RhodaRose Review & Giveaway!!

Last week I was delighted to receive some yummy home made chocolate dipped treats from The Rhoda Rose Etsy Shop!!
I was in the process of cooking dinner when there was a knock at the door. To my delight it was the UPS guy with a box filled with yummy goodies. What a nice surprise for dessert!

I got two sampler packs one with white chocolate & one with milk chocolate dipped treats. The professional packaging contained dipped pretzel sticks, dipped knotted pretzels, little pretzel bites covered in chocolate, chocolate covered grahm crackers & (My personal fav!) choco dipped marshmallows covered in grahm cracker dust!! YUMMY!!

Now let me say it again...YUUUUUUUMY!!!!!

The milk chocolate goodies were pretty much non-existent after that first night. I'm a huge sweets fan & being pregnant has only seemed to increase it by 100%. I just can't seem to get enough sweets! I honestly don't know how I've managed to only gain weight in the tummy!!

I have two white chocolate knotted pretzels left in the fridge, I finished off the last of the milk chocolate a few minutes ago. The last one I ate was so adorable with white, black & hot pink sprinkles on it. I wish I had of known about this Etsy shop back in November because those were my wedding colors! I would have loved to give out little yummy goodies as wedding favors!

If I had the extra cash I certainly would buy some for my baby shower! :-D

If you have a sweet tooth you MUST check out this shop, no excuses, go NOW!

Yes I said NOW. You might win one of their awesome Ice Cream Cone Dishes filled with yummy treats! That's right, they've agreed to give away one of these adorable dishes to one of my lucky readers, and the winner gets to pick their favorite color!!

All you have to do to be entered is to check out the shop then come back here & leave me a comment telling me which sweet treat makes your mouth water!

For extra entries feel free to do any or all of the following & leave separate comments for each action:

-Blog about this contest with a link back to this post. Then leave me a comment to your post.

-Follow me on Twitter( JessKitty777 ) & leave a comment telling me. ((I'm actually having trouble with getting any of the Follow Me Twitter buttons to show up on my sidebar for some reason, dunno what's up with that, It was working fine a couple weeks ago!))

-Tweet this contest with a link to the post.

-Follow my blog.

The contest will end July 1st & the winner will be chosen via random.org. Sorry but the contest is only open to residents of the USA at this time.

Såpeterapi bath & body review

Aimee from Såpeterapi, a little bath & body shop on Etsy.com, was recently kind enough to send me a few samples to review. I received 2 bar soaps, a whipped Sape soap & a whipped body yogurt. I was really excited to try the Sape because I've never tried any type of whipped soap before & I wasn't let down at all.

The Red Lychee Tea Sape that I tried was awesome, I really enjoyed it. It was frothy & creamy & filled with little "scrubber beads" for extra smoothness & moisturizing. The stuff did it's job great & the scent was lovely, light & sweet but not to over powering.

The PepperBerry whipped body yogurt (lotion) is what I truly adore though!! I've heard of the PepperBerry scent before but have never had the pleasure of actually smelling it. Wow I've been missing a lovely treat! (I'm gonna have to try & find this scent for the next time I make candles!) Exotic & mysterious are the words that come to mind when I smell this. It's spiciness grabs you right from the start & doesn't let go until it works it's way into a smooth sweet undertone of something I can't quiet place. The scent is DIVINE, I love it...& it seems the Hubby does as well cause when I put it on I couldn't keep him away!! This lotion was a lot lighter & not nearly as thick as some other natural lotions that I have tried. Since it wasn't as heavy it went on smoother, soaked in quicker & left my skin feeling great, not all weighed down & "coated" like the thicker creams.

Now as far as using bar soaps I'm honestly not the biggest fan, I never really have been, but that's just me. I did give the Oatmeal, Milk N Honey bar soap a try & to my surprise it wasn't bad. It didn't leave me with that "film" like bar soap tends to do & it didn't leave my skin feeling really dried out. My hubby is the big bar soap user so he wanted to get in on trying it out also. He "really liked it", lol. He certainly has a way with words huh? :P

So all in all I've really enjoyed the chance to try out Aimee's products & recommend them to anyone looking for high quality, cute packaging & great scents! I know I'll be ordering myself some more of her PepperBerry body yogurt when my little pot runs dry!! :-)

PS- I was going to include pics in my review but my camera died on me & my charger for it's battery pack is currently MIA due to the fact that we're in the process of moving.

Mini Donuts & Cookies

For Mother's Day I made up some goodies for my mom. I found a recipe for homemade Nilla' Wafers since those are her all time favorite cookie. She once told me that when she was pregnant with me those were what she craved. She joked that the family said I should have been named "Nilla".

So I found a recipe that was supposed to be the closest thing to the Nabisco Nilla's & went to work. The cookies came out delicious, but not like Nilla's at all. I'm not sure if perhaps I did something wrong or if that's just how they are supposed to be. They tasted like a cross between shortbread & Nilla's. They were still VERY YUMMY. For me to say that about plain cookies means they were totally awesome. Normally I won't touch a cookie unless it's loaded with icing or chocolate or caramel or something super fattening!



Homemade Nilla Wafers:

1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon water

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Cream together sugars, shortening, egg, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl.
3. Add the the flour and baking powder. Add 1 tablespoon of water and continue mixing until dough forms a ball.
4. Roll dough into 3/4-inch balls and flatten slightly onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until cookies are light brown. (http://www.topsecretrecipes.com)
Makes 50-56 cookies.

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After the Nilla Wafer baking was through I started in on the mini baked donuts! YUMMY!

Right before we moved into this new place I got very excited because we would have a working oven again... So I went on a mini shopping spree on amazon & boughtkitchen stuff & cookbooks, lol. One of the items I recently bought was a mini donut pan to make baked donuts.



This little pan is awesome! After whipping up the batter & pouring into the molds, you only have to wait 8mins for fresh, oh so yummy cake donuts. Now I've never really been a big fan of cake donuts, I personally prefer the fluffy, fattening fried ones... But these were good. They had a different texture to them, unlike any I've tasted before. The donuts did tend to stick abit after the first batch was done, so the second batch I let cool abit longer & then they came out just fine. The only real complaint that I have about this nifty pan is that it's kinda time consuming to use a spoon & fill up the molds. And that's not even a really major problem for me, in fact if I weren't preggy it most likely wouldn't have bothered me at all. But with pregnant back & feet...well you see where I'm going!

So I'm going to over look the time it took to fill up the pan & go ahead & give this cute little pan 5 outta 5 meows!
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Chocolate Cake Donuts:

1 & 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla (I substituted 3 Tbsp hazlenut syrup)
1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsp melted butter

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp HOT water (I substituted 2 & 1/2 Tbsp HOT coffee)

Preheat over to 325. Mix flour, cocoa, baking powder & salt. In separate bowl mix eggs, sugar & vanilla till thick. Combine milk & butter. Alternate between the egg mixture & milk mixture as you pour into the flour mixture. Blend till smooth. Spray pan lightly with non stick spray. Fill molds 2/3 full. Bake 8mns. Frost or glaze. ENJOY!

I Got A New Digi-Cam!!

A week ago today my new digi-cam ( Sony Cybershot DSC-S980 )arrived in the mail. I ordered it from Amazon via next day shipping because I needed it for my little sis' senior prom happening Friday. It arrived on time & in perfect condition.



I purchased this bundle mainly because I adored the camera case! LOL

When I decided to purchase this specific bundle there were no reviews on Amazon for it, but there were for just the camera itself. I read over them & decided to go with it because it seemed like a good little camera for the price. I'm not disappointed at all.

I just checked the reviews for the bundle & there were two that gave it only one star. Their complaints did not seem to make sense to me at all!

The reviews stated that this camera's shutter speed had a 6 second delay. I witnessed no such thing & just to make sure I had my hubby double check. We both came to the conclusion, after counting "one Mississippi, two Mississippi..." that the delay is only 1 - 2 seconds. Then just to triple check I took a pic of my kitchen timer set for 6secs, I hit both the timer & the shutter button at the same time & the pic was taken on the 5 second mark indicating that it is only about a one second delay.

The next complaint was that the pix turned out blurry. I failed to notice this thing called "blurry" that they speak of!












It was also stated in these reviews that the pix came out to dark. Again I fail to see it...
This was taken on the up-close/macro setting just to mess around & check it out. It was while my sis was getting ready for prom. I was in the kitchen, there were no lights on in the kitchen, dining room or living room. I did not have the flash turned on & the only source of light was BEHIND me from a window which had the mini blinds opened but was still covered by a sheer white curtain. I'm sorry I just don't see how their pics came out to dark if this one didn't!


I am by NO MEANS skilled in taking pictures (just go to my myspace & check out the pix taken with my pervious camera!) Yet I find it very simple to use this camera. The pictures turn out lovely. The settings are easy to figure out, the display screen is clear, bright & BIG. The tezt for the menu options is also a decent size so you don't have to strain to see what setting you want. All in all I personally think this camera ROCKS & am very pleased with my choice...plus it's PINK!!

This product gets 5 out of 5 meows
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