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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| All finished and ready for Easter! |
