wedding + sickness + halloween = tired.

Well, it has been quite a week!  Too much has happened for me to actually go into detail about, but a photo overview of events is absolutely necessary.  :-)  

I traveled to Atlanta Thursday before last to celebrate in the wedding festivities of my two dear friends Karla and James!  

It was a spectacular time!  With some of the most amazing food I've ever eaten...  like my Southern Burger from Flip Burger.  - Deep fried beef burger with pimento cheese, bread and butter pickles and green tomato ketchup!  And they had glass bottle, real sugar Cheerwine! My favorite soda ever created!  So delicious!  

I also can't forget my favorite meal EVER from Highland Bakery!

Shrimp and Grits with a jalapeno cheese bread!  Insane!  

  

Anywho enough about food, we'll talk more about that later... 

The wedding was amazing and so THEM!  

Karla looked stunning! 

 The details of this wedding were so unique!  

They made their center pieces that were branches spray painted orange with tiny owls and

 votive candles glued to them.  They were awesome!  

They also had Mad Libs speeches for everyone to fill out!  Creative and fun!

The Krispy Kreme grooms cake was too much for me to handle!  I think I died and went to heaven! 

They also had red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (YUM!) and they all had teeny cake toppers on them that looked shockingly similar to James and Karla! 

 

The food, following with the trend of the weekend, was incredible!  Breakfast for dinner (MY FAVORITE) from The Flying Biscuit.  YUM!

On top of all the details, there was just so much love and friendship in the place that my heart was just overflowing!  

My beautiful mom was my date, since Andrew and Caroline stayed back in VA.  

 Friends were abundant with all of my girls (minus our beautiful Rachel... :-( who will one day join us again in the US... but thank goodness her parents were there to represent!)   

I don't know what happened with the lighting in this picture.  Oh well... I still love it because I love all of these girls SO MUCH!  

And of course, because I'm a sap, I cried my eyes out hugging my newly married friend! Aww!

Overall, it was a spectacular weekend!  Exhausting, but wonderful!  

Congratulations to Karla and James!  Love you both!!!

I got home Sunday and napped for a good three hours that afternoon.  I was still tired on Monday, but trugged through the day.  I was feeling okay until Wednesday night when I started feeling super dizzy and went to bed early to sleep it off.  I woke up Thursday and couldn't shake the feeling like I was going to faint.  I went to the doctor and they tested for a lot, but couldn't give me an explanation other than my body was most likely just trying to fight off something I had been exposed to, which would be just about everything that's out there right now.  I attempted to go to school after the doctor, but was sent home.  I ended the day still feeling dizzy and with a massive headache to boot.  lovely.  Friday, I woke up still feeling lightheaded and nauseous.  Somehow I decided it would be a good idea to go to school because I didn't want to use any more leave so early on in the year, but that idea was put to rest when I had to run out of our morning meeting to vomit. gross and embarrassing.  Luckily I made it to the bathroom before it all came out.  Obviously, I went home again and stayed in bed all day long.  I was on the mend Friday night and was determined to have a good day for Halloween and Praise Jesus I did!

I woke up Saturday feeling much better.  Still not 100%, but at least a good 75%. :-) I was good enough to make rice krispy treats, carve pumpkins and dress up as a witch!  I guess that's about 100% to most people, but to a McElveen to make it 100% I could have added clean the entire house and do four loads of laundry to the list, which did not happen. hehe 

 

My girl was PRECIOUS as Raggedy Ann this year!  Do you love her or what?!?  

 

Overall, it's been a busy time!  I'm so thankful for two work days without kids Monday and Tuesday.  Not much better than that... well, other than snow days.  When are they coming?  I'm ready! :-)  More to come... probably at Thanksgiving.  haha  I'm not a very good blogger.  

Baby cakes!

Hello all!  Are you still there?  *crickets*  hmmm  *taps mike* HELLO!  Are you still there?  

Okay... here it is... I know I've really been awful at blogging lately, but I have to show this off!  

I made these adorable "baby cakes" Sunday night.  I got it into my mind that I wanted to make something mini and these tiny cakes were what came to my mind.  

I love the way they turned out.  Only six of the eight I made are pictured.  I made two eight inch round cakes and used a wine glass to cut smaller circles out of each cake.  I got four circles out of each cake and I used the scraps for cake balls!  YUM!  The rounds ended up about 3 inches in diameter.  I then sliced the rounds in half to make the mini cakes two layers.  I iced half in chocolate butter cream frosting and the others in white butter cream!  And as you can see, I decorated them all differently.  I love cake!  And tiny things.  And just putting them together makes me happy.  Though, I will admit that as cute as these cakes turned out, they took FOREVER to make!  I will definitely not do this again unless it is for a special occasion or I am getting paid.  :-)  Can you blame me?  

Also, because I've been a blogging slacker, I thought I'd show off the pumpkin spice cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting and the chocolate covered cheesecake balls I made for my dear Karla's bridal shower the other weekend.  They turned out AH-mazing, if I do say so myself.  Don't you like how I'm always patting myself on the back?  hehe  

Tomorrow I'm leaving on a jet plane for the ATL to spend four glorious days with my best girlfriends in the whole wide world (sans Rachel who is somewhere in Asia right about now... sad!) to celebrate the union of Karla and James!!!  woo hoo!  Can't wait to see all of these beautiful faces again!  LOVE THESE GIRLS!   

Peace out y'all and have a great rest of the week!  

Kitty!

We got a new kitten!  She is quite possibly the sweetest thing ever!  

Just look at that face!  How could you not love her?

Andrew loves her.  

I love her.  

Caroline loves her.  

Scout tolerates her.  :-)  

(Please excuse the quality of this photo.  It was taken with Andrew's blackberry.) 

We are all very happy with our new addition!

This weekend we're off to Roanoke/Lynchburg to see my parents, have a wedding shower for my girl Karla, and to attend my 10 year high school reunion!  I'm an old woman! :-)  We leave tomorrow evening!  It should be fun times!  I hope our kitties survive three days alone! :-)  

Cake. It's the best I can do.

Hello faithful blog readers.  (All 3 of you!)  I'm sorry it's been so long!  

I have been trying to post for like a million years.  Wanting to catch everyone up with the million things that seem to have happened since I last posted.  Well, that blog may come along eventually... maybe even this week... but for now... this will have to do.  

Cake has been an important part of my life as of late.  

As some of you may remember from my last couple of posts, I started taking a cake decorating class two weeks ago!  It has been an amazing experience!  And I don't say that lightly.  I have loved every single minute of it!  From baking the cake, to making the icing, to icing the cake, to learning professional decorating techniques, to putting the techniques into action, to taking it to work and letting my coworkers rave about my creation and then devour it in five minutes!  Ah-mazing!  I think I may have a knack for this.  I've never felt this confident about anything.  I seriously think this is a career move that may happen somewhere down the road (hopefully sooner rather than later)!  I have never loved doing and creating anything as much as this!  

And now... for my very first professionally decorated cake.  The thing I love the most about this cake is that I free-handed my design.  Everyone else in the class used stencils, but she showed us how to draw our own and I decided to try that out.  So, instead of going the easy "traditional" way I drew my own design and then transfered it to my cake.  I must say that I think it turned out great!  It exceeded my expectations!

Cake decorating Part 2 is definitely going to happen!  I'll keep you all updated and post pictures of my next cakes!  

success!

Well, the cupcakes were a success!  

Though only partially.  I LOVED the banana cupcakes and I LOVED the peanut butter frosting! What I didn't LOVE was the two of them together.  Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't a situation where I tasted it and hated it so much that I couldn't eat it.  It was good.  Just not... it. The banana cupcakes were perfectly moist, fluffy and delicious!  The peanut butter frosting was thick, rich and also quite delicious!  My problem was that the peanut butter frosting was overpowering the greatness of the banana cupcake.  It was just too much together.  Separately they were perfect, but together, not so much.  However, I do think the peanut butter frosting would be perfect with a chocolate cake! YUM!  And I'll just have to keep trying with the banana cupcake.  Bakerella used a cream cheese frosting, so maybe I'll try that next time.  These recipes were amazing though and they will stay in my recipe book for many years to come! 

 

My always faithful taste-tester was partial to the peanut butter frosting!  

That was her favorite.  She ate off the whole top of the cupcake and wanted to scrap the rest.  Kids.  They know what they like, right?  

Well, tomorrow is my final full day at home with my girl for the summer.  Sad.  Andrew and I will be off to our end-of-the-summer get away and my mom will stay with Caroline until Sunday.  Then Monday... school begins.  sigh.  Oh how I will miss seeing her adorable face all day long!  How can you not love her?!?!  I think she's incredible!  Though I guess I am a bit partial!  

Look at that style!  She's a movie star in the making!  

Cupcakes: a confession

Well, I have a confession to make.  I want to start my own business. A cupcake business.  I've been thinking about it all summer.  Last year when I made cakepops and cupcakes for my coworkers, I got so many compliments and people told me that I should start my own business.  They said people would buy these things!   I'm sure that is true, but all I could think of was that I'm not a baker.  I made everything out of a mix. All I did was make them look cute.  If I really want to start a business, no matter how much I love the decorating and creative aspect of it, I must learn the baking side as well as the decorating.  

So, before I actually consider a business, I have some things to take care of, right?  

1.  Learn more professional decorating techniques.  So, to take care of that, I am taking a cake decorating class starting September 15!  There are two parts, but I'm just taking part one to see how I like it.  I expect to I love it and learn a lot!  Updates to come.  

2.  I must become a more serious baker.  No more box mixes.  I must make cupcake recipes and then tweek them to become my own creations.  I don't really need a class for this.  I know how to bake, I've just been too lazy to do it from scratch.  haha  So, today starts my first baking without a mix experiment.  However, one thing is going to be lacking in my kitchen.  I have no stand mixer, like every cupcake recipe I look at expects you to have.  I want one, but have you looked at them?  I don't have $300 just lying around.  *donations are welcome* :-)  I've tried to win one about a million times on Pioneer Woman, but so have thousands of other people, so needless to say I have yet to win.  But really... this is the one I want... I love red!  :-)  Maybe I'll save my money and buy one one of these days or maybe some generous soul will give me one or have one laying around that they don't use and donate it to a good cause.  But for now, I'll just stick with my hand mixer and move on with my life.  

Today I am making banana cupcakes with a peanut butter frosting.  The banana cupcakes come from Bakerella and the peanut butter frosting comes from Ina Garten.  I'm eager to see how they turn out.  I also considered doing these the opposite, with peanut butter cupcakes and a banana frosting.  But we'll see how these work first...  I hope these will turn out as good as I am thinking they will be!  I love cupcakes and I love using different combinations of flavor!  I'm eager to get started!  

In other news, the hubby and I celebrated 3 years on Wednesday!  woo hoo!!!  I have no idea why I didn't blog about it... I guess I just wasn't in a blogging mood that day... but I must tell you that it was a fantastic day!  Not only did I get a surprise flower delivery (my favorite!) but we also went to eat at my favorite restaurant Mike's.  SO GOOD!  Then we came home and cuddled up ... drank a little wine ... watched a movie ... etc.  :-)  It was a perfect day with the best man I know!   

Next week Andrew and I are going on our 3rd annual anniversary trip. (Thanks Mom for all the babysitting you've done to allow these trips!)  The first year, we just went on a super date and drove around just the two of us... went to Leesburg and Harper's Ferry and then came back for dinner and a movie.  It was a great day!  C was so little then though and I just wasn't ready for an over night trip without her.  Last year, however, I got a little more brave and we went to Philadelphia for a couple of days.  Still only one night away though.  But this time is even more exciting!  My mom is coming on Wednesday and Andrew and I will be heading out for FOUR nights by ourselves! WOW I'm sure I will miss my girl like crazy, but I'm still SO excited for all this adult time!  The first three nights will be spent on the Canada side of Niagara Falls!  I have never been and I'm super excited to see it!  Then early Saturday morning we will be leaving to go to Cleveland, Ohio (also a first for me!) to celebrate the marriage of  two of my friends and former coworkers Mallory and Miguel!  I'm excited to see them tie the knot!  They are one perfect couple, if you ask me!  :-)  

So... we have a busy week ahead... and it is also my last week of summer vacation.  It has been a good one!  

I'll end this novel now and get on with my day.  :-)  Here's to cupcakes and love!  

I had a love affair ...

...with a dog.  

Yes... it happened, I'm not too embarrassed to admit it!  While we were in Texas last week,  I fell in love with a dog named Honey!  She is the sweetest, most adorable dog on the planet!  I know... you can all tell me how wonderful your dogs are... but Honey is the best!  Just look at that face... that nose... those eyes!  What has come over me?  

She was just visiting Stephen and Sharay while we were down in Texas and boy am I glad that she was.  She actually belongs to Sharay's sister.  I'm telling you, when I saw this dog I immediately thought of our old dog Adam and I fell in love!  

For those of you who knew Adam, you know he was just about the best dog ever!  If I didn't know better, I would swear that Honey is Adam's long lost sister.  I wanted to pack her up in my suitcase and take her home with me!  I couldn't get enough of her and neither could Caroline!  

Sadly, as she rode with us to the airport on Saturday morning, we had to go our separate ways.  Us back to Virginia and Honey back to her home with her mommy in Fort Worth.  But I'm glad we at least had the week together.  

Honey made me remember how much I truly miss having a dog.  I can not wait until the day we can go pick out a dog that I will fall in love with and bring home!  That will be a happy day!  But for now, I just have to love on the dogs of other people and enjoy my kitty.  :-)