most of you already have your christmas cards made and sent so I figured I should open it up to all other types of cards! I have tons of great backgrounds, fonts, colours, borders, graphics, and more! I can't wait to make one of you up a fabulous card!

How To Enter:

1. Follow my blogs on Bloglovin HERE
2. Follow me on Instagram HERE
3. Follow Meghan Maxwell Photography on Facebook HERE (look for another giveaway coming here soon!)
4. Share this giveaway on your own Facebook page with a link back to this post
5. Comment below and tell me what your are hoping Santa Claus gets you this year! (if your comment doesn't show up, please email me at meghaneholt@gmail.com or just say you did it in the rafflecopter and I will believe you!)





I have been making random cards and things for people over this past year quite a bit and I think I might get into it more and actually start charging people… lol So if you see this and you don't win and still want me to make you a card, let me know!! I would be happy to show you a price list and design something up for you!

I made our very first christmas card this afternoon! Hope you have a very merry christmas and a happy new year!




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Friday, December 6, 2013

|| Heart is Melting ||

This little boy will always have a pretty special place in my heart. Max has such a sweet and kind personality and his cute little voice is to die for. I spend quite a few months watching him and his sisters a few times a week before I got married and you could say we became pretty tight. We went swimming, to the park (a lot), jumped on the tramped, played catch, went on bike rides, watched some Dora and Diego and lots more! He is such a happy kid and is always up for the next adventure!

My favourite memory I have of him though is a random one but one that I will always remember. I was out delivering invites to a friends bridal shower and after dropping off a invite and heading back to the car I could hear someone calling my name "Mayden….Mayden!". I turned around and saw about half a block away a small little boy with bouncing blond locks running towards me, arms spread wide open! It was Max. He ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug and said with his little lisp "I saw your car, so I came to see you." That was all, I put him down and he said "See ya later!" and ran back to his friends house. He is just that kind of kid. Just thought he would run half a block, away from his friends, just to say hi! Heart melted.

Also a little warning these pictures might do the same to yours, milk moustache and all!
















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Wednesday, December 4, 2013

|| Quarter of a Century ||

The day finally came and I am officially closer to 30 than 20. It kind of scares me. I have told Brett a few times that 25 is old and that we should probably start having kids or something! If you would have asked me at 16 what I would be doing at 25 I would have said something like "married, with 2-3 kids, being a stay at home mom..." So I mean I'm not doing all that bad since I am married and I am a stay at home mom... just with no kids! I guess I shouldn't be so hard on myself then, right? 

Anyway my birthday was awesome! Brett spoiled me ROTTEN! Seriously. My face hurt from smiling a lot through out the day! I spend the morning alone because Brett was volunteering at Give Kids A Smile. I got up, had breakfast, then went to the gym. I had never done that on my birthday so I was pretty proud of myself for not being a lazy bum. Then Brett came home and the party began. First thing was present opening. Brett had bought most of them weeks prior and so I had to stay out of our spare bedroom and the anticipation was killing me! He did not disappoint. I got a magic bullet, some chetah print sandals, a new shirt, tickets to the coyotes vs flames game, and last but my favourite was a 85mm 1.8 canon lens. I have wanted one forever but knew I couldn't get one due to our little budget so getting this was a HUGE deal for me. Go ahead and ask Brett if I was happy... I may have done a very embarrassing happy dance. 

After the over excitement of the presents calmed, we got ready and Brett took me to the zoo! This was no normal zoo, it was the best zoo in the world. We were SO close to all the animals. So close that I felt like maybe this zoo was illegal? Is it okay that the rhinos weren't in a fenced off area? Is it okay that you can play tug-a-war with a stick with the jaguars? Because all those things were happening! The zoo was awesome and if you are ever in the are you HAVE to go. Totally worth while for sure. It was a great idea that Brett had and I love that he knows me so well and knew I would love it. 

He then took me to eat at a Japanese place and I loved it! My favourite restaurants are Edo and Oshos so he found one similar to those :) It was a great way to end such a great day!

Here are some photos that we took of our day at the zoo! 








































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