What's Cooking? Cupcakes!

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to make 24 cupcakes for our Enrichment Night this month. Of course when I think cupcakes...I think CUPCAKES! Immediately my "super-sized" version came to mind! These can take some time to dress up, but the result can be fabulous! I got this idea from my mom who made similar ones for Sky's Birthday last year. They looked so pretty and tall. I first tried out the Lemon Cream version on a baby shower for a friend earlier this year and they turned out really pretty and seemed to taste delicious too! I thought this time I would do half (12) Lemon Cream and the other half Chocolate Mousse. I thought the ribbon and the Hershey's Kiss added a nice touch. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of the lemon ones all finished. They looked similar, but of course yellow ribbon and a lemon drop on the top! I also tweaked the whipped filling inside and my frosting a bit, it seemed to work out nicely! As you can see they are a lot of cupcake, but they look beautiful on a table! I was only able to frost the chocolate ones before I left, because frosted over-sized cupcakes are really hard to transport!!!

After Phil's office "taste-tested" the desserts from yesterday, the consensus was that their favorite were the Chocolate Chip Crispy treats! So I decided to make 2 plates to auction off. The activity was more like a white elephant service exchange than an auction, but everyone seemed to make out with some type of "service"! I can't speak for everyone, but I think I ended up with one of the good ones! "Dinner for your family and a fabulous dessert" It was definitely a unique spin on the "Service Auction" idea. (Remember our first Service Auction in the CROWSLANDING WARD, Alisa?!!)

Anyway, here are the pics of the finished products before we left. Today, I decided I'm just going to relax and enjoy my Friday. For those of you who still think "I have too much time on my hands" I would like you to know that I did all my housework last night after everyone fell asleep!SO right now I've made my favorite sandwich in the whole entire world, (fresh sub roll, mustard, boarhead swiss and cheddar cheeses, topped with doritos) turned on the Disney Channel for Madison, put Seattle to sleep, and am now going to check out a few cooking blogs. I hope you all have a great Labor Day weekend! Peace Out!)

Team Spirit Day!

All week the kids have had a different themed day. There was a "twins" day on Tuesday and Brooklyn dressed up in a light blue shirt, and capris just like a friend of hers in her class. It was cute. Today happens to be Team Spirit Thursday, so everyone gets to wear a "sports" item showing off their spirit for their favorite team. I talked them into just wearing hats, so they didn't have to worry about coordinating an entire outfit out of it! Everyone was in...except Paris. She decided that she would have to find a team to like first.

"Maybe when I'm in 1st grade I will find a team to show spirit for."

That didn't surprise me a bit, but she still wanted to be included in the cute pics outside before school to show everyone!

What's cooking in your kitchen?

Okay, so my friend Sandy got me in the mood to bake yesterday. You all know how I love to bake, and she found these awesome dessert recipes, of course I just had to try! I was talking to Shavonne and my mom this morning while I was making these beauties and got them in the mood to bake too! I tell you...it's contagious! Shavonne's pictures are much prettier than mine, because, as usual, I was in a huge rush. This Thursday is a "Service Auction" for Enrichment Night and I usually bake something as my service, so I was trying out a few recipes to see what I should "Auction". I decided try to make the oreo/nutterbutter truffles and then decided that the Chocolate Chip Crispy Treats also looked too amazing to pass up. After I was finished with the 50 or so truffles, and 12 of the Chocolate Chip Crispy treats, I called Phil and asked if his office would be willing to try them! Luckily they were ready and willing. So I was in a rush to drop them off at his office for an afternoon snack right before I had to pick up the kids! Luckily he's only a few minutes from home!) Anyway, these are the snapshots I took, right before I ran out the door!

Dancing in the rain!

On my way home from picking up the kids from school, I noticed some "T-Storm" activity just south of our house! I knew we only had a few minutes until we would be engulfed in the storm so I grabbed my camera so that I could snap a few shots of the beautiful cumulonimbus clouds that were quickly surrounding our neighborhood. I know our Monsoon storms are growing to an end, so I let the kids hang out in the craziness that was about to begin. All these pictures were taken within about a 20 minute time period. Dad...I knew you might appreciate these!

They're better when you can flip through them fast, anyway...within a couple of minutes the downdrafts caught up with us and we had some pretty hefty gusts of wind! Boston was holding an airplane...you can't tell but the propellers on this thing were flying! Unfortunately, the camera makes them seem entirely still!?

Check out the clouds below...don't they look friendly? It was totally sunny to the west of us, so the sun was able to highlight everything. It was pretty cool.

Yes, that's my child wearing a shirt, diaper, and mix matched shoes! I couldn't find her shorts before we left to go pick up the kids...so I took her like that. She found shoes, because she's already learned you don't go outside without shoes on unless you want your feet to melt! Smart kid! No one was driving by, so we were good!

I took this picture of the down pour through my doorway of the sun illuminating all the rain drops! It looks like it was snowing! My kids had so much fun! The rain only lasted about 5 minutes or so, but the kids had a blast getting wet without being cold!

Bowling for Boston's 7th!

It was definitely a Happy Birthday for Boston! He got calls and even a text message in the morning from our out of state fam, he was pretty excited. For some reason he kept thinking when you said Happy Birthday, that you must have sung a song too??! He would tell everyone, "Thank you for singing me a song!" Whether they did or not, it was pretty sweet!

We decided that since Paris' party was at "Amazing Jakes" we would let him have a "friend" party too! He really wanted to go bowling, so we decided to try an AMF Alley in Peoria. I have to say it was pretty nice! He was able to invite a couple of his friends and then we decided to have their families come too, so it would be fun for us "old" people too!

Madison wanted to bowl so bad! So we let her hold one...with a little help...
Then we showed her how to push the ball, she couldn't stand the thought of it leaving though...
But she couldn't resist watching to see it's fate! It was so funny! She was very nervous watching it slowly roll down the very long lane! She probably had a full minute to minute and a half of watching this thing roll! We didn't think about what we were doing at the time, but we bowled 8 people on each lane, one for the kids, one for the adults...okay talk about the longest game in history! It took us 2 hours to finish both the games! Atleast we had fun! After the pizza and bowling, we threw in a cupcake cake for good measure! Wow, talk about mouth staining entertainment! That frosting was way yummy, but super dangerous! We had fun taking pictures of everyone eating their neat cupcakes! We're so excited we went, and we'll have to plan a bowling date night soon! Keep your calendars open! It's been years since we've bowled and I have to say...it was really fun!

This one is of my friends Sandy (her son Ryan), Kim and I. Holly was there too, but left earlier and missed out on the photo op! We'll catch up with her later!

Girls at home!

Hanging out...
Then she starts to head a little left... Oh...and she doesn't recover from this one! See the lean gets her everytime!
Big sister Madison was to the rescue!

We had a few spare moments and Seattle was in "prime" picture form! She hadn't drooled or spit up on her new outfit...yet, so I thought I'd get a few shots of her sitting by the couch.
Of course Madison had to get in the photo shoot too and found a flower that she had to have in her hair. (This might be Sky's?) Oh yeah and that headband is her "princess" headband. You might not be able to see, but it has small jewels inside of it, so of course she was wearing it! She looks pretty sweet. We know Madison needs to get rid of her "Passy" but we're letting them each just get "lost" one by one. This is her last one...we think. She's getting pretty good at finding them in her moments of "need". The nice thing is that she won't steal Seattle's because it's a different type that for some reason grosses her out beyond all reason! We don't know why. We've seen her fall asleep a couple of times and feel around for a "passy" by her and she'll grab Seattle's by mistake, take a half suck, and then gag and spit it out, all with her eyes closed! It's so silly!

For some reason the flash didn't go off on this one...so it's all grainy! It would have been way cute...oh well you get the idea!

Yeah, Yeah...I know..."SHE LOOKS JUST LIKE PHIL!" Good thing he's hot, because otherwise that could really pose a problem for her!