she's a baker

Emily loves to be in the kitchen.  She is often asking if she can make a treat or help with dinner. The other night she wanted to make cookies so she whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies.  At first I didn't really want her to make them - I hate the after cookie mess but after I got a taste of a warm cookie I was glad I had said yes.  

Em is getting good in the kitchen.  She is capable of handling herself without much supervision and she turns out some really tasty food.  Perhaps someday soon I can turn over all the cooking responsibilities to her - wouldn't that be a fun little break?!

moon cakes

Not sure when baking became part of social studies but we went with it because Emily wanted some extra credit points.

Emily needed to make 30+ moon cakes to earn extra credit in her social studies class.  Baking with a recipe that we had never seen or tasted prove to be a bit of a challenge.  We started at the local Asian market to find lotus bean paste.  After some challenging conversation due to the language barrier a nice customer that spoke both English and Chinese helped us locate red bean paste since the market did not have lotus bean paste (that lotus bean paste is in high demand)

Emily and I worked together to get the dough made, stuffed, shaped and baked.  Our efforts looked nothing like a moon cake and we are not sure how they tasted, since neither of us tried them.  I'm usually up to try something new but was dealing with a not so settled stomach due to our dinner that night (that post coming next)

Although Emily and I did all the baking it really was a fun activity for the whole family.  The kids loved going to the Asian market.  The boys were especially intrigued by all the fish - alive and dead.  I do think Luke enjoyed seeing all the dead fish - eyeballs and all.

adorable

How cute are these cupcake papers? I found them here and am now obsessing about them. I wish I had a reason to use them - Christmas, maybe? They would be cute for delivering cupcakes to folks.

nate's eight

So Monday was Nathan's birthday - the big 8. Here is how we celebrated...

Derek and I went up to school for lunch and brought cupcakes and water for the kids to have during lunch. The cupcakes were a bigger hit then the water (surprise, surprise) but I personally thought the water bottles were better then cupcakes, but what do I know - I'm not 8. We also took up little gift bags that Nathan passed out to his classmates at the end of the day. Nate felt like he had a little party and I hardly did any work - I might have to turn this party at the lunch tables thing in to a tradition :)

One of our birthday traditions is the birthday boy or girl gets to pick the meal for dinner. Nate picks the same gourmet meal every year - frozen chicken nuggets & tater tots - is your mouth watering just thinking about it? The afternoon ended up being a bit overbooked and the grocery store quickly ended up at the bottom of the long to do list. Nate was easily swayed to go out to dinner at a restaurant of his choosing so we ended up at Chili's and enjoyed a nice dinner complete with birthday serenade by the talented wait staff.

We concluded the evening with a birthday gift trip to Target where we each picked up a gift for Nate. We put our very posh wrapping skills to use and wrapped the presents in the back seat of the Suburban using the beautiful and graphic Target bags, handed the gifts to Nate in the middle seat where he opened the bags and found all was right with the world. A rousing rendition of Happy Birthday and we were home for bed.

can you handle more cupcakes?

Here are the latest cupcake creations...

Derek has been in the middle of quarter end closing the financial books. He has spent a lot of long hours at work so as a little pick me up I delivered these goodies for him to share at work. I think these cakes would also be a great April 15th Tax Day treat.Some family friends made plans to travel to Hawaii with their family for Spring Break. To give them a proper send off we delivered these beach cupcakes complete with graham cracker sand and flip flops.

more cupcakes

I have been working on my frosting and I am finally getting the hang of it. For awhile my frosting would just kind of melt - I wasn't getting a thick enough consistency. I made some thicker frosting and everytime I tried to frost the cupcakes I would bust holes into my piping bags because I couldn't get the frosting to come out because it was so thick. I think I have finally figured out the secret so now I can frost the cupcakes with no troubles.I made the cupcakes with the red candies for a friends birthday and the cupcake with the camera I made for a friend that I am taking a photography class with. I love finding little trinkets to use on the top of cupcakes (like the camera) I also love the cupcake boxes that I found at Michael's. The boxes are great for delivering and they make a little cupcake look more like a special little gift.

happy easter

We had a very nice Easter. Derek had no church meetings before church so we were able to enjoy the morning together as a family. Here are a few shots we took before church.
Derek was asked to sub for the 16 and 17 year old Sunday School class. I made some Easter cupcakes on Saturday night for Derek to take to his class - I think the cupcakes got some of the kids out of the hall and into class :)
After church we spent the rest of the evening at my parents house. Ryan and Katie were there as well. We had a nice dinner and a lot of fun together after dinner. We had an impromptu photography session and this picture for whatever reason makes me smile. I realize it is not a great photo but I think it's kinda funny

birthday thanks

I guess I should start posting about the family again. I had been waiting on the return of the computer but since we have no idea how that will end up I guess I'll just start posting using Megan's laptop.

Thanks to everyone that helped to make my birthday so nice. I received lots of birthday wishes and a very special gift from Derek. He compiled a book of letters, written to me from friends and family. It was touching to read all the thoughts - thank you to everyone that contributed and a big thanks to Derek for coming up with such a thoughtful gift.

I delivered cupcakes to thank everyone for thinking of me on my birthday. For those of you that live out of town just imagine I had dropped off a cupcake at your doorstep :)

The note read "thank you for helping to make all my birthday wishes come true" How blessed I am to have such wonderful family and friends - thank you again to everyone.

killing 'em with cupcakes

We have eaten so many cupcakes and given quite a few away the last few days it's crazy. I am on a cupcake baking spree. I have purchased a few cupcake recipe books as well as cute cupcake boxes for packaging when delivering goodies to friends and neighbors.

Here are my latest cupcake creations...rootbeer cupcakes!

These were easy and were a big hit. Take a yellow cake mix and follow the directions on the box but replace the water with the same amount of rootbeer. Add 1/3 of a cup of smashed up rootbeer barrel candies to the mix and then put in muffin tins and bake as usual. For the frosting I used a basic frosting - powder sugar, butter and milk. I thought about using rootbeer instead of the milk but I was worried about an overpowering rootbeer flavor. Now that we've had them though I think I would try rootbeer in the frosting as well. On the top of the cupcake I added more crushed rootbeer barrels - Yummy!

My next cupcake creation was lemonade cupcakes. These were made by scratch and I don't have time to grab the recipe but I will add it to another post. These were yummy as well and I thought adding the lemon candy stick made them look cute - because you know all cupcakes should look cute.