Strawberry Colada Cupcakes

Today I realized that I  hadn't done my visiting teaching for the month of March, and seeing as today is February 28th I figured I probably should do something about that quick.  I whipped up a batch of cupcakes, frosted them, and made Jeremy walk around with me to drop them off.  What a sweet man he is.  The recipe I used was from yourcupofcake.com again.  I seriously love her cupcakes.  Today's concoction was Strawberry Colada Cupcakes:

Strawberry Colada Cupcakes

Coconut Cake:

1 box white cake mix

3 eggs

1/3 Cup oil

1 C. coconut milk

1/3 C. sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp. coconut extract

Strawberry Buttercream:

1 C. butter, softened

4-5 C. powdered sugar

2-3 tbsp. strawberry jam or preserve

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Shredded Coconut

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line pans with cupcake liners.

2. Sift cake mix into a small bowl and set aside.

3. In a large bowl combine eggs, oils, coconut milk, sour cream, vanilla extract and coconut extract.

4. Add cake mix and stir until smooth.

5. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake for 17-22 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.

6. Buttercream: Beat butter for 2 minutes. Add in powdered sugar until thick. Add strawberry jam 1 tablespoon at a time until you reach the right flavoring. Taste to test :) Mix in vanilla extract.

7. Pipe buttercream onto cooled cupcakes.

8. Sprinkle with coconut.

How to Spruce Up a Secretary

This secretary was one of my recent fun projects. I saw a picture of a secretary with a colorful inside on Pinterest, and I loved the idea. I also love the idea of opening up the secretary for a fun way to display decor. Jeremy and I found this piece of furniture at a thrift store for $15. Talk about a steal of a deal. It's a fun throwback piece that adds a pop of color to the room.

How to Make Leg Warmers Out of Knee Socks

So I found a super way to make baby leggings. They turned out great, and it's an easy way to dress your baby and have great diaper access.

 I used ladies knee socks from Target.  They have tons of colors, and if you watch you can get them on sale or clearance. 

 Cut out the heel and the toe.

 Save the rest.

 If you are making these leg warmers for a baby you'll want to cut off an inch from the fabric that was in between the heel and the toe. If you are making them for a toddler you can skip the next few steps.

 Turn the fabric so that right sides are together.

 Sew the edges back together with a zigzag stitch. 

 Turn the fabric tube so that the right sides are facing out, then sew the raw edges together to make a mini tube. This will be the cuff at the bottom of the leg warmers.

 It will look like this when you're done.

 Slip the tube around the raw edge of the sock so that the zigzag edge and the raw edge match up.

Sew the two edges together

 Flip the cuff and you have a leg warmer!

Move over Jane Fonda. We have a new leg warmer fashionista!

Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Cupcakes

I finally got my icing piping kit.  Thanks Amazon!  This week was my dear friend, and former roommate, Kenze's birthday.  To celebrate we had a little shindig at our house.  I was put in charge of cupcakes.  I had Jeremy pick which recipe to do.  He chose the Chocolate Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting recipe from yourcupofcake.com  That was fine with me, considering that my favorite shake to get at the Malt Shoppe is their hot fudge banana shake with peanut butter.  He did have one addition he wanted in the recipe though.  He wanted me to put Reese's Peanut Butter Cups at the bottom of them.  I did so, and they turned out amazingly!  See for yourself:

The thing that is tricky about making these delicious cupcakes is that you want to eat them all the time.  We just started a Nicholls's family health challenge that Jeremy and I are bound and determined to win, and we can only have 4 sweets a week.  Having treats like this around the home is no good.  We're holding strong though, don't you worry.  Here's the recipe from yourcupofcake.com:

Cakes:

1 cup ripe bananas, mashed

½ cup oil

¼ cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 eggs

1 box Devil’s Food Cake Mix

Peanut Butter Buttercream:

¼ cup butter

8 oz cream cheese

1/3 cup peanut butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3-4 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

1.      Preheat oven to 340 degrees and line about 20 muffins tins with cupcake liners.

2.      In a large bowl, mash bananas (about three) using a fork to get rid of all large lumps. 

3.      Add oil, buttermilk and vanilla and stir well. 

4.      Add eggs one at a time, being sure to mix well in between each addition. 

5.      Slowly add cake mix and mix well. 

6.     Fill cupcake liners ¾ full (This is where my recipe differed. I put enough batter to thinly cover the bottom of the liners then added a full sized peanut butter cup.  Then I filled the liners with the rest of the batter to make it 3/4 full) and bake for 12-15 minutes (mine took a little longer) or until a knife or toothpick comes out clean.  Be sure not to over bake them, and place them in an airtight container as soon as they are out of the oven. 

7.     Buttercream: Beat butter, cream cheese and peanut butter until light and fluffy (should take about 5 minutes).  Add vanilla and as much powdered sugar as desired (I used 5 cups). 

8.     Pipe onto cooled cupcakes.

 Enjoy!

I didn't let any Christmas happen. I Grinched it up so hard I didn't even let it snow!

This year for Christmas we traveled down to St. George to spend it with my family. It was so fun to see everyone!

Christmas Eve night we had a delicious dinner, then we acted out the nativity as my dad narrated the story. Ellie got the role of baby Jesus, I was Mary, and Jeremy was Joseph. Brey was loving being the angel and shining his flashlight "star of Bethlehem."

After the nativity story we played bingo (Jeremy and I got a pineapple slicer and stationary) and Deal or No Deal (we won $75!). 

On Christmas morning we opened presents, ate a delicious breakfast, and spent the day hanging out with each other. Jeremy got the new Super Smash Bros on the Wii U, so we played a lot of that. Our nephew Brey kept asking Jeremy if we could pay the "fighting game." He loved that game!

Late in the week my family went skeet shooting. It's our family tradition to go during the holidays. Ellie and I stayed  home though. I figured she wouldn't appreciate the loud noises.

We had such a great time down south for the holidays. Ellie loved being with family and meeting some of her cousins.

Her cousins loved meeting her too. :)

It's not too much food. This is what we've been training for our whole lives. This is our destiny, this is our finest hour.

Happy Thanksgiving! This year we spent Thanksgiving at home. Since Ellie is still super tiny, we decided that would be best. It was supposed to be our turn going to Washington to spend it with Jeremy's family. Instead, they came to us! It was really fun having everyone here to celebrate.

For dinner we went to Marie Callender's. It was insanely busy! We had to wait for over two hours just to get in. The food was alright, but I felt it was overpriced. They basically give you a menu that you can pick turkey or ham. It's understandable, but I wasn't super impressed. We then went to Mitch and Brittany's house to watch the Turkey Bowl. All in all, it was a pretty good Thanksgiving. It was fun to hangout with family.

Maureen told me that Howard Stern said that if you squat it makes the baby come out faster.

 We have ourselves a baby!  We are beyond thrilled that Ellie decided to show up, and I was completely ecstatic that she came a couple days early. She's adorable and oh so sweet. We love her to pieces.  Here's the story of how our lovey came into our lives:

Ellie was due on October 19th.  On October 16th I had a doctor's appointment to check to see how things were going.  When I got there the doctor told me I was showing some signs of Preeclampsia. He also told me that if I were a little further along he would take me straight to the hospital and deliver my baby right then and there. However, since I was only dilated to a one I would most likely be in labor for 30 hours and end up having a c-section anyway. He wanted me to go to the hospital the following day so they could monitor me for stress and give me blood pressure tests.

The next day, I headed to the hospital to be monitored.  After my first blood pressure test the nurse told me that I would be having my baby that night. She asked me if I wanted to try to deliver Ellie, or if I wanted to have a c-section.  I opted for the c-section since I figured I would end up having one anyway.  The nurse then asked me how soon my husband could be there (it was around 5:30 at the time).   I called Jeremy to see where he was, and told him to grab our bags and to meet me at the hospital.

Jeremy made it to the hospital by 6:00, they handed him his operation room garb, and rushed me to get my epidural.  My first epidural didn't take, and the anesthesiologist didn't want to believe me when I told him that I could still feel everything.  The doctor kept pinching my stomach with tweezers, which felt delightful.  I pleaded with them to understand that my stomach wasn't numb, and to please, please not cut into it.  Finally, they decided to give me another epidural.   This time it took, and I was numb within minutes.  The anesthesiologist was worried that the numbness would go up too far.  He told me to make sure to let him know if my fingers went numb (too bad they were already numb since I had carpal tunnel from being pregnant).

The curtain went up and the next thing I knew I heard Ellie crying.  The nurses swept Jeremy away.  He came running back exclaiming, "She has so much hair!"  Ellie had a pretty wet cry when she came out.  I later found out it was because she had 8 tablespoons of fluid in her lungs that they had to pump out, and they had to pump out an additional 3 tablespoons in the nursery.  On their way to the nursery, Jeremy brought Ellie over to me so I could see her.  She was so beautiful.  The moment didn't last nearly long enough.  She was whisked away to the nursery to be weighed and such.  The doctor sewed me up quite quickly, took the curtain down, and congratulated me while still wearing my blood on his gloves.

They moved me over to a bed and wheeled me to the room where they had monitored my blood pressure. Within about ten minutes Jeremy showed up, and Ellie came not far after.  We didn't have a name for Ellie at the time.  We had a list of names, but we had a hard time deciding on the right one.  Together we decided on Ellie Anne before they even had a chance to bring her in.  As soon as they brought her in the nurse wanted me to feed her.  I was so nervous.  I had heard that nursing is hard, and I didn't know what I was doing.  Luckily, Ellie ate like a champ.  While I was feeding her they wheeled me to my room that I would stay in for the next 2.5 days.  Ellie was born at 6:59 p.m.  She weighed 8 lbs. 11 oz. and was 19 inches long.