Bret's Camera

Here is a photo dump from Bret's Camera. He stopped by the other day to do his taxes and brought the fish he had caught that day. We grilled it up and served it with some lovely fettucini and roasted broccoli. It was super tasty! He had taken a picture of the fish and while we were downloading the picture onto my computer we found these other gems still on his memory card. 

I'm not sure what kind of plants these are but I'm sure Bret knows the scientific name for each of them.

Castleton Tower

Butters Cat after a bath

A day of climbing in Joe's with Sar-ha and I

Sar-ha

I think I'm making farting sounds at Bret cause he was making them at me every time I "exerted" myself on this climb which made me laugh until I fell off.

Christian climbing Good Plantains while Bret belays him

Bret is having a lot of fun with this girl lately. 

I think she's the bees knees!

Post to follow containing pictures of our trip to Red Rocks where the above picture was taken...

Pi Day

I hope you celebrated Pi Day! Yes this is a real thing! Or at least I've always thought it was... although only a couple of people at work knew what I was talking about and I work with a bunch of science peoples. I have no doubt that everyone in my family baked a pie on Wednesday March 14. But did you start it at 1:59? And did you bake 2 pies for 65 minutes at 358 degrees? And cut 9 slits in one and 7 in the other and eat it at 9:32pm.

I did :-)

Potato Head Cupcake

Last week my little friend Si turned 1. He is a very special boy and I really wanted to make him a special Birthday cake that does everything a 1st Birthday cake should. First of all, the cake should be bright as can be. That way when it gets all over, it will make your pictures turn out extra fun. Next, I am rather certain that putting pieces of toys on the cake is a must. So when the cake is all gone, the Birthday boy has something more to play with. Also important is the size. It must be bigger than the Birthday boy's head. Lastly, the cake should taste good. Therefore cream cheese icing is an absolute  must!

I used my giant cupcake pan with Funfetti cake mix. I used two boxes because one never seems like quite enough to fill the giant cupcake pan, plus I wanted extra batter for little cupcakes.

I made a giant cupcake liner using silver wrapping paper by cutting out a giant circle and folding pleats to shape the cup. I frosted the already baked and completely cooled cake bottom before transferring it into the cupcake liner so it would stick to the liner.

I wanted to decorate the cake using cream cheese icing but that can be difficult because cream cheese icing is notorious for melting off your cupcakes right in front of your eyes. I found that keeping the frosting in the fridge for a few hours and then frosting the cake and immediately returning the cake to the fridge kept a nice crust on the frosting. I'll have to try this again in the Summer to see if it still holds up to harsher temps.

Here is the frosting recipe- 

Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese

1 C. (2sticks) butter

1 Tb. vanilla bean paste

7 C. powdered sugar

your choice of bright food coloring

After refrigerating the frosted cupcake for a couple of hours I added the Potato Head parts and they stuck in pretty good.

Here is the reason I was so excited to do this!

He loved it! And got a lovely bath immediately following. Thanks to H & B for letting me bake their adorable son a giant Birthday cupcake!