Flutterbies

This summer, I spent about a month living out of a hotel in Houston. I work in construction management, and we happened to have a project starting up down there that needed some help getting off the ground, so with roughly 3 days notice, I packed up my car and drove south. 

While I don't typically like spending four weeks away from home (and away from my parents/friends/cats), I didn't mind this trip quite so much because my Grandma happens to live in Houston. Unfortunately, my office was on the very north edge of Houston and she lives just south of town (making it over an hour trip one-way), so I was still stuck with fast food and hotels during the week. The weekends, however, were a different story. Every Friday, I would pack up my crap, check out of the hotel, and spend a couple days with her. 

We spent most of our time relaxing and watching rom-coms. I saw My Fair Lady for the first time (and second and third time as well, because we really liked the scene when they're at the racetrack, so we just kept putting it on). I also watched Shop Around the Corner for the first time (I watch You've Got Mail roughly once a week at home, so it was nice to finally see what it was based on). We also watched more Hallmark Channel movies than I care to mention.

We didn't just watch movies, though. Much like when I was younger and spent vacations decorating cookies and cakes with Grandma, as almost every kid does it seems, we spent a fair amount of time decorating cupcakes.

... In case you were wondering why I was rambling about my visit with Grandma on a cupcake site, this is why.

And since I have much better hand-eye coordination than I did as an eight year old, we actually got to do some pretty fun things. I brought Hello, Cupcake and What's Up, Cupcake? (the best cupcake decorating books I've ever seen), and after perusing the contents, we decided to make butterflies!

Che bella farfalla!

Now, I didn't really know a lot of people in Houston, but Grandma didn't necessarily want a house full of cupcakes, so I had to take most of them with me when I went back to the hotel that Sunday. Do you know what's awkward? Trying to give home-baked goods to hotel concierges. Considering that people tend to be wary of strangers, especially of strangers trying to force-feed them food, I started conversation with "so, I promise I'm not creepy, but I made some cupcakes this weekend if you'd like one..." After some pretty concerned looks on her part, she took one, and I'm happy to say, on behalf of cupcake-wielding strangers everywhere, that she did not die of poison (or anything... she's alive and well). 

Awkward encounters aside, we had so much fun baking together that we decided to make some more cupcakes when I went back the next weekend! This time we opted for a more delicious looking theme.

It's not actually french fries, it's just toasted pound cake.

The toasted pound cake and mini "ketchup-cakes" turned out so well that I kept forgetting I wasn't looking at real french fries! Which, if I'm being honest, was actually a shame. I love baking, decorating, and eating cupcakes, but I'm a salty-snack girl at heart. These cupcakes ended up prompting me to order way too many actual french fries over the next week. Oh well...

That's all we made on that trip, but she's going to spend some time in Dallas this Christmas, so who knows what we'll whip up then.

Also, if you find yourself dying to try some of these cupcakes, just let me know (contact information can be found on the "Place an Order" page), and I'm sure we can work something out!