Turning two and four in Neverland'

Since Kellan thinks he's a pirate most days- we figured it was only fitting to celebrate his fourth birthday with a Captain Hook party and to make it special for our little princess turning two too so we pulled Tink into the mix and made it an all out pirate and pixie party in Neverland! My little captain requested a Jolly Roger Pirate ship cake in addition to the cupcakes - so as much as I try to stay away from cakes he was so sweet I had to give it a try! After googling and pinteresting lots of giant, double stacked amazing super fancy pirate ship cakes - I decided just to keep it simple and try making a cake in a bread pan and cutting it into the shape of a ship. I was actually pleasantly surprised how easily it transformed into a pirate ship! 

To decorate the cake I just used chocolate frosting, a few life savers for windows, whoppers for canon balls, and then one of Kellans many captain hooks. He loved it- especially all lit up and ready for him to make a wish! 

Once the cake was tackled I focused on the Tink cupcakes. Earlier this fall my friend had showed me a great way to make princess cupcakes- so I made these for another birthday last month-and loved how they turned out- and how easy they are(once the cutouts are done!) 

So decided to do the same kind for Tink and a few captain hooks. Again was so happy how cute they looked and how easy! Just swirl the icing and add Tink- done and done! 

The last cupcakes in the collection were a few simple Tink slipper ones. I saw a picture of them on line but the slippers were made of fondant which I did not have so I went to my go-to candy of late and made them out of laffy taffy and then just made the white puffs out of marshmallows. Think they were the perfect addition!

Thanks to all the awesome ideas i found on line this turned into one of the most fun parties we've hosted! in addition to the cupcakes, here are some of the other fun Neverland foods we served for our pirates and pixies! 

Most importantly- everyone seemed to have so much fun! We had dress up corners for fairies and pirates. All my little guy wanted was for his friends to come over and play pirate and my princess is always up for anything and LoVED running around in her Tink outfit with other little fairies all day! 

Ahoy mateys - think its safe to say it was an all around awesome day!!!

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Saying farewell with style...High Heeled Cupcakes!!

This summer, my office had a great intern. She was hard-working, fun, energetic, and honestly a nice change of pace from the usual guy engineers I often work with. Don't get me wrong, 10 years into engineering I've accepted and embraced that a majority of my colleagues are and will always be male and really they are great! That said it was a treat to have some extra pink in the office and an extra pair of eyes in our engineer div that appreciated fun shoes :) I especially liked being able to reference and share the legally blonde approach to work (work hard, be nice, look professional but cute, etc)  

Needless to say, before she left I had to take advantage of the opportunity to make some fun girls cupcakes while I had someone on my team who would appreciate them. So to celebrate a successful summer and her final out brief of her projects, I made high-heeled cupcakes for the team. 

I have made the shoe cupcakes one time before, but it has been a little while so I have been itching to make them again. This time I went with a black and pink theme and kept the shoes super simple- just using extra pink gum sticks for bows on two pairs and then doing polka dots with icing in the other pairs. Like last time I used sanding sugar for the coloring, cut graham crackers covered in icing for the body of the shoe and then pirouette cookies for the heels.

 Because I made them on a week night- I has to limit the shoes to four pairs and did quick filler cupcakes with sprinkles and a few laffy taffy purses for the rest. I did add a legally blonde touch by stealing a cup from Addie's Minnie Mouse tea set and making a little snap cup complete with a few snaps :)

The real challenge this time around was getting them to work. As last time I made them there was no transporting involved. I ended up 'gluing' the high heels to the platter with icing and then putting them In the fridge overnight and seemed to do the trick as made it to work in one piece. Success! And best of all, our intern loved them- as did most if the office - engineering guys included :)

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Gray Sick Day = Snuggles + Angry Bird Cupcakes!

After a nice 4 miles of speed at track this morning I was sprinting through our morning routine to get everyone out the door and to school at a reasonable time :) we were actually doing pretty well on time until I picked Addie up out of her crib and noticed she was pretty warm.  Thinking it was just the winter footed pjs she had been insisting in wearing lately despite the August heat- I got her dressed and thought I would just let her cool off while I got kellan dressed. No such luck- when I checked again- this time officially with a thermometer we had a nice 101.7 temp :( 

So I quickly rearranged my day to stay home and changed gears. Kellan heard me say I was staying home and promptly informed me he was staying home as well (although about mid day think he decided he had had enough of Addie's sick day and asked to go to school to play with his friends :)

As we snuggled in for pirate Dora (the perfect compromise show at our house at the moment :) I asked kellan what he would like to make for the builders putting the final touches on our new porch today- cookies or cupcakes? Out of no where he told me Angry Bird cupcakes- so we did a quick google on it. Luckily we had most everything we needed in the house so I thought sounds fun- why not? 

My little helper told me he wanted the red one, the blue one, the yellow one and the mean piggy. Not a big angry birds player myself- have no clue who all these guys really are- but found some great examples online to use as a model. 

 Because I wanted to use what we had in hand, I used white chocolate melts for white parts of birds and pig noses instead of marshmallows, used candy eyes, caramels for beaks, cut up pieces if gummy worms (yes we have a bizarre collection of candy in hand, i know :)  and then just used black icing to draw on eye brows. We used sanding sugar for all colors but yellow since we are out - so just made yellow icing. 

All in all they were actually pretty easy and turned out pretty fun. Both kids enjoyed them and we even had to take a box to Kellan's teachers when changed his mind and opted to go to school! 

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Rockin' Monkeys!

April Showers bring May flowers, AND May and June babies in my world right now! While we actually didn't have all that many rain showers, April was definitely a heavy baby shower month for me, and I couldn't have been more excited for such a great excuse to do lots of baking! After several pretty in pink little girl-to-be celebrations, I was pumped to make some blue Rock Star Monkeys for my friends Christy and Adam's shower. This little guy is their first- and they are over the moon excited - as is the whole SR running club since Adam is our club president (Hope this little guy is a runner!) Pretty sure Adam is actually the first person I met when we moved to SR five years ago, since I would drive to SR from the hotel we lived in for two months to run with the club in the morning. He helped me learn the lay of the land and would even let me modify our routes to loop down my new street so I could run by our house before we closed on it :) Needless to say, I've been looking forward to making these cupcakes for them for a while now!

 

As soon as I saw the invitation for the shower which I later found out was based on Christy's nursery theme (see picture - so cute!) I knew we needed monkeys and guitar cupcakes. I have done several monkeys now, but as has been the case lately, I wanted to try something new and also needed something easy since she needed four dozen for a Saturday party and I also wanted to run our local SR High School 5K that morning so I had to bake them during the week. In past monkey cupcake google searches I have seen the monkeys with the Nilla wafer faces, but have never tried them as I wasn't quite sure how they turned out. In a quick refresher search to see if there were any new monkey ideas out there, I saw Nilla wafer monkeys with piped, fur like icing versus the knife spread flat icing look and not only did I like the look much better, but I knew it would be even easier and faster - since spreading with a knife usually takes me double the time. Thus decided to give them a try. For the guitars, I had to rack my brain a bit since laffy taffy does not come in blue :) but during a quick run through Target I found Airheads which come in a nice bright blue and are just as moldable - score!

 

Once I had everything I needed - which really was not much for the Monkeys - just Nilla wafers and candy eyes, the Monkey assembly was pretty easy. Breaking the Nilla wafers into the right size/shape for the ears was harder than I had thought, as I they kept breaking into smaller pieces - luckily I had a big box and two kids who didn't mind helping me get rid of the broken ones (especially dipped in a little icing :)  I had fun mixing up the faces, but kept them all super simple with two nose dots and curly lines and circles for mouths.

Making the guitars was probably the toughest part of the set, and even that was more tedious then hard. The one thing I did struggle with is that the guitars were very flexible - they seemed to bend backwards so had to add extra icing to hold up the long end. I have never had anyone really complain about too much icing, so don't think this was really too much of a problem :) I then added black lines of icing for the strings to complete the look.

 

Finally, since I needed 4 dozen cupcakes and wanted to add some color/variety to them(and was tired of making monkeys and guitars :) I made half of the icing blue and topped with upside down white chocolate melts and piped on little musical notes. Okay, really these were my "filler" cupcakes, but I was actually really happy with how they turned out and I liked how they added to the set. Win-win!

 

And last but not least, since I am still on my bib and onsie cupcake kick and had not yet done one for a little boy, I did a Cars/Mickey themed set for this little guy. I wasn't quite sure what to do to "top" these cupcakes since I have been using bows and flowers for the little girl ones, but I settled on a mix of binkys (including several glow-in-the-dark ones as must add since I think they are awesome and wish I had known about them before my second baby was 15 months - they are game changing when you are looking for that lost binky in the middle of the night!!!!). I thought they ended up useful and fun, which is what I was going for since Christy has given me some of the cutest most practical presents ever (think babywash wrapped in super soft blankets with baby pins type presents) for my babies - so was happy to have my turn to shower her!! :)

 

 

 

 

 

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Ca-Cake Ca-Cake!

Cupcakes to celebrate a Sweet Baby Girl to-be!

One of Addie's first 20 words is Ca-Cake! I'm terrible at writing things down, so I have to admit I am not sure what her first official word was, but I am excited to report that her limited vocabulary at this time includes Cupcake :) or something like it! A few of the other words on her top-ten list include "Tick-Tock (this actually may have been her first word thanks to watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates on repeat with K), bubble, Mommy, Daddy, Ka-ka (for Kellan), booka (not sure where the accented A on book came from :), row (this is her first song as well - she sings row, row, row, then looks to you to sing the rest and then claps when you finish- very cute-thank you daycare!), and there are a few more that are escaping me now. In any case, despite my winter-hibernation from baking, she is still quite familiar with cupcakes - in fact for PJ day recently she made a point to pick out her ca-cake pjs. I have to say her enthusiasm for them has actually inspired me to get back to a bit more baking!

My silly girl in her cupcake pjs!

Speaking of which - I baked cupcakes for work for the first time in a long time! We had a baby shower for one of the guys in my office who's wife is expecting a little girl next month. A few of the girls on his team pulled together an adorable shower, complete with electric tea lights in baby food jars and flowers in bottles - SO CUTE! Definitely one of the best parties at work in a long time.

Originally, I had planned on making the baby rattle cupcakes I have made before, and while I love them and they are usually a hit, since I have had limited time to bake lately, when I do, I have found myself wanting to try new things. Thus, I did some serious googling and pinteresting on baby girl cupcakes and decided I wanted to try the baby face ones as I found lots of cute ones. However, I wanted to make sure they were clearly girl faces, and lucked out when I came across a website with  baby faces with little pink bows - and pink sugar cheeks - simple but cute! Since I still do not like the taste of fondant (nor know how to make it :) I went with my current go-to cupcake decorating candy of choice - Laffy Taffy, which has also become my husbands favorite candy to throw in his lunch box for work so we have been keeping it on hand! Shaping the binkys was definitely the most time-consuming part of these cupcakes, but well worth it in the end. The bows I also did from Laffy Taffy, but they were pretty easy.

Once I had all the bows and binkys made I pretty much had a baby making assembly line going and they came together pretty quickly. The cheeks were a little tricky to get nice and round, but I found that a touch of water on my finger allowed me to pick up the perfect amount of the sugar to transfer to the cupcakes. This actually was a little tricky and took me a few tries as if you have too much water the sugar would get wet and not stay on the cupcake. I found that wetting a paper towel and then pressing my finger onto the paper towel and then into the sugar was the best technique. The eyes and mouths are simply piped on with a little black icing - and waa-laa we have a little baby girl!

Close-up of Cupcake Baby Girls!

The rest of the cupcakes I simply swirled on pink icing and used a few baby cupcake picks I had - this was mainly to save time since mid-week baking is always tough at our house, but  actually like how the mix of pink and baby face cupcakes turned out!

Finally, while I was doing all my "research" on these cupcakes I came around some really fun "bib and onesie cupcake presents," and was inspired to try these as well. They were actually really easy- I just rolled the bibs and onesies intno the shapes of cupcakes, secured them with Addie's medium sized pony tail holders, topped with bows as my cupcake toppers :) and placed them in  cupcake papers in a six-pack cupcake container. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised and pretty excited with how they turned out. When I showed the kids they both wanted to eat them :) and Addie started yelling "ca-cake, ca-cake" so I am taking that as an indication that they were a success!

First attempt at Bib-and Onesie cupcakes - this may be my new go-to baby shower present :)

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Super Easy Bunny Ear cupcakes!

 Hippity Hoppity Easter's on it's way...

  

So despite the snow fall here this morning, Easter is in less than a week! Sometime last week it "officially" became Spring, but has yet to feel like it here in DC. In fact, I think it's been colder this past week than it has been most of the winter - it actually took me all weekend to warm up from my long run on Friday morning in the chilly temperature and wind. BRRRR!


Snowman from our first March snow (sadly did not have time to play out in it today)

The winter weather did not stop us from preparing for Spring and Easter though - we finally put up all of our Easter decorations (nothing like the last minute) and pulled out Spring clothes - in hopes that someday soon we will be able to wear them. I do have my concerns about our current Easter outfits as they involve cute plaid shorts for K and a sweet sleeveless dress for A, but we have back-ups ready - as it looks like the chilly weather may hold.

Another potential sign of Spring is that finally - both kids are feeling better (yes I am knocking wood as I say this!) The tough winter continued into early Spring as K ended up with a tough (4+ days) stomach bug that undermined my plans to make Minnie Mouse birthday cupcakes for a first birthday party and VT cupcakes for my co-workers birthday. I was bummed to cancel on the cucpcakes at the last minute but decided it was better safe than sorry on sharing the bug. For my co-worker I had even already made the cupcake toppers. I thought about buying Harris Teeter cupcakes and putting them on top, but the cupcakes at HT did not look so great and the giant donuts they have are awesome and an office favorite (this is a good tip if like me you do not have a Dunkin Donuts near you but have a HT on your way to work - the donuts are a really good deal and really amazing!) so we did donuts.


The VT Cupcake Topper Flags (without any cupcakes to go on)

All that said, I took advantage of everyone finally being healthy to do a little baking! Nothing fancy as we are still short on time (that does not seem to change!) and spent most of the day doing fun Spring like things (egg hunt, Easter Bunny, bouncy, etc). K does like to help me bake now - so that was fun. Not only is he my icing taster, he is now my egg, oil, and milk pourer and "starts" the stirring - he seems to get bored pretty quickly with that, but either way I enjoyed the company and him wanting to help! I wanted to do something for Easter, but wanted it super simple. I was thinking about making bunny cupcakes like I have in the past, however did not want to deal with coconut as the kids don't really like it and it makes it messy and more complicated. After a few quick googles on bunny cupcakes I saw a few that just did bunny ears although most of them uses white chocolate or similar and I wanted to stay with the marshmallow ears as I had them on hand and knew they would be easy, so decided to give it a try and was pleasantly surprised how they turned out.


Hanging out with the Easter Bunny at the Spring Fling!

Pretty much five steps overall: 1) Bake cupcakes, 2) make icing, 3) pipe on icing (or you could just spread with a knife, I find the bag/tip combo much faster anymore) and then 4) cut the marshmallow with kitchen scissors and dip the "exposed inner (sticky) part of the marshmallow in pink sanding sugar  to make the bunny ears and finally 5) stick the finished ears on top.


Toppings made of two ingredients - just cut than dip - super easy!

In the past I have cut the marshmallows in half for the ears, but wanted a thinner, more ear like feel/appearance so I actually cut them into 4 pieces. This did make two of the pieces stickier as they had the "exposed" marshmallow on front and back but still very workable and worth it in the end, I think. :) And with that Happy Spring!


All finished and ready for Easter!

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No new cupcakes...but a sweet pr :)

Sooo...first let me say, I have not made any cupcakes lately. NONE. In fact, I actually cheated for Valentine's Day and grabbed a half dozen at Harris Teeter. I know, I know. I couldn't believe it either. I think it's the first time I've bought cupcakes in like 5+ years, maybe. I take that back - I did buy Kellan's "actual birthday" cupcake this year after making the ones for his party - as I only wanted one for him and I was VERY pregnant with Addie (ie she came like 6 hours later). In any case, the Valentine's cupcakes were SUPER cute, had both chocolate for Jer and vanilla for me and actually pretty good. Plus they had fun re-usable valentine's day rings that the kids loved and I can use if I am so motivated to make Valentine's Day cupcakes next and I do love the little 6-pack containers they come in - I will also re-use that filled with my own cupcakes - it's all about being resourceful, right?

That said - there was actually a good reason I did not bake Valentine's week this year - I was trying to be good and get some rest (between haircuts, and well-check doctors appts, car appointments, valentine's day parties, and other last minute stuff before going on a trip :) before my half marathon in Myrtle. Thus, the last thing I wanted to do was to stay up late baking or cleaning up from baking - so I resisted the temptation and stuck to my light running and baking taper :) and I have to say it paid off, as for the first time in four years, I finally pr'd again in the half marathon! If you can't tell, I was(am) pretty excited! I was honestly starting to wonder if I had completely forgotten how to race and push myself. So pulling off a PR of about a minute was pretty big in my world right now. I know life has been busy and trust me my kids mean way more than any PR to me, so I am A-OK with the four year cycle it has taken, but I have to admit it was really nice to finally see the early long runs and track workouts finally pay off :) And as a bonus all the super-duper fast girls (ie 1:25 and faster half marathoners!) who showed up last year did not all come again this year, so I snuck in third place in my age group, too. Woohoo - thank you fast girls!

The race was definitely more of a mental battle for me than a physical one. My legs actually felt pretty good - despite driving down the day before and being up late with a pre-sick Addie. (she is home now with an ear-infection, but we just thought she was out of sorts not sleeping at home). My cadre of "coaches" :) have given me some great advice over the past few weeks such as: 1)only thinking positive thoughts the whole second half, 2) making sure to take gatorade at the last few water stops for the extra fuel, 3) keep your arms down and shake them out as needed among others and these little tid-bits made all the difference. The gatorade sip - and seriously only a sip as I am TERRIBLE at drinking during races, some day I will figure it out - was huge, as I definitely got a second wind that carried me through the end of the race. The positive thinking was big, too as I definitely usually start to doubt myself around miles 8-9 which seems to make/break my race. This time though, anytime I wanted to slow down I made myself go faster - even if only for a few steps and thought about how I can do this. It was also around mile 9/10 where I realized this might actually finally be my year to do this and I thought about how much I wanted to get to the finish line fast so I could send a text with a new PR time to my running buddies (especially Coach Kathy ;) SO SILLY I know, but whatever works and they are such amazing friends and running partners, I knew they would all be excited to get such a message as well! Thankfully everything fell into place, it was a perfect day for racing and I felt good, and although I definitely did still slow-up my last few miles as is typical for my racing, I had a solid enough first ten and was able to hang on to the PR and immediately grabbed my phone from my husband after a quick hug and sent my long awaited messages :) before enjoying the post-race party with my family!

Krispy Kreme with Sprinkles - one of the highlights of the MB Marathon Post-Race Party!

A 9AM Beer with G&G :)

3rd Place Age Group Award - with one of my number one fans!

The whole gang!

The rest of the weekend was a blast - as much as I love the Myrtle half - it really is a perfect, flat fast, and fun course - the real reason we go is to visit my Grandparents who spend the winter there every year. It kind of became a tradition my first year out of college when I got hooked on half marathons and I have run everyone since (except for 2009 after my son was born - being my first baby I was not sure if I would be ready 4 months out - the race was snowed out anyways - it was like they knew I wasn't coming :) In any case, our crew has grown with Kellan and Addie now in the mix and my cousin Kara joined us last year - she is awesome with the kids and super fun so it's such a treat to have her. And now there are a few from Jer's family who live near Myrtle so they have joined my cheering squad so it's become a bit of a party! We all went to Margaritaville in the afternoon to have our annual margarita with G&G - CHEERS :) and let the kids run around on the beach finding sea-shells and chasing Sea Gulls for a while - but besides that we really did not do much but hang out and relax - which was exactly what we all needed and simply AWESOME!

Okay - well since I have no new cupcakes to report, here are a few more from the 2012 wrap-up :) Also here is a link I just found today that has me itching to definitely make some new ones soon! How can you beat Disney cupcakes...and fairly easy ones at that! http://spoonful.com/disney/top-disney-cupcake-recipes-gallery?cmp=NLC-NL|spoon|SpoonfulRecipes|Hero|Best-EverDisneyCupcakes||021913|||famM|#carousel-id=photo-carousel&carousel-item=46

First these are a set of hockey themed cupcakes for my Capital Crazy office mate for her 40th birthday last winter. Tough to see in the picture - but they say Happy Puck-ing Birthday :) I have to admit I was pretty proud of myself on this as she may use the F-word a little more than most - so thought it was fitting :) The Hockey Pucks are chocolate covered mini-oreos with icing 40s or NHL on them and the Jerseys I made from red-candy melts in the shape of shirts.

Next up are Pirate themed cupcakes for Mr. Ethan's 6th birthday last year. I followed a Pirate face patern I found online using fruit rollups for the headbands and then icing with candy eyes for the faces. For the sand I used brown sugar (YUM!) and then I made the little treasure chests out of mini-twix bars that I cut opened and filled with icing and rock candy for jewels.

In addition to the Pirate faces, I made a Pirate Island scene using a set of legos as in addition to loving Pirates, Mr. E is all about Legos, so this doubled as part of his present then. It was actually pretty easy and really fun to make the scene just using colored icing, the sugar rocks and sand and then pretzel sticks topped with icing for the trees.  

And last but not least, a Cupcake-cake, which I don't ususally do, but was requested for a rock-themed 60th birthday party. Turned out to be a lot of fun! Think the biggest challenge was on my friend Christy for getting it to the party! :) This was pretty much all icing work, with sanding sugar for the color (red is still such a tough color for me to get right with icing) and think they taste great that way! Just used a few chocolate chips for the bottom of the strings and used icing and silver colored sugar covered baby cookies/crackers (all about being resourceful :) for the part of the guitar holding the strings and wa-la..a Cupcake Guitar!

Well that's all I have for today, and my little ear-infected Addie (the reason I am home today) has decided that she is not in the mood to nap, so need to go get her. Happy February! :)

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Back to blogging? Maybe :)

I'm guessing most have given up on me blogging - I honestly had as well :) but scrolling through my blog this weekend, I have been inspired to try again. I know I won't blog often - especially since I'm not actually baking a whole lot these days (15 months in and I'm still figuring out the two kids balancing act :) but think I will still give it a try!



A year and a half later...a world of difference in my life!
(Outerspace cupcakes for a co-worker. Satellites made of laffy taffy!)

 So to catch on life since my last post in August of 2011 - YIKES! We have had another baby- a little girl, who is now not really a baby anymore. She is an all out toddler these days. Cute as a cupcake for sure, but she is definitely giving me a run for my money (think she is TOO much like me :) she does not sit still, she is into everything, she can't talk but knows how to tell you exactly what she wants! Luckily she does have a ridiculously adorable smile and knows how to light up any room. My son who was a toddler last time I wrote is now a pretty well spoken 3 year old! Everyday I am amazed at how grown up he is - and how he knows all these big words all of a sudden. When I picked him up from school on Friday - he goes "Seriously, Mommy?" Ha. That one might be my fault - but surprised me none-the-less. He keeps us laughing - and the two of them together are definitely double trouble! And they are absolutely my excuse as to why I have not been baking or writing or doing much besides keeping them happy and out of trouble, working, and running - BUT I wouldn't have it any other way :)


My All to grown up Three-Year Old! Kellan Wazowski :)



My Princess...at 15 months - definitely not a baby anymore
(wearing her Penguins Cheerleading Outfit as what else is a good Pittsburgh fan to do on a Baltimore-San Fran Super Bowl Day but cheer for our Hockey team :)
 

Speaking of running - while I have trained a lot over the past year since having my little princess, I have not raced much and the races I have run have not been anything to write-ome about. Life has just been busy and despite what I thought has been solid training, I have not been able to sleep much over the past year and honestly other things such as the kids birthday parties and Halloween Parades(which fell on the same day as my fall marathon) have been more important. And I'm okay with that - as while I am confident I will have many more marathons and races, I am pretty sure I only have a few Halloweens when the kids let me get to pick, design, and create their costumes. For the record we did win the local Halloween Costume Contest - so that was pretty cool and definitely made up for a not so great marathon. Now that it is a new year and the kids are a little older though, I do plan to try again to tackle my PRS (all from pre-kids 2008/09 timeframe still) - so we'll see what the year brings, starting with the Myrtle Beach half marathon in a few weeks!

 

Kellan McQueen

Addie Shiftwell

 

 

This Whole Cars Gang (including me as FLO still in my MCM Finisher Jacket!)

Okay and now to the real meat of the blog - a year and a half worth of cupcakes to catch up on- aghh! Although, like I said I have not baked all that much due to the juggling of kids, running, working, and trying to have some fun :) so not as many as could have been...but still a few fun ones. As a warning these are not going to be in any logical order as much of the past year and a half really is a blur :) at least time-wise! Lots of great memories - just not sure of the order!

Since I started by talking about the Cars Halloween costumes I made this year - we'll start with the Cars cakes and cupcakes for Addie's first birthday and Kellan's 3rd birthday celebration. The first of hopefully many joint birthday parties (until they are old enough to want their own :) 

Holley and Lightning Cakes

Cars Cupcakes to complete our Cars Fall!

I did a smash cake Holley for Addie and since I was in mini-cake mode, I also made one for Kellan. I ran out of time on the cupcakes so they are not my favorites - but I used grahm crakers for the wind-shields and if you have ever had grahm cracker and icing - you may know it's a pretty awesome combination - so despite not my best decorating, all of the kids and parents still seemed to enjoy the cupcakes!


Lightning and Mater Costumes Doubling as Decorations welcoming guests!

To combat all the sugar, the practical mother of two I now am gave out tootbrushes as favors
(which were actually a big hit with all the kids and parents, too!)

As you can see from the cars costumes and cars cupcakes for Kellan and Addie's birthday - we continued our Pixar theme from last year. Oh guess I did not write about last years yet - hmmm. Okay quick review. Last fall we did Toy Story for Halloween and Kellan's 2nd Birthday...

Kellan Lightyear and Daddy as Woody! People did stop them and ask for autographs!

The whole Toy Story Gang (Baby Addie is hiding under my Mrs. Potato head costume as she was born about 2 weeks later!)

My mother-in-law actually made all of the costumes but Kellan's Buzz - which I did make. She did a pretty amazing job - clearly :) and we did win the Halloween Parade Costume for the first time after taking second place the two years before. This Halloween thing has become a pretty big deal with us if you can't tell :) And like this year, we carried the Toy Story theme right into Kellan's birthday party - since Buzz light year has been one of his all-time favorites for quite a while now! 

The craft table set-up for Kellan's Toy Story Birthday - complete with real "The Claw" machine

 

Another excuse to make Toy Story Cupcakes!

 

 

The Birthday boy enjoying his last birthday without a little sister to share it with (and yes I do mean share it with as Addie decided it was time to join the party hours after Kellan's real birthday - we had the party early just in case :)

Okay - so now we are caught up on the past two birthdays and Halloweens (sorry lil more than just cupcakes), as you can see Oct-Nov are super busy times at our house. I have always loved fall though - so it's absolutely perfect in my mind that both of the kids birthdays fall at such a fun time of year!

 

Well since my favorite 15 month old just woke up and is now demanding my attention...going to do a quick dump of a few of my other favorites from the year quickly before she tears up every tissue in the house or climbs completely on the desk as she is now trying to do...

 

My favorite easy cupcakes - for teacher appreciation week at the kids school

 The chalk board cupcakes are one of my favorite go-to easy and ALWAYS cute cupcakes. They are really quick to make - as you just need to swirl on icing and then add chocolate covered grahmcrakers with icing letters/numbers on them. The final touch is the runt apples and the good and plety pieces of chalk- and done!


Nationals Cupcakes for a 30th birthday

Thought these were fun as have not really ever done baseball cupcakes. I made bats out of caramel and then used the white chocolate melts as the little balls. Then to make the hats and bigger baseballs I used the pull and peel licorice. The ball cap brims are just melted red/white chocolate. 

And last but not least (for this post at least) these were probably the highlight of my "cupcaking" last year. High-heeled cupcakes for my Aunt's 50th birthday party last spring. I had SO much fun making these FAB @ 50 cupcakes. I kept them pretty simple as I made them in my mom's kitchen in Pittsburgh (so I only had what I brought with me - not my full baking cupboard). I used the pirouette cookie sticks for the heals and then grahmcracker soul of the shoe (again remember the graham/icing combination - yum!) I did a mix of bows and other decoration out of Extra pink gum and the jumbo sized sprinkles. Also used lots of sanding sugar to make the color pop - and to save me from having to dye different colors of icing - making them easier.

 

Well that will have to wrap it up for now - hopefully more to come if I can keep on top of things, but for now Princess Adelyn has had enough of me ignoring her for the computer and keeps stealing my mouse to get my attention. So so long for now. Happy Super Bowl Sunday!

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