White elephant parties........

Pumpkin Spice Cake.......

We attended 3 white elephant parties this weekend.....check out our facebook pages for pictures!

Is it possible to be white-elephant-ed out?! If you don't know what a white elephant party is.....you haven't been to Utah or met someone from Utah. Its basically a gag gift party that people do over the holidays. I have a blast opening white elephant gifts, though on the inside I am always a bit nervous. At Melinda's 3rd Annual Cosby-Sweater-Coon-Attack-Special-Needs-White-Elephant Christmas Party (yes that was its actually called, last year they had a raccoon come through the wall of their house), I got the candy bra for my white elephant gift! I have a tendency to turn tomato red in large groups of people....so needless to say everyone had a good laugh! I will be re-gifting that for next year's white elephant party! Adam got a giant pink pig that our dogs were afraid of at first because it was bigger than them....then they started playing with it, then they ripped it up and proceeded to eat the stuffing....gotta love pugs! I wore my ugly Christmas sweater vest....it is awesome! I found it on sale at Macys for $15, normally $50!

I discovered a fabulous new recipe for pumpkin spice cake, I substituted the oil for applesauce to lower the fat (turned out fine, just took a little longer to bake), then I added semi sweet chocolate chips (fat goes back in!) I didn't add the pecans but I added cinnamon to the frosting! I made the homemade cream cheese frosting, but its more like icing. I made 2 cakes and they were a fav at both parties! Gotta love holiday baking!

Pumpkin Spice Cake Recipe from Jello.com

1 pkg. (2-layer size) yellow cake mix
1 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding
1 cup mashed cooked fresh pumpkin
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
3 eggs
1 Tbsp. pumpkin pie spice
PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup chopped toasted PLANTERS Pecans

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Place cake mix, dry pudding mix, pumpkin, oil, water, eggs and spice in large bowl. Beat with electric mixer on low speed just until moistened. Beat on medium speed 4 min.
POUR into greased and floured 13x9-inch baking pan.
BAKE 32 to 35 min. or until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on wire rack. Spread with PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese Frosting; sprinkle with pecans. Store in refrigerator.