Mini Pumpkin Pies + Pumpkin Recipe Round Up

First of all you guys know how I feel about making cute pies.

But I'm that girl that when I go to the dessert table at a party, I just want a taste of everything. 

(Okay, and then to go back for more of the thing I loved the most.)

These mini pumpkin pies are just perfect for that. And for the person who LOVES pumpkin pie the most, just take 5 with no regrets. You do you. 

These look sorta schmancy, but they're super easy. 

Also, everything is cuter in mini form, am I right?

And here's how the recipe goes down:

Get your canned pumpkin, your store bought pie dough, and your cute cookie cutters out.

(My recipe calls for pumpkin but I accidentally grabbed pumpkin pie mix so just do whatever works for you)

Roll out your dough and grab your circle cutter.

Ideally you need a 3-4" circle. A wide mouth mason jar is a perfect sub if you don't already own one.

Cut out 12 circles.

Spray your muffin tin and fill with your mini doughs.

Whip up your pumpkin mixture (recipe below) and fill each dough 3/4 full.

With the extra dough left over, use your mini cookie cutters to cut out your desired pie garnishes.

Bake at 400 for 30 minutes

Things I've learned the hard way:

Don't fill them too full or they bake over and do little burnt edges as seen here.

Put your garnishes on half way through baking if you don't want them overdone.

Let cool completely before you plate to serve.

 And they taste best shared with friends. :)

 Mini Pumpkin Pies

 Ingredients

- 1 can of pumpkin (15 oz)

- 2 eggs

- 1 can of sweetened condensed milk

- 1 tsp salt

-1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice

- 2 store bought pie crusts

Directions

- Preheat oven to 400

-Combine pumpkin, milk, eggs, salt, and pumpkin pie spice

- Using a circular cookie cutter or jar lid, cut 12 circles. Ideally you need at 3-4" circle.

- Using mini cookie cutters, cut out cute garnishes 

- Add pie crusts to muffin tin

- Add pie filling to 3/4 full

-Bake at 400 for 30 minutes

- Add garnishes half way through baking for lighter color

Enjoy!

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And because I know you just can't get enough of pumpkin recipes. I've teamed up with some other awesome bloggers to bring you enough pumpkin recipes to last you all season!

Here are 6 more delicious pumpkin recipes!

Pumpkin And Ricotta Stuffed Shells - Motherhood in Stilettos 

Pumpkin Cheesecake Brownies - Lazy Moms Blog

Pumpkin Spice French Toast - Amidst The Chaos

Slow Cooker Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls - Mom Wife Foodie

Pumpkin Bread With Brown Sugar Topping - Mom Beyond Mom

No-Bake Protein Pumpkin Apple Pie Bites - The Mother Overload

Working from Home + Using a Standing Desk

Working from home is no joke. Don't get me wrong, I love it. 

But it takes so much self discipline and I wouldn't say that's one of my strong suits. One of my biggest struggles is that I find it so hard to be productive on my design work and shop stuff when everything else I have to do around the house is staring me in the face. 

I'm sure you've heard of the standing desk by now and how many companies are switching over to that for their employees benefit. Everything I've read says that standing desks are proven to increase productivity. So I thought, it was worth a try for me.  

The appeal of the InMovement Standing Desk is its portability and how it works with your existing desktop. Days that I dedicate to work, I like to be in my dining room which is central to my house so that I can keep an eye on what my boys are up to and the light in here just makes it a pleasant place to work. And then days that I don't need to be in front of the computer for hours, I can just store it away.

                  

I would definitely say that even after just a short amount of time using it, I could tell a difference in my productivity. I love that I could just put it on the end of my dining room table and adjust the height to what feels comfortable for me.

Standing during my work hours motivated me to stretch and do simple exercises frequently.

It made me feel energized.

Not to mention, my whole body feels so much better after spending hours standing and working instead of hours all pretzeled up in my desk chair.

I caught my husband using it one day that he had dedicated to working on music.

He obviously was able to adjust it much higher to suit his 6'2" frame. The workspace was big enough to accommodate all this gadgets he needed for work.

And I might have to fight him for who gets to use it.

If you're in the market for a standing desk or just looking to improve your health and productivity at work, this InMovement Standing Desk might be just the ticket. And you're in luck because if you use code BLOG30 then you can get 30% off!

Refinishing the Floors + bObi Classic Review

The other big project we tackling before moving into our new house, besides painting everything,  was ripping out all the carpet upstairs and refinishing the original wood floors.

Here's what we started with:

Old and stained carpet in all three of the bedrooms upstairs.

Peace out carpet, see ya never!

And then here's the state of the floors we had to work with underneath the carpet.

Our master bedroom floor was in pretty rough shape but the final product 

was so beautiful and full of character.

The biggest part of the job was just sanding all the floors down so we could start

from scratch. We rented a commercial floor sander from our local hardware store.

Here's a close up difference of sanded vs. unsanded.

And we had to deal with old glue/adhesive lines in Grady's room.

Thank goodness it was just this room!

Stripped off all the old glue and scraped off all the tape by hand.

Then he had to hand-sand edges and super rough spots.

Knee pads required.

The original floors restored and ready for poly.

We decided to go with a clear poly so that the floors would look as close to original as possible and flow down the stairs and with the rest of the house. 

And the finish product was so beautiful and so worth all the hard work!

And as a mom of little boys I am so thankful not to be dealing with carpet anywhere in the house and especially not in these high-traffic areas. Super big shout out to my hard-working hubby who pulled an all nighter doing this so that we only had to rent the sander for 1 day! 

So, with a completely carpet-less house we were so excited to add our first ever bObi Classic robot vacuum to the family!

I feel like she's become the 5th member of the Goodman household.

Setting it up was so simple and user-friendly with it's step-by-step guide included.

Once we let her free in the house, we were so pleased by the work she did

(and honestly a little grossed out by all she swept up since I had just recently vacuumed)

She fit so easily and found her way around in tight spaces.
Shimmying around these tight corners were no problem for her.

She had no problem going from hardwood to rugs.

She got in the places I have a hard time getting to.

This breakfast nook is one of my favorite features of the house but it

is constantly plagued by crumbs. And this mama doesn't like to sweep after every meal.

And I totally love the schedule feature. I can schedule her to run at 2 p.m. everyday and she jumps off the dock and gets to work while the kids nap and I get other stuff done.

It's probably the closest I'll ever get to having a maid.
And after reading this robot vacuum horror story I decided I can't let her run while I'm sleeping.
And I don't even have a dog.

She does a great job. I don't have any pets but I do have two newer wool rugs that still shed a bit and she makes sure those sheds get swept up!

I also love that I can move her upstairs and just let her go to town. She goes under beds and gets dust bunnies and she knows not to fall down the stairs!

My only complaint with her is that she has a hard time finding the dock when I tell her to go juice, it's like she gets distracted on the way to finding it. But we'll give her grace on that cause we're kind of a messy family, hah!

Overall, we are so happy with the way bObi has jumped into our family and totally started pulling her own weight. She took my vacuum duties off my plate and I couldn't be more grateful. (I still pull out the old fashioned vacuum and get corners really well every so often. Okay, only when company's coming, don't judge me.)

To get more information and reviews on the bObi Classic, visit bobi.bobsweep.com

Disclaimer: I received the bObi Classic for review purposes but all opinions are my own.