Cupcake Cuteness

I am not sure it gets any cuter than this:

Yummy!!!!  I made these little cuties on a whim today.  Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese frosting for the insides, dark chocolate coated bottoms, white chocolate tinted a dark pink for the tops, decorated with multi colored non-pareils and a white mint M&M

 

Almost too cute to eat, right?



No, really, too cute to gobble up.





So hard to resist!

LET'S HAVE A BALL!!!

I've decided to give cake ball truffle and cake ball pop making a try.  I figure hey, I make them pretty, I might as well try to make some money, right?

Here are my latest creations:

Custom Cake Pop Arrangement

Yum!!!! 

The Santa Hat, this was time consuming, but well worth the effort

I call this one a snowball

And it isn't Christmas witout the classic red and green

Here it is again, but this one is coated in dark chocolate, I love the effect the dark chocolate has with the red, green and white

Red chocolate, covered in sanding sugar, I love how sparkly this looks

And my favorite, the classic white Christmas tree!!

All wrapped and ready to be delivered

An order of 80 cake ball truffles for a customer

One of each of the designs used in the large order

I have a Facebook fan page now, find me at "Let's Have a Ball"

You can stop drooling now :o)

Wordless Update

Cake Ball Truffles

I first made cake balls last fall, they were a gift for someone, I had never made them before but I was quite surprised with myself because they turned out really well.
So last December I made a bunch of cake ball truffles, I gave them to friends, family, former co-workers, our photographer, etc...  A few months ago our photographer asked me if I'd make them for her, she said she'd pay me because she tried to make them and she said they were not as pretty as mine.  I said sure.  So she contacted me a week ago and she decided she wanted an entire batch which yields about 40-45 cake ball truffles, depending on how large or how small they are rolled.  I delivered them Tuesday and she emailed me the next day telling me they were almost gone and asking if she could place another order!!  This time a double batch!! 

Do you smell the start of a sweet little side business??

I do!!!

I am very excited about this as I love to bake and create.

I will leave you with a few photos of the cake ball truffles I created for her earlier in the week and promise to post my creations after I am done with them this weekend.  Don't drool too much!

Jill's Ultimate Favorite Things Part Deux

Netflix Subscription.  No late fees. No due dates.  No hassle.  I love Netflix and have been a subscriber for about 4 years now.  Cost: $15.95 per month for my plan, 2 DVDs at a time, they have cheaper plans and more expensive plans.  Did I mention we can stream through our Wii too??  AWESOME!!!

Ikea Antilope High Chair.  Simple. Classic. Contemporary. Cost: $20

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Canon Rebel XS DSLR Camera.  I have only been using it a week, but I am in love!!!  Why didn't I get this sooner??  Cost: $479-$499 depending on where you buy it and what kind of deals they are offering.



Ugg Classic Tall Boots.  I own two pairs, black and chocolate brown.  I love my Uggs.  I wear them all winter long, I don't care if you think they are Ugg-ly because once you try a pair, you will get it.  Cost: $180

Mia Bossi "Lyndsey" Diaper Bag.  Yes Virginia, that is a diaper bag and a quite fashionable one at that.  I loveeee my Mia Bossi.  Mine is this exact one, but in solid black snakeskin.  Sorry, I didn't feel like photographing mine so this will have to do.  I love that it is ultra fashinable and non-diaper bagish.  I carry it as my purse and when Davis is with me I toss in a few baby items as well.  Cost: $260-$330 (depends on the print and fabric)

And the Birds Sang!!!!!!

The birds are singing because I finally got it!!!

My dream camera!!!  The Canon Rebel XS that I have only wanted for 3 years!!!

Thank you my wonderful husband!!!!

I only know how to shoot in auto mode and let me tell you, I haven't got a clue what I'm doing and it takes great pictures!!  I cannot wait to see how great they will be when I do get a clue after taking some classes and practicing.

Jill's Ultimate Favorite Things

If you watch Oprah, you understand the meaning of "Favorite Things".  Her "Favorite Things" episode, or should I say episodes, just aired a few weeks ago.  How I'd love to get in on that!  It is amazing, people who have tickets to her show just think they are going to a regular taping, she never reveals when her favorite things episode is going to be taped.  Imagine the feeling they have when it is revealed that they are on the set of the taping of her favorite things.  People get so emotional, it makes me cry just watching them.  Oprah gives away amazing things, cars, cruises, cameras, fancy jewlery, just to name a few. 

I'm not giving anything away here, but I just thought it might be fun to post a few of my favorite things every week or twice a week up until the holidays.

Here goes:

Jonathan Adler (RED) Ceramic Starbucks Travel Tumbler!!  I spotted this while indulging in a Peppermint Mocha last week at our local Starbucks, I just had to have it!!  $10.95

Chock Full O'Nuts - aka "the Heavenly Coffee"  I grew up with my parents drinking this coffee, so naturally my sister and I chug it as well.  $7.50 at Wally World

Model in a Bottle makeup setting spray.  This is the only reason my makeup stayed on my face at my 90 degree October wedding.  I have been a believer ever since.  $29.99 for 2 bottles on Ebay.

PSSSSSST Spray Shampoo.  I love dry shampoo, my sister swears by Oscar Blahndi but she is single and can afford $30 dry shampoo.  I'm a stay at home mom.  Rite Aid $6 (I think $6).  Anyways, I love this stuff.  I washed my hair on Thanksgiving and then used this all weekend, didn't was it again until Monday and you couldn't even tell!

I loveeee me some Philosophy When Hope is Not Enough.  Then I discovered When Hope Is Not Enough SPF!!!  Woot!!  I love a good wrinkle preventor.  Sephora $30 ish

Christmas Cards - Yay or Nay?

I feel like boycotting sending out a Christmas card this year.

Why?

I'm not really in the mood to spend the money on the perfect card, spending time finding the perfect picture of Davis for said card, spending.44 to mail each card, addressing 40+ cards to send out to people, 5 of which give a rats rump about my card.

2 of the people who give a rats rump are the grandmas.

The other 3 include my sister, a good friend and my aunt.

The other 35 people do what I do with the card, look at it and think wow, this is cute or wow this is really freakin' stupid, I can't believe they spent money on it, it ends up going into a card basket of sorts, or if you are really good you actually hang it up.  After Christmas, it goes into the recycling bin.

That was worth the .60 I spent on the card, the .44 cents I spent to mail it and the 10 hours it took me to address and put them all into envelopes.

Yes, it will take me 10 hours because I have a toddler running around.

Ba-Hum-Bug

Of course I'm getting a new fancy camera and I have to play photographer.  I suppose I could send a card out, just one more year.

Besides, Davis is the cutest kid I know and doesn't everyone I know want to see how adorable he is?

Hell yeah they do.

Maybe Maizy the wonder dog will make our Christmas card again.

Look for it peeps.

It will be memorable.

I Survived!!!

I survived the biggest boozing night of the year.

If you ever participated, you know which night I'm talking about.

The night before Thanksgiving.

In my younger years you could find me boozing it up at whatever happened to be my favorite bar that year, running into old friends in town to see their families, drinking too much, going to my grandmas the next day with a severe case of morning sickness, not the morning sickness your thinking of, you know, the kind you get from partying too hard.

The last few years I have "grown up".

I got married, became a mom.

Not that fun ends when you get married and become a mom.

Your idea of fun changes.

Last night my mom and I attended a funeral for a good friend.  Afterwards we decided to have a drink at a newer, locally owned restaurant in our downtown area. 

It was closed.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Oh well.

So we went to an old standy by.

Had a few beers.

I dropped her off, went inside to borrow some Zyrtec for Davis (I know).

I was home by 7:30 p.m.

These ARE the BEST ones yet!!!!!

Every time the amazing Emy of JEM Photography takes pictures of Davis I say, "These are the best ones yet!!".  I truly love her work and every time she takes Davis' pictures I am always in awe.  She always manages to capture Davis personality perfectly, at the age he is at the time.  I will stop babbling about them now and let you see for yourself.

JEM Photography

Friday Fragments

1. I am really, really looking forward to Black Friday.  There are some deals that this chicky needs to get in on.  Wal Mart - 5 a.m. - I am so there.

2. I finally have my husband convinced of my idea, that is only 5 years in the making.  No, we are not having another baby.  It is house related, more on this later.

3. I think Davis is the funniest kid I know.

4. Two Words: Cake Pops

5. One Word: Bakerella

6. Put 4 and 5 together and you have one happy Cake Pop making Jill!!! 

7. I cannot wait to decorate the front of our house for Christmas.  I might go all out this year since we have a white picket fence, that was also 5 years in the making, I finally got one over the summer.  I'm not going to go Clark Griswald on our neighborhood though, at least not this year :o)

8. I'm doing Weight Watchers, for the 8 billionth time since Davis was born.  This time, I'm sticking to it.

9. I had a dream that we decided to have another baby.

10. It was twins.

11. Two girls.

12. Poor Jeff

13. Poor Mommy

14. Maizy is a vicious attack dog, she pulled the ultimate stunt Monday, she bit the UPS dude.  Yep, beware of my labradoodle.  She has been a little edgy since Davis arrived.  I had a dog trainer come in last month, he helped a lot and she was doing so well with it.  But someone (me) stopped doing the training and this is what I get.  She didn't break his skin, but you could see teeth marks in his pants.  I cried after it happened for an hour.  So far the dog warden hasn't shown up, hopefully they won't.  This was a definate wake up call for us.  Back to training 101.

15. My good friends father passed away today, from cancer.  I'm so sad for her.  He has been battling for quite sometime.  The weird thing about this, yesterday while shopping at Kroger I had a feeling he had passed or was about to pass.  My thoughts are with her and her family.

6 Months of Zoosdays

It is always amazing to see what changes over time. 

When you see someone a lot you don't notice changes, but when you go back and look at pictures or an old blog post, it hits you just how much children change over a few months.

Back in the Spring my good mommy friend, Jen and I decided we needed to put our zoo memberships to good use, we were hauling our butts and our baby's butts to the zoo every single week on Tuesdays, weather permitting. We may not have made it every single week due to travel schedules and the ridiculous heat wave we had in Ohio this summer and it may not have always been on Tuesday, but we made it there, A LOT!!  I would have to say we both got good use out of our memberships.  They paid for themselves 10 times over, I'm sure. 

I noticed that we were going to have some wonderful spring like weather this week so I asked Jen if she'd like to get a zoosday in.  It was a gorgeous day, the zoo was not crowded (i think there were 20 cars in the parking lot), the animals were very playful, it was a great day.  Best of all we were there for nearly 4 hours and our kids were angels the entire time, much like our first trip to the zoo.  Please check out Jen's blog post to see photos from our very first zoo trip with the kids, really, look, so you can see how much these two have changed.  Here it is.  I would have posted my own photos in this post, but then I remembered I had left my camera in the car that day.  Davis was 13.5 months old and Stella was 8.5 months old when we went on our first zoosday.  Davis was still taking a bottle and Stella wasn't even crawling yet.  My how things have changed.  Stella is now a mover and a groover just like her friend Davis and they had so much fun exploring the empty zoo today. Today Davis is about 19.5 months old and Stella is about 14.5 months old.  Now onto the pictures.

Siku, the baby polar bear born January 2010, our first zoo trip was the first day he was in the habitat for viewing, he got big too!!!

Mama bear, don't know her name, but check out the shot I captured!  Proof I need a Canon Rebel DSLR (hint, hint Jeff)

Infatuated by the bears

Diggin' his Uggs (yes, Davis has real Uggs people) and I know he is a boy, but come on, they are 100% cuteness

Hi Mommy!!  Peek A Boo

They loved playing on the Lion sculptures

Do we have the most fashionable kids on the block or what? 

Nice Lion

They were also obsessed with the crap they found in that hole in the ground, more so than the Lions I think. 

Trying to get "behind the scenes"

Good Bye Lions, see you next time

Good Bye Lions, see you next time

What a perfect day with great friends!!  This was possibly our last trip to the zoo, except for the Lights Before Christmas, until the springtime, unless we get an unusual warm winter day, which does happen.  What an amazing ending to a season of Zoosdays!  Looking forward to next season!