Lana's 1st BIG Sleepover!

Last Friday I told Lana her BFF Natalie could spend the night, and this turned into two other little girls also spending the night. We decided to turn it into a slumber party at the last minute almost. I am glad everyone was able to come, we had so much fun! All girls were well behaved and they had a great time playing together.

I organized a few actitivities for them that included: swimming, making smores, making cotton candy, and a scavenger hunt. I even put together a goodie bag that included, grass hula skirts and pink platstic coconut cups. Below are some pictures from the party.

All the girls had a terrific time, they crashed out about 12:30am and every one of them slept through the night.

The next morning while putting the house back together I pulled about 10 barbie dolls out of the pool filter (signs of a great party!)

A New Recipe! Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes!

I love trying new recipes. Especially BAKING recipes. I have a whole slew I want to try out. If I could I would try out several new recipes a week but seeing how I am still in losing weight mode (only 10lbs to go to get to my goal of 125lbs) I can't try out and eat every single recipe. However, my co-workers love it when I bring any new creations up for them. So normally when I try a new recipe I eat 1 and take the rest to work.

This week I tried out a new recipe. I found the inspiration for this cupcake from the take a megabite blog. Click the link above for the full recipe. ( i did tweak mine a little bit by cheating and using a white cake mix instead of making the cupcake batter from scratch, i just added fresh strawberries).


I crushed up graham crackers in my mini food processor and put them in the bottom of the cupcakes.

Then I put a thin layer of the white cake with strawberries, and then the cheesecake mixture, then cake mixture back on top. They practically filled up the entire cupcake liner (unlike normal cupcakes which I fill 3/4 full).

Then I put them in the oven, much like take a megabite's blog on this recipe I too sat and watched them cook to make sure they would not run over.

Luckily, they didnt run over but did get pretty tall when I took them out of the oven.

Upon cooling they did sink in a little bit, which made it perfect for appling the cream cheese icing.

I took these to work for my bosses birthday and they were a HUGE hit! Everyone loved these cupcakes. I did try 1 (ok....maybe I had 2) and I must say these are now one of my all-time favorites they are so yummy! Visit the link above if you would like the full recipes.

Till next time..Happy Baking!
Marie

4th of July

4th of July weekend we took Lana and her friend Natalie to the drive-in in granbury. But first went swimming at home.

















When we got home at 2am they both crashed out.




The next night we took Lana to see sone fireworks at the botanical gardens.







We let Lana do a few sparklers





We had a great weekend.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Gourmet cupcakes

I tried a new flavor of cupcakes this week: red velvet with a cheesecake buttercream. They were delish!!














- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chocolate popsicles

When I got off work yesterday I was browsing through Facebook and a friend of mine posted a link to the rice krispy website with this affordable pops on there.

To cut down on time and probably money buying all the ingredients I saved time by buying the pre-packaged crispy treats.



I opened all the treat then took a knife and rounded the tops to look like Popsicles then put in the sticks.







Next step melt chocolate. We melted both milk and white chocolate.




Then for Lana the fun part: dipping and putting on sprinkles.

I had a huge 2 1/2 gal bag of sprinkles to choose from.


Lana picked these:



So we dipped them and put sprinkles on them and placed them in the refrigerator until the chocolate set. (just a few minutes) or however long it takes to clean up the kitchen after making them.



Since these were traveling to daycare I packaged them up and added a cute bow.











They were a big hit with the kids and the few I took to work for some co-workers.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone