Spring and Spring and Spring

IMG_6705, originally uploaded by feathermar.

Happy Spring! Gail's tulips came up!

As our thumbs are somewhat black, it's always a surprise when something beautiful comes out of a bulb.

Rolling With the Homies
Got to hang out with my Carter last week

when her Grandpa was being honored.

Got to hang out with my Lochlain this week

when he came with his mom, Beanie, for his cousin's first communion.

Got to meet new babies, Kassandra and Sabrina

at their baptism party.

And hanging out with Mr. Liam

who is just too big to be called a baby anymore. Plus, he is superfunny.
So, been busy with the babies and kiddens.

Just have to get some QT with my buddy Sean--in May.

Weekend of the Cupcakes

So, cupcakes are one of my favorite things in the whole world. We were talking about how the kids with the cool moms used to bring in cupcakes in a cone when it was their birthday at school. My friend Cat said she had never witnessed this phenomenon. So, of course, I made them for her birthday.
I have never made cupcakes in an ice cream cone. I assumed you just put the batter in the cone and baked it. On the box of rainbow funfetti cake mix I bought (bringing in the funfetti--I know) the directions said to put the cake batter into the muffin/cupcake paper cups and then put the cones on top.

So, I tried it both ways. Heh heh.
And, interestingly, the box did not tell me that the result of the ones placed on top would be:

MORE THAN A LITTLE LOPSIDED!

It is like a hat...or a tumor. Terrible.
The ones that I poured the batter into standing up faired much better and were decorated beautifully with blue and green icing. I used my favorite icing tip, good ol' number 22.

The other thing is, you only fill the cones halfway, so instead of making 24 cupcakes, you can make a zillion cupcake cones! Or 24 cupcake cones and 8 regular cupcakes (which is what I did).
And since the birthday girl is fairly shy, I am submitting a picture of her super wonderful dog, Tara, who allowed me to take tons of photos of her (for the price of one pretzel):

Then, Sunday, I made some cupcakes for my friend Theresa's birthday. Theresa turned four years old, and loves pink. So, I made pink (vanilla) and brown (chocolate) cupcakes which were beautiful! I toot my own horn aplenty! And they totally tasted great, and I took a ton of pictures because I think all cupcakes are beautiful.

Up close:

Oh, yeah, and a Happy Birthday to my little Bones:

She's so old!

Jackie at My House

Jack the Greyhound., originally uploaded by feathermar.

Jack came to spend some days with me this week. When he is not suckering me into taking him for a walk at 6:45 in the morning or whining about why he has to be at MY house, he lays. Anywhere he feels like it.

I love this dog. Seriously.

So, what it comes down to is this:
I'm disappointed.

I thought more of you.

And, you padded again, this time in Gail's favor. I know for a fact that 270 people did not vote in the past two days.
Hang down your heads, Card Sharks.
You are a fly-by-night game show. (Aside to Mark Goodson-thanks for dumbing down America--you should've had a disclaimer about your play-on-words that everyone took seriously).
A sad, misheard repetition that keeps going and going and going,
perpetuated by people like my sister.
I have written to those foolish idiots at Dictionary.com (the only "dictionary" to back up Flail's crazy claim), and asked them just what kind of cheap labor they get to write their fake dictionary--twelve chickens? Twelve monkeys? An industrious four year old with decent hunt-and-peck skills?
I cannot help but wonder about the education of the Gen X kids...what happened to you?
So, with a ridiculous vote of 188 out of 270 votes, Cardshark wins the poll.
But America loses.
Hopefully, for those of you who voted for the WRONG word, you look smarter than you are.
You may think I'm being harsh.
But I'm just being right.