weekend update: Oct 14-16 [in pictures]

Celebrating Josh's brother Dan's birthday Friday night @ Hibachi

Saturday breakfast

Cupcakes :)

Birthday Cupcakes!

Recipe here: Milk Chocolate Cupcakes by How Sweet Eats

No pics from Sunday. Lazy day and we picked up a filter for the furnace. Happy Monday, folks!

BIRTHDAY GIRL: KATIE!

Happy birthday to my very dear friend Katie! I wish I could post all the awesome things about Katie, nice, lengthy post, but I really don't have time plus she never reads or writes on her blog anymore (loser), so she probably won't read this either :) BUT - she is very busy and works/freelances a lot, so I guess we can forgive her for slacking...

Katie and I have been friends since 5th grade. She welcomed me in as a new student, my family had just moved next door and we would not fully know until years down the road how much God had ordained that path. Due to our friendship, I convinced Katie to come to church with me. It was there that she met her now husband Mike! And through Mike and Katie, I met my husband Josh!

I had a bunch of fun pictures to include, but Facebook is being silly and won't get to that screen that allows you to upload or save photos, so, maybe later. But - you could check out my post from 2 years ago for some super nerdy pictures of us.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATIE! I'm blessed to know you and so appreciative for your friendship!!

chocolate cake w/ strawberry buttercream: sissy's birthday!

 
my sister's birthday was like YEARS ago, and we finally celebrated this past weekend (and by years, i mean April 2). she requested something vanilla with yummy buttercream and fruit or luscious chocolate with globs of frosting. so, pretty much anything.

i made her a yummy cake based off of a recipe from Annie's Eats for Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cupcakes. the main cake recipe is from David Lebovitz's recipe for Devil's Food Cake. i was extremely pleased with how the cake turned out. moist and delicious.

the frosting however - not quite as i had hoped. i slightly followed Annie's recipe - but planned on only making half the amount called for, but stupidly added WAY too much strawberry puree at the beginning and used a WHOLE BAG of powdered sugar and it was still too thin. it ended up being more like a (very sweet) glaze on the cake, but it still tasted good!

also, the strawberries on the top starting oozing their delicious juiciness all over the top of the cake...which was okay, but didn't look so great.

Josh's birthday is next week and his brother Dan has requested cake pops since he LOVED the ones we made for Chloe's birthday (i had lots of extras). i think i'm going to make some sort of triple chocolate cake balls for the Easter/Birthday celebration! can't wait to do those this weekend!

birthday celebrations

last week was my 27th birthday. 27 on  march 27. pretty awesome. also, i share my birthday with the oh-how-lovely Jamie Ann who is such a cool birthday twin.

this year my birthday celebrations lasted several days - lunch the Thursday before, dinner and happy hour initiation into the SKANK 27's club on Friday with S(taci) and K(risten). Saturday i stopped by Josh's gram's house and had cupcakes and got some fun gifts. after that my sister and i treated ourselves to spa manicures (birthday gifts to each other since her birthday is 5 days after mine) and Josh and i went to dinner at Victor's Restaurant at the Bel-Aire Hotel.

seriously delicious food there - they are stepping it up! so check it out if you're in Erie and want a little fancier dinner at an affordable price (it isn't straight up fancy there - but it's a little more formal than a chain restaurant). they have fresh bread w/ garlic and dipping sauce, great salad and i had apple, almond and brie stuffed chicken with rice and asparagus. delish!!

Sunday we had some of my family over for some mexican-themed appies, margaritas and cake (posted on that last week). i loved having all of our family in our place! it was so fun, the food was great and it was great celebrating with my family!!

mom, me and dad. unfortunately this was the only decent picture of all of us. my mum was in mid-smile in most of the pictures. ha!

even chloe wanted to try some cake!

me and my handsome hubby!

with niece chloe. except i feel like she looks like our baby in this picture, because i mean, we're both in it and so is she. she's holding my grocery list. haha.

love this gooshie baby!!

thanks to all my friends and family who celebrated with me and gave me lovely gifts! thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday!! it was a great day (weekend...)!!

devil's food (birthday) cake with whipped ganache

 

yes, for my birthday i made my own cake. yes, it took hours out of my day - but you know what? that's okay. i enjoy cooking and baking and i couldn't ask anyone else to spend hours making me this cake, so - i opted to do it myself.

my cake did not look nearly as beautiful when cut (or when not cut) but it was still delicious. it was extremely rich, but balanced by the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream we had to accompany it, it was just right. i also wish it would have been a little more moist on the inside (the cake layers fell apart), but - it wasn't. i left it in for 20 minutes and it wasn't done, so 5 more minutes and...too much. bummer.

also, for the whipped ganache, i used peanut butter and had it whipped to what looked like the PERFECT consistency. i also didn't have the right chocolate cacao %'s, so i added some powdered sugar. i decided to throw in the last few tablespoons of heavy cream i had and - boom. too. much. whipping. ganache was grainy and stiff. total. total. bummer. i ended up heating it a little to make it more spreadable (actually worked) but only did this when applying the chocolate shards.

speaking of the shards. they really were not that hard to make. probably the easiest part of the whole cake, though a little time consuming.

you can grab the recipe from design*sponge here. definitely want to attempt to make this again and 1) not overbake 2) not overwhip and 3) use the correct chocolate cacao %'s.

the cake pop escapade

so i'm not sure if i can really call this an "escapade," but according to the free dictionary online an escapade is - "An adventurous, unconventional act or undertaking."

and i would say cake pops are definitely an adventurous undertaking.

disclaimer: this post is about cake pops, but includes other (food) pics from my niece's party!


anyway, for my niece's first birthday, my sister decided to do some cake pops, kind of as favors and decorations. we had plenty of food and delicious cake, but we really wanted to try these cake pops.

rachel borrowed the cake pop book by bakerella that i got from a friend for Christmas. she did the baking by herself and the crumbling, frosting-adding and ball-rolling with her friend danielle. they also wrapped the Styrofoam in wrapping paper and punched all the holes for the sticks. rach and i dipped and decorated the cake pops the day before the party.

a few words of advice:

• when bakerella says don't use "moist" cake mix - DON'T USE MOIST CAKE MIX. we aren't actually sure if rachel did, but the cake was kind of moist which made for difficulty in dipping. don't get me wrong - these cake pops still tasted AWESOME, plus she followed all the directions and even used less frosting to try to make it less moist. we kept alternating which tray was in the fridge/freezer to keep them hard so they didn't slip off the lollipop sticks, and that worked!

actually, i think that is my only word of advice. rach did the majority of the hard work, but these were still fun and tasted yummy! i want to attempt making them again, maybe for Josh's birthday next month.

cake balls - rolled w/ frosting, pre-dipped

dipping with sissy

(pic by Rach)

amazing cake by Betty's Cookie Korrell

rach did these super cute and quick cards for all the food

gotta love Mum's Magic Cookie Bars!

cute PB&J's made by Rach for the kiddos

Captain Bill (aka my dad) entertains the kids and the adults. Dad used to play at all our birthday parties (when we were younger). this brought back so many fun memories!

birthday post (belated)

so, like i said days ago - happy birthday kristen!

last friday was my former roomie kristen, from andthenifound5dollars. kristen is a long time friend, the first K in "SKANK," a Penn State Behrend lover, wine connoisseur, shoe fiend and fashionista. i was so fortunate to spend two years living with her! we had a great time as roomies - making dinner together, watching and making fun of Rachael Ray, watching Seinfeld reruns, leaving for work at the same time...

alas, life moves on and she bought a house last year and i got married. kristen now lives in our old neighborhood with a super cute house that she did amazing job painting and decorating. i'm so proud of her success and joy in her career, buying her first home and owning her new doggie Daisy!

5th or 6th grade (can't remember which) - i'm on the far right, kristen is on the far left (stephanie is in the middle)

former roomies - on our way to the Erie Bayhawks game for Behrend students, alums and staff!

NYE 2007

 

 

wedding days! 2010 - photo by Danielle Hartland

kristen - i hope you had a super awesome birthday! it was so great to spend it with you! thank you for being such a great friend and roomie. it has been a blessing to know you!

birthday post!!

yesterday was the birthday of one of my very best friends - the S of SKANK! (also, the oldest...ha ha!). check her blog out here.

just like the rest of the girls, staci and i have been friends for quite a long time, our friendship starting in middle school. staci and i played volleyball together in high school and play now in a coed league once a week, which is great cause i get to see her weekly! staci is a great friend, loyal, generous, caring and loves her family, friends and pets oh so much! i'm so blessed to have her in my life!

here are some fun pics:

canada trip - sometime b/w 2000-2003 (i don't remember...little help??)

my wedding day! Aug 20, 2010 - photo by Danielle Hartland

staci + shane's wedding - Aug 11, 2007 (right?? haha)

cruise - 2008

a birthday post

today would have my grandpa's 81st birthday! he was an amazing man, father, husband, grandfather...brother (ok, i can't attest to ALL of those, but i know he was anyway!).

for those of you who don't know, my grandpa died in February after a 9-month battle with cancer. it was sad, but we know he is now rejoicing with Gramma in heaven!

papa, rach, me and mum

papa and my beautiful mother on her wedding day

they were known for jitter-bugging!

my dad with papa

birthday girl!

today is my amazing sister's birthday!!! she is so awesome. i love her so much!!

(um, check out my hair!)

birthday updates!

i've been really slacking on the blogging lately! i've been super busy with church, volleyball, (kind of) going to the gym, work and of course celebrating my birthday ALL WEEKEND LONG!

so yes, i celebrated all weekend long. i mean, it's only appropriate.

staci and kristen celebrated with me Friday night for happy hour at The Plymouth. Fried soft pretzels, buffalo chicken wrap and $1 single-mixed drinks with friends was a great way to celebrate! not to mention their gifts for me - a Penn State organic T-shirt and (a picture of) Rachael Ray casserole dishes i've been wanting! i'm not sure if they got me the dishes or just the picture...

osh also gave me my gifts Friday night. he gave me a mall gift card on Sunday which i used that day, and Friday he gave me an awesome silver iPod shuffle and new case for my iPhone. i'm so excited to use the shuffle and so far i'm loving the phone case!

Saturday afternoon i stopped at Josh's gram's house and saw his parents and gramma. they gave me some clothes and jewelry for our honeymoon trip to Mexico (woo hoo!) and made some cupcakes!

in the evening, i saw my family at my parents house. my parents and sister & brother-in-law (and niece and cats...etc...) gave me some money to go towards the NY & Co. shopping spree i did a few weeks ago. so, they ultimately bought me clothes. plus, mom made dinner and dessert and rach also made a cake. my cousin and aunt gave me the NEW MOON DVD (to which josh is SUPER excited about ;) ) and some new athletic shorts and under armor. sweet!!!

i celebrated at hibachi on Sunday night, which was super fun and super yummy. also, Josh's sister-in-law is planning on taking me to lunch sometime for my birthday! oh, and a few weeks ago my friend Bethany gave me the new Sims 3 expansion pack (yes, i still play that game!) and a T-shirt.

i had a great weekend with friends, family and future-family! birthdays are fun. i like to celebrate mine for at LEAST three days. :)