Highlight Reel: Hello June

Somehow May has quickly slipped away and June has arrived. Can it really by summer? It doesn't seem that long ago that everyone was miserably attempting to get through a seemingly never-ending winter. Yet summer has arrived and all the craziness that comes with it. It works for me though, this is the second summer that I am anxious to get through. For obvious reasons of course. :)

This highlight reel post is a little late. The last week in May was full of fun times as family friends on Dustin's side were in town. They hail from North Carolina and usually visit every year and stay for a week. They arrived on Memorial Day Weekend and we had a blast with them. I didn't take any pictures but I did steal borrow some Instagram shots from friends. Thanks guys!

Memorial Day was all about the food. It was a pretty relaxing day spent preparing for a cook-out later on. There was a ton of good things and I should have thought about that before the day arrived. I had foolishly scheduled my gestational diabetes test for the next morning. Even worse knowing this I majorly pigged out on everything. I haven't received my results yet but I'm pretty sure I set myself up. We shall see!

 

One of the days was spent at a local tearoom which serves the best tea food around. And they have good tea too. Overall though it's just a relaxing atmosphere which is also a lot of fun. The grandpas kept all four kiddos and we headed off. We had the place to ourselves which was really nice and a ton of fun!

Everett made another little friend. Connor is ten months older than him and Everett seemed to enjoy watching him. They were pretty excited about sitting next to each other after church on Sunday morning.

Before the week ended we attempted to get a picture of the four kids together. It's hard enough with three but it's even harder with four. Especially when three of them are wiggly little boys but we did the best we could. Next year will be even more interesting!

The week ended with our church's annual Ladies Tea. This year it was an outdoor picnic tea and the weather was absolutely beautiful! We were at a local park and were able to set up right by the creek. The tables were beautifully decorated and we made ourselves comfortable on quilts and outdoor chairs.

 

The special speaker, a friend from a local church, spoke on our theme "Fashioned for a Purpose". She did a great job and what she had to say was very encouraging.

I was asked to make cupcakes for the tea. Because our theme had a fashion twist it was requested that I make cupcakes that look like high heels. I had never made these before but had seen them all over Pinterest and was willing to give them a try. I had to make forty, I decided on four different designs and two different flavors.

I cheat when I make cakes and used store bought cupcake mix and frosting. Any are good but I prefer Betty Crocker's Super Moist mixes and a basic creamy frosting. I purchased the decorations and cupcake liners at Michael's. The heels of the shoes are Pirouline cookies which I found at Target and the sole of the shoe are Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies purchased for me at BJ's. I baked the cupcakes the night before and my wonderful parents came down early the day of to help me assemble and decorate them. My younger sister kept Everett entertained and fed for me.

The easiest part of making these was decorating them. We found it was easier to frost and then dip the cupcake in the sugar sprinkles first. Towards the back of the cupcake we cut a small notch for the Milano to fit in. Before we inserted it we frosted the edges of the cookie, dipped it the frosted sides in sugar sprinkles and then dipped one of end in melted chocolate. The melted chocolate side was then placed in the notch. Holding it with one hand to keep it steady, we dipped one end of the Pirouline cookie in melted chocolate. These cookies had already been caught in half with one end being cut at an angle. This angled sided was dipped in chocolate to place underneath the cookie. The tedious part of the whole process was that you had to hold this together and wait for the chocolate to harden enough to hold. It then had to sit and harden even more before you could move it. Once this was done we added the rest of the decorations.

We prepackaged these by placing them sideways in treat bags. The ends were secured with the accompanying ties and the ends cut off so they weren't as bulky. This ended up being a good thing as these cupcakes were very fragile and a few of the heels broke off. After being set outside and being in the heat of the sun for a few hours the chocolate holding everything together melted and they all fell apart. Being in bags kept everything together.

They turned out better than I thought they would and with the help of my parents we were able to assemble, decorate and package all forty cupcakes within two hours. Considering it took me about an hour to figure out the first four on my own this was a major accomplishment. My sister keeping Everett happy was also a huge help! And my dad kindly cleaned up my disaster of a kitchen afterwards while my mom and I finished putting everything together. There was no way these cupcakes could have turned out without their help!

And because no post would be complete without one here's another picture of little man. He was rocking the baby mohawk. I don't fix his hair this way but wanted to show proof that he does have hair.