Saturday, February 12, 2011

Flashback Recipe


I fail at this blogging thing, apparently. I was going through some old pictures and found a few of some delicious cupcakes I baked last fall.

Super Simple Pumpkin Cupcakes
Ingredients
*box spice cake mix
*1 can pumpkin (not pie filling)
*1 egg

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350*
2. mix together all ingredients until smooth (batter will be thick.) Pour evenly into lined muffin tin (or greased mini muffin pan.)
3. Bake 12-16 minutes for mini muffins, or 20-25 minutes for full size. (very moist, don't undercook!)
4. Remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack. Frost with cream cheese frosting.

I just use the canned frosting, because I wanted to make these with as little effort as possible. They were a huge hit, and they stayed moist for at least a week (just lightly covered.) mmm.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Best of 2010

Yeah yeah, this is a few days late. It takes awhile to go through all of these pictures, but here you go. I actually had a lot of fun going through all of these. I wil warn, though, that there will be a lot of puppy pictures. Apparently now that we have a small (fur-covered) child, we don't need to take any pictures of ourselves anymore. Works for me! So here you go, my life in 2010 summarized by a few pictures....

January
The last picture I could find from the holidays at home last year. Rarely do my sister and I take a 'normal' picture, as you'll soon find out...

February
I went on vacation to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic with my family. Kind of a last family vacation before I got married. :) We stayed at an amazing resort, one of the Palace Resort chain, and hung out in the sun all day. We also made friends with the bartender of the pool outside our room, and I tried some Saki shots. yum?

March
My birthday! The only picture I could find was from dinner at Royal Tokyo, the Japanese Teppanyaki Restaurant at home in Wisconsin. It's so delicious, and I even got to wear the birthday hat! :)


April
The highlight of April, no doubt, was being able to check out the new MN Twins stadium, Target Field. It's gorgeous, and we had perfect weather for my first professional outdoor baseball game. I look forward to attending many more!

May
Jeremy celebrated his birthday with a UFC gathering, including a surprise visit from one of his best friends who was away at training for the National Guards. My other present to him this past year was our 'little' puppy, Puckett, whom we adopted from the Animal Humane Society. Look how tiny he was!

June
So, we got engaged December of 2009 (that sounds so long ago!) Once we booked our wedding photographers, Snap.Grin, we realized we needed to take a few engagement pictures. Somehow, it ended up being about 70 degrees and 1000% humidity that day, even though we took our pictures right away on an early Sunday morning. Check out more of the pictures here.

July
One of my favorite summer traditions is checking out the bands at The Basilica Block Party. We (dad and I) first went quite awhile ago (6? 7? years) and I've tried to go to at least one night every year since then. The Basilica of St Mary in Minneapolis teams up with the local radio station, Cities97, to host a huge two-night outdoor concert every summer. This year we got to check out Guster (again!) and Barenaked Ladies. I was also introduced to Ingrid Michaelson, who definitely put out a good first impression. The best part? The main concert stage is held on the entrance/exit ramp for I-394! Love this city so much.
...

August
Even though we were incredibly busy, I can't really find any good pictures from August. So you get another picture of the pup, hanging out on our new bed. It was exciting to purchase some new furniture together, especially when IKEA has such wonderful deals! Oh! We also went to spend some quality time at the government center to submit our marriage application, so you can have a picture of that too.
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September
Apparently all we did in September was wedding planning, and soaking up the weather. We sent out our invitations, I was thrown two awesome wedding showers, and I had my hair and make up trials. We also spent quite a bit of time outside, from what I remember. You're getting a picture of our invitation mess... and a picture of the dog again. This time, the picture is at the dog park, after he found a lovely mud puddle. I believe it took me over 30 minutes scrubbing him clean to get all of that gunk out of his fur coat. We still love him though.
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October
I wish I had pictures from our Oktoberfest gathering down in New Ulm, MN! Instead, I found a picture of my sister and I at another concert. This time we got see Lady Antebellum at Northrop Auditorium. Northrop will always be one of my favorite concert venues, and this show was no exception. I also found a picture of the dog dressed up as a cow for Halloween. I'm surprised he sat still long enough for me to even take this picture at all!
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November
So, we got married in November. The 7th, to be exact. Somehow we ended up with a weekend of 70 degree weather, sunny, and generally perfect. The next weekend we got dumped with a few inches of snow, so I can't complain about the weather at all. Our photographers, once again, were amazing. We loved all of the pictures from the whole day. Check out the rest of the pictures here or view all 900 here.
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December
The last month of 2010 was certainly eventful for us. Jeremy had to have a surprise double hernia surgery the week of Christmas. He was a trooper though, and we still made it to (almost) all of our family Christmas gatherings. He even made the trip back home to Wisconsin with me for a few days. Sadly, though, I don't have any pictures yet from those gatherings. Instead, you get another wedding picture, because I just love them that much.