When it snows I feel as though the world is my own personal snow globe. All I have to do is shake and watch. The first real snow fall last night was very glamorous, in the sense that the snow flakes glittered from the street lights as they fell. I love to watch the snow fall from my balcony. It's one of those simple pleasures that gives me more joy than I deserve. And just as I expected this morning, everything was flocked in perfect white.
My niece Cassey had her baby yesterday! I'm probably going to hire her to be my surrogate because she makes it look so dang easy. McColeson Drew Webster was born just 7 lbs and 19 inches long, he's a wee little guy. And he looks just like his daddy. Lets run the numbers, shall we? I now have 13 plus 3 bonus and 2 great for a grand total of 18 nieces and nephews. That's a lot of birthday's to remember, so if you are one of them Happy Birthday in advance - sorry, your card was lost in the mail.
The proud parents
Great-Grandma Ginny
The night before our annual Halloween party I had a wardrobe malfunction of epic proportions. In the aftermath, it was decided to throw out our costumes and start from scratch. Long story short, we ended up as Where's Waldo and Waldo's girlfriend Wenda. Awesome! Never again will I underestimate the diverse utility of a little duct tape. We look only a little goofy, but trust me, the alternative was much much worse.
Brad hasn't downloaded the rest of the party pics from the camera...those will come later if I can find the energy to post them. In the mean time you can look here, here, here and here. Happy Halloween!
Where to even start...
We packed in so much "stuff" on this trip, and for good reason: who knows when we'll be able to go back. But first, we celebrated our 4th Wedding Anniversary. 4 years has passed so quickly, it's mind blowing. I love being married to my best friend and high school sweetheart. Chicago was the perfect place to spend a few days playing around together without work or school or real life in our way. Our good friends Andy and Alex let us crash at their place, which was so gracious of them. It was tons of fun to hang with them again. We've missed them since they moved from our ward to Chicago for med school. Maybe, just maybe and with a lot of luck and prayers, we'll be joining them in the Windy City next year...cross your fingers! Tighter! We visited The Art Institute of Chicago because we had sadly neglected it on previous trips. It was amazing. I realize that this next part may be boring for some of you, just sit still and it will be over before you know it.
Brook was able to ditch work the day after her fund raising event and take Brad and I into the city. Yippee! We spent the day in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, super chic, super cool. I could spend days shopping and eating in LP, but since we had just one day here's a little sampling of what we did.
Warming up: Me and Brook and some TeaGschwendner 
More shots from Lincoln Park that I heart...
Armitage Street
What sissies...
My older sister Brook works at a children's museum in Rockford, IL. This past weekend the museum had a fund raising event and Brad and I were recruited as volunteers on her crew. Yeah! I basically just followed Brook around, but Brad was the official photographer. He felt pretty nifty cool. I'm sure he'll post more on that other blog soon enough.
I'm not even going to waste precious blogging space to describe the series of unfortunate events all caused by the guest of honor, Duff Goldman from the Food Network's Ace of Cakes. He was a complete disaster and the worst "celebrity" I have ever witnessed. I'm a little (actually a lot) bitter towards him since he totally screwed over the museum, acted like a crying whiny baby the entire time, and disappointed lots of little "cake decorators" to-be. Can you say bipolar split personalities? 'Nuff said.
The best part of Rockford was being able to hang with my sis and her cute family. We miss them so much!
Super cute Marley and me cheering on the side lines.
On Sunday, we went up to Madison, Wisconsin to check out the Medical School and the city itself. Seems like a place where we could see ourselves living. And they have good stinky cheese, so what's not to love?
My favorite Cupcake Goddess, Chockylit, is having another cupcake round-up this fall! I didn't participate last year because I was admittedly too chicken. I mostly like to stalk her blog from the shadows of my secret foodie world (shhhh). But this time I'm taking a more TA-WANDA! approach to my baking. Watch out. The cupcake round-up theme is "re-invention." Inspiration came immediately. I would re-invent my Grandma Richman's Fresh Apple Bundt Cake. Oh, how I love this cake. At the urging of my sister I made this cake just a few weeks ago for a "girls night" I hosted. While peeling and chopping the apples I could vividly see Grandma, house dress and apron, standing in her small, tidy kitchen doing the exact same thing. As I pulled the bundt cake from the oven memories of her flooded my kitchen as quickly as the delicious baked-apple aroma. My friends, this is the epitome of comfort food. Period. Final.
A note on re-invention: I'm quite certain Grandma would have considered her Fresh Apple Bundt Cake (perfect in every way, every time) in the form of cupcakes as re-invention enough. And that was good enough for me. But to be fair, I brainstormed what else I could "do" to the cupcakes. I thought about stuffing them, but with what? The cake certainly doesn't need anything added because the chunks of baked apple and pecans already add plenty of texture and flavor. It was important the soul of the cake would remain essentially hers, no matter what twist I used in my own version. I decided not to mess with the cake itself, and I'm so glad I didn't. Hence, my re-invention comes with the topping: caramel and apples, because it doesn't get any better than that. How 'bout dem apples? Chewy, thick caramel dipped on a crisp apple wedge was the perfect accompaniment to both the richness of the cake and the sweetness of the icing. I used Grandma's buttercream recipe although I doubled the ingredients and thickened it with more powdered sugar until I reached the consistency I wanted for piping. Sorry, there's no cupcakes left to share. I ate them all.
Fresh Apple Cupcakes
4 cups apple, peeled and diced small
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
Mix apples and sugar in large bowl. Add oil, eggs, nuts, and vanilla. In a separate bowl sift together flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon. Add to wet mixture and stir until combined. Divide batter evenly into 24 cupcake papers.
Bake at 350° for 21-23 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
Buttercream Frosting (I doubled this recipe)
¼ stick butter, softened to room temperature
3 Tablespoons heavy cream
2 cups powdered sugar
Dash of salt
½ tsp. vanilla
¼ tsp. lemon extract
1/8 tsp. almond extract
Happy Birthday to my beau,
You should know:
For every today I love you as I did before,
I usually don't post on our family blog, I leave that to Gina since she's better at it. But today I had to brag about her. I get up early to work a few hours from home before I go to class, but when I woke up today, Gina was already up and she said, "I think I want to ride to work today." After I pulled my lower jaw off the floor I said, "Honey, that's wonderful! And since I have to be to school early for a test anyway, I'll ride with you." She really liked that idea because she hadn't ridden to work yet and didn't know what bike route was the best. One good thing about Salt Lake City is that there are so many bike lanes. So we rode together to her office (Click to see the route) and then I took off for my test. Of course, 700 feet of downhill on the way to work will put a smile on anyone's face, hence these pictures on the way to work and at the office. (note the smiles at 8:00am! That's rare.)
...and loved it! I have heard great and marvelous rumors about the health benefits of a "green drink" but I've never had a recipe to try it, or testimony's to back it up. I was super excited to see such a recipe posted on Becky Westover's blog several weeks ago. This morning was the first chance I've had to try it, and the results are in: it's delicious! However, Brad took his first drink and immediately pulled his face together as if he just eaten a big hand full of Sour Patch Kids. It was humorous. But I didn't believe his charades for one minute. The drink isn't sour at all, I think it's plenty sweet just as it is. I can see why it would be tempting to add less fruit even. In the end Brad did drink his whole glass, so really it can't be that bad. And he couldn't deny that it was very healthy for him. He seemed very excited when he yelled "it will give me Popeye strength to go fix my bike!" as he rushed out the door to the garage. I could see me making this drink a lot. I really like spinach, always have, but I can't get away with spinach salads for dinner very often. Brad always says "salad is what food eats" while banging his chest like a cave man. By making these smoothies I can eat all the spinach I want for breakfast, lunch or...dinner. And I'll even bet you money that Brad will join me. Try it, I DARE you, and let me know what you think.
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