our newest favorite cupcake

A few weeks ago I found this amazing recipe on Amanda & Kevin's blog and I knew I had to try it out.

Chocolate cupcake.

Chocolate Mousse inside chocolate cupcake.

Chocolate frosting on top of chocolate cupcake with chocolate mousse inside.

Chocolate candy on top of chocolate cupcake with chocolate mousse inside with chocolate frosting on top.

I mean... what's there not to love about this cupcake?  It's a recipe that was created JUST FOR ME!!

So, I made these for Katie's birthday.  Let me say... it was divine!!  and time consuming.....

Here is the recipe: 

List of Ingredients:

1 box Devils Food Cake Mix

1 small box Jello Chocolate Fudge instant pudding mix

4 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup milk

1 cup sour cream

Chocolate Mousse Filling

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2 cups milk chocolate chips

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

1 stick softened butter

2 1/2 to 3 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup of boiling water

1 bag mini Snickers (I used Reese's Peanut Butter cups)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 cupcake tins with liners. To prepare the cupcakes, place the cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, oil, milk and sour cream into stand mixer. Beat until well combined, about 2 minutes. Scoop the batter evenly into the cupcake liners. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cupcakes are cooked through and a toothpick comes clean from center. Remove the cupcakes from the tin and let cool.

2. To prepare the mousse, melt the milk chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds. Set aside to cool. Meanwhile, whip the heavy cream with a stand or electric mixer until it looks like whipped cream and stiff peaks form. Fold melted chocolate chips into whipped cream until well combined, then transfer batches into a piping bag. When cupcakes have cooled, press the tip of the piping bag into the center of the cupcake, about 1 inch deep. Squeeze the mousse into the cupcake while pulling the tip out. It doesn’t take much, just one firm squeeze is perfect. Continue filling all the cupcakes.

3. To prepare the frosting, beat the butter, powdered sugar, cocoa and vanilla & hot water until well combined and a nice frosting consistency. Spread over cupcakes then top with chopped Snickers (or other candy).

Makes 24 cupcakes.  (actually, for me, it made 33)

While I loved Amanda's directions and beautiful pictures on her blog that went well with the recipe, I found that I had a few more steps that I needed to do. 

• First of all, chill the chocolate mousse!!  After you get done making it, put it in the fridge for a bit to harden up. 
• Let your cupcakes TOTALLY cool (like, for several hours!) before you pipe it inside the cupcake. 
• If you do the Reese's PB Cups, buy like 3-4 of the packages of candy (I'm talking about the individual sized that has 8 in a package?... like for $1 each?  I bought only 1 package, and it only covered 8 cupcakes).
• and finally, Amanda didn't have anything liquid for her frosting, and I used this recipe that came out of my Better Homes & Garden cookbook (it's the no-cook Fudge frosting), but it calls for boiling water... butter, vanilla, cocoa powder & confectioners sugar is NOT going to make frosting, something liquid needs to be added, so start w/ 1/4 cup of boiling water and go from there).

This recipe is MOST definitely a keeper for our family!  I think I'm going to try a French Vanilla cake mix next to see how that would taste w/ chocolate mousse!!



::drooling::

Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

One final picture??

learning the hornpipe

Katie has a dance she's been looking forward to learning for a long.  Long.  LONG time.  It's a Scottish Dance called the Hornpipe.  The dancer wears a sailor's outfit, and dances a dance that really looks similar to actions that a normal sailor will do on a ship.

Katie loves it.



And these leaps??  They have to be high.  She's still working on them!

a teenager in our house?

Katie's birthday came and went, and I am here to finally document this historic day a teenager came to live in our home. 

The Friday night before her birthday, we met up with a friend of mine from work and her daughter!  I did their pictures a few months ago and Katie & August totally hit it off.  They are major texting buddies, and dear friends.  We went shopping and had dinner together just the four of us.

Maddie was "oh so excited" about Katie's birthday.  She wanted to serve her breakfast in bed, and she did!  Krispy Kreme donuts and chocolate milk.... a special treat in our family!!  Maddie woke her up super early (OK, about 10 minutes earlier than what she needed to be up by), and served her breakfast on a cookie sheet. 

Katie shared her lovely breakfast with her sister.

After school, I took Katie and a few friends (one was sick so couldn't come) to get their nails done, and they had a blast!

Afterwards, we ate Papa Murphy's pizza, danced to Just Dance 2 and played games.

They modeled for me for a few pictures together (I have an idea of a cute gift for them w/ the pictures).  I love her friends.  I'm so grateful she found some wonderful, wholesome friends who are just the sweetest girls around.

Look at those pretty nails!  Such... vibrant colors!!

And here is the birthday cake video.  I bought sparkler candles, and they wouldn't blow out.  ::evil wicked cackle::

The day San Antonio was shut down

I come from the Midwest.  In the midwest, it gets pretty cold there.  Cold enough they shut down the school sometimes.  Cold enough that there are blizzards, or 7 inches of snow. 

But... snow in San Antonio?  We were warned when we moved to Texas that IF it ever snows, or even ices over, the city literally shuts down.

That happened on Friday.  The city shut down.  Literally!  Highways were closed.  Busineses were closed until noon.  Schools were cancelled.  And everyone was making snow angels in the 1/8 of an inch of snow we had on the ground.  Unbelievable.

It has been over a year since we were in a huge snow storm (Christmas of 2009), but Maddie sure enjoyed herself.  I told her as she bundled up "OK, enjoy your .... dusting of snow." 

And she did!

For the record.... there was ice under that snow, which is why we were all stopped in our tracks. :)  But, in true San Antonio fashion, it all melted by 10:00!

Pride and Prejudice ... true romance

I had a goal many years ago.  I was going to get through one of Jane Austen's books.  I love her movies, have seen most of her books turned into movies, but I haven't read a single book of hers. 

That all changed when the book club that I'm in exchanged presents last December.  Everyone brings a book that we think would be a great read for the next year.  Then we do a White Elephant exchange and fight over books.  I was the second person to draw a present.... and wow oh wow did I grab a book that I've been DYING for! 

JANE AUSTEN!  and four of her books!  I fought for that book a few times, and I left the party with it.  I was one happy camper!

Since we decided that February is full of romance because of Valentine's Day, it would be most appropriate to read Pride and Prejudice.  So, I started reading.  Wow oh wow did it take me a long long time to get into the dialogue.  I literally had to read every single word, and some of the words I had never seen before or had no clue what it meant!

Then it got easier.

And I started reading in a British accent.

I sounded so cool.

I kept saying over and over again "hairwwy pahter" (for Harry Potter), even though Jane Austen would have had no clue who Harry Potter was back in the 1800's. 

So, tonight Mike is working late, Maddie's at a lateover and Katie is HAVING a lateover. I have no one to watch Pride and Prejudice with me.  So, I am going to enjoy my Friday night and watch it by myself.  Love me some Jane Austen!

My Science Project.... OK, Maddie's Science Project

So two weeks Maddie came home with paperwork detailing things that she needed to include to make a phenomenal Solar System project.  ::groan::  So already had her information written out as far as what she was going to put on the posterboard, and she picked her planet out:  Neptune.  No problem.

She told me she wanted a yellow posterboard because Neptune was blue, and "yellow goes very well with blue."  Her words, I kid you not.

So, she typed up her information, misspellings and all.  I prettied it up using fonts and made corrections.  Everything was done with Maddie looking over my shoulder like a hawk looks for mice.  She approved.

So, I set out to buy the posterboard (which, isn't easy to find yellow posterboard anywhere!).  The day we're supposed to pull it together, she said "oh, and get me a foam ball.".  Wha.... what?!!  So, I drive to Michael's, buy a $3.99 styrofoam ball (when did they get so expensive?), and blue spray paint (Periwinkle to match Neptune's color)... which came to $5.99 (ouch... what am I going to do w/ blue spray paint after this?). 


I didn't know styrofoam was so hard to cut through.  I even used a serrated knife.

Did you know that blue spray paint makes your hand look like a smurf?

It also doesn't come out very well.  Luckily I tried nail polish remover, so that worked pretty well, and I no longer resemble a blue smurf.

We cut letters out with my Cricut, glued everything down, then she brings out the glitter.  Oh dang.  Glitter?  So, we make pretty stars across the page, and she decides she's not done.  Oh no... she wants even more glitter ON the letters.  ::groan::  Hey, I stopped her from stamping stars all over the page, so if she wanted to glitter, I told her to go for it.  Thankfully, she stopped there.  Whew!

Now glitter is coming out of my nose when I blow my nose, and it's stuck in the cracks of my table.  But, the darn science project is DONE!

I am pretty proud of it.  Er, I am pretty proud of Maddie's project!

sisterhood

When fall came around, I was busy shooting pictures every weekend, sometimes 2 times a weekend.  Holding down a full time job as well as broadening my experience in photography was NOT easy!  So, when the time came around to think about OUR cards, and what we were going to send out, I realized that I completely neglected my own little family and pictures.  So, one night after school, I told the girls to put something on that coordinated OK together, did their hair (or rather, I did Maddie's hair), and posed them outside our home.  In front of the fence.  Five minutes later, I was done.  Easy!  I was able to snap some adorable pictures of my girls that captures them just as sisters should be.

Now all I have to do is pick one of these pictures that I am going to enlarge to a 16x20 over my couch... (black & white)... HMM, decisions!  What would you pick?

{this is a pretty bad picture as far as it's blurry, but I LOVE their expressions in this picture}

Christmas memories

I figured I'd better blog about Christmas before it's March....

I want to apologize in advance for the cruddy pictures I'm about to post. See, I just bought a new camera (a Canon T1i), and it literally came in the mail a day or two before Christmas. But, I wasn't entirely used to it, and let's just say almost all my pictures I took this night and weekend weren't great. They were horrible. But, they're still pictures, and I'm still posting them for family to see that we indeed celebrate Christmas and had a great time. :)

{see little Roxie just staring at that bowl of chocolate pudding?

I also have no clue why Katie has her necklace in her mouth while she's eating pudding}

My mother & father in law came down to Texas for Christmas with us. We enjoyed a traditional Mexican dinner for Christmas Eve. After dinner we played Mexican Train Dominoes (it just happened to be Mexican Train, we don't do all things Mexican on Christmas Eve). For dessert, we had our traditional "nut in the pudding" game (which coincidentally hails from Europe, so we're making our rounds around the world on Christms Eve). Katie won the prize (a $10 gift card to Target) for finding the nut in her pudding. Sadly, she didn't finish her yummy chocolate pudding. That stinker.

I had made cinnamon rolls, and was trying a new recipe -- Alton Brown's Cinnamon Rolls. I had read a long time ago my online friend Melisa made them, and just said they were so easy and fabulous... and I'm tired of scalding milk to make my cinnamon rolls. So, I made them... and this recipe was just THE easiest and most yummiest cinnamon rolls I've ever made. Make them. I double dog dare you. So, the recipe called for me to put them in the fridge overnight, and let them rise in the oven w/ boiling water under it for 30 minutes. No problem... it was easy peezy.

Sadly, I was the first one up in the morning. What is up with that?! I'm always the first one up! Katie is usually my late sleeper, but she was up almost immediately. After an hour, the rest of the family started slowly moving as slow as slugs and we commenced "Operation Make a Mess" (y'know, make a mess after you open the gifts, and presents are EVERYWHERE? and doesn't get put up for days afterwards? Yeah, that mess....)

Katie got an iTouch.... which was the only thing she wanted. I knew she would look for a small package, so I tricked her and packaged it up in a large box. She had no clue. Look at her expression.

Sadly, I didn't get a picture of Maddie opening anything. Oh well, last year I got more pictures of her than I did of Katie.

Mike got a new grill for Christmas (he got it a few weeks ago), but Maddie surprised him with a new hat that he wanted, and I got him some Classic Country CD's.... he grew up listening to classic country songs b/c while he was in the tractor, there was only two stations to listen to, and that was one of them. He loved it... he also got a new dress shirt, two ties, new socks... and a gift card for buckets of golf.

Maddie didn't really ask for much this year. Squishy Squashies, as she calls them... or otherwise knows as Squinkies. Japanese erasers. I guess those are THE item to have now and trade. She also was DYING for Just Dance II for the Wii. She got it, and we all enjoyed dancing to it.

We laughed the hardest watching Papa Nelson dance. He's quite the dancer.... I think I burned as many calories laughing as I did dancing.

My big surprise? I got 3/4 carat square cut diamond earrings! I refuse to post the picture Mike took of me (translation: bedhead hair... no makeup... unflattering pajamas.... and a scarf that Katie knit for me around my neck == NO PICTURE!!). But, it was a beautiful surprise, and I haven't taken them out of my ears yet. Actually, I can't get them out of my ears.... it's too hard to get the backs off! Pictures will come soon for that... :) I will tell you now that from now on, I will be dressed and in makeup with my hair done for Christmas morning.

That afternoon we enjoyed a movie at the theatre (Tron)... and feasted upon strip steaks and mashed pototoes and a delicious salad. Pumpkin pie and frozen chocolate mousse pie sealed the deal. Then we happily watched Thoroughly Modern Millie several times that day, and danced our butts off.

I love....

these pictures I shot last weekend.

They're nothing extraordinary... the black & white I had the white balance set on Tungsten, so they turned out blue... thus I changed to black & white b/c I loved the memory attached with this picture. Katie & her dad coming in from an early morning hunt. Both are tired and cold. But happy.

my two adorable nephews playing paper rock scissors to see who was going to ride first with Katie on the 4 wheeler.... no arguing from these boys!

in these pictures, I just love the flare from the sun...

watching both my girl and my nephew play just warms my heart

and finally .... my hunter

the latest movie fave is.....

My girls alway get a new movie for Christmas. One year it was several Harry Potter movies to catch us up (we had the VHS movies). Another year it was whatever Disney movie came out shortly before Christmas. Most of the time when they were little, it was some princess movie.

Then they grew up. Those stinkers....

And I bought them a very OLD movie (well, 1967).

One of my favorite movies from when I was a kid!

It has dancing! It has music!! It has JULIE ANDREWS!! {who doesn't love a good Julie Andrews movie? She's so beautiful and talented!} It has humor! It has action! It has mystery! It has romance! I mean, it's got the makings of a GREAT movie!

I present to you our Christmas movie of 2010:

THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE!!!

My girls watched this movie I think 3 times on Christmas day. OK, maybe only two... then the next day they watched it again. I think they watched it a few more times last week. Finally, we watched it while at our property this past weekend.

It's rated G, but I have to laugh b/c the "H" word (H-E-double hockey sticks) and the "B" word (that rhymes with witch) is in the movie. Other than that... we LOVE this movie! I found it on Amazon for only $11.49. A bargain since you can't find it anywhere!

One of the characters in the movie is some dance teacher, and his only words he had to learn was "yeah, yeah". We crack up every time he comes and says "yeah yeah..." Carol Channing plays in this as well, and her fabulous "RAZZZBerries" has me & my girls laughing & giggling as we try to imitate her. Ahhh.... absolutely love this movie. :) Check it out.