Valentines Cupcakes

Taking treats to the agency again for some birthmoms! So glad to have the excuse to make treats the past 2 weekends!

2 Halloween Parties 2010!

Disclosure: These pics posted SO OUT OF ORDER...sorry, too lazy to fix!

5th Annual College-Friend Halloween Party
So, Every year (for 5 years) I have hosted a Halloween Party with my friends from college and their spouses (& now there are kids too!). We had Pumpkin breadbowls and everyone brought some soup to share. (and we had YUMMY stuffed mushrooms). Then, after dinner we always carve pumpkins. Below are some pics from the night (I was bad with the camera and didn't get ANY pics of my friends).

I LOVE this little guy!

My pumpkin is the Owl and Branden's is the scary fire dude.

Chocolate trees for my Halloween Haunted Castle (pic comes later)

Owls pre-hair

LtoR: My cousin Amanda, My Aunt Ann, and my momma helped me start my cupcakes the night before the party!. Always so much fun to be able to the the Jensens

(notice there is no apostrophe in "Jensens"....nothing belongs to the Jensens...there's just more than one of them.......PLEASE notice since it's almost time for people to start handing out Christmas neighbor gifts....please do not write "Merry Christmas from the Wilson's"! (cringe) It drives me freaking crazy!!! THERE IS NO APOSTROPHE (I am reading a punctuation book written by me in my former life. She totally gets me....I'll have to blog about my extreme HATE for the incorrect use of apostrophes later)...Back to the parties........

1st Annual Work-Friend Halloween Party

So, I wanted to spread the Halloween Party love to my new co-workers (the ones that happen to be my friends)...only one problem....they all live in Davis county and some (I'm not naming names) refused to make the long drive to Eagle Mountain....so THANKS to the ECHOLS for leting us crash their house for the party! Same Party M.O. as the College-Friend party....pumpkin breadbowls (Thanks Lehi Bakery!) and then pumpkin carving!

RtoL: Bruce, Carter, Branden, JD, Spencer, Zak, and Erin
carving their pumpkins in Arron's basement

Cookies that Arron's one-armed-wife (that he lovingly has named "The One Armed Bandit") made for the party. She actually has 2 arms....but she had shoulder surgery this week (I know, you are thinking how nice of her to let us have a party at her house just days after shoulder surgery!)

Me in my "I kissed a ghoul and liked it shirt" from Wal-mart with my mini haunted castle (no time for doors and windows this time). I hate almost all things holiday...so the cupcakes and the shirt are all you are getting for me :)

Spencer & Zak (JD's boys) and Carter (Bruce & Mitzi's)

OK, so Carter has more energy than any 2 year old I have ever seen. His mom says that he "was born knowing how to dance." I know...you're thinking what a sterotype, problem is...this time it's true. This kid honestly dances while walking! Mitzi says 3 year-old hip hop classes are in his future. He was running around, dancing, break dancing on the floor, wrestling Zak and Spencer, rolling his arms 70s style, "raising the roof". And everytime the camera gets close to him......he hams it up big time. No one knew he was doing this until the flashes went off on the cameras....and of course....laughter ensued.

us :)

Can I just tell you how much I love Branden?? He is the best person! JD's boys needed help with their pumpkins (and spencer wanted to do 2 of them)...so Branden helped Zak carve his pumpkin while JD carved the coolest pumpkin of the night....a howling wolf on a white pumpkin.

The boys loved the haloween glasses I bought for their treat bags (thanks again to the One Armed Bandit who put the bags together).

One Armed Bandit (Miss Lisa Echols), Giggly Cheeks Gabers (Baby Gabe), and Daddy (Arron)

See, I told you the kids loved the glasses. Carter was convinced he needed to wear them while carving. You can;t tell in this pic, but when I brought the camera over by him, he sawed his knife back and forth as fast as he could while at the same time turning to look at me with extreme cheese smile. SUCH A HAM! Their pumpkin looked like it had a stroke because carter insisted on carving the mouth on one side :)

The whole gang. Carter seriously knows how to pose for a pic.

Adam and the Airforce

Branden's brother's (Kevin) wife's (Amanda) brother Adam is going to Afghanistan soon (he's an airforce medic), so we had a surprise BBQ for him last night. So, of course, I took some cupcakes!

My-Work-Friend-Arron's Birthday

Arron's wife brought this poster to our work yesterday. I kept it in my car and put it up this morning before he got in.

I made Arron a littl tripple chocolate fudge cake with chocolate and Oreo filling in the middle, 2 different types of chocolate frosting on top with crushed up oreos in between the frosting on top! YUM!

Sunflower Cupcakes

Don't you love these! It's hard to tell in the pic, but these are mini cupcakes, mini oreos, and mini M&Ms. We were invited to sunday dinner at a neighbor's house and we were in charge of dessert. Branden made a 2-layer icecream cake with Oreo crust and I made these Oreo sunflower cupcakes. These cupcakes got the Branden stamp of approval. He told me these were "probably the cutest cupcakes [I've] ever made"

B-day Cupcakes & Rodeo

So this is a pic of Jourdyn and her awesome boyfriend. He is Branden and Melanee Approved! He meets all of the criteria:
1. NO FANCY PANTS
2. No dude shirts with fleur de lis and angel wings
3. Receding hairline/bald
4. NOT a DUDE
5. Can look you in the eye and have a normal conversation




Happy 23rd B-day Jourdyn (on June 23rd). It was so kind of her to help me make her some birthday cupcakes!

On Saturday night Branden's family and us and Jourdyn all went to the Pleasant Grove Strawberry Days Rodeo. Thanks mom for the free tickets every year! The strawberries and cream were yummy, as usual!

Everyone got their turn holding baby Blake but I may have hogged him the longest! He fell asleep in my arms....so CUTE!

Ducky Cupcakes II

So, the reason for the cupcakes is that I made them for a mini-baby shower/lunch for my friend Arron at work (and his cute and SUPER pregnant wife, Lisa). I got some balloons and stuck one of these duckies @ everyone's spot at the table. Turned out cute.


I had a little extra batter, so I made som mini cupcakes too and shared them with people @ work.

I am a big fan of the melted frosting now. Makes frosting even regular cupcakes so much easier! Perfect, smooth and shiny!

Ducky Cupcakes - Sooo Cute!

Bottoms up little ducky!

My favorite cupcake book ever!

Why does it make me so happy to decorate cupcakes? Maybe it's the only way an accountant can be creative?

After the donut holes and the marshmallows, it was time for the duckies to go for a swim in magic yellow frosting.

This was so much fun. I can't wait to share them with my friends. I hope they are as yummy as they are cute.

Cutest Cupcakes, Shaved Kitty & Pneumonia

Aren't these awesome! Mums for Memorial Day!!! My sister-in-law gave me the best birthday present ever....a cupcake book! This is the 1st of many adventures I have had with that blessed book!

Black Kitty (yes, that is her name) got shaved this weekend. She sheds too much in the summer. See pic below for what kitty looked like before :)

So, Branden inhaled sea water on our cruise 3 WEEKS AGO and got pneumonia. He has been on antibiotics, but he is still caughing a little. He is starting to get better though. This is him having a mid-day snooze with the kitties with a box of tissues by his head!

Cupcake Class

I tought a cupcake class for Relief Socitey a few weekends ago. I showed a couple of ideas that could be done with only 2 icing tips (the 2 I think are essential to have).

I loved this pink frosting. Good tip is to buy frosting from a local bakery. That way it's already colored and you don't have to make it! I got pink and red frosting from Smith's Bakery for $2 each. It's a little more frosting than what comes in a regular frosting container on the baking aisle at the store. (Don't try to make red or black frosting. It's the most frustrating thing you'll do. Just buy it!)

Flowers in 'dirt' and 'grass'

I found these cute terracotta dish things on clearance at Walmart for like 20 cents.

Cakes, Cupcakes & Cookies Galore

OK, so a for graduation with my undergrad, my dad gave me a cake decorating kit. I honestly thought it was a tackle box....I let it sit in my basement for about a year until I decided to start messing with it. I looked at the little instruction booklet and tried to make some stuff. I signed up for a beginners cake decorating class at a local craft store...and I'm definitely still an amateur, but I really like to decorate cakes when I have time. Actually, cupcakes are my favorite. So here are a few pictures of cakes and cupcakes that I've done. These monsters are by far my favorite cupcakes. I do them every halloween.

My second favorite Halloween cupcake.

Mini cupcakes...kind-of fun with the raspberry in the middle. This was a marble cake mix and they were YUMMY!

I made 2 of these cakes for Branden's little sister's (Kami) wedding shower.

I made this cake real quick one saturday for a friend's birthday (Stacey Hansen).

I really liked this cake tin when I found it. It lets you decorate different "layers" but it isn't a full on 3 tiered cake.

I made this cake pretty early on in my cake decorating days. It was inspired by some cool henna cupcakes I saw online. I did the Celtic knot at the top since the cake was for my mom's birthday and she loves all things Celt, especially the knots.

My mom's cake inspired me to do a similar cake for Branden's Dad's (Ronnie) birthday.

Some fun easter basket and spring flower cupcakes.

My grandma Jan had a bridal/reception center for many years. She did all of the catering and she is awesome. It was really special to me when I first started to learn to use the icing bags and tips that I was able to spend a day with her doing nothing but decorating cookies. She definitely taught me a thing or two. For some reason I love this picture of my grandma's hands. It's the perfect picture for how I remember her hands.

Enjoying the fruits of your labor is dangerous when frosting and sweets are involved. (you can see the "tacklebox" in the background)

My experimental easter bunny cake.

I made BYU cupcakes (against my better judgement) for a party we were having at Keb and Amy's (Branden's cousin and his wife) to watch a BYU game. The cupcake on the bottom right is a cute little football....that was my favorite one.

My first cake with roses. This is a cake that I had to make for my cake decorating class.

This was my first cake that I had to make for my class.