Chasing After Cupcakes

We've heard tales of the giant pink cupcake truck around town...another addition to Atlanta's growing food truck scene. We signed up on the Yum Yum Cupcake facebook page to get notifications as to when and where they can be found.


Last Friday, we got a message that the Yum Yum Cupcake truck would be parked at Atlantic Station. This was our chance. I told the kids we were going somewhere special and that they needed to look for something big and pink. We parked our car and paid the meter and walked around a bit so they had to keep hunting. Finally they spotted the truck and instantly knew there was a sweet surprise in their immediate future.



Delaney chose chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream icing wonderfully named "The Chanel".

Ford chose red velvet cake with cream cheese icing and I chose the carrot cake option.

All the cupcakes were delicious and we didn't leave a crumb behind. But all three of us agreed that we liked the carrot cake the best of all. We can't wait to get our next opportunity to visit the Yum Yum truck.

Beach Shopping

My favorite place to browse when on vacation is at Perspicacity in Seaside, Florida. I say browse, because the prices are high, but there are some affordable accessories.


What I love about this place has been the same since it opened 25 years ago, which is the outdoor location along the beach on Hwy 30-A, the salty air blowing through as you shop for brightly colored, beachy things, and the flea market type feel of stall after stall filled with anything and everything.



The merchandising is great...mostly clothes with accessories and sometimes small furnishings thrown in. It is like a treasure hunt. They call it a "beachside bazaar" and that perfectly sums it up.

Cake Please

My favorite cake is carrot cake. And my favorite carrot cake is the one my mom makes. She made it for me this year on my birthday and it was delicious as usual. I had to share a few photos of it because I am in love with this idea of how she decorated it.


She found this lady head at the antique market in Seaside. Her grandmother had one exactly like it when she was a girl. I think it is the best cake topper ever. I love that all 33 of my candles fit in it and how they spiral out if you look at the cake from the top.


I am stealing this idea the next time I have to bake a cake. You could use any little vessel of any sort! In case you want this great recipe, here it is:

Ingredients:

4 eggs slightly beaten
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 cups self rising flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups grated carrots (about 4 large)
1 cup chopped pecans

Combine the eggs, sugar, and oil and mix well. Add the flour a bit at a time until smooth. Add the rest of the ingredients and pour into 2 cake pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.

For the cream cheese frosting you will need:

1/2 cup butter softened
1 package 8 ounce cream cheese softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 1 lb pack powdered sugar

Combine the butter and cream cheese and cream together. Add the vanilla. Add the powdered sugar a bit at a time until desired consistency.


ENJOY!!!

Neon Nails

Girls beach trip began with a trip to get a mani/pedi. Otherwise, I would have needed to wear closed toe shoes even in the sand. I remembered seeing some two toned nails in a magazine recently in coral and turquoise that I loved. I told the girls about them and we decided to try out this new trend. The colors were a bit limited but since Neon is so hot right now, we went that route.


We found fun ads in fashion magazines that coordinated with our polish choices:

I love this picture of Jacqueline's fabulous nails holding a choco-taco. Doesn't get much better than that.

Park Dayz

This is my newest painting (oil on canvas, 30x30). It was inspired by beautiful park days that are finally here. We have been blessed with some wonderful weather in Atlanta in the past few weeks and we have been trying to take advantage of it. We have been exploring the parks around our city.


Our favorite one is a bit of a drive but worth it! It is Riverside Park in Roswell and offers two playgrounds, a giant field, a stage area, picnic tables, walking trails, and the best climbing tree we have ever found!


Here is the photo of Delaney climbing on the jungle gym that I used for my painting. I just loved all the lines and arcs.

Little Chefs

My kids love to watch Giada. And they really pay attention. We always talk about the ingredients and they like to divide up the jobs into what they would each do if we were cooking the same dishes. We have cooked several of her dishes together before but always one at a time. So we were all really excited when Giada did a cooking show with little ones in her "Kidz Kitchen" Episode. We decided we would make the exact same 3 course dinner.

We went to the grocery store and found all the ingredients on our list. We started with the granola bars first and its a good thing we did. We needed the snack to see us through the rest of the dinner making process! Here is the recipe if you'd like to try it:


Next we prepped everything for the Macaroni and Cheese cupcakes which involved the kids playing for a bit while I washed and chopped and diced and shredded and cooked the pasta and ground turkey. Finally, the ingredients were ready and the kids could go to work filling their muffin tins.


This was a huge hit. And although the prep work was quite intensive, we will be doing this dish a lot. This made Delaney (3 1/2) love tomatoes which she has never liked before. This in itself was worth the effort. I loved the crunchy exterior that the bread crumbs made and it was a great twist on Macaroni and Cheese without all the butter and cream. Here is the recipe!

Finally, we ended our meal with Raspberry Ice Cream Sodas. The recipe can be found here.


The meal was success. The kids loved making it and eating it. It took us 3 hours and that doesn't include the shopping. Next time we will probably go back to making one dish and letting that be it instead of trying for three courses like this! You will not be surprised when I say, Giada made it look so easy and quick and surely her kitchen sink has never looked like this before:


I do not dare show you the rest of the mess. Yes, there is more, a lot more. Obviously, Giada has a few prep cooks and one or maybe two, helpers in the clean up department.