6 dozen...

I feel like I have been baking non-stop in the past month. I was asked to bake cupcakes for multiple functions...one particularly was for a ladys 90th birthday party. I ended up making six dozen which is the most cupcakes I have ever made at a single time. I keep telling my family this process would be a lot easier if they would buy me a bigger and better oven as well as more cupcake pans.

We did a basic vanilla and chocolate with a buttercream frosting to match the decor of the party. I used these fun wilton baking cups that were perfect for the color scheme....take a look

That is a whole lot of cupcakes....

Happy Fourth of July??

I have been meaning to post about my fourth of July dessert, well....since the fourth of July.
I decided to get really festive after I saw a post on plain chicken and I wanted to make the american flag cake. After I made it and was blog surfing I realized it is a very popular idea, but nonetheless it was very fun to make. I did not tell anybody about the surprise on the inside and so when we cut the cake there were a lot of gasps, oooh's, and ahhhh's. I was actually quite impressed with how it turned out and it was devoured in what seemed like minutes. This may be an annual thing from now on, I set the standards high... here are the pics...

I am starting to realize why no one will buy me a big and fancy camera...maybe that is because all I ever use is my phone? But I bet I would use it if I had it...right?

Congratulations Matthew!

This past weekend Matthew graduated from the University of Alabama! He actually graduated in May but due to the tornadoes the graduation ceremony was postponed and it would be paired with the normal August graduation. Matthew actually received his official diploma about a month ago.



It was a very nice ceremony and weekend. They honored the six UA students who were killed in the tornado, they were represented by their families and issued their degrees.

There were three graduations...Friday night, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon. That is a lot of names to call!

Matthew is in the picture below, it was taken on my phone so the quality was low but I promise he is in there somewhere!

All in all, it was an exciting day... I am very proud of Matthew and know that this makes us one step closer to the next chapter in our lives and I could not be more excited, oh and...Roll Tide!

In memory of my sweet Rose.

Today is a day that has been on the horizon for a while now... My sweet dog, Rosie, my baby girl..my sugar (I know, I had a lot of nicknames) is leaving us in what I like to think as a peaceful way.

We got Rosie when I was in first grade and she has been my girl ever since.
Until Rosie's hips began causing her trouble Rosie slept with me at the foot of my bed, every night..snuggled up. Rosie was the best dog...EVER. She was a pure mut and never caused us any problems. She was the queen of the house and matter of fact, queen of the kenwood neighborhood. When we lived in a local subdivision (until my senior year) Rosie would often jump our fence and roam the neighborhood. This caused many frantic car rides trying to find her and fearing she would get hit by a car or something of the sort. We quickly realized that Rosie was just making friends throughout the neighborhood...she would appear on friends and neighbors doorsteps just to hang out. She was a friendly dog and would never hurt anyone. Our across the street neighbors did not have a dog of their own but Rosie was a frequent visitor...one of their kids in school told the teacher that they did have a dog and her name was "Rosie".

For a long time Rose was going strong but in the last couple of years she has really slowed down, who wouldn't she is quite old in dog years. (15+) I knew that this day was coming and I always said that I didn't want to sit and watch her suffer...she was always healthy, just old. Well the decision was made this week that it seemed to be time to let her go and end the pain. She can barely get around and suffering from some other issues.

It is time, it is right. She is just a dog...but for many years and through many phases of life my Rose has been there right by my side. She will forever be the BEST dog and I am incredibly saddened on this day because no matter how much I prepare myself...it is just hard.

Here are some pics of the rose-nator!

These are both remotely more recent pictures, we came across some old pics of when we first got her and she was the cutest fur ball. Sure gonna miss her but thankful for the time and companionship I had with her.

Love and miss ya already Rose.

New Design

Since I have been failing miserably at blogging this summer I decided that a little redesign of the page might help the sense of motivation. (or lack thereof).

Navy, yellow, and gray are colors that I have been obsessing over...I just love how they all look together so when I found this template and played around with all of the new fonts on blogger, I felt like it all came together really well.

School starts in about 3 weeks, which almost feels like forever. This has been a long summer due to the tornado and then Alabama pushing the august start date back...I am not really complaining, but I am ready to finish out my college career and get back into the normal school time routine.

Matthew is graduating this weekend in Tuscaloosa, he actually graduated in May but due to the tornado's and everything they postponed graduation till the August date. I am super excited for him, but it is crazy...I guess we really are growing up.

I hope that everyone has a fabulous weekend and I hope that I can get back into the swing of things!

Wedding Wednesday– Save The Date!

We decided to send out “save the dates” since our wedding is not occurring in a high travel time and since we have a large number of out of town guests! We wanted to make sure they knew they date and information way a head of time!

We used one of our engagement photos and my sister in law used her skills and designed a card that mirrored one I had found online. I think I’ll keep her around…

**If you are seeing this and thinking “dangit, I did not get one”…I underestimated our guest list and prioritized out of towners first and ended up running short on an actual card for everybody. Also, I have had quite a few returned…**

For some reason the card scanned a little fuzzy…hmmph.

Welcome Warner!

Three weeks ago, my brother and sister-in-law gave birth to my 2nd nephew. William Warner Ledbetter, we will call him Warner.

We were not expecting little Warner until the middle of July…but he is HERE! He was born on June 18, 2011 around 1:26 pm. He weighed 5.2lbs and was 18 and 3/4 inches long. Due to his early arrival we were worried about his lungs functioning but he did awesome and never had to visit the NICU. Mom and baby are home and doing great. They are now home and he is eating and growing continuously. He was actually 4.14 when he left the hospital and this past week at his appointment he was 5.14! Woohoo, way to go baby Warner!

I already just love him to pieces.

did I mention he has the longest arms and legs, we like to call him an orangutan