Daniel's birthday.

Yesterday we celebrated Daniel's 26th birthday! I tried to make it special for him, I made some baked ziti for him and his whole family and also some cupcakes.  We had his parents, his brothers and their wives and our little niece.  It was a good time of just hanging out with the family-- I like moments like that. Here's the cupcakes I made for him-- I tried some new recipes.  We had peanut butter cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting.  I also piped some cute little chocolate decorations.

 The little chocolate decorations are the number 26 and hearts if you can't tell.  Last night a few people thought that they were butterflies, or upside down bows. Haha.

Leeland loved his peanut butter cupcake.... And made quite a mess with it!

Happy birthday Daniel! I truly hope that we made you feel special and I hope that you had a great time celebrating. We love you!

Wonder Pets Cake

Yesterday was my nephew's 1st birthday and here are a few photos of his Wonder Pets themed cake that I made, a sheet cake, and his own personal "smash cake."

I'd say that's the look of a satisfied customer!

50th birthday cake.

Last weekend the family got together to celebrate my Father-in-Law's 50th birthday.  I made the cake, and really struggled coming up with an idea.  If you ever google 50th birthday slogans, cakes, etc, a lot of jokes about death come up.  The themes are always black, and I even saw a few cakes that just had tombstones on them.  Not the idea, I was after.... If someone threw me a doomsday 50th birthday party, I would probably kick them in the shin.  It's a little rude.  Here's what me and Daniel came up with:

Methuselah is the oldest person in the Bible whose age is mentioned.  Did I mention that my FIL's a pastor?  Biblical joke.  Anyways, it was a hit! Check out those lovely layers of chocolate and white cake with LOADS of chocolate buttercream frosting!  And if I don't do a good enough job of talking it up here, here's a perfect advertisement....

A hit with the baby as well!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

You may remember my rant about loving Fall and all things pumpkin in this Fall Fever post. Tonight I shall share with you my recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.  There are SO many recipes out there for these, and many people claim that theirs is the best.  I haven't tasted enough to know if my recipe is the best but I know that 24 muffins in our little house of 3 (keep in mind Leeland is only 17 months old) only lasts about 2 days.  Plus, from being married to Daniel for so long, a pickier eater and one who orders the same thing off the menu every time we go to a restaurant, I have learned, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."  Seriously though, one of the things that I love about this particular recipe is it's simplicity.  I can whip them up in no time and they don't require a ton of ingredients that will break the bank. (This recipe makes 24 muffins) So here it goes:

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

3 1/3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp pumpkin spice*
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 can pumpkin**
1 cup butter
2 cups chocolate chips***

Super easy recipe-- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  First mix all of your dry ingredients in one bowl, and then in a separate bowl you mix all of your wet ingredients.

*Note about pumpkin spice-- spices are expensive, and times are tight.  A perfectly good substitute that I have used for the pumpkin spice that turns out fabulous is a dash of ginger, a couple dashes of nutmeg, and a few dashes of cinnamon. (That's more like a ratio, just make sure all those dashes add up to 1 teaspoon.)

**Note about the pumpkin-- make sure you are using pure 100% pumpkin. You don't want to use pumpkin pie filling, that is different and has sugar and stuff already added to it.

Once both are mixed, mix them together and add your chocolate chips. You shouldn't even need to bust out the electric mixer.

And your gonna want to mix the chocolate chips in.... :0)

***And a note about the chocolate chips-- the recipe calls for 1 cup. Honestly I use the whole 11 ounce bag of chocolate chips.  There is no shame in a little extra chocolate!  We use milk chocolate chips, I'm sure that others may work just as well. To each his own and to each his own taste.

After that, you just add the mixture to your greased muffin tins (or you could use cute little wrappers).  And you bake them for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Or if your cheap like me, and don't buy toothpicks, bake them until a chop stick comes out clean. Yes that is how I test all of my baked goods are done.

Toothpick? Chop stick? Same thing right!

Happy baking everyone! Enjoy your tasty pumpkin treats!!

Lightning McQueen

One of my sister's friends ordered a cake from me this week for her son's 3rd birthday party. He was having a "Cars" party and specifically requested "Lightning McQueen" and it was also said that the cake had to have some blue and green on it.  So this is what I came up with:

Pirate Pride!

Here are some photos of the cake and cupcakes that I made for my brother's graduation party tomorrow. He is graduating from East Carolina University--their colors are purple and gold and their mascot is the pirates. (And yes his graduation party is like a month behind.... that's how my family rolls.)

 Purple and gold! One of my favorite parts of the football games is when the crowd on each side of the stadium shout at each other. One side yells "PURPLE!" and one side yells, "GOLD!!". It's a lot of fun!

Congratulations brother!! We are so proud of you and all you have accomplished!

Cupcakes & Father's Day.

Happy Father's day to all of those wonderful Dad's out there! This year we celebrated Daniel's 2nd Father's day! What a joyous occasion it is! My hope is that he always feels appreciated, loved and respected by Leeland and I, but it is nice to set aside at least 1 day and make him feel EXTRA appreciated, loved and respected. Daniel is for sure the love of my life and since we have gotten married, times have been pretty tough. An adjustment to married life, an adjustment to a baby a year later, and with the recession finances have been ultra tight. But Daniel is such an amazing man! When I'm down, he's up and he's one the most hard-working, caring, and dedicated men I have ever met! He will do anything to support his family and I'm so thankful that he had today off work to get some true R & R for his Father's Day.  I know that God made he for me, and me for him. We truly are the perfect match that God worked out and put together in His perfect timing. So happy Father's Day honey! I look forward to many, many more!

It seems I had lots of baking this weekend. You may remember my post from yesterday, making my little cousin's Hello Kitty Birthday Cake. Today I was hard at work on some cupcakes! Cupcakes for Father's Day to take to my parent's house when we celebrate, and some cupcakes to take to work. Here are the Father's Day cakes for my dad, family.

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate butter cream!

My attempt at adding sprinkles, but they rolled right off. Darn! I thought sprinkles would make them extra manly.

And some more cupcakes!.... One of the beauties of working in a small office, (there are 6 of us, 2 full-time and 4 part-time) is that there is no harm in setting aside an hour 6 times a year to have food, fellowship and celebrate each person's birthday! So naturally when we were all discussing what we were going to bring to the birthday celebration, sweets was my category!

Cute, simple, and sweet flowers! Same chocolate cupcakes and this is just colored butter cream frosting.

Hope everyone else had a lovely weekend! The downside to all these sweets I worked on this weekend is that I'm pretty sure I gained at least 5 pounds. Back to running tomorrow for sure!

Hello Kitty

Today is my little cousin's birthday! It's actually my cousin's daughter-- so that makes her my cousin too, right!? haha. I'm not very good at the whole family connections and relations thing. I'm terrible at Christmas and family reunions-- I usually don't even know half the people there. Terrible, right? 

Regardless of the family connection, I was asked to make her birthday cake. Her 8th birthday party them is Hello Kitty!

Happy 8th  Birthday Madison! Hope you enjoy your chocolate cake tomorrow!!

Days at home.

     I intended to post this weekend and then I didn't get around to it-- I was thoroughly enjoying my time at home with my little man. Please forgive me but I LOVE my weekends! I have come to look forward to those 3 days a week that I am off work and can be full-time Mommy. It really makes me miss being a stay-at-home Mom. Some may think I'm being too whiny considering I only work 20 hours a week, but that's 20 hours a week, a little over 80 hours a month and 1040 hours a year that I am missing with my sweet little boy.... And that's not even counting drive time! 

     I also would like to add that on my days at home, I get a ton more done! I feel like I'm actually being the homemaker I'm supposed to be and capable of being. Catching up on laundry, cooking home cooked meals that include dessert! It may some weird to some, but it's what keeps me ticking, what I yearn to do, what I feel like I was made to do!

    Without further ado, here's our dinner Saturday! I made Rachael Rays "Harvest Moon Macaroni". It's kind of become a favorite, and it's a SUPER easy way to add veggies to your diet, or your toddler's diet (or husband's) without them knowing. It's a butternut squash sauce with cheese (of course!) and macaroni.

Butternut squash pasta sauce!

The finished product--minus some ;0)

    The beauty of cooking is that you can "tweek" recipes and make them your own.  Our family doesn't have dinner without a protein, so I baked some chicken, shredded it with 2 forks and threw it into the macaroni as well. It was super yummy.  I was also thinking I could hide even more veggies in it, but didn't have many on hand.

And for dessert...... CHOCOLATE CHESS PIE!!!! We LOVE chocolate! And I'll share the recipe with you!

Ingredients:
-1/4 cup of butter                                           -pinch of salt
-2 squares of Baker's unsweet chocolate       -1/2 cup of milk
-1 1/2 cups of sugar                                       -2 eggs
-1 tablespoon of flour                                    -1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-1 unbaked frozen pie crust

First melt the butter and the chocolate in a small sauce pan.

If this weren't unsweet, I'd be all over that pan.

Once your chocolate and butter are melted, add them to a bowl and add your dry ingredients. Mix a little so that the mixture cools before adding your eggs. Then add your wet ingredients and mix. Once it is mixed, beat on medium speed 5-6 minutes.

This is just after it's mixed

After 6 minutes of beating. That time makes a HUGE difference. Makes the batter fluffy like pudding :0)

Pour the batter into your pie crust and bake at 350 degrees for 35-45 minutes or until the pie is set.

The pie will rise...

and then the pie will fall....

I have made 2 of these pies this weekend and I haven't figured out why they keep falling, but they do. Regardless of what it may look like, looks don't really matter, the pie tastes pretty darn heavenly!!

Memorial Day.

I would first like to wish you all a very happy Memorial Day! A special thanks to all of our veterans and those who are currently serving our country. We truly appreciate you and love each of you for what you do to protect our freedom.

I hope that everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day-- it was a hot one here in North Carolina! Wooo! I'm not good in hot weather.... it's not quite summer yet, but this 90 degree weather is killing me. Of the 4 seasons, Summer is definitely my least favorite!

I spent my day baking! I had a cake order for one of my sister's friends. Her little girl is turning 4 this week and she requested a Disney princess cake! She also wanted me to make a name plaque for her.

That is a very pink cake! And the letters on the name plaque are glittery-- I tried to get a close up but I'm still learning how to use our fancy camera. Anyone want to give me lessons on how to use my camera to take professional pictures?? I have a Nikon D3000, and I'm not picture savvy.

I didn't only do baking for little Kendra-- my husband and I have both had sweet tooths the past few days so I made us some cookies too. Cake mix cookies.... That's right, did you know you can make cookies out of cake mix? This was my 1st time and they tasted awesome! I made them with "Betty Crocker Triple Chocolate Fudge" cake mix. All you do is mix the cake mix with 1 stick of softened butter and 1 egg. Bake them at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. They come out thick and chewy and yummy!!

And I can't finish out a post without talking about our little man Leeland, so here are a few pictures that we took of Leeland yesterday at the playground at our apartment.

He's growing TOO fast!

"But why can't I eat the mulch Mom??"

Loves his football.

Dandelion.

hehe!