Valentine's cupcakes

We had the annual "Mayfair Live" talent show and dessert bar again at church this year and I made some delicious goodies. I got this idea from my cupcake book to make a "box of chocolates" instead of making mini cupcakes in a regular chocolate box, I made regular size cupcakes in a giant chocolate box that I made from posterboard. They were red velvet cupcakes with chocolate frosting instead of traditional cream cheese frosting. I just got as much pink, red, white, and chocolate candies out that I had, bought some more too and went to town. I was so pleased with how these turned out as you might be able to tell by all the detailed pics below:








I also made some regular things too, these tortes are filled with nutella, carmel, chocolate and topped with pecans.
And I made the cake on the left. It is an Italian Creme cake. Joanne made this delicious cake on the right. It is chocolate cake covered in peanut butter icing and topped with reeses cups and pieces (yuuummmmmmmmy)!!!

Lana made this pretty strawberry cake below, I wish I had got a piece because I love strawberry but I got full before I could try any.

And I dont know who made these last two but they looked really impressive and delicious.

There were many more and too many to try all but it was great as usual and I am glad all my things turned out well despite the minor complications I had when making them.

Christmas Light Bulb Cupcakes

Yet another great cupcake idea from the awesome cupcake book Katie got me for my bday. I made these cute cupcakes for the kiddos in the Christmas play at church a few days ago. I think they turned out excellent. I was going to just leave them plain without the "cording" but I thought they looked like Easter eggs without it. It really completes the whole look.


I think my favorite part of the whole thing is the little electrical plug at the end of all the lights! The kids really liked them and I had fun making them. Thanks again Katie for the cupcake book :) It has really come in handy for cupcake ideas!!

randomness of sorts

Since i am still behind on all the updating, here is a compilation of our lives the last couple of weeks that would make for very short blog posts individually:

On our way home from Waltonia, we stopped at a great outlet mall in Roundrock, TX. We spent a couple of hours there and didnt even see half the mall. Matt really hit the goldmine at the Adidas store though. He bought a plethora of normally very expensive Houston Rockets and other brightly orange colored gear at a steal of a price.

As you know, orange is Matt's second favorite color...only to yellow:

The best part of the whole outfit is that Matt got this awesome jacket that says Space City (one of Houston's nicknames) on the front, with a Rockets logo on the back and besides that it is yellow, the inside lining is "the space". Its pretty cheesy but awesome too!

Then, 2 weeks ago, I surprise Matt with a secret date when he got back from DC to go see Earth Wind and Fire and Chicago. We had talked about going before I got laid off then decided not to spend extra money until I got another job. And to my surprise, they still had tickets a few days before. It was a funktastic concert, as Matt called it but also interesting because it was at the Zoo Ampitheatre which we have never been to before. It is like the fair, it brings out a lot of crazies wearing lots of crazy clothes with lots of crazy haircuts!!

Unfortunately, we couldnt take our camera in so these are the only 2 pics we got. I made Matt wear a blindfold and everything but I think he kind of knew.

And then, last weekend was our 7th Annual Fantasy Football draft into the Leaugue of Ultimate Destruction! Shay got the good end of the deal but our team is not too shabby. It was a good time had by all and I finally got to try and make this guacomole football field. I thought I was going to have all this room to make every yard line, hash marks, logos, etc. But as it turns out, there wasnt even enough room to use the correct amout of football players (tomatoes) on the field. But it turned out pretty well anyway...and yes the white piping is sour cream. It kind of grossed me out to pipe sour cream instead of icing!

The destruction has already begun!!


And then this last weekend, Matt's parents came down to visit us and we had a grand ol' time just hanging out and relaxing. We didnt do a whole lot but play with the animals, go for walks, cook, and eat at Sophabella's.

Lucy being really weird. She never lays like this long than about 15 seconds.

And Oreo and Lucy never get this close but never say never I guess.

And by Matt's special request, I made him a chocolate cheesecake. It was supposed to be the Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory but it wasnt quite that. It was more like a Ghiradelli Chocolate Stumpy cheesecake that was really confusing and slightly difficult to make. But he liked it a lot so that is all that matters. And in the end, it looked pretty!

Finally, here is a shot of Matt, Derek, and I dressed up as bible characters from the book of Genesis as a celebration to the last day of our 1.5 year long study in Genesis. Can you guess who we are:

Craftiness all around

Well I went to Waltonia with the intention of making at least two scarfs but only made one. However, it turned out well and if I dont give it away, I will keep it myself.

I wont let a little thing like the dirty river get in my way of knitting. It was too dirty for me the first day from the rain. Knitting was a better use of my time :)

And by request of Deanna, I brought my cupcake supplies and we made an awesome cupcake creation. I got the idea from my cupcake book. The gave the idea of making a family tree with cupcakes and that is exactly what we did. We also made a cupcake cake with the river and mini replica of the cabins and landscape of Waltonia.

The whole fam...

Grandma and Grandad

Margaret (who actually isnt related but a close friend and coworker of Matt's grandad for like 20 years. She comes to Waltonia every year).Aunt Mary

Trina (matt's aunt) and her family

Matt's Uncle and fam (he has one green eye and one brown eye in case you were wondering why there are two colors on there).

Andy (Matt's other uncle), Sally and Hudson
Our family (John, Monica, Deanna, Matt, Me)

The Waltonia landscape.

Hudson helped me draw all the faces ahead of time so I could get the features right and make the glasses and things.

Us eating ourselves, which sounds creepy.

And lastly, our annual picture by the sign. Until next year....

Harry Potter Cupcakes

I made these cute cupcakes for my mom's late birthday festivities this weekend in honor of our family movie outing to see none other than the new Harry Potter movie. Shay had sent me a pic last week of some similar cupcakes so I thought it would fun to make them.

Brown scraggly hair, blue eyes, black round glasses, and a lightning bolt scar of course!!

It was the "bomb.com" shower

At least thats what Derek called it! And I think Katie and Ryan had a good time too. If you havent already read Katie's post, I am going to recap the shower as well. Well for me, it all started on Friday night when I was attempting to decide what cupcakes I was going to make for Katie and our fellow church friends. After many failed attempts to pipe the design of her baby room fabric, I decided that I was going to make an army of babies (cupcakes that is). I had already planned to make 24 but then when the other plan failed, I went ahead and decided to make 60 little babies!

So in the midst of finding a lost dog, returning it, getting my haircut, and helping with a wedding on Saturday, the cupcakes were made (with the help of my crafty partner in crime, Joanne Steward).

And here they are:

Babies Everywhere!!!

The crybabies,

the babies with pacifiers and bibs, and the babies with bottles.

Here is a closeup of some and below is a picture of the cute doll bunkbeds and other vintage decor that the ladies picked out.Some other girls got crafty too and made these cute arrangements of clothes, diapers, and who know what else stuffed inside.

Doesnt Ryan looked thrilled about the shower AND to become a father!!!

This was one of the biggest showers in a while. There were at lease 50 people there. Katie is sooooo popular!

But anyway, it was a fun time and I was glad to be able to make something special (no pun intented) for her shower. Thanks for always being a great friend to me Katie and congratulations on your new baby to come. Its too bad I wont be able to watch her :(