Bald Cupcakes

So what do you do with a million cherries when you can't bake a pie?  Seriously.  I bought some fruit from a stand earlier this week, and I ended up with zillions of cherries.  So I Googled recipes with cherries.  Luckily, I came across something I could bake.  Cherry chocolate muffins!  I'm obviously more of a cupcake fan than muffin, but let's be honest, a muffin is basically a bald cupcake.  But the best part is that because they're muffins, we can eat them for breakfast too and not just dessert :)

I told you, LOTS OF CHERRIES!

The little guys just out of the oven

I think they'd be really good with a light icing on top, but butter is good too... since they are muffins :)

Marcus isn't a huge cherry fan, but he was much more excited to eat one than this picture shows.  Promise :)

Just so you can see how many cherries were left after making these...

Don't they kind of look like this cute cupcake I got for my birthday???  :)

Quarter of a Century

Marcus turned 25 yesterday!  CRAZY :)  Actually, it's really cool because Marcus is 25 years younger than his dad, and he's 25 years older than Critter.  Patterns are cool :)

Marcus was really excited to open the birthday cards we had sitting on the table all week.  He'd try to open them early, but then he'd change his mind and say he had to wait until his actual birthday.  So right after his alarm went off yesterday, we grabbed the cards.  He had some very nice cards and some money, plus he was given the Back to the Future collectors set.  He looks tired in this picture, but he was grinning all morning.

And Kitty and Critter joined together to get him an avocado slicer and pitter.  They had noticed he eats so many of them and often fights with the pits.

It was pretty funny because on Thursday night, Marcus and I were talking about how he was turning 25.  Honestly, it didn't seem that old to me, but he was realizing how many people in his office are younger than him and at the same level (due to his mission, I'm assuming).  He said he wanted to feel younger.  So I decided to make some birthday cupcakes for him to share with his class.  A lot of people in his office are apparently super health conscious, which was really nice for me since transporting even just a dozen cupcakes to Manhattan on the subway isn't that easy...

I met him at his office at one.  He had taken a "Summer Friday." so he got off early.  It was nice to be able to hang out all day for his birthday.  We had some really good Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches for lunch and then were off to pick out my present for him.  We had decided back when he bought his electric drumset that it would count as his birthday present, but I still wanted to do something for him.  My solution was to get him a practical gift.  He was given three options of items he needs but never seems to want to buy.  I was hoping it would be a good gift, and luckily he seems really happy with his purchase.

We went to one of this big Bed Bath & Beyonds in the city, and Marcus picked out a new pillow.  He desperately needed a new one.  I don't even dare take a picture of the old one, it's so...   Well, he loved it and used it way past its normal lifespan.  :)  After all the walking around the city and the pillow purchasing, we both decided to go home and rest.  

Marcus seemed to enjoy testing out his pillow.

And then our birthday activity time arrived.  We went out to Citi Field to watch the Mets lose.  Not the best game ever, but we had a blast in our crazy nosebleed seats.  It was seriously the top row in the stadium, but they were down the first base line behind home plate.  Really great view of the stadium.  We loved it.

Bill O'Reilly threw the first pitch.

Since we were on the top row, we had a really cool view behind us.  Ignore the fence.

There's Manhattan at night :)

Who would've thought watching a baseball game was so tiring?!  :)  We were ready to head home.  And Marcus had to blow out his birthday candles!  (Apparently the candle was a little too heavy for a cupcake, and it fell over... oops.)

HAPPY 25th MARCUS :)

And now we're on to starting his 26th year.   Of course he wants to start it by watching the first Back to the Future, which coincidently is a 25th anniversary edition.  It's the same age as Marcus!  Cute ;)

Faceless

We live in a great ward our here. They make going to church a lot more fun :) Tomorrow, there is a Munch and Mingle after the block. We were given the theme of faces, with a prize going to the person that brings food that looks the most like Bishop Glass. Yeah, I thought about what to do for a long time. I had no idea. And given that I've only seen the Bishop a few times in person, I couldn't come up with any distinguishing characteristic. So instead, I made faceless cupcakes. Yep, my forever Plan B (and usually Plan A) treat.

And I must say, the frosting is looking a TON better now. I'm finally figuring it out :) Though because I want to practice the cute swirl, I haven't done much fancy decorating on the tops. I did consider decorating cupcakes like the faces of Sesame Street characters for a couple days, but I didn't have enough time to do that, write a talk, and work all day. I couldn't make them too far in advance if they were going to taste decent.

So here are my little faceless beauties. They have stripes and spots... bodies with no faces.

But they are pretty cute, if I do say so myself :)

Black Friday Cupcakes

On Black Friday, we always have a potluck lunch. The store provides meat and potatoes, and we bring all the sides and desserts. I had no idea what to make. So I went to my default-- cupcakes :) So I did a white cupcake with a pretty swirl vanilla frosting. I've gotten a little better at frosting them.

Then I decided I wanted to make them look a little fancier.

I thought they turned out really good. And I love the cherry-- it almost makes them look a little more Christmas-y with the gingerbread boy liners. Hopefully they'll taste good too!

more pictures at frosted-cupcakes.blogspot.com

Serious Project Time

Well, it's serious project time here in Provo. I realized yesterday that we are going to be driving to Phoenix in exactly FIVE WEEKS! And since we will be going to New York straight from Arizona, that means we have 35 DAYS LEFT IN UTAH! I'm not sure if I'm more excited, stressed, nervous, or overwhelmed. It's all a blur. But that means that in the next FIVE WEEKS, we have just a few things on our agendas. In those next FIVE WEEKS, we have:

24 more days of work (for me)
9 more days of working at the MPS (for Marcus)
4 weeks of classes (until Marcus graduates)
4 days in New York (searching for an apartment)
3 stockings to make (yes, that's on my list)
3 Sundays in Nursery
2 Christmas presents left to wrap (yes, just two!)
2 tickets to purchase (to fly to New York)
1 football game Marcus has to work at
1 cat to prepare for travel (urgh)
1 apartment in New York to find
1 entire apartment to pack (minus a small stack of boxes)

And probably several more, I just don't want to really stress myself out :) Oh, and within these next five weeks, BRIAN WILL GET HOME FROM RUSSIA! **GASP** But now, it seems like there's so much to do because I've done about nothing. Here's a couple pictures of the few things (or projects) I have accomplished before this FIVE WEEK FINAL COUNTDOWN!

The second square in my quilt (except the angel's face)

The first of the four stockings I plan to make

Wrapped Christmas presents :)

More boxes packed

Progress emptying closets

And of course, more cupcakes... Chocolate Orange. Check out my cupcake blog to see more of those pictures. :)

At least I started all these things. So much for getting a lot done ahead of time. But come on, what fun is that?!?!?! Haha.

My attempt at Halloween

Isn't it amazing that it's already the end of October??? Seriously though. Crazy! We move in a month and a half, and don't worry, nothing's packed and we still don't have a place to live. So instead of thinking about that, I made... CUPCAKES :) I never really got into the whole carving pumpkins/costumes and whatnot, but I tried to be a little festive with pumpkin cupcakes. They don't taste like pumpkin because I thought that was more for Thanksgiving, but they almost look like them. And somehow I convinced Marcus to help. He actually wanted to this time:

We have Jack-o-lantern cupcakes!!! Can you guess which one is my favorite???

Do you spy Jack the Pumpkin King? the pumpkin that's a basketball for Halloween? a pig? Ron Weasley? Ha.

Cupcake Catch-up

I've obviously fallen behind in blogging. So I figured I'd start with the easiest post first. It's good motivation. :) So, here are some cupcake pictures. Naturally-- haha.

I made these cupcakes two weeks ago, and they were pretty good. Not my best, but you could take the lemon and blueberry-- you can definitely see the blueberry too. I had never baked with fresh fruit before, so that was an adventure.

Now here was an entirely new challenge... Soda in a cupcake. Seriously. And next time, I'd use more.

Last, at least in this cupcake post, is one of my all time favorite post-cupcake pictures. It's an older picture, but it's proof someone really enjoys chocolate cupcakes...

In honor of Papa: Colorblind Cupcakes

It's definitely been a long weekend for the Page family. My grandpa suffered a stroke on Friday morning, and I don't think anyone was prepared. Nana was so brave as she sent him off the hospital, and everyone was very hopeful that there would be no permanent damage. But things haven't been going well. Since I've been just staring at this computer and not able to write more than a couple words at a time, I'll probably have to post about what all has happened later. But today was really a special day. Almost the entire family was together at some point or another to support Nana and show their love for Papa. He's such a great man. He loved his family more than probably anything. And I am so glad that most of the Pages were able to be in Park City this summer and share some great memories. I love how happy Papa is in all of the pictures from that week.

I've been thinking a lot about how to make Papa proud, especially during this time. Even though I usually never say the right thing when there is any emotion or stress involved, I loved how our family was able to find ways to be together. And Papa loves when we are all together. He always wants everyone to be enjoying each other and sharing with each other. I've always felt that he loves to talk about everyone individually and what we are all doing in our lives. I know personally, he's been so supportive of everything I've done with music. I can only think of one orchestra concert he's missed since I've been in Utah. And throughout school, he was always making sure that I was enjoying it and doing well. And ever since I've started this cupcake craze, he's always been excited about whatever I'll bring to our Third Sunday Dinner. So I decided with all the family together tonight, I'd bring some cupcakes in honor of him. They're black and white because he's colorblind, a fact we often joked about :) And even Nana said tonight how proud he'd be of me for bringing some to share. But I think this is about all I'll be able to get out tonight, so here are Papa's colorblind cupcakes: