Azaleas and Cupcakes, ya'll

Wouldn't that be a good name for a bakery?

Anyway....not to brag, but I made some DELICIOUS cupcakes for Ben's party. If you've been looking for an EASY, foolproof, go-to chocolate cake recipe, then I've found it here. I've made this recipe 5 times now, and it has turned out perfectly every time. It's got a good chocolate flavor, but it's not TOO chocolatey so you can use chocolate icing on it without going overboard. It has a great texture and stays moist for a long time. Just like a cake mix but without all the horrible stuff they put in those things. Some notes:

• The recipe I linked to is for the sheet cake version, but it works for any type of cake. If you're making cupcakes, bake them at 350 and start checking them around 20 minutes. I think mine took 23 minutes. It should make exactly 24 cupcakes. I also made a 9 x 12 cake, and it took around 33-35 minutes.
• I lieu of using real buttermilk I did the trick where you combine 1 T. vinegar for every 1 c. milk. It worked fine.
• Don't skimp on the coca powder. HEAPING tablespoonfuls.
• I didn't sift my flour beforehand and the batter had little balls of flour. It didn't affect the taste at all and I don't even think you could notice them, but it caused me some anxiety. If you have extra time I would go ahead and sift.

Now for the frosting!

I'm not a big fan of frosting and hate it when frosting overpowers the cake. Classic buttercream is good, but I wanted something a little different this time. PW has never let me down with her recipes, so I decided to try what she describes as "The Best Frosting I've Ever Had." I made a test batch and quickly realized it wasn't my first time eating this deliciousness. My mother made this frosting for nearly every chocolate and red velvet cake we ate while growing up. I've never had it anywhere else, and it never occurred to me to ask her for the recipe. My mistake, since I've obviously been missing out. It has a whipped cream consistency that's the perfect accompaniment for chocolate cake. Just one word of advice; you CANNOT over beat this frosting. When in doubt, keep beating. There should be no separation AT ALL. PW says it took her 45 seconds of hard beating to get the right consistency, but it took me 2 full minutes since I live in a humid climate.

Please try this frosting, then tell me how much you love it:)

Party time!

Ben had his 3rd birthday party 2 weeks ago. I started planning this party in January, and I was nervous about having our very first "friends" party--especially since I knew I wanted to have it at the house. This meant the yard (the bane of our existence) had to look presentable, and we only had a few weeks of spring to make it happen. As you saw in the previous post, we were able to finish the patio with one weekend to spare before the party. That one weekend was spent mowing, edging, weeding and mulching. Then finally....celebration time! We had 12 preschoolers and their parents here for some messy fun, lunch and cupcakes. The day was cool and cloudy but the rain held off until that afternoon. I was disappointed about it being cold but it was really a blessing in disguise since it kept the bugs at bay. The bugs here are no joke! Of course, kids don't even notice the weather so they all seemed pretty happy.

Joel and I used foam stamps and fabric paint to stamp the guests names on canvas aprons. They used them during the party, then took them home as party favors.

We set up makeshift easels for the kids to create their masterpieces. I thought they would all want to paint the whole time, but I was WRONG. The REAL star was the 2 bins of flour we set out with some cups, spoons, etc...

I can't believe how much these kids loved playing with that flour. We could have just had a flour party!

After everyone had made a big mess, we ate mini pulled pork sandwiches provided by Joel, homemade mac-n-cheese, fruit salad and chocolate cupcakes.

Three little blondies. On the far left is Carson, whose mom and I met in childbirth class and who shares a birthday with Ben. Sawyer is the other cutie, and he's Ben's new friend from preschool. Sawyer has introduced Ben to the wonders of all things superhero related.

When we asked Ben what his favorite part of the party was, he said "cupcakes!"

I'll post later about Ben's actual day of birthday celebration, plus some info about his cake. It was DELISH!

We built a patio

Well, really...Joel built a patio. I helped a little. Here's what we started with.

Don't ask me to explain the rocks. Just understand that we had a large area full of rocks.

First step was to clean up the rocks while our next door neighbor was on baby holding duty.

We dug out some sod to enlarge the space. Joel built a frame and installed it. We dug some more and made sure everything was level.

Joel added some leveling sand while Ben pretended he was in a construction zone.

Then Joel was finally able to start laying brick. With Ben's help, of course.

TADA! And this is what it looked like right before Ben's birthday party last Saturday. It's pretty awesome having an actual patio to hang out on. We've used it nearly every single day since finishing it, and it has completely changed the look of our yard.

We thought very seriously about hiring someone to build the patio, but decided against that idea for a couple of reasons. One, it's MUCH more expensive to hire somebody, like at least twice what it cost us to build it ourselves. And two, we needed it done pretty fast since we had Ben's party coming up and another party this weekend. If anybody out there is contemplating building something similar, you need to know that the skill level required is minimal but the physical labor is exhausting. I doubt Joel will want to build a patio again any time soon! We actually lucked out because the area we chose to dig out was already full of dirt, so that made it easier. We dug a few feet of sod around the perimeter and it was SERIOUSLY hard. The only thing that kept me going was thinking of my pioneer ancestors and how they used to not only dig out sod, but actually build their houses with the stuff. Yeah...I wouldn't have lasted too long out on the prairie.

The cutest baby in the universe!

Ok...so maybe I'm a tad bit biased.

But c'mon.....pretty cute, right!

Those hands must taste good, because he snacks on them most of the day.

"Mom, seriously...get the camera out of my face and give me some privacy."

This lucky boy has wavy hair, blue eyes, two dimples AND a cleft in his chin. What a heartbreaker! It almost makes me forgive him for only napping 45 minutes at a time:)