Cupcake Cuties

This last week has been crazy for this mom of 3 and wife to one. I have been training at Dr. Christensen's to take over the office while the whole staff is in Hawaii for a week. On top of that, I also taught a class at Matt's store. A Cupcake workshop with a Bonus: cakeballs! A couple days before the class, one of Matt's employees asked me to make cupcakes for her daughter's first birthday. So on the fly, with only about 48 hours notice, I came up with these cuties. We stacked them in a tier, and I decorated a matching 6 inch cake for the top tier. (kicking myself for not taking any pictures of that when I was done)

I had extra batter, so I made some mini cupcakes as well, topped them with flowers and dots.

This is one of the cupcakes we made in my class. My newest favorite in my cupcake repertoire. SNICKERDOODLE CUPCAKES! (cupcakes that actually taste JUST like the cookie) Can you stand it? The frosting is not my usual buttercream either...I used a Swiss Meringue, or 7 minute frosting that was scary easy to make, and the yummiest, buttery frosting ever.

So yumnmy!

And these are the carrot cupcakes my students made. Cute hu?

The Stastny's go to the races

Derby time!!! Who doesn't love that? The special time of year when we pass out boxes of wood to the young cub scouts in our ward and tell them to go home and carve out that super fast, designer car all on their own. Yeah right. If you haven't experienced Derby time, then you may not realize that it has nothing to do with the kids. Its all about the dads. I resisted the first few years, insisting that Matt let the boys do as much of it on their own as they could. So my kids made great cars, resembling door stops, painted them all on their own, and came in near last in every heat. And after seeing the cars last year that were so obviously made by dads, I took on a new attitude. This year, I said "to heck with that, we're making a winning car". And so I set about getting Matt to look up designs with the boys on the Internet, and arranging shop time in my parents basement, and my mom bought cool colored wheels. The result? Gabe's car broke before he even raced it. Matt was pounding in the axle, and the wood that held it in broke off. So back to the pit he went, and drilled in two more holes for the axles in a new spot. It was weakened, but it would work. (cross our fingers) Heat one...Gabe won. Second race...Gabe won. Third race...one of the wheels fell off down the track. Back to the pit. Nothing they could do, so Gabe went back to the track and raced with only three wheels...he won! But the next two races his car was increasingly more wobbly, so he came in second.

Chandler go the award for "most intimidating" for his car SHADOW! Chandler had the fastest time over all, but in the final stretch, after making it to the semifinals, he came over to us with his car, and Morgan ran up to hug him and the car got dropped and....yup, it broke. He raced it anyway though, turning it backwards to take the pressure off the axles and....he came in second in his age group also.

Morgan entered her own car to race with siblings, and got he award for the "friendliest car".

A Teaparty for sister Morgan

We had all the girls over one afternoon for a Tea Party. They spent all morning dressing up, and when I got home, Christa and I prepared the Party food. We had pink peeps, pink wafer cookies, heart shaped PB&J sandwiches, and pink apple dip and apples.
Did I mention the girls got all dressed up, and did their own make-up? Our very own corpse-bride.

When they were done eating all that sugar, I stupidly brought out MORE sugar! I made pink cupcakes and let the girls decorate them. It was so much fun!

Inside the mind of a child.

This morning, we pulled out of the garage to view a scene quite like this picture. Newly fallen snow and a beautiful clear Alaskan day. From the back seat I hear Morgan say:

"I hate the white snowy spring day"

me: I know, me too.

Morgan: Mom, why does it have to be so cold?

me: I don't know Morgan

Morgan: Lets move. Let's go someplace warm, and not white.

me: We can't sweetie, this is where daddy's job is.

Morgan: well, we can just move, and that'll be very ok.

me: No, we have to stay where daddy's job is.

Morgan: well, he can just quit his job, and we'll live some place warm.

me: But then we won't have any money.

Morgan: mom, you have money in your purse!

me: well, yes, now I do. But if we make daddy quit his job, then I won't have any money in my purse.

Morgan: who's going to take your moneys?

me: nobody, but eventually you'll need food and cloths, and I'll have to use the money to buy stuff for you.