Easy to Make Lady Bug Cupcakes

I was lucky to have my camera along at a pizza place when a family arrived to celebrate the birthday of a sweet little girl who loves lady bugs.

Her mother had made two full trays of these adorable lady bug cupcakes. They are easy enough to make for a special everyday treat or even allow the kids to help for a fun cooking activity with grandma.

To make:

Bake your cupcakes using your favorite recipe or box mix.

You will need a batch for the lady bug bodies, and a batch for the lady bug wings.

These wings were red velvet cupcakes. 

Allow your cupcakes to cool.

Make or purchase a batch of white icing,

Leave one half of the icing white and color the other half red.

First frost the cupcakes that are going to be used for the red wings and place the brown m&m dots in place before the icing sets. Place these cupcakes in the freezer or fridge so that they get nice and firm. You are going to cut the tops off of these cupcakes to create the wings.

To put the lady bugs together:

I would do them one at a time.

Unwrap the red iced cupcake and cup the top off. Then cut in half to make the two wings.

Frost the base cupcake in white icing and place the red wings on top and a black gumdrop for her head all before the white icing sets.

Repeat until you have your full swarm of darling little lady bugs.

Kids will love these. How many times have you seen just the top of the cupcake eaten? These cupcakes have two tops!

Any ideas on how to use all of the topless cupcakes that you will be left with? 

Both Happy and Sad

A friend who is also a neighbor is the best. I have been blessed with one such friend. We have exchanged cubes of butter, eggs, shared our fresh baked goodies, went on morning walks together, looked after one another's homes while the other is away, we had dinners out with our husbands, she altered my daughters prom dress, and I watered her plants. Our favors went back and forth and for me there is nothing better than a true trading friend.

As mothers and grandmas we both love our families and we love spending time with them. We both have aging parents and mothers suffering from dementia. One major difference was that I had my family very close by and she was miles, and miles away from hers. A situation that came about because of the real estate down turn in Arizona. She and her husband owned a home near their family and they had a beautiful custom home built as an investment during the peak of the crazy housing market in Arizona. When the custom home near me did not sell because the housing market crashed at a very bad time for their investment they put both of their homes up for sale and decided to live in the one that didn't sell. Lucky for me, she became my neighbor.

She was living in her beautiful home but she was missing the closeness of her family. As her friend, fellow mother and grandmother I totally got that. She is a real estate agent and the house always had a for sale sign in front of it and I know her prayers plead for a buyer. Her prayers were not about getting a return on her financial investment but one of her family unit being reunited. She was noticing a shift in the family unity that the distance between them was creating.

As a friend, when I heard the news that she had found a buyer for  her house I was both happy and sad. I was going to be losing my neighbor who is my friend. While I was so happy for her I knew that our friendship would be changing and that made me sad.

I was looking out the same window I would watch for her to be heading out for our morning walks when I saw the moving truck there. Again I was filled with very mixed emotions.

Just before my friend moved she told me that seeing and hearing of the closeness of my family was something that she yearned for. When she would see me walking down the street to one of my grands birthday parties or hear the laughter and chatter from our back yard bbq's, or see my living room filled with family through my front picture window as she drove by her heart would ache for her own family.

So, for those reasons I am as happy as I can be for my dear friend. But, I still can't help feeling just a tiny bit sad too!

I know that she is going to be one of those friends that time and miles will not matter. Whenever we see one another it will be as though there has been no distance between us. Those kind of friendships are one of the true treasures in life. So for now, I am very, very happy that I have been blessed with such a treasure of a dear friend!

A Special Outing for the Birthday Boy

Boy oh Boy was the little boy patient while waiting for his special birthday outing. He celebrated his actual birthday in the middle of July and he had to wait until nearly September for his birthday outing with his Grandma and Papa due to all kinds of scheduling conflicts.

As you may know Papa and I are doing birthday outings as our birthday gifts for our school age grandchildren this year. This very handsome seven year old chose a trip to the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa, Arizona. We had taken his older brother there for his birthday outing a couple of months ago.

Our day together started at 10:00 a.m.. He was very excited about the long anticipated one on one time with Papa and I. He announced that his restaurant of choice for lunch was Chuck E Cheese Pizza. We had a 45 minute drive to  lunch so we spent our drive time talking about school and anything else we could think of to keep the attention on the birthday boy.

I presented him with a favorite snack for after lunch and told him that it was his to take home.

He buckled his Whales up for safety!

When we arrived at Chuck E Cheese he was ready to play some video games while the pizza was baking.

He was a smart boy.... he was getting two outings in one! The pizza package we got came with 35 tokens and he didn't have two brothers along to share with.

His half was pepperoni while Papa and I enjoyed the Werx.

Time to cash in the tickets. 

It was a short drive to the museum. He knew he had made the right choice as soon as he walked through the museum doors and he saw the huge dinosaurs on display.

He loves dinosaurs and they were everywhere throughout the museum.

Panning for gold with Papa.

That's Papa "IN" the jail cell.

We all got on the floor and put the big pottery puzzle together.

We visited every single inch of the museum and because he loved riding in the elevators we went up and down a lot. It was clearly his special day!

A trip to the gift shop was quick and easy. We had told him ahead of time how much he could spend and he was able to quickly find two souvenirs that he loved. One was like his brother had previously gotten that was a few tools with dinosaurs bones hidden deep inside a chunk of plaster. The second was a snapping dinosaur.

As you can tell from the pictures this boy does not stray far from his Papa's side. I know he loves me too but when Papa is around he is his constant shadow. I love that!

A stop for ice cream was a yummy snack and the snapping dinosaur kept him busy during our 45 minute ride home.

Papa and I are loving our special birthday outings this year and it is very evident that the grands are eating up the special one on one time too.

We only have two more birthdays left to do this year. I'm thinking it just might become a new birthday tradition for us!

GRRRRRRR Roared the Lion!

(I need to first apologize for the blurry pics. I was in such a hurry to catch the moment that I didn't allow the camera to focus or maybe I really was trembling in fear!)

I had four of my grands recently while their parents were away celebrating their wedding anniversary for a few days. The three oldest had left for school and I was home alone with little brother in a very quiet house. I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes when I heard a big roar behind me.

I turned to look and there was a lion in my kitchen!  "Oh know, there is a lion in my house!" I shouted. Help! Help! The lion roared a few more times to scare poor grandma. 

I then hear "Namma" and the sweet little boy inside reveals himself.

He was pretty proud of himself for being able to sneak up on his grandma! 

The pure joy of being a grandma consumed my entire being during these special moments with my little grandson.

Simple Aprons for the Three Girls Cafe

Well, the Three Girls Cafe was open for business again when my three granddaughters visited recently. Papa and I were being catered to with all kinds of goodies from the cafe's kitchen. (our coffee table)

Grandma Lizzie shared an apron idea on her blog Grandma Lizzie's House on how to make a simple apron out of a dish towel and some ribbon or string.

During their play I remembered the easy apron tip and I ran and got the girls each a dish towel and some yarn to create a waistband and WALLA they had matching cafe aprons. 

They loved the new addition to their play!

Little brother .... the pizza delivery guy!

Break time?

To make the easy aprons just fold a dish towel over at the top to make it the right length. Use a piece of ribbon, yarn, or string in the fold to create the waistband. Tie in the back to fit. Super easy and so much more fun to add a little dress up to their play.

Scouts Honor!

My oldest grandson who is nine became a cub scout when he was eight years old. He is a very smart boy and scouting is another avenue that he and his parents have to keep his mind busy and growing. Scouting offers new experiences, opportunities to serve others, it helps to build confidence, and it reinforces ethical standards. All very good things!

I have had a wonderful time sharing in the Pinewood derbies, pancake breakfasts, and pack meetings with my grandson. Seeing the love and support that he gets from his parents is a very good thing as well.

The skills and ethical standards he is gaining through scouting as a child is something that he will carry with him throughout his adult life. I have heard so many stories on how being an Eagle Scout helped to land a great job.

Boy Scouts of America has a wonderful website that outlines the benefits of scouting.

http://www.scouting.org/Parent/Benefits.aspx

In today's world I believe scouting for boys is more important than ever. Parents who support scouting and their sons in the scouting program are giving their boys a gift that will be with them forever.  The 12 points of the Scout Law will not only bless them now as young boys but also as they become young adults, husbands, fathers, businessmen, neighbors, and our community and our nation's leaders.

On the Boy Scouts of America website it gives an accounting of how scouting carries through to adult life: 

As youth, Scouts are taught to live by a code of conduct exemplified in the 12 points of the Scout Law, and they continue to live by these laws in adulthood.

• Trustworthy: The majority of Scouts agreed that Scouting has taught them always to be honest (75 percent) and to be a leader (76 percent).
• Loyal: Eighty-eight percent of Scouts are proud to live in the USA, and 83 percent say spending time with family is important to them.
• Helpful: Eight out of 10 Scouts surveyed believed that helping others should come before their own self-interest.
• Friendly: Eighty percent of Scouts say that Scouting has taught them to treat others with respect and (78 percent) to get along with others.
• Courteous: Almost nine of 10 Scouts (87 percent) believe older people should be treated with respect.
• Kind: Most Scouts agree (78 percent) Scouting has taught them to care or other people, while 43 percent say their skills in helping other people in need are “excellent.”
• Obedient: Boys in Scouting five years or more are more likely than boys who have never been in Scouts to reject peer pressure to hang out with youth they know commit delinquent acts (61 percent vs. 53 percent).
• Cheerful: Overall, Scouts are happy with their schools (78 percent) and their neighborhoods (79 percent). However, because Scouting builds such high ideals in youth, Scouts are less satisfied than non-Scouts with the state of the world today (47 percent vs. 52 percent).
• Thrifty: More than eight out of 10 Scouts (82 percent) say that saving money for the future is a priority.
• Brave: Eighty percent of Scouts say Scouting has taught them to have confidence in themselves, and 51 percent rate their self-confidence as “excellent.”
• Clean: Nearly the same number of Scouts (79 percent) agree that Scouting has taught them to take better care of the environment and that Scouting has increased their interest in physical fitness.
• Reverent: Scouting experience also influences religious service attendance. Eighty-three percent of men who were Scouts five or more years say attending religious services together as a family is “very important,” versus 77 percent of men who had never been Scouts.