Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes, Yum!

I've made these cupcakes twice now and they are simply amazing so I just had to share!  I love to bake and try new recipes but don't want to end up eating everything so Matt takes the goodies to work for his Soldiers.  These were a HUGE hit when I made them a few months ago and since he and his guys have worked so hard this week, I thought I'd make some for them again.  I got the recipe from my friend Megan and you can find it on her blog here.

These cupcakes are rather time consuming so I wouldn't recommend them if you're looking for a quick dessert, but if you've got the time (I think it took me about 2.5 hours total) or can split it up over two days, it's definitely worth it!!  The cupcakes themselves are chocolate with Guinness beer in them and it's absolutely hands down the best chocolate batter I have ever tasted.

There's a delicious chocolate ganache filling that has Jameson Irish Whiskey in it.  Personally, I'm not a big fan of whiskey but the combination works well in the cupcake and you can't really tell it's whiskey.

You have to almost "core out" the cupcakes so that you can put in the filling.  I used a paring knife which worked just fine.  If you have a piping bag, you can put the ganache filling in that but a ziploc bag with the corner cut off gets the job done too.

The final touch is the icing with the Baileys in it!  You can definitely taste the Baileys in the icing and it is simply delicious.  I think you could pretty much put Baileys in anything and it would taste great.

Since it's Christmas time I decided to top them off with some red and green sprinkles, just to be festive! :)

While I was baking away, Matt was having fun being playing photographer...

and Cooper was mooching hardcore! :)

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we do!!

10 reasons why we hate Colorado Springs drivers

*Writer's Note:  This is my first post.  I am the husband.  And when I say "Springs drivers", I mean Colorado Springs drivers.

10.  Ya know when you let someone into a lane, and they give you that little "thank you" courtesy wave?  Springs drivers don't believe in that.

9. Springs drivers simply do not pay attention.  They are too concerned with who texted them, whether their make up is straight, or are too stoned to care.

8.  Apparently, the turn signal will cause the fuel inside your car to spontaneously ignite, turning it into a massive fire bomb.  That is, according to Springs drivers.

7.  To a normal driver, a yellow light means "Slow down and stop because the light is about to turn red.  And you can't go through a red light".  To a Springs driver, it means "Dear God, speed up or you might never make it to where you're going.  Ever".

6.  The accepted rule of thumb is that the bigger your truck, the fewer traffic laws you have to follow because well, you drive a big f---in truck.

5.  The cool thing to do is to drive as long as possible in the left lane of a highway, regardless of the fact that you're going below the speed limit, and there is no one in the right lane next to you.  And that you've passed about 5 signs that say "Left lane for passing only".

4.  That the cops let people get away with all the above.

3.  You might have gotten cut off, run off the road, or almost gotten hit, but the driver of that vehicle didn't seem to notice, oblivious to the fact that you're miffed as all hell at him/her.

2.  Due to all of the above, Springs drivers love to get in accidents, causing massive traffic jams.  Which cause more accidents.  Because of Rule 9.

1.  And for all of these reasons, I have become an angry driver.  Which I hate.  Hence the title.  

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

Now that Thanksgiving is over and it's December, it's officially Christmas time!!  Christmas is hands down my absolute favorite time of year.  I've started my Christmas shopping and decorating and will be baking up a storm shortly.  It's been quite cold here lately and we had snow flurries for a few days but no real accumulation at our house.  We live so close to the mountains that most weather seems to pass over us and hit the rest of the city.  However, the weather forecast is calling for snow tonight and tomorrow so we'll see if we get more than just flurries.

Last week was my first week officially on my own at work.  I was put "on call" Sunday night which turned out to be a blessing since I still was a little under the weather from Thanksgiving weekend.  My first night on my own was calm and easy compared to the second night.  Tuesday night was horribly hectic and stressful (four of my six patients were fresh post-ops!) but I held it together and survived.  I'm just hoping this week is  better.  I've been told that things generally slow down around this time of year but it hasn't seemed to yet so we'll see.

This past Friday night we had a Hail and Farewell dinner for Matt's battalion at a restaurant not too far from our house.  After dinner a group of us went out in Old Colorado City so we were able to walk to the bar.  It was nice to go out with a big group now that all the guys are back from training at JRTC in Louisiana...it had been quite awhile since we'd gotten drinks with some of our friends!  We paused in the park on our way home to get some pictures with the Christmas decorations:

Matt in Santa's sleigh

My turn

All bundled up with Santa's house behind us!

Saturday morning was spent doing some Christmas shopping and getting a few more decorations for the house.  It was SO cold outside but we put our lights up nevertheless...Matt was such a trooper and put our icicle lights on the roof while I did the garland on the porch.  We still have some lights left to put above the bay window but we have to find a taller ladder first.  We also still need to get another extension cord so that the lights in the garland and the icicle lights can be on at the same time.  I took a picture of the house once the lights were on but it definitely isn't the finished product.  Our poor icicle lights are still pretty tangled up since they're brand new...we're hoping they'll fall out and straighten out here shortly.

Carefully hanging the lights

Working hard...and probably freezing!

A bit blurry but gives an idea.  The garland has white lights in it as well
and we'll be hanging more icicle lights over the bay window too!

Our plan is to go cut down our tree next weekend and put it up and decorate the house.  I can't wait to get all our great decorations up.  Since Matt was in Iraq last year and this is our first Christmas as a married couple, I want to make sure this one is extra special!!  I'll be sure to put up pictures next weekend of the house all decorated and the final product of the outside lights.  Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season as much as we are! :)

Cooper enjoying the decorating festivities...
and avoiding the camera.

Garden of the Gods

A couple weekends ago Matt had an unexpected Friday off and we took advantage of the amazing weather and headed over to the Garden of the Gods for a nice long hike with Cooper.  One of the things we love about living here in Colorado is all the amazing outdoor places we can go to and hike and just enjoy the beautiful views and nature.  We are fortunate enough to live about 10 minutes away from a number of these places and we try to take advantage of that whenever we can.  We took the camera along with us and I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took...and since there were a number of pictures I thought it deserved it's own post.  Enjoy!

AND, some important news that I cannot believe I forgot to mention in the previous post:  Matt has an interview for CU's MBA program on December 16th!!  I'm so proud of him and I know that he is going to nail the interview...but, keep your fingers crossed and send good thoughts our way nevertheless!! :)

November Recap

It's been quite a while since I've updated this as life out here has been quite busy!!  I'll give a quick update of what we've been up to the last couple weeks.  Two weekends ago we caught our first Colorado College hockey game...they were playing Wisconsin and it was supposed to be a good game.  Obviously we were rooting for CC since they were the home team and they also are the Tigers...though their mascot logo has nothing on the Mizzou Tigers. ;) We won the game 3-2 and it was a lot of fun!

A little scuffle :)

Taking in the game...go CC!

That Saturday we did a little Christmas decoration shopping...I am SO excited to decorate our home for the holiday!  Christmas is absolutely my favorite time of year and I've been planning how to decorate since I moved in back in June.  We'll be putting lights up outside this coming weekend and then cutting down a tree and decorating inside the following weekend...and I will definitely be putting up pictures once we do!  We also went to a birthday party for once of Matt's soldier's sons.  It was pretty funny to watch him with all the kids, putting toys together and having them climb over him like a jungle gym.

Last week was my last week on orientation and training at work so starting this week I am officially on my own, a full-fledged nurse!  I'm both nervous and excited but I have confidence that I will be great on my own.  I worked Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday night and then we flew back to St. Louis Wednesday to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with our family and friends.  It really was wonderful to see everyone again.  From Matt's side we had Grandpa, Mimi, Aunt Rosemary, and his brother Dan in town while most of my family already lives in the St. Louis area.  We enjoyed the annual Kirkwood-Webster Groves Turkey Day game even though Kirkwood lost rather badly.  Neither of us had been back to the high school in years and it was crazy to see all that had changed.  We headed over to my mom's side after the game and enjoyed delicious food and then then headed to my dad's side and repeated it again!  Friday afternoon we had our third dinner with Matt's side of the family.  We were able to meet up with many of our fabulous friends Friday night and catch up before heading back to Colorado Saturday evening.  It was a whirlwind trip but we loved getting the chance to see so many of our friends and family.  Unfortunately, we didn't take many pictures at all to document the weekend...still working on that. :)

The sole picture from the weekend: Turkey Day Game!!

We made it safely back home to Colorado Saturday night without too much trouble or delay and Cooper dog was incredibly excited to see us!  It really gives us an ego boost every time we come home from a trip and he is just bursting at the seams with excitement at seeing us. :)  Now, we're just going to enjoy being back in Colorado and get ready for Christmas...lots of decorating, shopping, baking, and gift wrapping to do!!

Tuckered out Cooper :)

Four Day Weekend!

We've had a great weekend here in the Joseph household.  Matt had a four day weekend due to Veteran's Day and we definitely took advantage of it!  We decided to take a last minute trip up to Boulder on Thursday.  The University of Colorado Boulder is Matt's first choice for pursuing his MBA and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to check out both the town and the university.  Thankfully, the staff in the business school was able to accommodate our short notice request and Matt was able to meet with the Director of Admissions as well as sit in on a finance class and meet some current MBA students.  The campus really is quite pretty and has a bit of a different feel than Mizzou.  Boulder itself is absolutely gorgeous and so close to the mountains!!  We met up with one of my old friends from high school who has lived in Boulder for the last six years and had lunch at The Sink, which is where most of the locals go (it's the equivalent to Columbia's Heidelberg).  I could definitely see us living in Boulder, or right outside of it, and there's even a hospital I'd love to work at.  Matt submitted his application tonight (yay!!) so keep your fingers crossed for him!!  We forgot to take pictures with our camera (oops!) so here are a couple from the web:

An aerial view of the campus

The Koelbel Building, home of the Leed's School of Business
where Matt will hopefully spend most of his time next year!

The mascot is a buffalo named Ralphie.

Friday was my 27th birthday (11/11/11!!) and it was so great to be able to celebrate with Matt for the first time in three years!  Last year he was in Iraq and the year before that he was at NTC in California.  We spent the day just relaxing and took Cooper to the dog park.  My gift from him was a pair of boots that I had been wanting and that I just love!  Matt made dinner reservations for us at The Pepper Tree, a fancy restaurant here in the Springs as well as baked me a cake (rainbow party sprinkle cake with rainbow party chip icing...my absolute favorite!!).  It was a great birthday full of well wishes from loved ones, but the best part really was just having Matt home to celebrate with. :)

My awesome new boots!!

And Matt :)

Today was another relaxing day: we spent the morning doing a little bit of shopping and running some errands and the afternoon was full of football...way to go Mizzou, beating Texas!  I thought we'd share the delicious dinner we made tonight: crispy chicken with creamy Italian sauce and pasta.  I found the recipe via Pinterest, which happens to be my new obsession.  It's basically like a virtual pinboard where you can "pin" things you find online under different categories like recipes, craft projects, style inspiration, basically anything you want!  It's a great way to find new recipes and we've been trying out a lot of them lately.  You can find tonight's recipe here.

The cooking process

The final product!

It turned out really well and was very tasty!  We used angel hair pasta because we had some at home that we wanted to finish off but next time we'll use the bowtie pasta as I think it would work better.  Also, the pasta sauce was pretty heavy so next time we'll try to tweak that so it's a bit lighter.  Other than that, we'd definitely recommend it!!

And, since this post has gotten a bit long, I'll wrap it up with a gratuitous picture of Cooper dog because he's  just that cute. :)

I had to hold a treat in front of him to get a picture and this
still was the best I could get. :)

Happy Halloween (one day late)!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween last night...we sure did!  It was Matt's first Halloween in about six years so he was quite excited for it.  Unfortunately, we didn't really have any parties to get dressed up and go to here.    Our next-door neighbor had a party Sunday afternoon which we stopped by for a bit, though no one was really dressed up much.  We carved our pumpkins a bit early (last weekend) so they were a little worse for the wear but that actually made Matt's look creepier so it worked.  We decided to dress up to hand out candy to the kids and our costumes were quite the hit!  We even dressed Cooper up (much to his dismay) as the Cardinal's rally squirrel though he had to stay in the house so as not to scare away the kids.  Since we live so close to the heart of Old Colorado City, we get lots of trick-or-treaters as the shops give out candy to kids and then they come to our neighborhood.  We purposely bought a lot of candy since our neighbors had mentioned how many kids come through but we still ran out--thank goodness our neighbor shared some with us!  Here are some pictures from the night:

Cooper the Rally Squirrel...doesn't he look so excited about his costume?  :)

My pumpkin is on the left, Matt's on the right.

Our costumes: Fred and Wilma Flintsone

Hands down the scariest costumes of the night!
The guy on the left made his costume too!!

A business card for local ghost hunters--a woman was passing them
out.  We got a kick out of it! 

At the end of the night, just a little chilly :)