Cake Pop Tutorial and Beckett's birthday

The past few days I have learned the ins and outs on how to make cake pops.
I thought I would share a few tricks of the trade of what I have found to work.

I made 2 types of pops for Beckett's first birthday party
Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Oreo Truffle Pops
Cake Mix
[all the ingredients needed for the cake]
Frosting
Candy Coating
Lollipop sticks
Crisco
[what they don't tell you about red velvet cake, is that it stains your hands red - be careful :)]


Oreo Truffles
Oreos
1 block of cream cheese
Candy Coating
Lollipop sticks
Crisco


Cake Pops
1. Bake the cake per the box directions
2. Cut the cake up into crumbles [after the cake is completely cool]
3. Add icing, I have used only 1/2 of the tub, remember you can always add more
4. it should be a dense texture, but not too mushy
Oreo Pops
1. Put the entire package of oreos in the food processor
2. Pulse into small crumbs
3. Add block of cream cheese
4. Mix in the block of cream cheese
[these are absolutely delish!!]

Place both of the mixtures into the freezers for 10 minutes

Roll the cool mixture into balls
Melt a little bit of the candy coating
Dip the end of the Lollipop sticks in the candy coating
Stick the Lollipop sticks into the balls
Once all of the sticks have been placed into the balls, place the cake pops back into the freezer for 10 minutes to solidify the candy coating
Melt the rest of the candy coating
you can use paraffin wax, however, I have never been able to find it and crisco works the same - i just use a very little amount and spread it over the candy coating, this helps the candy coating not "sweat" when the pops are not being refrigerated
I take the melted candy coating and place it into my liquid measuring cup so that it is just a one deep dunk with the cake pops.
Dunk the cake ball into the candy coating
Allow all of the excess candy coating drip off of the cake pop
And then turn the cake pop right side up to dry
[please excuse my attempt at making a cake ball holder, i.e. my left over scrap from my craft room - that i drilled a bunch of holes in]
i topped the different cake pops to differentiate them, the oreo truffles, i kept a few of the crumbs to sprinkle on top, and the red velvet cake i topped with a spiral
the finished products in the bucket for Beckett's birthday
Lauren did not disappoint with her party planning either!



And here is the birthday boy!
I have never seen a little one go after his smash cake quite like Beckett - he went in with 2 hands!
and this picture makes me laugh every time I see it!
its as if he is "sugar drunk!"

Happy Birthday Beckett! I hope you had a wonderful birthday! I can't believe its been a year since I wrote about you being born!

The adventures of Hunter Boots

It's pretty much a well known fact that I would LOOOOOVE a pair of these...via

well what you may or may not know about me, is that I have rather large, i mean HUGE calves, which prevents me from getting many of cute boots that I would LOVE to have!

Seriously - it was a struggle to slim my legs down just to get them into a pair of tall Uggs... [and thats just meaning my leg inside the ugg - there is NO room, i repeat, NO ROOM, left over for me to try and get a pair of skinny jeans inside there as well!]

So i'm not so sure why I thought wellies/my hunter boots would be any different...

well i'm hear to tell you it was different.. but in a MUCH worse way!

Jess and I went to Von Maur on Saturday on a quest to set out and find a pair of Hunters for both of us. I picked up the navy pair and tried them on for size...

First off the 9 was HUGE on me [go down a size for future reference]

I put on what i thought were the 8's [thanks mr. salesman for bringing me the 7's] which I could barely get on my foot.. better yet i could not get them off of my foot

As i am trying to pry these bad boys off of me, i start to have a minor panic attack, and I start sweating [really though, i sweat a LOT, like i swear God got me confused with a man when he gave me sweat glands!] in the middle of von maur! [classy i know]

via

So now my leg starts to sweat, because i'm trying them on with just footies, and lets be honest, a tight rubber boot, bare skin and sweat, are not mixing!

Another sales associate came over to talk to me and Jess about the wellies, and thats when we noticed that I had on a 7 rather than an 8.

we send homeboy [our original sales man into the back to pull the correct size for us] while the new lady sales associate continued to tell us about the Hunters. She informed us that they are made to create a suction when they go onto your leg, to prevent water from getting in [no shit - pretty sure this is what i'm experiencing] [and to her point they are supposed to be rain boots]

So cue round #3 of trying to get these darn boots off of me! A little better outcome than the size 7, however still the same, suction, sweating, embarrassment!

I finally got the boot off, after struggling for about 5 minutes [I'm sure it wasn't that long, but it sure as heck seemed like it was!] and decided to walk away from the boots, because surely I was not going to go through all the struggles on a daily basis for a pair of wellies!

So needless to say, my adventures in Hunter boot shopping was not as successful as I had hoped it would be. But at least I now know that they don't fit and I can stop fantasizing over them!

Now if anyone knows any good exercises to decrease the size of HUGE calves I will gladly listen :)

My old habits....

Last night I was reflecting on the person I have become and I realized that over the course of the last year and a half my life has changed pretty dramatically, for the better.. mainly because of the healthy lifestyle that I have finally decided to adopt.... you see, I used to be overweight, and I'll even use the word tubby/fat/ect. It was bad! My outlet for anything was food.. if I was stressed, i would eat, if I did something great, I would reward myself with food, in order to make other people happy I would feed them... however, that has all changed now.. I now ease my stress by working out, and I reward myself with manicures, and I now try to also feed others healthier options. It has changed my outlook on life.. and I can tell you that for the first time in a long time, I'm proud of myself, and I'm proud of where I came from to where I am today.

During my reflection I thought I would share a few things that I used to do in my past.. along with a few pictures... to show you how my life has dramatically changed

-I used to LOVE sundresses, because there was no waist line, and you couldn't tell how big I was.. a Large fit and there wasn't a number correlated to it

-I avoided the scale as if it was the plague. I was afraid of the number that I would see, even at the doctors office, I would stand on the scale backwards, and make sure they didn't tell me what it read. [looking back I wish I weighed myself at my heaviest so I would know accurately the weight loss that I have had over the course of the last 18 months]

-I wore a pair of jeans to bed at night [before our trip to Boston] to stretch them out [i couldn't afford to buy a new pair of pants, however I needed more than 1 pair for the 5 day vacation]

-I used to go through the drive through and waiver on what to get for dinner, either a hamburger combo or a chicken sandwich combo.. when I couldn't decide, I would go for the hamburger combo and tack on a 5 piece nugget [and eat it in the car before i got home] or go for the chicken sandwich combo and get a jr hamburger to go along with it! GROSS!

-I would hide behind justin in pictures, use a pillow to cover my mid section, use picnik to crop out anything that looked large, or use anything to hide my mid section


-I used to thrive on buying shoes and accessories.. because they will always fit, regardless of how much you weigh

-I would go to the gym, try and work out on the elliptical for 20 minutes, cut it short at 10 minutes and think I had a "good" workout.

There are days when I get discouraged because the scale doesn't reflect the effort that I put in the night before at the gym, or the healthy options I'm eating, but I need to look back at how far I have come in this journey.

Looking back at my old habits, I am embarrassed of who I let myself get to, and I knew that I had to want to lose weight for myself, not for anyone else, and I had to have the motivation and drive to do it.

So What Wednesday....

So what if...


i put my hand on my hip in EVERY picture... let me tell you - it helps tremendously hiding the laffy taffy [need proof that i do it? check out here, here or here]

i make Justin discuss potential baby names with me at least on a weekly basis.. i'm no where close to having kids, but i have always loved the thought of naming my kids, and I want unique/chic names!

i have a list of items I want to buy with my "fun $"... however the list continues to grow
[iPad, hunter boots, revas, cricuit machine, ect]

i rush home on a nightly basis to see if my Shutterfly book has come in the mail. I just want to see how it turned out! Hopefully tonight is my lucky night!

i am beyond excited for my craft room to be completed. if you follow me on twitter you know that it has been quite an adventure thus far! a tough decision on fabric choices, paint colors, a few choice words, a piece of crap miter manual saw, and it has tested my math skills all around! it should be put back together as of tomorrow night! [YIPPEE!]

so what if 2 of my girl friends came over for craft night last night and we all had project fails [from our original plans!] with a little bit of tweaking i think all of our necklaces will come together... however, i'm able to look past my awful looking necklace because I had so much fun just catching up with my friends!

Head on over to Shannon's blog and link up!

Dear Carbs, I miss you

We are in the final home stretch of our biggest loser competition #2 with our friends...
2 more weeks
but until then...

Dear Carbs,

I miss you, and can't wait until we are reunited again! I have already planned on how to welcome you back into my life as of May 3rd. Our relationship may rekindle over sushi, pizza, or a sandwich of some sort, we have a few days to figure out the menu/game plan, but until then I'll just be hanging out with some fresh veggies and fruit! You will be missed! Can't wait to have you back in my life again!

Love,
Lindsey

As of today I'm down 9.8% of my weight from when I started in February. With the 1/2 marathon being so close and I have 2 more long runs [11 miles and 12 miles] I should be able to get to my ultimate goal weight! the competition is surely getting tough over the last weeks. I will fight until the end.. and hopefully come back as victorious as last year!

Friday Confessional

I confess.. I have thought about buying a cakepop machine from Kohl's even though I have never tried to make them on my own before. Are they difficult to make? The machine just makes it look as if they would be that much easier to make!

I confess... that one time I drove away from the gas pump with the nozzle still in my car! [to my defense herbie's gas tank is on the passenger side, and i was in a hurry to get up to the lake for the weekend ;)]

I confess... that if I eat a few french fries of J's plate at a restaurant that I don't really count them as calories/carbs for me... they came off of his plate not mine!

I confess... i still haven't done my taxes.. eek! thank g we have until the 18th this year. it is making me a little nervy not to have them done though, i'm normally done with mine in February!

I confess... that I get annoyed when I hear about people who want to get out of debt but continue to buy things that are not necessary. [I understand that there are totally circumstances, and I can't really relate b/c i'm not in their shoes, and have never been in debt, but I just want to tell them that some things are really a necessity its more a want!]

I confess... when I run outside and look at the houses, i find myself wondering how they are decorated inside?, how would i decorate it?, would i ever be able to afford it?, ect... and just letting my mind wander.. this is why i try to train indoors b/c when my mind wanders, i run sllloooowww!

I confess... that I didn't have a chance to wash my work pants that I wore yesterday, so I'm wearing them again today.. TWO DAYS IN A ROW! .. i NEVER do this, and now they are falling off of me.. I hate saggy butt pants

I confess... although I hate saggy butt pants, I don't mind the feeling that I'm wearing a pair of pants that are not only 2 sizes to big, but more like 3-4! I'll take it for a Friday!

I confess... I was a little more than excited when I saw that Absolut made Absolute Boston into a real flavor. It is now called Absolut Wild Tea. Can we say pure delish! It is infused with black tea and elderflower, and you mix it with either Ice Tea or Ginger Ale. Can't wait for patio drinking with this stuff, it is the most refreshing drink ever!

speaking of Absolut
I confess... I interviewed someone who worked at Absolute HHC yesterday, and I wrote in my itnerview notes Absolut HHC.. can you tell what was on my mind yesterday during work?! ha!

I hope you have a wonderful Friday!
I know today could not come soon enough for me, it has been one tough week in the office

TGIF!

So What Wednesdays....

This week I'm saying
So What if....

*i'm still catching up on my dvr from our vacation [i should have totally taken an extra DVR day when I got back from the cruise and Florida]
*i lost my pedometer last week and you would have thought that I lost my child, this darn thing of plastic is a part of me [well and I get $$ for it based off of the amount of steps I take], i retraced my steps, called security, ect. with no avail, i didn't find it, but i re-programed my original one, and were back up and running! [thank g, i have long runs coming up for the 1/2 marathon training, i can't miss out on 15,000+ step runs!]
*if I was all the way to the freeway this morning before I realized I forgot my pedometer at home, and I knew it was going to be a busy day with quite a few trips to the hospital, so I turned around to get it
*we are in the final stretch of our weight loss competition, and all that i'm craving is the bad stuff.. yesterday it was Nacho Doritos, and pepperoni pizza [srrsly, thats sick!]. i'm going to try and go low carb for the last 20 days [besides my luna bars when i run] and see how it goes.. wish me luck!
*i'm still sore from the 10 mile run that we did on sunday! seriously, who knew that Gahanna had hills?!!? not me!
*it irritates me when people try to drag on a conversation by saying "so, yea..." or "so, ummm...." just end the conversation... there is no need to keep dragging it on
*i'm looking forward to Justin starting softball back up [even though I will be regret saying this in about 1 month], I love being outside 3 nights a week

Now head on over to Shannon's blog and link up

What are you saying so what to today!? or all week?!