Happy Easter

I feel that after staying up last night until 1:30 in the morning making myself an Easter Dress and matching bow ties for my boys, a picture is certainly called for!

My children, however, were not too happy to be dragged out to the bridge on the bike trail near our home. Can you imagine, mom made them stay in their church clothes for an entire two hours after church? The horror.

Happy Easter to all!

Mom, Your Blog Is So Boring!

Yes, my children are 100% accurate in their assessment of my recent blog posts.
I don't really have a response to that except to say that sometimes life is like that.
Sometimes, sadly, I think, my camera is full of pictures of cupcakes, not kids.
It's true...there are no recent pictures of my kids on my camera...lots of pics of cupcakes though.

Anyway, I guess that's what makes my blog so boring, at least to my children.

Maybe I could post the video (in it's entirety) that my four oldest children made last week where they sang, played guitars and drums to the music of the Beatles. But oh yeah, they would be SO mad at me if I posted THAT video. But let me just say, they were pretty good. Chuck plays some mean drums.

Let's see, what else? One day last week Joe came home from school and told me there was a parent meeting at the junior high that night that I needed to go to. We had some discussion/argument about whether or not the school was a Junior High or a Middle School. Middle School just sounds a little less scary to me, as a parent. It took me taking a picture of the school's entrance to win that argument, but win it I did. Alas, I digress. Back to the meeting. I've always promised myself that I would be a woman who would age gracefully...I wouldn't try to dress or act or look younger than my actual age. I wouldn't mind wrinkles or double chins...I'd take those spider veins with pride. Well, that was all well and good until it all started to actually happen. And for some reason, all those things started to happen last week, right when I was supposed to go to this new parent meeting at the MIDDLE SCHOOL, or at least it seemed that way to me. My confidence was not boosted when I saw an eighth grader at the meeting wearing a sweater that I own. That was kind of a low moment...at least I wasn't actually wearing the sweater at the time! So, anyway, I don't know if it was the meeting or the new wrinkles, but last week I really started to feel my age...and it's made me re-think this whole aging gracefully thing. I don't know....is Botox that bad? :) oh well, maybe it was just a bad week.

Actually, to be honest, last week was pretty tough. Things are not easy for our family right now. Things are not perfect. There are days that Joe and I look at each other and wonder if we'll be able to keep up with this busy crazy life we lead. We have certainly reached the limits of our capacity, and maybe that's good to know. I don't want to talk only of the negative....there are plenty of good things happening now too, and we are trying to count our blessings.... Joe still has a job, we still have health insurance, the weather is turning nice and our store is almost always busy, we have six wonderful children. Our oldest son gave his first talk in Sacrament meeting...he is truly turning into an honorable and kind young man. And while it makes me sad to see the time pass so quickly, it makes me happy in those moments when I hear him bear his testimony in church or pass the sacrament with such quiet dignity. We count our blessings and keep moving forward and working hard, its just not always exciting.....which leads, I guess, to a boring blog.

We have spring break coming up. Our school district still thinks its a really good idea to give the children two weeks away from school right before they conduct their state testing (just saying), so we've decided to get out of town...at least for part of it. I made some reservations at a resort in Palm Springs for the week after Easter. Joe won't be able to come with us (he has to stay home so he can FaceTime me with my cupcakes...I have some people now who help me, but I'm still working on letting go of some of the control issues) Anyway, my joints are looking forward to some nice dry desert air. We've never done Palm Springs before, but we're looking forward to a short drive and some beautiful weather and basically just hanging out at a pool and doing nothing. Something tells me the "doing nothing" part will only last for so long for the kids, and then we'll be back to whining and complaining and arguing about who sits where in the car-seriously, do all kids fights about that like mine do?

Well, whatever happens, I'll take the camera, I'll leave the cupcakes behind and take pictures of my other beautiful creations. Who knows, maybe something exciting will happen to inspire a blog post that is a little less boring. If not, there's always that Beatles video!

Dulce De Leche

How is it that I have made it this far in my life (I mean it's been thirty-four years for heaven's sake!) without a taste of this yummy stuff? I made some from scratch tonight (well, scratch is stretching it when the only ingredients are milk, sugar, baking soda and vanilla, but still) that I plan on incorporating into a new cupcake tomorrow...mmmm...I eat cupcakes every day and I can still hardly wait to try this new one. So far I've had to sate myself with the stuff slathered on Hawaiian bread...but on a cupcake....I think I've finally met a cupcake that I'll put my OWN name on! Any suggestions for a name? How about, "The Cupcake That Pushed Brooke out of single digit clothes sizes"? Unfortunately, it will probably be appropriate.

PS...in the interest of Internet goodwill...this is not my own photo...just one I pulled off a google search. I was too busy eating the stuff to take pictures of it.

Do I complain about my kids enough?

I guess that's not really the question I should be asking, but rather, do I complain about my kids too much? Do I use this blog to lament about what terrible, awful, unruly, and disobedient children I have?

Well maybe I do, maybe I don't, but right now on this evening, I have the strongest desire to shout it out on the rooftops about what great,wonderful, smart, happy, funny, and lovely children I have.

Maybe it was the two parent teacher conferences I had today. I only had to have two because if your 4-6th graders are doing well, you don't even have to meet with their teachers. So, on this rainy morning when all I really wanted to do was to stay in bed, I had to pull myself out of bed to go and open up the cupcake shoppe.And then I had to head on over to the school to hear about how my kids are doing in school. And as I was driving over there, I thought to myself that for some parents, parent teacher conferences are something to worry about, or to not look forward to. It's exactly the opposite for me, and I know how lucky I am to feel that way.

When I arrived at the school, my older children immediately took charge of the youngers so I could hit the classrooms in peace. Nothing better than seeing your two year old son run into the arms of your ten year old daughter. He sure loves that girl. And in between conferences, I peaked into the book fair to see her sitting and reading books to the four year old. Pure parental bliss. Not to mention all the wonderful things the teachers said about my kids.

So, I'm taking this evening to revel in my children...in the good and the bad. I know they're not perfect, not even close, just like everyone. But tonight I want them to know how wonderful they are, and how blessed I feel to be their mother.

Don't Get Pinched

You could carry one of these around all day tomorrow to avoid being pinched. But, you might want to have a back up plan for about ten minutes into the day when you decide you simply MUST eat that cupcake!
Happy St. Patricks Day!

Gimme a Break...A Cupcake Break That Is

Yesterday, I found myself in need of a cupcake break. I think it's a pretty well deserved one. This tutorial has been at the top of my to-do list since my super-cool sister-in-law posted it around the first of the year, so I finally decided to turn that part of my to-do list into a to-done! It's amazing how accomplished a bit of sewing has made me feel....and it surprised me how much I've missed my little sewing machine.


Not wanting to stray too far from the inspiration bag, I pulled out my yellow-striped Ikea fabric and got to work. The only change I made was to make it a cross-body bag (since my mom introduced me to this style at Christmas I've never looked back...nothing is better for a busy mom). I also decided that this bag was the perfect place to use my stash of orange and yellow goose fabric that I'd been saving. If you look closely, you can see the bag has a pocket inside that is perfectly sized for my favorite new piece of technology.



From to-do into Ta-DA!

Are You Getting Bored Yet?

So, not much going on around here...it's still pretty much cupcakes all the time for me. So not so much time for the funny stories or cute pictures of the kiddos. Last week, Tiny Tigers had the theme, "Healthy Living" and they focused on eating right and exercising. John came home one day and insisted that he needed to go running to get some exercise. He proceeded to borrow his brother's sweat band, donned his crocs (the only shoes this little boys knows he owns) and set out around the block. He didn't make it very far before he tired. He came home a bit defeated, so I told him, "you can ride your bike around the block, that's exercise too." He was so excited to know that bike riding qualified as exercise! I was a little saddened that my four year old has had no steady example from either of his parents as to what exercise is. Oh well...he knows all about ice cream and cupcakes and candy galore. He also knows quite a bid about soda. He has certain preferences when it comes to soda. For example, sometime my husband will mix diet Cherry Pepsi into his Diet Coke. John can instantly detect the difference. He personally has a love of Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper. We get it sometimes as a special treat....nobody else in the house likes it, so it takes a while for little Johnny to make his way through a two liter. So, funny story or terrible story, depending on your take on kids drinking soda...On Thursday, I picked John up from Tiny Tigers. While he was there, I had opened up the Cupcake Shoppe, and gone to do some supply shopping at Costco. While there, I {paid for} and filled up my Copco cup with Costco Diet Coke. So, first thing into the car, (after asking for my iphone), he requests my diet coke. He takes a sip, makes a face, and then says to me, "MOM, WHY DID YOU FILL UP YOUR CUP WITH COSTCO DIET COKE?". I just laughed and asked him how he knew it was from Costco. He said that of course he could tell the difference..."Costco Diet Coke just tastes like Costco Diet Coke, Mom". So here's to my little diet soda connoisseur..at least he know what exercise is now!



And, if you haven't grown too terribly tired of my cupcake escapades, enjoy these pictures. I did a little mock up for a wedding I'm doing this weekend, (slightly terrified to do this) and took some photos to send the bride. The toppers are hers, but the giant cupcake was all my own creation. I made the "liner" out of white chocolate, and then filled it with chocolate cake. It was pretty fun, and turned out pretty well. I took it down to the store to display for the weekend, and got some nice comments on it. I'm hoping it will help to let people know that On A Lark also does weddings. So far, I have three weddings booked and ready to go...I'm hoping it will only grow from there. This was also my first foray into fondant. The pretty little flowers are sweet and oh so easy to make...the perfect combination!





Oh...one more thing...remember in my last post when I said the next thing I needed for my business was a commercial mixer? Well, turns out I was wrong. The next thing my business really needed was an iPad2. Yeah...that was a better choice.