Happy Birthday Grant!

Happy Birthday Grant! Amanda and Jack have NO IDEA that at this very moment, Uncle Jay and Elizabeth are at your birthday party. Isn't that funny? Even though they don't look (or act) sick, they are considered contagious until they have been taking medicine for 24 hours. So they made you this video without knowing they are missing your party. Shhh... don't tell!

Hope you are having a blast! I'll wait to make "The Grant" cupcake until we are germ free!

P.S. Are there any bearded dragons at your party???

Strep Haiku

What more can I disinfect? This house is a strep black hole! Elizabeth's strep refuses to go away and she is now on some crazy industrial strength antibiotic. She is our patient zero. From Elizabeth it bounces to Amanda and to Jack and we can't get rid of it. Although Jay and I are negative, today we start a family wide antibiotic routine to try to knock this out of our house for good. I have nothing more to blog about, it's all about streptococcus. So I'll write a haiku.

Please don't kick the nurse

more throat swabs and finger sticks

bribe them with doughnuts.

Brain Rain

Elizabeth somehow got strep again, although it may be that the last round of antibiotics didn't actually get rid of last months strep. Hey, we started Kindergarten with strep, why not end on the same note? This time Amanda got it too, and the following conversation took place in the strep recovery bed:

Amanda: Does sometimes it rain inside your body?
Elizabeth: What?
Amanda: Like in your head, does it rain inside your head?
Elizabeth: No.
Amanda: How come water can come down on your head then?
Elizabeth: That's sweat.
Amanda: Oh yeah.

Happy Mother's Day!

"For the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." William Ross Wallace

Isabella Clark McWilliams

Anastasia Korba Petz

Miley Hair Clark

Winnie Bessie Ready

Lois Nicholson

Bessie Bean Clark

Elizabeth McWilliams Petz (with her first child, David)

Ida Gervais Martin

Ruth Kirkner

Holly McKenzie

Robin Clark Nicholson (with her brother Owen Clark)

Eileen Petz Kirkner (with her sister Elizabeth Petz Bickell)

Me, with baby Elizabeth

The Owen

Carolina Peach Pound Cupcakes with Peach Buttercream Frosting

and topped with a Butter Roasted Pecan

Happy Birthday Owen!

This one was a no brainer, Owen's cupcake had to be peach! Ideally, these cupcakes should be made with peaches from the Clark Peach trees, but peach season is still a month away. I used this recipe for the cupcake, but used (gasp) frozen peaches. For the frosting, I used the peach buttercream recipe found here. From top to bottom, a very tasty cupcake.

The Tutu

Vanilla Almond Cupcakes with Blackberry Buttercream Frosting

Happy Birthday Tutu!

I knew I wanted to incorporate almond into your cupcake, because of your famous Chicken Almondine recipe. I found the recipe here and only made a few changes in the frosting. From the frosting recipe, I omitted the vanilla bean and almond extract, and reduced the sugar to 2 1/2 cups (instead of 3). This is my new favorite frosting. It's delicious! The cake isn't what I'd expected, but I've never worked with Almond Meal before - not my best work. But, the frosting - the frosting!

The Jennifer

Black Forest Cupcake

Happy Birthday Jennifer! I started with wanting to make a German Chocolate cupcake for your birthday, but decided against it. I discovered that German Cake originated in Texas and that simply made no sense. So, being too authentic for that nonsense, I decided on making making a true Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest cherry torte) in cupcake form. But, I didn't have any Kirschwasser. Then I realized I only had Ghiradelli chocolate, and Ghiradelli was Italian. I ate the chocolate to save the cake.

Bottom line is that I did cheat (again) on these cupcakes, and they probably shouldn't be called Black Forest Cupcakes. But they did pass with my taste testers:

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes:

1 pkg. Devil's Food Chocolate Cake Mix
1 can (21 oz.) cherry pie filling
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix wet ingredients together, then stir in cake mix. Bake cupcakes at 350 for 20-25 minutes. I got 20 good sized cupcakes out of this recipe.

Chocolate Frosting (from HERSHEY'S):

1 stick butter
2/3 cup Hershey's Cocoa
3 c. powdered sugar
1/3 c. milk (I used about double this amount)
1 tsp. vanilla extract

I whipped some heavy cream, added about 1 tbsp. sugar to sweeten, and topped the frosted cupcake with whipped cream and a cherry. I used a dark sweet cherry (all I had left) for the top but I would recommend using a maraschino cherry.

Jennifer, Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!

Viva Mexico!

Yesterday I overheard Elizabeth explaining Cinco de Mayo to Amanda:

"Cinco de Mayo is because the French wanted to control Mexico but Mexico said no and made the French go home."

C'est magnifique, non?!

The girls have requested that we celebrate tonight by watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua. What can I say, they are good little citizens of a Disney world.

Disney On Ice

We all went to the Disney on Ice Worlds of Fantasy Show with my Mom today. The girls wore their Disneyworld dresses:

Last year the girls wore the same dresses at the 2008 Disney Princesses on Ice Show:

They really don't look all that different, I expected to be shocked to see how much older they looked.

Jay and Jack came this year because there was boy stuff in it this time (Cars and Lion King).

Even Jay looked impressed when the cars came out and ripped up the ice.

The cars were amazing!

The Lion King was probably the most amazing part of the whole show. Unfortunately, I was taking the pictures at that point, so they all came out like this one.

Then the Disney Fairies came out and the girls went nuts.

Our seats were great. It seemed like every character stopped right in front us to wave hello, even Minnie and Mickey!