It’s Birthday time at MY house! Yes, on top of EVERYTHING else this time of year, my two girls have Birthday’s one week apart. Here’s a picture of my cuties as we made treats for Adele to take into class today. One GOOD thing about winter Birthday’s is that there’s a LOT to choose from theme-wise for treats! We’ve done snowman cupcakes, peppermint cookies, chocolate sheet cake with candy canes…you name it! Well this year, I decided to do something a little different. I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I have time at my computer (or just need to sit and procrastinate!) I totally browse blogs all over the web! And aside from quilting blogs, my next favorite are COOKING blogs! I’ll admit it. I LOVE to cook. Cooking and baking to me, when I really have the time, is creativity at its best. And SUCH a huge outlet for stress! Anyway, you all know I love the Pioneer Woman and her blog, she totally cracks me up and her pictures are SO mouth-watering, I was going through her blog one day looking for ideas when I came across one she wrote about another blogger Bakerella and her trip visiting the ranch! I was so excited because I vaguely remembered my OTHER sister-in-law Cari (the one so nicely having the in-laws over for the Holidays!) had introduced me to Bakerella’s blog last year when Cari was visiting US for Christmas. It was one of those things I filed away and forgot about until I stumbled upon it again on the Pioneer Woman’s blog. It was quite amusing because they had a “Cake Pop Party” at the ranch, which looked like a total BLAST! And these Cake Pops were SO cute! They made mini-cupcakes, Hello Kitty pops, chocolate pops, you name it….they were all so cute too! I went and looked through Bakerlla’s site to see if she had some winter-y treats I could make for my daughter’s class. She had cute little Reindeer, Christmas tress and Santa hats. But I wanted to make snowmen! So I thought, why not just make the cake balls two different sizes, pop both on the stick and make us some snowmen?
Oh boy was it fun! Just going down the cake baking isle at Michael’s was a treat! When do we quilter’s ever get to do that??? I didn’t even KNOW half of this stuff existed. All different size sticks, a million types of sprinkles, molds of every shape and size…even edible marking pens! I had a blast finding everything I’d need to make my snowmen. I got the white meltaway chocolates, sparkly sugar crystals, lots of sprinkles, mini-M&M’s, mini-choco-chips and my FAVORITE find….orange colored chocolate covered sunflower seeds! Do those look just like little carrot noses or WHAT?!
So if you haven’t checked out Bakerella’s blog, you really need to go over there. You’ll be blown away by her creativity! And all of her stuff is SO fun. She also has a GREAT store. I already put a “bakerella gift certificate” on my wish list for Christmas so I can go buy all this fun stuff and bake some MORE over Christmas break. Anyway, her revolutionary “cake pop” idea is actually pretty simple. You bake a cake, let it cool, then brake it up in a bowl, plop some frosting in there and mix away with your hands until it’s all blended. Cake AND icing all in one! How is this NOT a good thing? Then you dip those babies into all sorts of melted chocolate and you have yourself a cake pop. Talk about making am impression! The teacher and the whole class were SO impressed. They think I’m very talented….hahahaha! No, dear, I just read cooking blogs and get inspired.
Apart from Christmas shopping, party hopping, Birthday planning, treat baking, house decorating, book writing, gift making and all the OTHER stuff we find ourselves doing this time of year…when you have musicians in the family, you’re also bound to be attending winter concerts at various schools. Am I right? Well. We like winter concert time. It usually means a trip to Starbucks afterwards for their very yummy peppermint hot chocolate!
Who can resist THAT on a cold winter’s night? This year the concerts were really good. You know, it’s always hit and miss. Adele, whose Birthday is today on the Winter Solstice I might add, sang in her 4th grade choir. Usually, I wouldn’t share this kind of a concert because, well, it probably sounds like all the 4th grade choirs YOU’VE heard, but this year they sang a song their teacher Mr. Haines wrote himself called “Winter’s Wish” . The song is so cute, and the lyrics are really beautiful so I’m going to post it here for your listening pleasure!
The last concert I had to attend was at the high school. My two eldest are in the Wind Ensemble. My son plays percussion and my daughter plays the flute. Every year, they do a stirring rendition of “Sleigh Ride”, which is actually really good! I’ll post it here as well, so you get to listen to the fun stuff instead of sitting through all the OTHER performances before my kids took the stage! This was worth waiting for though.
Well I’m feeling a cake and ice cream hangover coming on from all this Birthday celebrating. We have Birthday cakes all OVER the place! One on the kitchen counter, one in the extra fridge and one outside in the cold, cold garage! I always try to do that, hey, dontcha want to SHARE a Birthday cake with each other, thing, but it never seems to go over very well. So let’s pick a WINNER for tonight so I can go pop some TUMS and snuggle under my double duvet bed covers!
BETSY LYNN!!! You’re the lucky WINNER! Send us an email: lizziebgirls@gmail.com with your info!
Keep those comments a’comin’! We still have 3 days to go. HOLY COW 3 DAYS! Yikes. I gotta get wrappin’!
Do you have a cooking blog that inspires YOU? Please SHARE!
