So my sweet little Ellie will be turning one in 3 weeks. This is so cliche, but it's SO hard to believe that she's been a part of our lives for a whole year. I can't even remember what it was like to not have a little one in our home. And by the way....why did I think it was so hard to get things done around the house before she was born? I can't believe I actually had a hard time getting the chores done...other than school, I didn't have any responsibilities. I think I was just lazy, because I know plenty of people without kids who are very productive....guess I'm just not in that category. =)
Anyway, so I've been planning and preparing for her birthday. I'm not really the type of person to get all excited about birthdays, nor do I really enjoy parties. But for my little girl, I have to give her the opportunity to actually enjoy birthday parties....so I'm sucking it up and throwing her a party. I sent the invitations out yesterday, and I've already bought a few decorating items. I'm trying my hand at making the decorations (based on a friend's previous success with it), so we'll see how they turn out. I'm not very good at crafty things, so we'll just have to wait and see.
I've also already gotten her birthday presents and wrapped them, so that's done. And I did a trial run of a cupcake recipe last night, which turned out pretty great! I was initially planning on making chocolate cupcakes, but I saw this recipe for banana cupcakes with chocolate frosting in the August issue of All You magazine and thought they sounded pretty yummy.
The recipe was fairly simple to follow, and they definitely turned out to be very good. The cupcake was more like a muffin, but I LOVE banana muffins so I wasn't going to complain. And the frosting was VERY sweet, maybe too sweet for me, but I think with less powdered sugar or more chocolate it would've been better. Overall, they were a big success (anything that Billy says is "amazing" passes my test) and we may be including them in the birthday festivities. I still want to try a chocolate cupcake recipe, though. I've heard that Hershey's has a good one, and I also found this one online that seems easy enough. If anyone has a suggestion, I'd love to know!
