Road trip!

 

Within the past year I have had two family members and their families move to Nashville, TN. Being at school in Alabama the city seems to be only a “hop, skip, and a jump” away…which actually means about 3 hours.

I have been to the city once and have been searching for a time to return since then. When I realized that my family had moved to the area it seemed like the perfect time. (being on the college budget, we can stay with them for free!)

So the rooms and I planned a “spontaneous” weekend get-a-way and we are going to head to the music city in about two weeks. We are pretty excited just to have a fun trip, just the two of us.

We have both visited the city before…but are looking for some new, fun things to check out while we are there. If you have any suggestions of things to do, people to see, or places to eat then please leave a comment and let us know.

The last time I was there I check out Gigi’s cupcakes in the city…but ever since I read about Carrie Underwood’s wedding cake being cupcakes from this lovely shop – I am dying to try it out! Ivey Cake in Franklin, TN. It seems like such a cute place and I hope the little things are as good as they look. Has anyone ever been there? or have any other recommendations?

I hope everyone has a good and long weekend!

Steamboat Springs

 

Well I took a bajillion pictures while in Colorado, thus I will not bore you by going through and explaining them all. Here I will list a couple that are noteworthy and then I have included an album that all are welcome to look through with all of the pictures from the trip!

Steamboat Springs 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

We flew into Denver and by of Cupcakes Take the Cake I found this cute cupcake shop Happy Cakes! The cupcakes were quite tasty and the shop was soooo cute. I even bought a t-shirt that says “everyday is a good day for a cupcake”

I had planned to photograph the different foods and places that we ate. I will make a disclaimer, every meal we had I found incredibly delicious. One night I got buffalo burger sided with homemade onion rings…

Well I was quite intrigued and by the time I remembered to take a picture this was all that remained…Ooops.Can you tell it was good?

I had the same thought when we ordered desserts “Lizzie’s Beignets”….well and the same result ensued..Can you tell we thought they were also good?

I could have taken a thousand pictures of these trees

Mary and I out on the slopes!

I previously posted here talking about the weather forecast in Colorado…I am quite certain that it was even colder than they claimed it to be. There were negative numbers everyday except the very last one and the high that day was like 12 – I thought it was practically tropical.

It was a great trip filled with a lot of fun and a lot of good food!!

Red Velvet/Turtle Cupcakes

 

These are two different cupcakes, but as I just posted that I made a red velvet cake for Christmas…just days after we were celebrating my sister-in-law and my step sisters’ birthdays. Well my sister-in-law “E” made one request and that was red velvet cupcakes (she was not with us for the cake on Christmas) but since the rest of the family wanted something different I decided to test out these turtle cupcakes – a recipe I found in a fun new cookbook I got for Christmas.

For the red velvet cupcakes I got the recipe from the Brown Eyed Baker and you can find the exact one here!

For the turtle recipe, just leave a comment with your email if you want the recipe…

 

 

The recipe was made for “mini cupcakes” …I made a little of both.

Getting to use my new cupcake stand from TJ Maxx!

Oh my goodness

 

check out this video…what goof balls!

 

P.s. (what if I told you that I am related to these weirdos…I told you we were dysFUNctional)

Tacky Christmas Treats

 

So I know, I bake a lot of cupcakes…but for the Christmas party this year I decided I wanted to try something different.

I decided to make cake pops – I had seen them done at a couple of different occasions and they were always so tasty so I figured why not?

Let me say this, I thought they were incredibly difficult and time consuming. I baked all day long. Once I finally got the cake and frosting rolled into balls – I then had the hardest time with dipping them in the melted chocolate.

In the end they turned out to be pretty tasty but I am not sure I desire to make them again..after about the third ball fell apart in the melting chocolate I tearfully said to my mom “why didn’t I just make cupcakes?”

I used box cake mix and store bought frosting for both the strawberry and chocolate fudge cake balls, I figured I was focusing my energy on making the actual cake balls not the recipe beforehand.

(oh I also made Buffalo chicken dip for the party… YUMMMMMMMMY)

Okay, I am really losing it because I completely forgot that I also made these tasty peanut butter sandwich cookies. They are a chocolate cookie with a peanut butter concoction in the middle. They were quite tasty and a recipe that I found on the pioneer woman’s tasty kitchen blog!

And here they are…the cake balls…

And we cannot forget the buffalo dip… =)

Red Velvet Cake

 

So for Christmas dinner we had close to thirty people coming over (yes, most were related in some way) and about 4 different people claimed they were bringing a “pumpkin” dessert.

So I decided to try and find something that would be different than pumpkin but still easy to make amongst all of the scurrying of Christmas time.

I am actually not the biggest red velvet fan, but when I came across this recipe and saw that the frosting contained cream cheese and melted marshmallows..I thought, “I have got to taste that!”

It was from none other than Mrs. Paula Deen! If you would like the recipe just click here!

These are the only pictures that I have of the cake…I found that the lumpy frosting (nuts and coconut) was extremely difficult to frost the way I wanted it to look.

It was all pretty tasty, but I loved the frosting…LOVED it. Something about the melted marshmallows and the nuts. I actually despise coconut but it was a very mellow flavor that I could hardly even taste.

Y’all should try it out!

Thinking about Memaw

 

I have a lot of posts to catch up on from Christmas cooking to skiing in Colorado. But first I would like to ask everyone if you could keep my Memaw in your thoughts and prayers.

On New Years Day she fell face first and fractured 2 vertebrae and broke bones in her face. She is currently in the hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. She is 83 years old thus the recovery for this type of injury is even harder for her than it might be for you and I. My mom is one of five girls and the four other sisters all live in Arkansas. This is good because my memaw is surrounded by people that can help her and she is not alone but it is doubly hard on my mom because she can’t be there.

My mom is actually trying to get there this week but pray for comfort for my my memaw – there is a long road ahead for her recovery and also pray for my mom and her sisters as they try and make the best decisions for memaw’s care and guidance for them in the coming months. Memaw is an incredibly strong woman but this is scary for her and especially looking at being in a neck brace for 12-16 weeks and possible (but hopefully not) surgeries.

Thanks so much!