Fall

Wonder Woman Cupcake Cake

I didn’t leave you hanging! I told you yesterday with the Wonder Woman Cookies that I had a Wonder Woman Cupcake Cake post coming up and here it is! Yey, go me, go me, it’s my birthday, we’re going to party like it’s my birthday.

Please tell me you kind of know the song I was just referencing. I mean I totally botched it up and all but please tell me I’m not THAT old. I was singing that around a kid here recently. By kid, she’s an early teen. I think maybe 8th or 9th grade this year. She looked at me straight-faced and said, it’s not my birthday. Yes, yes I know… it’s a song. Sigh. I tried then to explain the song and yeah, it was lost on deaf ears I think. Sad day! I’m the “old” person in the room. In my life, I usually am the youngest of the group of people I run around with. I’m kind of used to it…

But… let’s not focus on that… let’s focus on the fact that I made a Wonder Woman Birthday Cupcake Cake for my friend Jody’s daughter. Oh who by the way, Jody is younger than me. WHAT? Yup, I show my age there too, but I’m only a couple years older… I think ;). Shhhhh, don’t tell, please! (more…)

Wonder Woman Sugar Cookies

Seems like here lately all I’ve been doing is cakes… and I won’t lie… I kind of like doing those these days. There was a while that I hated decorating cakes but sometime last year I found that love and this year I’ve honed in on that love. In fact, right now as I type this I have cakes in the oven baking. Ooooo are you excited to find out what is in the oven? Don’t worry, I’ll share… eventually.

Heck, these cookies are from a couple weekends ago. LIfe has been crazy lately. A lot of ups and downs and more downs but there are ups too. It’s that roller coaster ride thing. It would be easy some days to throw your hands up in the air and say, I’m done… But… I’m not done. Not yet. I’m just holding on and screaming my head off. Think roller coaster rides of course. I always compare life to a roller coaster ride. I love roller coasters but the older I get the more they scare the crap out of me for some reason.

More on that thought real quick… I guess when I was just barely tall enough to ride the roller coasters at Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, I used to cry because they wouldn’t let me ride while other people used to cry that they didn’t want to ride them. Now I get to call this thing called the roller coaster of life. haha.

Okay, back to the cookies… (more…)

Life – Halloween, Thanksgiving, & Christmas Oh MY!

I have been in a true funk this year. Really, the last couple of years. I’m tired of being in this funk but I don’t see it ending anytime too soon.

I stumbled across a post earlier this year that I wrote claiming 2018 to be the year of Nicole. Kind of taking a cue from my friend Sue Sue Heck (Yes, I know she’s a tv character… I’m not totally crazy). But this has been anything but… sort of… I guess that totally depends on how you look at things. We’ve just had a lot of life-changing events playing out this year and it’s wearing me out. One was hubby and his job. Ugh! That was a stressful event that started last year. The other major one I’m not ready to divulge on just yet. I think it’s too stressful to even think about at this point in time.

Truthfully, the final result is coming soon and I’m afraid of the outcome. I’m afraid of jinxing it. Really, I’m just ready for an answer. I promise it will all come out soon! I hate when people are so secretive. Some know because I’m about to go crazy waiting! Whew… (more…)

Loaded Peanut Butter Layer Cake

I’m not done with birthday’s this month! I swear, people come into your life and make quite the impact and the birthday cake above was made for one of those very people. In 2013 hubby and I met some people who have made quite the impact in our life. One of those people was Grady. And Grady’s birthday was on the 7th… that was Sunday. Now, on Sunday he was at his home away from home… Chiefs Stadium. The Chiefs were playing the Jacksonville Jaguars. By the way, we won! Go Chiefs!

We weren’t there because we gave up our season tickets this year. Since we weren’t there I made it a point to make Grady’s birthday cake for Dive Club Meeting last Thursday night. This was one of those cakes I debated over. Debated and debated. Grady likes Peanut Butter, but Deb had me worried I couldn’t make a Peanut Butter cake because it would be so dry. So I debated between a chocolate cake with peanut butter icing and a peanut butter cake. Back and forth, to and fro… I debated and debated and finally decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and make a Loaded Peanut Butter Layer Cake. It was a peanut butter cake with peanut butter icing, peanut butter ganache, finished off with peanut butter chips. (more…)

Cinnamon Roll Birthday Cake

Guys, I truly believe this! My dad’s birthday is today. In all the world I couldn’t have asked for a better daddy! I know a lot of people say that, but gosh it’s true. I’m sitting here writing this while watching last night’s Dancing with the Stars which was a turning point in all their lives. I don’t know if the tears streaming down my face are because of my daddy or those stories… Truthfully it could be both. My daddy is the absolute best daddy a girl could have. I’ve always been a daddy’s girl. And I just want to wish my daddy the absolute best day he could possibly have.

So as most of you know… or maybe you don’t so I’ll tell you now… I’ve spent this year falling back in love with making cakes. Beautiful cakes. Cakes for every occasion I can. So of course, my dad’s birthday would be no different. I went through a lot of different recipes trying to find the absolute BEST recipe for my dad. That’s when I stumbled across a recipe for a Birthday Cinnamon Roll Cake. WHAT? I should inform you now that my dad loves cinnamon rolls so it’s perfect, right? (more…)

Sesame Street Sugar Cookies

One day last month I got a PM from a friend asking if I could do Sesame Street Sugar Cookies for her friend’s little girl’s birthday. Can I? That’s a good question… but I believe the answer is, YES, Yes I can. That is after she said they could be any of the characters. Also… I went to my friend Google. Google gave me some confidence.

I decided I needed a frog cookie cutter. Frog head for clarification. (more…)

Pumpkin Spice Sugar Cookies

Let’s dust off the cobwebs around here with a nice little fall/pumpkiny/Halloweenie type post. haha. Like that do ya? Have you noticed that this time of year you can walk outside and there are spider webs it seems like everywhere? It’s like doing kungfu ninja type stuff. I’m not afraid of spiders. I can’t just say I like them, but I’m not afraid of them. Now, we all know that is a different story with snakes. I saw a couple of those here lately too. It’s getting too cold. Go into the hibernation. Ugh!

By the way, I got a new laptop and we’re arguing. I say one thing and then it does something completely opposite. Ugh! I might be able to type better if I’d cut my pesky nails. That’s how I always know my nails are getting too long… it interferes with my typing. But I guess that’s another story for another day. Just know, it types differently. It smells different (haha!). And well… it is different. Even Photoshop and I are arguing because I have a different version. sigh!

But let’s not focus on all of that. Instead… look at these gorgeous cookies!!!

Pumpkin Spice Sugar Cookies

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Caramel Apple Cake

It’s no secret, I love Christmas. The last few years they haven’t been quite up to par like normal, but I still love Christmas none the less. Now… I am a true summer girl. But… I love Christmas. I’ve posted quite a few times on Facebook about X number of days until Christmas or X number Monday’s or better yet, It’s August, can I put up my tree yet? I’m only partially joking. In previous years I listened to Christmas music all year long… I’ve kind of broken that habit.

Then I saw another post I shared on Facebook last week that said, does anyone else feel like June and July flew by in like 5 seconds, or something like that… That’s basically the gist of it anyway. And then… I got accused of wishing them away because I love Christmas. Touché… We are none-the-less in August. The commercials are going CRAZY about back to school shopping. CRAZY right? Didn’t the kiddos just get out of school? Tbug starts back the 15th and Abug starts pre-school after Labor Day. Holy crap! Let’s not think about the pre-school thing. It makes me want to burst out crying.

Anyway… Another thing that comes with August is apples. Okay, okay, that’s a fall thing but hello, you give teacher’s apples, right? So for Dive Club Meeting last week I made a Caramel Apple Cake (and German Chocolate Cake Cookies, yum!). Yum! By the way, do you pronounce it Care-a-mel or carmal? I typically go the latter. (more…)

Steampunk Sugar Cookies

Steampunk Sugar Cookies

Steampunk? I didn’t even know such a thing existed. I guess I’ve fallen out of the loop or something… I don’t know.

One day last fall I got hit up about making 4 dozen steampunk sugar cookies. I had to go google what in the world that was. It’s like corsets and balloons and clocks. That type of thing. All dark colors. So Google and the gal who was ordering the cookies told me. I thought, Okay, I think I can manage that.

I decided that I could make flip flop cookie cutters into hot air balloons and I could make a swimsuit top into goggles. And of course gears and clocks could be done on circles. Easy peasy.

I quoted her a price. She never actually said, yes she wanted them… but at the same time she did. It’s really confusing. So I went to making the 4 dozen steampunk sugar cookies. I hit her up about picking them up twice and never got any more words out of her. So I wound up with 4 dozen steampunk sugar cookies that I didn’t know what to do with. (more…)

Ladybug Sugar Cookies

I was going back through all the sugar cookies that I completed last fall and realized there were 2 sets that I didn’t blog. This was one of my absolute favorite sets. A girl I went to high school with that I am distantly related to hit me up and asked me if I could do ladybug sugar cookies. I thought about it and was like, well, of course, those would be not only easy but extremely cute! Heck yeah.

I was so pleased with how they turned out. Absolutely adorable! These were some of my absolute favorite cookies