Chocolate Chip Bread Pudding Recipe

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Earlier today I posted a photo on FB of this bread pudding I made especially for Bill (yes, I like it, too). It is chocolate chip bread pudding, that tastes absolutely delicious.

I got a couple of requests for the recipe, so I decided to post it here for all of you.....


1  French loaf - 2 days old
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter - melted

Custard:
3  cups buttermilk (or half-and-half)
4  large eggs
1/2  cup granulated sugar
1  tsp. vanilla extract (or Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor*)
1/2  tsp. Espresso Powder*
1  cup chocolate chips (semi-sweet or dark chocolate)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Slice bread into 3/4" slices, brush melted butter on both sides of bread (I use a jelly roll pan)

2. To make custard, beat together buttermilk, eggs, sugar, flavoring, and espresso powder at medium speed until well blended.

3. Pour some custard into an UNgreased 2-quart baking dish (enough to cover bottom about 1/2 inch). Sprinkle some chips over custard. Arrange bread slices in dish all around bottom, overlapping as necessary. Pour remaining custard over bread; sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chips over mixture. Push down bread carefully so that all of it is soaked in custard.

4. Bake bread pudding until golden on top, 50 - 60 minutes. Transfer dish to a wire rack to cool. Dust with confectioners sugar, if desired.
*These items may be purchase from King Arthur Flour Company


I have also made this with blueberries instead of chocolate chips when in season. Just leave out espresso powder; use vanilla and not Buttery Sweet Dough Flavor.

If you decide to make this, please let me know and post a photo on my FB page or leave a link in the comments here.

Hope you enjoy it.... HUGGLES!

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Our 16th Wedding Anniversary

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Like you're surprised I had Mickey Mouse Invitations.

 

Sixteen years ago today, I married my best friend, the love of my life, the most wonderful man in the world, and each and every day since then I have grown to love him more and more. 

 

 

My beautiful boys gave me away. (L: Nik; R: Alex)

 

 

Bill has been there for me and the boys since the first day we met, to love and care for us and to always make us laugh. Even our wedding was filled with love and laughter.

 

I'm sure you can't see it, but my boxer shorts match Bill's tie.

They are both St. Patrick's Day Mickey Mouse.

 

 

I am the luckiest woman in the world to have Bill in my life. We have had some tough times during our marriage, but through it all we have stuck together and grown closer. Since he is retired and I am disabled, we spend almost all of our time together. When he is upstairs on his computer and I am downstairs on my laptop, we send each other IM love notes - he is so sweet!

 

Bill, I love you more today than I did the day I met you in 1995 and more than the day we married in 1997. Every day I love you more and more... I look forward to spending the rest of my life with you.

 

 

 

HAPPY 16th ANNIVERSARY!!!!!

 

Photo Credit

 

 

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Happy Birthday to the Most Wonderful Man in the World

Today is my fabulous husband Bill's birthday... He is the most wonderful man I have ever met. He make me smile every single day and fills my heart with joy and love. Bill is a fantastic husband and a wonderful father, I am so happy that he is in my life and wish for many, many more years of happy birthdays for Bill and I to share together.

Happy birthday, my darling... I love you with all my heart and soul and cannot wait to spend the next 100 birthdays with you!!!

Countdown to Christmas.... We've Finished Decorating the Outside of ourHouse

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19 Days Until Christmas

 

Bill and I worked all afternoon today to finish decorating the outside of our house and we wanted to share our completed project with you. (Click on any photo to see the whole thing.)

 

 

Welcome to our home - and that is the ONLY kind of snowman that we like to see!

Mickey Mouse wants to welcome you, too - are you surprised to see him?

An overview of the entire front.

The deer we've had for years and named "John Steed" and "Emma Peel" (L to R)

Skating Minnie & Mickey Mouse - they get a lot of attention

Our first gifts  =)

This means a lot to us because it was Bill's when he was a little boy.

We have put it up every Christmas that we have been together.

I hope you are all having a great time putting up your decorations and you share them with me... please leave me a link so I can go check yours out and leave you a comment.

Stay safe and sane.....

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Countdown to Christmas... Our First Christmas Event

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Bill and I attended our first Christmas event tonight, we went to the Noah's Light Foundation Festival of Trees Charity event.

I have more photos for a later date, but I just wanted to share this one with you to (hopefully) make you smile.

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Wordless Wednesday ~ Colby and Grandpa

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Welcome to Wordless Wednesday.....

Please join us by posting your photo and linking up on the Wordless Wednesday hub.

Hope you are having a fabulous week. HUGGLES!

I Was NEVER Going to Get Married Again - RIGHT!

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While doing my post for Monday's Music with all those love songs, including Bill and my wedding song, it got me thinking about our love story.....


Now as most of you know, or can see, Bill is a bit older than I am. HaHa. He is actually 24 years older than me, so there was no thought of ever falling in love with him or marrying him when we first got to know each other.


We worked together and were both going through rough divorces at the same time. Besides my children, Bill was the one bright spot in my life at the time, he was able to make me laugh. One night at a going away party for a work friend, we sat next to each other and laughed so much - more than I had in months. (Which, BTW, he can still make me do after all these years.) Bill thought that maybe I would be interested in meeting his son who was about the same age as me.... that just never happened.


The more we got to know each other and the more we learned about each other, we found we had a lot in common... except our age. That kept coming up in my mind, but Bill was so much fun and young at heart that it really didn't seem to matter.


But.... I was NOT going to fall in love and NEVER going to get married again.... Bill would ask me and I would say NO... he'd say, not even to me? And I would say NO!  Well, he wore me down a little and when he would say, not even to me? And I would say, MAYBE.  One day as I was ironing his shirt for work at 5:00 in the morning - in my night shirt, all bedhead and everything - he came running down the stairs (in his underwear) and said, "You HAVE to marry me!" I turned to him, looking horrible and all, and said, "OK."  Three months later we were Mr. and Mrs.

And they lived happily ever after..... R-I-G-H-T? Let's get real, girls!


Now the living begins... it became time to really realize that, yes, Bill is 24 years older than I am, we need to plan for our future. Time to realize that someday something might happen to one of us and we may need long-term care. We made sure we had life insurance, living wills, powers of attorney, and I made sure that my children were taken care of if anything happened to me.


But when it came to long-term care insurance, I was lost, I only thought about Bill getting insurance. Turns out, I should have gotten some, too. When I ended up disabled in 2003, we ended up in quite a difficult financial state as it took almost a year to get Medicare coverage.


I wish I had known about Genworth Financial back then, they have all the information you need on long-term insurance, life insurance, retirement, home ownership, and wealth management.




So, even though I was NEVER going to fall in love and get married again... here I am, married to the most wonderful man in the world and more in love with him every day than I was that day I finally said, "OK."

Life can be difficult at times, but as long as you plan for the future, stick together, and laugh with each other every day.... you CAN live happily ever after - just like a Princess.

{This sponsored post was inspired by Genworth Financial. Opinions expressed are my own, and the story is 100% true and accurate from my life. For more information about different long-term insurance plans visit the Genworth Financial website.}

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Wordless Wednesday: 5/23/2012 ~ Isn't this Daddy's Pillow?

Welcome to Wordless Wednesday... a post where a photograph speaks for itself.

I hope you'll join by posting your photos and linking up with the WW Hub.

PLEASE, leave your email with your comment, I want to come visit you.

(Posted from Blogger for iPad)

Happy 6th Birthday Mia Judith Shewbridge

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Today was Mia's 6th birthday and we celebrated by taking her, just her - to the dismay of the other four doggies - on our errands.

Mia was so excited to be in the car alone with Bill and I. Plus we went to pick up clothes at the dry cleaners, we went to the bank - and saw our favorite teller, Michelle, who of course offered Mia a dog biscuit. Mia, being the snobby eater that she is, stuck her nose up in the air at it.

We then went to the MD's office and Bill went inside to pick up my RX... Mia sat looking out the window until he came back. At the pharmacy, she got so much more love and attention, she was so happy that I even got a kiss from her. That is a rare treat... she usually only kisses Bill, he's her pet.

When we got home, the other doggies gave us our usual happy dance and kisses welcome home; then they were all over Mia - sniffing her, licking her, wanting to know where she had been, what she had been doing. It was quite funny.


What a nice day we had with our special little lady, who is now our oldest doggie in the house.

Happy birthday, Mia, we love you!

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Monday's Music Moves Me: 4/16/2012 ~ All About Cars

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<br /><a href="http://thenewxmasdolly.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Photobucket" src="http://i814.photobucket.com/albums/zz61/xmasdolly/Decorated%20images/th_retromusic1-1.gif" /></a><br /><br />

Welcome to 2012's Monday's Music Moves Me!!! We are going to make this meme SPECTACULAR this year!! But of course, we cannot do that without all of you... so come on share your music with us and get your friends to share with us, too. Our fearless leader is none other that the sweetest and most wonderful Marie of XmasDolly. Helping her keep this train running are ME, my dear friend Stacy of Stacy Uncorked and the lovely Callie of Jamerican Spice. We will also have some helpers along the way when we need to because life is.... well, life! This month the lovely Cathy of Cathy Kennedy's Blog will be our cohost. Dolly will chose one each month, if you'd like to help, please let one of us know.

Here is what you need to do to play along....

First step: Head on over to You Tube, or anywhere you get your music videos and post them on your blog! Upcoming themes are to you LOWER RIGHT of XmasDolly's blog.

Second Step: Grab our "Monday's Music Moves Me" Button, mine is on my right sidebar, or off of any of the hosts' sites.

Third step: SIGN THE LINKY - Follow your hosts (we will all follow you and try to comment each week), grab their buttons too when you visit (mine is on my right sidebar above the 4M button) and show them some love by leaving a comment.

Final step: Go visit the other Rockers on our Linky and PLEASE show them some love by leaving them a comment, you know you like comments, they do too!

This week's theme is FREEBIE! We went to Celebration's Annual Exotic Car Show this weekend and saw some AWESOME cars, including the largest collection of Ferraris and DeLoreans in one place, plus cars from TV and movies.

It is the 5th largest and respected exotic car show in the U.S. It is held for charity, including Special Olympics. There are several celebrities who show up for the events during the entire weekend. Because of all the fabulous cars that we saw, I am focusing on songs that feature cars this week... hope you enjoy my songs and some photos from the show......

 


Little Deuce Coupe ~ The Beach Boy




This one is a dedication to my hubby, Bill, he owned a 1965 (the year I was born, TeeHee) gold GTO, marker number EP69... Here's to you sweetie!

Little GTO ~ Ronnie and The Daytonas

Dead Man's Curve ~ Jan and Dean

Little Old Lady from Pasadena ~ Jan and Dean



This one is actually about a motorcycle rider, but I love this song.....


Leader of The Pack ~ Shangri-Las




So now pick your songs, write a post and don't forget to add it to one of the linky's - there is one on each of the hosts' blog. We can't wait to hear your songs, plus you might be chosen as our Spotlight Dancer and be in the #1 or 2 linky spot, like this weeks spotlight winners.

Shary of Shary Loves You ~~ and ~~ Amber of JadeLouise Designs

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Don't forget to grab the Spotlight Dancer button from XmasDolly's blog and proudly display it on your blog showing everyone that you were picked!

Now, go on and post your songs... get your friends to post their favorite songs and link up so we all can hear them... and have a musical Monday.

ROCK ON, MY FRIENDS!!

I'm very sorry to say there are some people not playing along just using our linky to get traffic for their blogs! Unfortunately, these bloggers will be marked and ignored, you will not get any benefit from our linky, so don't bother. All we ask is that you leave a comment, grab our button, ad/or follow us. If you don't want to post a video, you can post a link to a video, or post some lyrics, but please - at least attempt to make it music related.

*** Just one more thing...

PLEASE, we are family friendly blogs

and while we really don't want to censor anyone,

but we do ask that you keep your songs rated PG13 or less.

If you find that you need to post songs of an explicit sexual nature or language,

please find a different venue.

If your song does contain a small amount of questionable Language,

please put disclaimer BEFORE the video.

Thank you very much!***

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Happy Anniversary to the Love of My Life

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On March 15, 1997, I married the most wonderful man in the entire world... Bill came into my life two years earlier when I was in need of a friend. He was such a sweet, generous, and humorous man who could make me feel loved with just a smile or a look.

Since meeting him I have grown so much and gained such confidence because of his support and love.

He is the best husband in the world... he does almost all the housework, because I am unable to, and helps take care of the doggies, plus has been the best step-father any child could ask for - just ask Nikolaus and Alexander.

I love Bill with all my heart and soul and cannot believe that 15 years have gone by so quickly... I pray that I can have many, many more with this fabulous man who chose me to be his soul mate.

Happy anniversary, my darling Bill... thank you for giving me the most wonderful 15 years of my life. I love you!  xoxox

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Monday's Music Moves Me: 3/12/12 ~ My Favorite Female Singer

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<br /><a href="http://thenewxmasdolly.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="Photobucket" src="http://i814.photobucket.com/albums/zz61/xmasdolly/Decorated%20images/th_retromusic1-1.gif" /></a><br /><br />
Welcome to 2012's Monday's Music Moves Me!!! We are going to make this meme SPECTACULAR this year!! But of course, we cannot do that without all of you... so come on share your music with us and get your friends to share with us, too. Our fearless leader is none other that the sweetest and most wonderful Marie of XmasDolly. Helping her keep this train running are ME, my dear friend Stacy of Stacy Uncorked and the lovely Callie of Jamerican Spice. We will also have some helpers along the way when we need to because life is.... well, life!


Here is what you need to do to play along....

First step: Head on over to You Tube, or anywhere you get your music videos and post them on your blog! Upcoming themes are to you LOWER RIGHT of XmasDolly's blog.

Second Step: Grab our "Monday's Music Moves Me" Button, mine is on my right sidebar, or off of any of the hosts' sites.

Third step: SIGN THE LINKY - Follow your hosts (we will all follow you and try to comment each week), grab their buttons too when you visit (mine is on my right sidebar above the 4M button) and show them some love by leaving a comment.

Final step: Go visit the other Rockers on our Linky and PLEASE show them some love by leaving them a comment, you know you like comments, they do too!

Today's theme is Your Favorite Female Singer, so let's hear some songs by those fabulous ladies of classic, blues, pop, rock, etc.... write up your post and share with us because we love music and we love you all.


Most of you probably already know that I adore Celine Dion, so I have to share some of my favorite songs by this incredible singer with such a range of voice.

That's The Way It Is



I know I've posted this song before, but it is a favorite of mine because it was Bill and my song when we were dating and this video version is special because we were AT this concert!! =)

The Power of Love



All By Myself  (This not only a beautiful song, but a gorgeous video)



River Deep, Mountain High



Seduces Me



And if you'll indulge me in just one more, because I LOOOVVVEEE this one......


Falling Into You



I hope you enjoyed these songs, and once you write up your post, don't forget to sing the linky (on any of the host's blog - they are all connected) and you may be chosen as our SPOTLIGHT DANCERS like this week's lucky couple in our #1 and #2 linky spots.....

Amethyst Moon of Life, Music and Laughter

~~ and ~~

Danielle of Royalegacy

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Don't forget... if you are one of the lucky ones chosen for our spotlight dance, you get to grab the Spotlight Dancer Button from Dolly's right sidebar and proudly display it on your blog... WooHoo!

Now, don't forget to sign the linky, visit the participants, and leave a comment - you know you like them, so does everyone else. For more Monday music fun, visit my friend Denise at Run DMT.

ROCK ON MY FRIENDS!!

I'm very sorry to say there are some people not playing along just using our linky to get traffic for their blogs! Unfortunately, these bloggers will be marked and ignored, you will not get any benefit from our linky, so don't bother. All we ask is that you leave a comment, grab our button, ad/or follow us. If you don't want to post a video, you can post a link to a video, or post some lyrics, but please - at least attempt to make it music related.

*** Just one more thing...

PLEASE, we are family friendly blogs

and while we really don't want to censor anyone,

but we do ask that you keep your songs rated PG13 or less.

If you find that you need to post songs of an explicit sexual nature or language,

please find a different venue.

If your song does contain a small amount of questionable Language,

please put disclaimer BEFORE the video.

Thank you very much!***

.