Happy 60th Bday!

When my Mother-in-law, Nancy turned 60, we all wanted to do something really special for her, so my sister-in-law asked me if I would be willing to make her a scrapbook and of course I said YES!  

There was one problem, we had a ton of photos, but NO CLUE when they were taken, where they were taken or what age Nancy was in any of them... which made it kind of hard to add any commentary to the book, so we came up with a great idea.  We emailed all her family and friends and asked them to answer the following 3 questions.  

1. What do you love about Nancy?
2. What is your favorite memory of Nancy?
3. List 3 words that describe Nancy

I figured we'd get a few responses and have enough to add some nice, sweet comments to the pages, well was I wrong!  We received more than we expected, paragraphs, full pages and even more pictures about memories, or things they loved about Nancy.  After reading all the sweet things people wrote, I realized that I couldn't cut out 1 single word, so that just meant that I had to add more pages... 

A LOT more pages. 

Here is how it turned out!

Cover Page and Intro Page

Sailing in Ixtapa

A few years ago I went on a Mexican cruise through Carnival and it was a blast!  I was with my family (parents and 2 sisters), my then-boyfriend (now-husband) and our very close family friends (another family of 4), so there was a whole bunch of us!  It was a 7 day cruise that went to Acapulco, Ixtapa and Manznillo.  

After a few days at sea and a visit to Acapulco it was finally our day to visit Ixtapa!  We couldn't be more excited.  Ixtapa was a little fishing island and just so beautiful!

 

We split up that day, so it was only my dad, sister, husband and myself.  The 4 of us were going on a sailboat ride to a little cove where we were going to go snorkeling.  

Acapulco

A few years ago I went on a Mexican cruise through Carnival and it was a blast!  I was with my family (parents and 2 sisters), my then-boyfriend (now-husband) and our very close family friends (another family of 4), so there was a whole bunch of us!  It was a 7 day cruise that went to Acapulco, Ixtapa and Manzanillo.

After a few days at sea, our first stop was to Acapulco!  We were so excited to finally get to one of our destinations! 

Sunflower Cupcakes

After we made the hamburger cupcakes for Father's Day, my sister and I couldn't wait to make more fun cupcakes.  We went to the store, bought a few cookbooks and picked out our favorites.  So when Mother's Day came along, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to make more cupcakes!

We decided to make a make two different types, the Sunflower cupcakes and the Butterfly Cupcakes.  I have to admit, decorating them was a lot more difficult that it looked.  Making flower petals isn't very easy, but after a few hours I think we had it down.  Here was the finished product :)

 

Idea, Recipe and Instructions here ---> Hello Cupcake!

Butterfly Cupcakes

As I mentioned in my Sunflower cupcake post, we also made Butterfly cupcakes for our mom.  These were actually VERY easy, however we had a few technical difficulties.  We couldn't find the correct melting chocolate, so the butterflies didn't harden properly.  However, they still turned out really cute and tasted delicious! 

 Idea, Recipe and Instructions here ---> Hello Cupcake

Love to Cruise

After talking to a lot of people, I've come to the conclusion that you either love to cruise or you hate to cruise, and I must say..... I LOVE TO CRUISE!!

Now hear me out; I understand both sides of the argument and don't get me wrong, I still love going on vacations that don't involve a cruise boat, but I have to say that cruising is so much fun!!

I've only been on 4 cruises, but I've gotten to see all these places -->

Burger and Fries for dad

A few years ago, my sister found these adorable cupcakes online and wanted to make them for our dad.  It was really fun, VERY easy and our dad loved them.  He even took a few extra to work the next day to show his co-workers.  Recently I made them for a 4th of July potluck at work and people couldn't get over how cute they were!

Here is how they turned out - super cute right?? :)

The complete tutorial is here ---> Bakerella 

What creative cupcakes have you made recently?