cupcakes and other goodies

I took a little break from baking this week (but only a few days, I promise, LOL). Last weekend I did a chocolate chip cheesecake (with a devil's food crust) and chocolate mint bars to take to a picnic at my parents' house because my uncle was in from Chicago. After that, I took a break all week, until yesterday when I made snickerdoodle cupcakes. They're a cinnamon sugar cupcake with a cinnamon buttercream frosting.

The kids also had their first day of school this week. So far, so good! *crosses fingers*

There's a story missing here but I'm still pretty peeved about that, so I'll save it for another time (it involves some 9 billion year old man hitting my parked car twice in the school parking lot).

family portraits (a photo entry)

I spent the morning with the Zalewski family taking their first official family portraits since their youngest son was around 2 years old. Here are a few shots from today (we ended up at Wintergreen Gorge Cemetery and at their house for some shots with their pets).

They had some fantastic natural light coming in from their front windows in the living room. I had to take advantage of it!

I had a lot of fun with them this morning and I hope they did too!

Back to work!

Up until last week I was really looking forward to going back to work. This morning, I'm dreading it.

I'm going to try to not let that bother me because yesterday, was a damn near excellent day. We had open house at the school last night. Walking up to the doors I was ready to throw up because I was completely worried that the Connor would get the same teacher Mason had last year, and I just wasn't going to go through that again. Thankfully, they both ended up with exactly the teachers I wanted them to get and I almost cried. I made Dave read the lists because I was terrified to do it.

Also yesterday, I sent Dave to work with 4 dozen mini cupcakes (Cinnamon toast ones and vanilla with chocolate buttercream). He kept telling me something like 'oh, they won't eat cupcakes, I'll be bringing all of them home, I bet you!'. Well? He was completely and totally WRONG! They pretty much flew out of the box. The girl who had the birthday yesterday sent me an email and thanked me repeatedly for sending in cupcakes for their food/birthday day. I'll be making other ones in a few weeks for their next birthday, for sure. I'll post pictures of the ones I sent (of course).

The only (somewhat) bad part of yesterday was giving the dog a bath. Usually when it's hot out, I'd just take him out to the driveway and hose him off but he goes apeshit when we get the hose at and growls and barks and snaps at it like it's going to attack him (it's actually hilarious to watch - because he does the same thing with the snow shovel in the winter - we don't quite understand that one). I didn't want to bug the neighbors with his barking so I wrestled him upstairs and tossed him in the bathtub. He was well behaved during the actual bath but when it was time to dry off he went nuts. We have a small bathroom, so he was literally bouncing off the walls in there. I had to clean the entire bathroom after I got him out of there, LOL.

Well, I've rambled on long enough. Wish me luck at work!

those meddling kids!

As much as I am not looking forward to going back to work now, this school year really can't start fast enough.

I'm sick of chasing the neighborhood kids from two houses down out of my somewhat fenced in backyard (it's fenced in on three sides which means the would either have to hop the fence from the yard next door or get to our yard from our driveway). This afternoon I caught them in between our house and the empty house that's for sale next to us throwing rocks and things at our side window that is at the bottom of our stairs. The other day we had pulled in our driveway and there were those kids, spinning each other around in an office chair that they dragged over into our yard. I've really had enough of them.

I also refuse to let my children play with them because they're playing in the street all the time. Their mother (who we affectionately refer to as "Skanky") just sits there on her porch what seems like 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and watches them either play in said street or in the school yard across the street which is fenced in with "private property - no trespassing" signs posted everywhere.

UGH!

Enough about that though. I can't finish a post on a nasty note like that, so I'll leave you with some cupcake shots.

vegan cupcakes

This was my first shot at a vegan recipe. Are you surprised that it's a cupcake? I'm not! I figured if I'm going to start doing this more than just as a hobby, I need to expand my horizons.

I found the recipe HERE.

I left out the chocolate ganache swirl because I didn't have any dark chocolate in the house, but next time I'll make sure I get some.

But, anyway ..... introducing ..... the root beer float cupcake! I made two dozen mini ones and had enough batter left for 6 full size ones. They have a vanilla "buttercream" icing (made with shortening, not butter). I wouldn't normally put that amount of frosting on a cupcake but I loved how it looked like a scoop of ice cream for the photo.

Now, who wants one? *grins*