More Adventures in Baking and Potted Tomato Plants...

I recently hosted book club at my house.  So instead of doing what I normally do, which is buy baked goods at Sam's Club, I decided to save some money and make a dessert myself.  Someone for a bridal shower gift gave me a book called, "500 Cupcakes:  The Only Cupcake Compendium You'll Ever Need."  This person obviously didn't know me at all.  I HATE BAKING!  And this most recent baking adventure didn't do much to change my mind on the topic.  Nevertheless, here are the ingredients, instructions and a photo of the finished product.  It actually turned out well and was a delicious little treat. :)

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

Ingredients:
For Cupcakes
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened
1 cup superfine sugar
2 cups self-rising flour
1 tsp. baking powder
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
10 crushed cream-filled chocolate cookies

For Frosting
3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened
Pinch of salt
10 chopped cream-filled chocolate cookies

Baking Instructions
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C).  Place 18 foil or paper baking cups in muffin pans
- Combine all the cupcake ingredients, except the cookies, in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth and pale (about 2-3 minutes)
-Stir in the cookies
- Spoon the batter into the cups.  Bake for 20 minutes.
-Remove pans from oven and cool for 5 minutes
- Remove the cupcakes and cool on a wire rack
-To make the frosting, beat the confectioners' sugar, butter and salt using a mixer
- Spread frosting onto the cooled cupcakes and sprinkle the chopped cookies on top

The cupcakes can be stored unfrosted in airtight container for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.  Makes 1 1/2 dozen

A photo of the finished product. 

In other news:

We had a mini winter here in the middle of September and we had to cover our outside garden with tarps and blankets to save the growing vegetables.  We brought our potted tomato plants inside and they became very spoiled.  More about our adventures in gardening will be in my next post, but for now I leave you with photos of our potted tomato plants hanging out inside during our mini winter.  

Our potted tomato plants hanging out in the corner of our dining room

Our potted tomato plants hanging out in front of one of the windows in our dining room

You can see three small tomatoes growing on our potted tomato plants. :)

Family Fun Summer Adventures...

(There are a lot of photos in this post, but not as many as I think there should be. :) )
Where did the summer go?!  Wasn't yesterday Memorial Day?!  Labor Day is coming up in a few weeks?!  WTF hommies!

We have had a lot of family summer adventures this year.  Here is the litany of traveling, adventures and daily living we have done since Memorial Day and some photos to go along with each adventure.

Over Memorial Day weekend we traveled to Rapid City, South Dakota to celebrate our nephew Grayson's high school graduation.  It was a packed weekend.

Between Memorial Day and our next traveling adventure, we had Vacation Bible School, which was a blast, but a very busy week.  The Monday after VBS finished, we got on a 6am 1-stop flight to Boston to spend the week in New Hampshire visiting my sister and her family.  We stayed with my parents in a one bedroom condo in the White Mountain region of New Hampshire.  We were there from June 23rd-June 30th.  We traveled around the White Mountain region and took side day trips to the beach in Maine and Boston.  It was an awesome trip!!  It was hard to come back to Fairfield after that.

After we returned from New Hampshire, etc... we had two days to do laundry and repack to go spend the 4th of July with Jason's family at Fresno Reservoir.  I went up a day later because I wasn't up for going on Thursday.  I drove up on my own on the 4th and we left on the 5th because Jason had to be back to preach in church on Sunday.

After the 4th of July, we actually had a couple of weeks where we just hung out at home and got back into our normal routine.  July 17th-20th was Fairfield's annual town celebration, Swim Days.  It was a busy weekend but we didn't do any traveling, just stayed in town and participated in some of the activities that weekend.

The following weekend, July 25th and 26th we traveled to Bozeman, MT for a wedding Jason officiated over.  Bozeman is about 3-3.5 hrs away from Fairfield.  After the wedding on Saturday we had to head back so Jason could preach on Sunday.  It was a very quick trip and the wedding was lovely.

We had one day to do laundry and clean the house before my parental units and brother arrived for the week.  They were here from July 28th - August 4th.  While they were here, we went fishing in the mountains on the Sun River and also at Pishkun Reservoir.  We also drove down to a place called The Gates of the Mountains and traveled up the Missouri River on a tour boat.  During that time we celebrated Preston's 2nd Birthday too.  A lot happened that week, a lot!  Lucky for you, blogger isn't allowing me to post any more photos, because I would have posted a lot more.  Anyway....

My family left us on the 4th of August and the next day we headed up to Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp from August 5th-8th.  It was so much fun.  Now, here I wish I could post more pictures because I have the cutest picture of Preston with his friends Hannah and Harper.  Boo blogger...BOO!!!

Now we are home for a while.  I am traveling to Minnesota by myself on the train at the end of the month for 6 days.  It is the only time I will be able to get there for the rest of the year, so Jason and I made it happen.  My mother-in-law is staying with us during the week while she does her radiation treatments in Great Falls and she goes home on the weekends.  I have a lot of cleaning to do before she gets back on Monday.

I guess I answered my initial question, Where did the summer go?!  It flew by while we were traveling, adventuring and living daily life.  It went away in the blink of an eye, brilliantly away.