Sunday, August 24, 2014

Chocolate Cheesecake Filled Cupcakes with Buttercream Icing!

In celebration of Baby Girl's birthday, I made these scrumptious cupcakes upon Babe's request. They are a favorite of his and so ridiulously good.  These yummy treats go against my "healthy" conscience, but life is too short not to enjoy special treats now and then, right? Baby Girl hasn't had something this sweet in her entire short life, but we let her have a few bites. It was her birthday, after all!  To make the cupcakes even more sinful, I made a butter cream icing to top them off! 
Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes
Chocolate Cheesecake Filled Cupcakes

Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 cup cocoa
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 1 tablespoon white vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • for the Filling:
  • 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. Make your filling first. In a medium bowl, Beat cream cheese, egg, sugar and salt until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips. Set aside.
  2. Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and cocoa in a large mixing bowl. Add in remaining ingredients and mix until smooth. Line a cupcake/muffin tin with liners and fill cups 1/2 full. Add one heaping tablespoon of filling into center of each cupcake.
  3. This is a sticky batter so I lightly greased the top of my pans, just in case, it works great for any cupcake or muffin recipe.
  4. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven 25-30 minutes or for mini cupcakes about 18-20 minutes. Let cool in pan for 20 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely

    Yield: 
    18-20 cupcakes
Notes
The recipe I normally use is from a mennonite cookbook that is currently in storage. I found this recipe on pinterest and thought it sounded fairly similar. They tasted just as great!!!  Source and pictures ChocolateChocolateandmore.com 

Buttercream Icing
http://savorysweetlife.com/2010/03/buttercream-frosting/


Ingredients
  • 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks or ½ pound), softened (but not melted!) Ideal texture should be like ice cream.
  • 3-4 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar, SIFTED
  • ¼ teaspoon table salt
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • up to 4 tablespoons milk or heavy cream
Instructions
  1. Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed. Add 3 cups of powdered sugar and turn your mixer on the lowest speed (so the sugar doesn’t blow everywhere) until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter. Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and 2 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add remaining milk 1 tablespoons at a time.
Serves: 2.5 cups


Birthdays are made to celebrate! 
Enjoy!

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Baby Girl's 1st birthday

Happy 1st Birthday, Baby Girl!  




August 15, 2013 changed our lives forever. After 30+ hours of active labor, we were delighted to finally meet our baby girl. Our joy was dimmed when minutes after birth, the nurses realized something was wrong. Baby Girl wasn't getting enough oxygen into her blood. The details are now blurry in my mind, but I can still feel the heartache. I got to hold my baby only for a few moments before they took her to the NICU for observation, where she would remain for the next 10 days. 

After many tests and doctors telling us the worst case scenarios, we were told Baby Girl had pneumonia and fluid in her lungs . The days were a blur of tests, medical lingo I didn't understand and a roller coaster of progress and regression in our baby's health.

I have never in my life FELT prayer like I did over that time. Some of the days I felt I would break from the weight I was carrying. I felt fear that I may never get to take my baby girl home. I felt frustration and anger. But I also felt peace. Peace that passed human understanding. Peace that no matter what happened, God hadn't forgotten our little family. Thanks to our amazing friends and family and social media, we had hundreds of people from literally all over the world praying for us. We are so thankful, humbled and in awe of our Great God who healed and restored our baby girl's lungs 100%.

Today, Baby Girl is healthy, happy and full of energy!  We love her spunk, sense of humor and determination. She loves people, especially other kids, and loves going "bye bye" (anywhere outside of the house). She is pure delight and brings laughter and joy into our lives. 

And so once again we CELEBRATE! 
We celebrate life!

Happy Birthday, Alaina Grace! 



Friday, August 1, 2014

Singing the Hallelujah Chorus

We are doing a little happy dance and singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Our settlement finially went through. You probably had no clue it didn't go through, right?? For many reasons, we kept it on the down low. Mostly because we didn't want people "nicely" reminding us that what we are doing is crazy.

Everything was lined up perfectly. We loaded the truck on a Wednesday. Settlement was to be Thursday. I was to fly out Friday and Babe was to hit the road in the moving truck Saturday morning. We got the call from our realtor on Wedenday afternoon, literally right after we had closed the door of the loaded moving truck and done a final walk through of our empty house. She told us she had been on the phone for hours trying to sort through everything. She informed us that there was a glitch in some of the buyer's paper work and settlement would not be happening the next morning. WHAT?!? I wanted to cry and throw something. We had come so far on our journey and we wouldn't be able to settle?? She assured us the sale would still go through, but just be delayed.

The next morning we met at the settlement office and were able sign all the paper work so that we would not have to fly back for that. But the buyers would not "own" the house until their paperwork was approved, and because of that, we would not be getting the sale money until then.

As I drove to my in laws after getting that call, doubts flooded my mind. What if the sale didn't go through? Do we wait to move until we see the money? Where will we stay?!? God, what is going on?!!?!? 

I can still picture exactly where I was on the drive. It wasn't an audible voice, but was so loud in my spirit I could almost hear it in my ears. "DO YOU TRUST ME?" No God, obviously I don't because I'm trying to figure this all out on my own. "I HAVEN'T BROUGHT YOU THIS FAR JUST TO FORGET ABOUT YOU NOW". Oh wow. Those words rang in my heart so loudly. I took deep breaths, trying to find comfort in those words (and tried not to burst into tears). 

We decided to proceed with our plans to head to Texas and trust that all would fall into place. Our realtor told us settlement would happen the next Monday. It got pushed back to Friday. And then pushed back AGAIN to the following Monday. And then finally, yesterday, 3 weeks after our original settlement date, our house sale was finalized!!!

And this is why we are having ourselves a little dance party!



It's so easy to dwell on the things that go wrong in life. 
What about all the things that go RIGHT?