Cakes, Cupcakes, and Sprinkles, Oh My!!!

Just thought I'd share something close

to my heart and my tummy. Cupcakes are my passion. Hope you enjoy as much as I do!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Deliciousness:

chocolate cupcake, with or without mini Reese's cooked
in the middle, peanut butter buttercream, chocolate sprinkles
and a Reese's on top

Spice Cupcake: Cream Cheese Frosting,
topped with mini chocolate chips, and
a sprinkle of cloves

Grasshopper cupcakes: chocolate cupcake

with grasshopper cookies mixed in the
batter, creme de menthe buttercream, topped
with chocolate sauce. Sometimes I sprinkle
with mini chocolate chips or grasshopper crumbs instead
 of sauce

My version of a twinkie/ding-dong: yellow

cupcake, with chocolate glaze, whipped cream or
buttercream filling and a buttercream curly cue

Carrot Cake: Cream cheese frosting

 Lemon Cupcakes with lemon curd filling:

topped with whipped cream and a lemon drop

Confetti cupcakes: basic white cupcake
with sprinkles in batter topped with regular buttercream
frosting in different colors

Famous Red Velvet cupcakes: topped with
traditional cream cheese frosting, rimmed with
red sprinkles, topped with a cherry and chocolate
glaze

 

Berries and Cream Cupcakes:

White cupcakes with raspberry preserves swirled into

batter, with fresh raspberry buttercream, topped with white

chocolate curls and fresh raspberries

 

 

My first 50th Wedding Anniversary Cake

 

Golf Ball Birthday Cake

The little lady's 1st birthday cake

Spring Cake I've shown before

Another spring cake I haven't shown

before

My sister's baby shower cake

 

Call me for all your cupcake needs {or

indulgences}.  Whatever the case,Cupcakes Couture is alive and well. I have many other yummy ideas up my sleeve, some I've tried, others I want to try. 

Summer Tales Continued

The view with the pines was fabulous, but the girl needed

a little danger in her life.  The girls took her lady and gents to

a land where dinosaurs roamed.  They battled ferociously with the beasts

until the heat got to them.

Good thing they weren't eaten!!!

Following their beastly battles, the ladies and gents took the

opportunity to enjoy the scenery above their beautiful mountain home.

The long trek gave some much needed family time.  It was well

worth the effort.

Feeling very uncreative at the moment, the girl decided to give her story

a rest and decided just to show pictures and give info.

This is our annual zoo trip.  It's one of my favorite places to take the

kids.  I absolutely love the zoo.  Don't ask me why.  Many people find it

so boring, but I just love it.

My little monkies measure up well don't they?

We thought this picture looked like a rhinocerlimo.  Looks like he has

an extra behind.  {Hope that's not what people say about me! Ha Ha}

Here's to great moments captured forever!

Occasional glimpses of pure love amongst the many tempests.

Makes me kind of teary.  Was a great picture!

There's nothing better than all the yummy treats at the zoo!

My jungle critters!

There's just something about giraffes that I love.

It's tradition that we ride the train just before leaving.  They're so tired and

sunburned.  But boy did they make some memories.  That's what

the zoo is about for me.  Making memories with my kids.  Love it!!!

Summer Tales

Once upon a time there was a girl who started

a blog.  Her optimistic intentions were good but she nearly never

succeded in much of anything she tried.  She, admittedly, often let life

get the best of her and let her blog go just as she had so many

other goals in her life.  Determined to get her life back on track she

put the kids to bed, she sat in her comfy leather chair and blogged until

she was satisfied. She would not let life pass her by again. 

This is her story. 

It begins in a land not so far away, where

the View is very Piney...

 

...the gents are very handsome...

...the ladies are very happy...

...the elephants are very blue...

...and the girls, are very girly.

As good as the girls intentions were to sit and blog until she

was satisfied, her stupid computer was running so slow

that she was about to throw it out the window.  So,

here's a great start to her story, but you'll have to wait til tomorrow

to see how it ends... {Plus she forgot to put

a picture of her other handsome gent in and can't figure out how

to get it to go where she wants...[Help her somebody...PPLLLEEEEAASE!!!]}

"Sleeping Beauty"

Just before Dev's first dance recital, she decided she didn't want to smile for any pictures, thus, resulting in an unhappy sleeping beauty.

All it took to lift "SB's" spirit was her very own dance trophy.

She didn't let go of it all night. She wouldn't even

part with it to go to sleep. She was on cloud 9 all night long.

Her first recital was one of the proudest moments of my life, thus far because

it was the first big mother daughter experience we've had together. I

love having her to share these moments with. It was a perfect

day with my sleeping beauty.

My big blue eyes

For being a fairly intelligent person, I can be pretty stupid sometimes. Yesterday I spent all this time navigating around my blog page trying to familiarize myself with it and creating a memorable page I can be proud of. I was feeling pretty good about what I'd done until I started looking at blogs your blogs (yes I'm talking to you!!!). Big mistake, (or so I thought at first). Don't feel bad, though. Read on. Every single blog I saw was incredibly unique to your styles and so well thought out. Your fantastic pictures showed how talented each of you are. My insecurities got the best of me and I wondered why I even started into this new venture. Feeling a bit down, Preston came up to me and said, "Mom, what's the matter? Why are you sad?" Embarrassed that my feelings were so transparent I said, "I don't know. I just don't feel like I have any talents. It seems like everyone around me does things so much better than I do." Those big blue eyes pierced my soul and matter-of -factly he said, "Mom. You are the best mom ever. You do everything so perfect. You do everything good and you're the best mom in he whole world." Inch by inch he snuggled up to me, and I asked him what he was doing. Sweetly he said, "I just want to be as close to you as I can so you know how much I love you." What an angel. Completing a perfect 180, I now realize how lucky I am to be part of such a talented group of women, no less be related to you. I learn so much from each of you and secretly hope you'll all rub off on me just a litte bit. And guess what? I'm even proud of my page because it's something I created and there's no right or wrong way to do it. Sure, it's not the best one I've seen, but it's mine, and I'll get better the more I do it. The words of my "big blue eyes" made a huge impression on me, jarring my memory helping me to remember why I started this blog in the first place: to remember the many experiences and lessons I learn from my beloved friends and family. I've got to remember that life is not a competition, especially not against my teammates; my family and friends. Well, lesson learned.

THE GAME

As a kid, I spent a fair amount of time playing sports. Sports allowed me to create a world for myself. A world full of confidence, competitiveness, and desire. A desire to do the best and be the best for me and for my team. And no matter how much time I spent on the field, I could never get enough. I rarely missed a practice and could barely wait for a game to start. In my world I knew who I was and what was expected of me. Sports are a lot like life. There are times when we forget who we are and what we're supposed to do. A ball is occasionally dropped. The refs sometimes make a bad call that puts us behind. But when we hit that home run or make that winning soccer goal, even if for just a moment, life is pure perfection. My team now is a lot different than it used to be. It consists of a husband and three crazy, but awesome kids. Sometimes I let the other team get the best of me my confidence lacks, and I end up letting my team down. When this happens nobody has a chance to win. But as long as I keep picking myself up when we're behind I'll be able to give my best to my team and we'll win every time. We might even have a little fun doing it. I just hope my team knows that as hard as life gets, I'll never give up. In sports and life, it really is all about how we play the game.

Life update

For Easter, we decided to have a "staycation." Jen Rodgers

got us rooms at the Marriott that were originally $219 for only $59,

so it was a really good deal.

Devree said she saw skin by the easter bunny's

hands so she knew he was just a person dressed up. This was at

Easter brunch. It was so fun. The food was absolutely delicious: there

was crab and shrimp, every kind of breakfast food imaginable, prime rib,

stuffed chicken, salmon, all kinds of fruit, and about a hundred different

kinds of salads. And they had easter cupcakes, andsugar cookies, and

baskets filled with eggs on the tables. It was a great ending

to a great weekend.

The Easter Bunny even managed to find us in our room. What's funny,

is that we've never talked about the Easter Bunny, but the first

thing Preston said was"Mom, the Easter Bunny found us. He

must have used the elevator to find us." Devree just said, "Thanks,

dad for the basket!" Then she told Mikey, after we got home, that the Easter Bunny

was just a person dressed up in a bunny costume.

The kids couldn't have had more fun, I don't think. The

highlight was, obviously, the swimming pool. We spent most

of our time here. We did havethe opportunity to go take a tour

of temple square. That was a great day, andI wish I had taken the

camera. It was a spur of the moment thing, though,after we went on

an Easter egg hunt. We tried to watch the Joseph Smith movie.

When I say tried, I mean that I was outsidemost of the movie with

Luke while Eric and the kids were watching the movie.I would make

that sacrifice every time too because for two days after,

Preston kept commenting on how "good [his] heart felt after

that Joseph Smith movie." The Spirit truly testified to him

that day of the truthfulness of Joseph Smith and the gospel.

It was a great thing for a parent to see.

Lukey's birthday.

At least we know he liked his present.

I don't know who was more excited for the presents:

Preston and Devree, or Luke.

Lukey's birthday sort of got ruined because of his

pneumonia/respiratory/low blood oxygen. He had to be

on oxygen the whole night and was so sick so we

had to cancel the party. We just had our little

family one and had fun anyway.

We found some beautiful flowers at Costco and

the kids helped to plant my planters for my porch.
Unfortunately, it snowed two days later and

I have yet to see if they are going to live. I think

they're doing o.k. so far. (Do you think it's ironic there is
a snowman in the background? Ha Ha!!!)

Preston's birthday party

It happened to be Layton Elementary night

so there were only like about a thousand

kids running around. Also, I had been sick for

about three weeks with strep throat that I couldn't kick,

and had to make these Mario cupcakes that got

destroyed on the way to the party. The joys of motherhood!!!

I've been practicing my cake skills again. Was in

the mood for spring!!!

When grandma and grandpa were in Hawaii, we

hi-jacked their hot tub.