Homemade Caramel Hot Cocoa Mix

Goodness, I have been so busy with work and school, and it's been show

ing! I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving and an overall lovely weekend. In my free time, I've been busily working on little handmade goodies for my friends for Christmas. This year's goodie: Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix!

Earlier in the week, I looked up several recipes for cocoa mix and, upon reading reviews, was a tad disappointed. Many recipes had one star reviews and comments saying it just wasn't tasty. So I improvised a tad and made my own recipe, which I will share!

2 cups nonfat dry milk powder

1 cup powdered sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup nondairy creamer

For the nondairy creamer, you can go with any flavour you choose, depending on your taste. I was originally going to use Irish Cream (my favourite!), but the store had none in a powder. So instead, I chose Caramel Macchiato. I'm SO in love with caramel hot chocolate right now! Especially Starbuck's salted caramel hot chocolate. Upon tasting it, I was surprised that it tasted almost identical to Starbuck's! So, I admit, I am a little proud of myself!

To package, I bought a case of small mason jars and filled some up halfway with the powder, then halfway up with marshmallows. I was able to fill 7 total. To decorate them a bit for my friends, I took some of my favourite ribbon and tied little teaspoons to them. I also wrote little instructions on some festive paper and simply taped them to the outside.

I'm pretty satisfied with the final product. And I have 7 jars to give away! I hope everyone enjoyed it!

Angel Tree

I am very blessed to have the friends that I have. They're kind, good-hearted people who inspire me so much. Well, I'm feeling particularly inspired today by my wonderful friend we call Banana. Looking through tumblr today, I saw a post from her.

"Feeling really good today. Went to classes and tutoring but afterwards I noticed that our school had put up our first paper angel tree in the union. So I poked around for a few minutes to see what children were wishing for. That’s when I found one that really caught my attention. A four year old girl wanted toy horses and a baby doll. So I picked up her card, filled out a slip, and went to the store. I couldn’t find any Breyer type horses like I’d hopped but I did find this big fuzzy soft buckskin plushy. So I purchased that and a new baby doll that came with a bottle, pacifier, and two outfits. I feel bad that I couldn’t find nicer things that this little girl may have been wanting, but I really hope she loves these gifts and that it takes some of the pressure off of her parents. It feels really insignificant, but I hope it’s enough."

This made me feel so happy to read. She is such a sweet girl. Honestly, if I was a little girl, I would be SO excited for a big plush pony toy. (And, heck, I still would be!) It absolutely made my heart melt like warm butter. Since I've been in such a Christmasy mood lately, I've decided that I want to donate to the Angel Tree foundation as well!

JC Penny has a lovely collaboration with the Angel Tree foundation where you can choose a particular child to donate to based on their needs. Looking through the list, it made me so sad that the majority of needs were coats, pants, and shoes. I found one particular 7 year old girl who needed a diary. I also found a 2 and 3 year old who need teddy bears. I nearly cried imagining these little girls without teddy bears and diaries. I urge everyone to donate to all the little boys and girls out there who have nothing. Even if it's something little, make a difference in a child's life this Christmas.

I Don't Need To Grow Up

My mum is so awsome. Every year, the school she works for has a book fair to help promote literacy in young children. And every year, my mum buys me a book about Disney Princesses haha. Last year, she bought me the complete Disney Princess Encyclopedia for my birthday. It's so thorough, too. It included Pocahontas and Mulan, who a lot of people don't count as "princesses" although they're in the cannon. It's only missing Rapunzel, but that's because she wasn't a princess yet. And this year, she bought me a book of Disney Princess themed cupcakes and desserts. So she basically bought me a book of my two favourite things. When she was looking at it, the librarian said, "Oh, I have to buy this for my three year old granddaughter!" My mum replied, "I'm getting this for my 21 year old daughter" hahaha!

I Want To Be Forever 21

Yesterday was my twenty first birthday! And for the special occasion, my boyfriend Panda took me to Disneyland! Unfortunately, we didn't take too many pictures. And double unfortunately, a few of our favourite attractions were closed! Because my birthday is the day after Halloween, whenever we go to Disneyland, a few of the attractions are closed in order to take down some of the Halloween decorations, such as Small World and Space Mountain. The Pirates of the Caribbean and the restaurant inside of it, Blue Bayou, were also closed yesterday for refurbishment, and will be closed all Fall season. As disappointing as it was, we still had a fantastic time!

Panda looks so noble

And I look desperate haha!

I got this nifty pin that said it was my birthday, so throughout the entire day walking through the park, people would with me a happy birthday. One of the best parts of the day was when we were walking through Tomorrow Land and we noticed the wait time on the Space Mountain sign was on. Excited, we ran like crazy up to the ride to see that it was open! Their Halloween decorations for that ride mainly consist of projections, so it didn't take as long to take them down as it did for the Small World ride.

One ride we went on several times was Star Tours and it was fantastic! We went on it the first day it reopened back in the summer. Every time we go on, we discuss what planet we hope to visit. In the summer, Panda wanted to visit Hoth and that ended up being the planet we went to! Yesterday, we couldn't determine which planet we wanted to visit and decided to just let it be a surprise. Well, the first planet we went to was the Wookie planet! My favourite! Ever since I was little, Chewbaca has been my favourite character and one of my most beloved movie characters, so going to the Wookie planet was like a dream come true. We were also chased by Boba Fett, which was pretty exciting. The next time we went on, we ended up going to Naboo and through the Death Star. Vader used the force to try to take our ship down, but we got away haha

We also rode the Indiana Jones ride a lot. It's easily one of my favourite rides in the park. The group we went on with was fantastic, too! I love when people get excited about the ride's atmosphere or theme rather than just the thrill. At the beginning of the ride, you get a transmission saying not to look in an idol's eyes, and when you turn a corner, there's the idol telling you to look into its eyes. Well, the boys in our group were all shouting, "DON'T LOOK INTO ITS EYES!" and screaming. It was adorable and made the ride that much more fun.

Hopefully soon I will post a small haul of my birthday goodies!