hooray weekend!

I have two more days of work (Monday and Tuesday) and then I'm off until January 6th! Jealous? *LOL*

I got to see the Christmas cards that were made with the picture I posted in my last blog entry (the ones that I took for the teacher at school). They came out SO good - I was really pleased with them!

I'm going to be baking this weekend. Two cupcake orders (one for the white chocolate raspberry and one for the Orange Creamsicle ones), cake pops (cake on a stick, coated in chocolate - they're delish, or so I've been told), a chocolate cheesecake pie (in my family it's known as Midnight Madness) and a non-baking item - a gingersnap dip for Christmas eve and Christmas Day. I'll divide that dip into two dishes so I can take them to my parents' house and to Dave's parents' house too. Oh, and I'll be making peppermint bark for teachers' gifts. I'll be a busy little bee.

We braved the mall last night. I'm glad I don't have to go back there again, LOL. We stopped in at Steve & Barry's - they're pretty picked over but did find a t-shirt for my father and let the kids each pick out a shirt for themselves. I had to stop Mason from choosing the "Beavers like Wood" shirt, and ended up having to explain to him in the middle of the store why he wouldn't be able to wear that to school. When I told him what they meant by 'beaver' there (he wasn't satisfied with my "because I told you so" answer) his response was "ooooh. yeah. I don't want that." and put it back. He ended up with a shirt with a really bad hand of poker on it that says "I was losing money playing poker before it was cool." That one, I might be able to let him wear to school. The Connor got one that says "I'm in shape. Round is a shape."

I'll leave you today with a couple Christmas pictures.

Cupcakes, sheep and an update.

I know that my posts have been scarce lately and I apologize for that. Things have been a little crazy here. This will be a jam-packed post with lots of pictures, so just bear with me, lol.

We switched M's meds from a pill to a patch. He's on meds for the attention part of ADHD. We started those over the summer so his body could settle in before school started, but we started having issues with the pill (stomach trouble and he developed a couple ticks that we had to get rid of right away), so his doctor recommended a patch since M was having some issues with swallowing a pill too. So far, in the month he's been on the patch, he's doing beautifully. No ticks (knock on wood) have re-developed and his teacher has noticed a huge difference in his paying attention at school. Grades have improved as well which is also fantastic! He doesn't like me to take his picture, so I have to sneak one when I can, lol. This is him at Thanksgiving sneaking all of the berries out of a fruit salad. You can see C in the background (no new updates on him, he's still doing great).

I recently shot Christmas card pictures for a teacher (and a friend of mine for many many years) at the school I work at. Her girls are just adorable!

Cupcakes have been a little slow going as of late - and there is plenty of time to get an order in for Christmas if you still want to! Just ask, and I will get you a menu! I may even post the menu here in a separate post in the next couple days, I haven't decided yet. The last order I did had peanut butter cupcakes with milk chocolate buttercream frosting, cookies 'n' cream cupcakes and a special order of white chocolate raspberry cupcakes (those are special order because raspberries aren't in season now).

I've decided that I really need to stop acknowledging my husband when I hear "Hey hon! Bring your camera up here, you've got to see this!"

I think that's just about everything that I've not posted about lately (other than our car needing $300 more worth of work last week - UGH). I'll try to post more often. Right now I'm counting down to Christmas vacation, lol.

Erie blogger meet-up pictures

Just a few pictures from the December meet at Panera Bread (I am so glad the meets are on Tuesdays so I can get the chicken and wild rice soup when the meets are held there, LOL). I love having the evening out of the house, as much as I love my family, I cherish that couple hours!

... and really, it's just not a meetup unless Michael whips it out (it was out only briefly though)!

Turkey cupcake?

Hah! Made you look! This cupcake was a school project for the Connor. The instructions were to disguise your turkey so he doesn't end up as Thanksgiving dinner. Connor's idea was to make him into a cupcake. I guess this way the turkey could end up as dessert instead, lol. He even took the time to glue sprinkles on the "frosting"!

Also tonight, I made salted caramel cupcakes. Those will be a new addition to my menu, for sure! It's a brown sugar cupcake with a caramel Swiss meringue buttercream with a salted caramel drizzle.

Contest - one more day!

Please excuse the dust in here, I'm playing around with layouts.

Just a quick reminder that you have one more day to send in your entries in for my birthday cupcake give-a-way! You can find that entry HERE.