Cupcakes and Birthdays!

      Every year for my birthday, I go over to my Grandma's house and bake my birthday cake/cupcakes. 

I absolutely love it! We get to try out new recipes and fancy decorating skills. Sometimes it even works like we think it should! This year - due to my addiction to Pinterest - I wanted to try this recipe: The Perfect Cupcake Using A Mix.

So, on Friday morning (my birthday was on Saturday) I headed over and we tried it out. 

It worked wonderfully! The cupcakes were so much richer. Almost like a pudding. 

We ate way too much batter.  

For garnishes, we made chocolate Gs, 18s, and treble clefs.

I ate too much melting chocolate. That stuff is really good! 

I decided I wanted to get difficult and make icing from scratch. I also wanted to use Nutella...

This stuff is chocolate HEAVEN in a jar! No joke. 

Anyway... I found a recipe for nutella buttercream frosting on Pinterest and it was awesome!

 We both ate a ton of that too... 

We got sick of slowly sifting powdered sugar for the frosting so we improvised! And made a giant mess. Ah, well. It was fun! 

I chose a cream-cheese raspberry frosting for the vanilla cupcakes. This frosting was great as well! It was so light and creamy. 

Man... Now I want some. 

The finished product! After only 5 hours of work...

Later that evening, it was time for the party! My Grandpa had to have hip surgery a while back, so he's been staying in the hospital. We've been having family party nights on Fridays to celebrate each week he's made it through. So... birthday party at the hospital! Fun, right?? 

In all honesty, it wasn't too bad! The whole room was decorated, and my mom had planned a bunch of games. 

Grandma Candy got me a rubber snake to commemorate me saving them from the real snake! I loved it. Maybe Ally will even let me hang it as a trophy in our future apartment... 

We played a game where you had to sneak weird sentences such as: I got mad cause Mom wouldn't let me get a stuffed animal into regular conversation. 

Both of the Grandmas were on a team, and they won by a landslide! 

I was so surprised by Ally's present! She and Mom had spent all day making me this beach towel with a built in pillow that folds into a tote! I'm going to use it all the time this summer. 

 

Once I finished opening all my presents, it was time for Mom and Dad's present. This one had been a huge secret for a while, so I knew something big was coming.... 

They bought me a real recording session in a studio! Yup. This is my face when he said it. 

I was SO EXCITED! 

It's the best (and scariest) present ever! 

                          This blog is a lot longer than I thought it'd be... so I'd better end here. 

Thanks for reading and have an awesome week!