Pumpkin Pancakes

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Like many other people I am absolutely obsessed with anything pumpkin. I love pumpkin spice chai tea lattes, pumpkin pies, pumpkin spice candles, Pumpkin Spice Shakeology, and recently pumpkin pancakes. I always like experimenting with my pancake flavors on the weekends, so why not pumpkin? Thankfully I also found a recipe to make healthy pumpkin pancakes. It took only about 15 minutes to make these pancakes (including prep time) so they are also a super easy breakfast. Plus I already had all the ingredients sitting around in my house since I've stocked up on pumpkin puree and spice to make my Pumpkin Spice Shakeology. YUM! My husband was out this morning so I made the recipe for just myself. You can always double the recipe for two people or triple if you have a kid. I ended up with 4 pancakes when I made the recipe below.

Ingredients

• ½ cup oatmeal
• 6 egg whites
• 1/4 cup pumpkin pure 
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp pumpkin spice
• a splash of vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Grind the oatmeal first by using a coffee grinder, magic bullet or a blender (I used my ninja blender)
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend again.
3. Set a non stick pan to medium heat and spray with cooking spray.

1. Cook each side for about a minute.
2. Depending on the size of your pan it could make from 3 large pancakes to 5 smaller ones like mine.

For the 4 pancakes it was only 276 calories, 3 grams of fat, and 30 grams of protein. That to me sounds like a great breakfast to start the day....especially with this cold weather we are having right now in Fall. ENJOY!



<3 Kelly Jean

DIY Halloween Wreath

Happy Almost Halloween everybody! I found that cute little metal pumpkin basket at my local Marshall's. I think it would be super cute to hold candy, but you might need big pieces of candy so that it doesn't fall through the holes. I love decorating for the holidays. This is my first year as a homeowner so I have to basically start from scratch. For now I'm doing my best to DIY what I can to also not go bankrupt decorating my house. My first DIY of course was to create a Halloween wreath for my front door. As you can probably tell I'm sort of obsessed with having wreaths for every season/holiday. This year I found the perfect time to get the supplies for my wreath while Michael's was having a sale for 40% off your entire purchase, including sale items. That allowed me to get all my supplies for under $20!!! That's a great deal, especially since many wreaths are close to $100 on Etsy!

I used: 

Celebrate It Glitter Tulle 8 yards x 3 

1 bag of Glitter Colored Balls and Purple Glitter Spiders

Ashland Wire Wreath Frame

I started by weaving the glitter tulle through the many rims of the wire frame. I weaved and weaved and weaved. I made sure to pull a thick enough bunch through each row many times to make it look fluffy. I would also periodically stop to fluff the poofs. As you can tell from the picture probably using glitter tulle is pretty messy. By the end my feet, my pants, my table, and my floor were all covered in black glitter. It took many days of vacuuming to clean up after this DIY project.

 

After I was finished weaving I then used my hot glue gun to glue on the different colored balls and purple spiders. My husband said I can make the inside of the house as cutsey and homey as I want, but the outside has to be creepy. I did my best to make my wreath "creepy".  While gluing on the spiders I allowed the little string that comes off the glue when using the hot glue gun to spread across the wreath at parts. I figured that would make it a little more "realistic" so that it would look like it had parts of a web. I went for mostly a spider theme this year for our outside. I will also be buying some of the fake "webs" they have at Target to put on my bushes out front.

Here's my end product...

I did however splurge and buy this amazing cat...

I love this thing! The head turns periodically so sometimes when it's just right it'll turn as your driving around the curve to get to my house. It's creepy and awesome! I have multiple families that have come to our house to check out the kitty cat with their kids. I actually got the chance to meet one of my neighbors because of the conversation piece this cat is.

<3 Kelly Jean

Pumpkin Spice Chai Latte

I have been obsessed with pumpkin everything lately. I have even made an entire Pinterest board dedicated to it called Pumpkin Possibilities. It is full of all kinds of pumpkin recipes, including cakes, pies, cookies, coffees, spreads, pancakes, and much much more. Well along with my pumpkin pinteresting I have also been scouring my local stores for anything pumpkin. I kept seeing the pumpkin spice chai latte mix tempting me every time I went to the store. I finally gave in and purchased it.

I think I was a little too overexcited about this purchase. As soon as I got home I made myself a large cup of it....maybe a little too large of a cup. I mixed 1 cup of the pumpkin spice chai latte with 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk, then threw it in a Starbucks cup with a handful of ice. To top it all off I sprinkled a tad bit of pumpkin pie spice on top. Oh my gosh it was so good. It was the perfect drink to complement my day of relaxation enjoying the outdoors.

Photo Credits

I think next I'll try out these pumpkin cupcakes with maple cream cheese icing and fondant pumpkins. To make it a little easier I'll just switch out the fondant pumpkins for the candy corn pumpkins you can find in clearance sections at grocery stores everywhere right now.

<3 Kelly Jean