Farewell!

We have a coworker that is leaving and no one likes him. So we thought we would impart a few words of wisdom to him...

1. Don’t call anyone that isn’t your wife or mother, MOM.
2. Faking coughing for over a month makes your co-workers want to kill you.
3. Whistling is never okay unless you have an office and can close your door.
4. Don’t talk LOUDLY to yourself in order to get attention, it makes you look pathetic
5. Don’t agree to deadlines (repeatedly) that you can’t meet or don’t intend to meet.
6. Don’t demean co-workers or talk down to people, it makes you look pathetic and like an ass
7. No one cares about your weird, creepy obsession “hobby” with butterflies.
8. Don’t fake an injury or self diagnose one, it makes you look pathetic.
9. Don’t fake sick within the first year of employment.
10. Ask questions (and listen) before you make assumptions.
11. Don’t ask your co-workers for a spare two minutes and then proceed to ask them a question about Microsoft that you could have found easily on the internet OR enter them into a 20 minute conversation. Doing this repeatedly makes them hate you.
12. When you thank someone don't use quotes...because that is implying that you're not actually thanking them.
13. Starting a sentence with Sincerely over and over makes you insincere. If you're genuinely sincere it will come across and you shouldn't have to even use the word.
14. You might think that saying "And to your point" over and over again makes it your catch phrase, but really it just means that you never have a point and are just wasting my time.

6 Months in review

Wow, I can't believe how much has happened and how much time has passed! I blame Larry mostly for not being able to post, you know how time consuming he is!! :)

We had a great summer and are setting up to have a really awesome Fall and winter! Already the leaves are changing and falling, we have the house all ready for Halloween and I think are FINALLY going to be able to carve pumpkins tonight! I love pumpkins.

We've had a busy October so far, every weekend I have had an event! 3 weddings and a Touched Twice Event at church (not the same ring as the movie eh?).

The Touched Twice Event went really well. We were able to help over 450 families in our area get some medical attention or help with food and clothing. It was a lot of fun, and great to meet new people!!

I promise we will have more posts in the last quarter of the year. So far our Events include:
-Craft show at work Nov 10
-Cookie Decorating Party Nov 20th - Cookies will be iced in pretty designs as well as donated to a local non profit in time for Thanksgiving!
-Thanksgiving Ava will be visiting her Dad's family which means I get to drag Larry out for some Black Friday shopping!! (Let's keep that between us for the moment eh!)
-Vegas!! Larry and I are going to Las Vegas for a week from Nov 29-Dec 3 for a conference with his work.
-December 17-January 1 we will be in Canada!!! WOOHOO!!! We haven't been home in too long, so I am more than a little excited!!

Enjoy some of our past moments!

xoxo Sarah

Larry snuggles with our new kitten!!


Ava showing off how fabulous she is :)


Wedding I did which had a love bird theme.


Pumpkin Cake for friend's of ours whose son was turning 1!!


Another Wedding Purple colours which had real lavender flowers!!


Bride and Groom Cupcakes!


Ava and myself at our first Iron Cupcake Madison Event. The secret Ingredient was Coffee! I won for best display!! Woo hoo!!

I have S'More problems...

I like s'mores.

Okay okay...I don't actually like s'mores, I love them.

Alright alright, I have a very intimate relationship with s'mores. Not only have we formed a life long bond and friendship, they are my bff.

I can seriously...oh and before I say it, this is a no judgment zone...consume upwards of 3 or more s'mores in one sitting. However I ran into a problem last week. You always either run out of chocolate or run out of graham crackers. I ran out of chocolate...an incredibly key component of s'mores.

So I tried to make do to get my "fix" if you will. I found that we had hershey kisses (not the same as the chipmunks) and started cutting them up into slices and placing them on my graham crackers. Then I heated up my marshmallow put it all together and I was good to go.

Well good to go in the sense that I would have no shame, I thought I could get away with eating it quickly so no one would see. I was in the kitchen having a private moment with my s'more and in walks Larry. He took one look at me with chocolate and marshmallow on my face, and one look at the hershey's kiss wrappers and sincerely said "You need help".

3 weeks...

I just sent the following to my Mother, Sister and Larry. I would also like to share it with you, to ensure that my wishes are carried out:

In three weeks I’ll be under the knife…

If I don’t make it please understand the following as my wishes:
1. I want to be cremated.
2. I want my ashes to be scattered over water.
3. Get rid of all my crap.
4. Someone finish my current romance novel…and then tell me what happens out loud as I will be listening.
5. Make sure Ava grows up understanding her Gnome roots.
6. Larry: You’re not to be in another relationship. I want you to live out the remainder of your life constantly thinking of me and my sweet sweet booty.
7. Melissa: You can have my shoes…also make sure your children and your childrens children know about the gnomes.
8. Mom: Please don’t steal any of my body parts or appendages before I am cremated. It’s creepy. Accept it.
9. Eat cupcakes at my wake.
10. Make sure the picture you use in place of a casket is a hot one…and has my new skinny self.

Shhh it's a secret....

I love secret rooms. I love rooms that look like rooms with no secrets but the secrets are secretly secreted away.

Larry understands this. He understands that when we buy a house we must somehow be able to make a secret room of secret secretness.

Here are some examples of acceptable secretness:

Ohh look at that nice Bookcase...but wait! SECRET ROOM OF WONDERS!!

I think I'll go workout upstairs...yeah you do that sweetie...bah blam! secret room under the stairs!

This is my favourite...there's like a whole other house...you could be living an entirely different life back there!! Ka-chow!


However the likelyhood of me driving Larry crazy one day and him locking me in my secret room is highly probable. So, a friend and I thought that I should have a secret escape from said secret room, in the event such a thing should happen. I told her I liked how her secret mind worked!

One other problem is that I might forget how to open said secret room, and then we would need a cheat sheet near the secret room, which would completely cancel out any cool secretness.

So there are challenges...but the main focal point is that one day I will have a secret room.
As I like to tell Ava "I'm not asking you a question, I'm making a statement!"

Birthday Man

Yesterday was Larry's birthday!!! Hooray!!!

I can be sneaky if I want to...it's just really hard for me to keep a secret. I get too excited about it I think.

But I managed to keep it all in this time!! I took 1/2 a day off of work and went to purchase some of his favourite things for a dinner. I even emailed Larry and told him my boss had scheduled a meeting from 5:30-6:30, which would mean I wouldn't be home until 7:30!! See? Sneaky!

I arrived home around 3pm, unpacked the groceries and started baking a chocolate chip cookie dough cake for the ice cream cake that Larry requested. Then I started making homemade candied peanuts and cashews!

Our final menu was a trio of appetizers:
Stuffed Shrimp
Lobster Bisque
Bruschetta

And the Main course:
Shrimp Scampi

So all the while I have my work email open on our desktop, because I needed to make it seem that I was still at work. 6:00 rolls around, and if Larry has left at 5 or so, he should be home soon. So I send a text saying the meeting was so boring, how close to home was he. He texts me back saying he just left. Crap.

I quickly turn off most of the things I was getting ready to make and plate so they don't burn/overcook. Around 6:30 I get everything going again. I set a blanket on the ground with lots of pillows and candles and even had soft jazz playing for background noise! At around 6:40 I hear the back door close, I walk into the living room to find Larry with a very confused and bewildered expression on his face. I yell SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

The first thing he says: Where's your car?


Anyways, we had a lovely meal together and evening...although ice cream cake is really hard to make fyi.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LARRY!!!

Catch up

Okay,

No blog for a while...sorry about that! So much has happened. Larry received a job in Milwaukee (WOOHOO!!) so there was lots of running around, house hunting, packing, moving and unpacking in the last few weeks.

Some of our favourite sayings over the past few weeks, has been to ask each other:
Sarah: "Larry, I have a really important question!"
Larry: "I'm listening!"
Sarah: "When do you have to go back to Florida?"
Larry: "Never never never!!*"

Mostly we have been unpacking, adjusting to our new commutes, and coexisting wonderfully. It has been great to see how easily all three of us seem to have fallen into our own rhythms with one another without as much as a hiccup along the way.

Tuesday we went to the Melting Pot to celebrate Larry's new job and his ridiculous .03 win in Fantasy Football. I know I know, a win is a win. But we had a lot of fun!

Pictures below!


*One of Ava's favourite things to say when she is upset is Never Never Never!

Cupcakes for a Cure!

We are supporting and running in the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure this year.

So this month's Cupcake of the Month are our Light Sunny Lemon Cupcakes with Pink Buttercream frosting and a Pink handmade candy ribbon!

10% of all Cupcake sales during the month of May will go toward our donation goal of $500 for the race!

If you would like to donate without a purchase please click our donate button below!

Thanks for your support!

Take me out to the ball game...

Now that the Cupcakes have been delivered and are being consumed as we speak, I can let the surprise Cupcakes out of the bag!!

I know two Boston Red Sox lovers, and thought this would be the perfect way to celebrate their birthday's and general being awesome!

It was VERY hard for me to keep these a secret so long, and I am very glad that the secrets are over!!

The cupcakes were Vanilla, and Chocolate (gluten free!). Then I cut the socks and the B out of rolled fondant!

Enjoy, and of course...GO SOX!!

Sushi Cake?

What could be better than Sushi? Sushi Cake!!

I made this cake for a coworkers birthday. It's made out of our Vanilla cake, and dipped in white candy melts, we then rolled them in white sprinkles for the rice. Then wrapped it in black fondant.

I had a lot of fun making these cakes, hope you have as much fun viewing them!

xo Sarah

5 things I've decided

1. I'm glad they don't use subliminal messaging anymore, I think I am a sucker very receptive toward hidden messages to buy or consume things. Just today I thought of Butterscotch, and now I want to consume one or more of the following:
a) Butterscotch Pudding
b) Butterscotch Ice Cream
c) Butterscoth Cupcakes -HOW FREAKING AWESOME WOULD THAT BE?!?

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2. Vegans are crazy. I just learned that my cousin is a Vegan. She wasn't always a Vegan so imagine my surprise when all of a sudden I learn this. I made a comment asking her when she had turned Vegan, because I know I've seen her 'chow on cow'* before. She told me to Vegan up my statement because I was making her sick!**

In the word's of an SNL Celebrity Blogger "B*tch Pleeze"

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3. Seeing a little old lady in a beat up old Buick all hunched over who can barely see over the steering wheel, and has the license plate: WHATEVR might be the funniest thing I've seen all year.

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4. If my coworker doesn't stop tapping her foot on her chair I'm going to take it from her. (Chair or foot, you decide)

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5. Making some of the coolest cupcakes in a long time, and wanting badly not to ruin the surprise and ruin it at the same time, and having half of your family tell everyong that this could only mean one thing (That I'm pregnant -wtf?). Is the most annoying thing to happen and makes me despise FaceBook.

That is all!

*Coming up with "Chow on Cow" was the most hilarious and brilliant thing I've done all month.
**I don't mind if you are not into eating meat, but don't be an omnivore for over 75% of your life and just randomly decide to make a change and be all high and mighty about it.

Want to win some Cupcakes?

Cupcake Carousel is giving away 4 Easter Cupcakes!!

What do you have to do to win? Just leave a comment here telling us what your favourite Easter Memory with your Family is. We'll use a random number generator, and that person will receive 4 Easter Cupcakes in the Mail! (US residents only please)

The drawing will take place on Monday March 29 5:00 pm CST. The winner will be posted, and we will try to contact through email for address, if not check back here on Monday and Tuesday to email us your address!!

If you would like to sign up for our newsletter, and have your information kept for all future giveaways, click here.

Good Luck to Everyone!

Hey I'm Famous!!

Okay...so not really :)

However, we were just featured on one of our favourites CakeSpy.com!

Thanks goes out to CakeSpy owner Jessie, who took on the hardship of having cupcakes delivered right to her door and suffering through the consumption.

To take a peak at the featured blog, click here!

Beach Wedding!

Hey Everyone!

Well Cupcake Carousel was on a short hiatus, as we visited Marco Island Florida, just outside of Naples. Not only were we able to enjoy a little sun and relaxation, we were also able to witness my Mom and Step Dad say "I do" in a wonderful beach wedding.

So naturally I offered to bake the wedding cake and cupcakes. My brilliant idea popped into my head while visiting one of my favourite baking stores in Wisconsin called Vanilla Bean. While aimlessly walking down one of their aisles some gold sparkling sanding sugar caught my eye. I picked it up studying it thoughtfully when it hit me...Beach Cupcakes!! I quickly called my Mom and explained my idea, which she loved and thus, Beach Cupcakes were born!

We had our standard chocolate and Lemon cupcakes, then I used Buttercream icing in ivory to use as the background for the sand, applied the gold sanding sugar, then used bright blue Buttercream to pipe the waves on the beach. Lastly I added a starfish and clam shell to the "beach" made from rolled fondant.

Not only were the cupcakes delicious, (I think I ate 4!) but they looked great! Everyone loved how they tied in with the theme of the wedding.

Exciting New Year

I know it's only the tenth day of the New Year, but so far is has been incredibly exciting.

1. My 93 days of lent is going really well. I have missed sushi I will confess, but perhaps that will be my big Birthday treat.

2. I've decided to enter a 5K run in May for Susan G Kolmen Breast cancer awarness. So far I've gone from a 16 min mile to a 13:26 min mile. And I finished 5K which is approximately 3.1 miles in 44 mins.

3. Probably the most exciting news is that I launched my website!! It was hard work, but completely worth it. You can even purchase cupcakes online! The website is: www.cupcakecarousel.net.

Here's hoping that 2010 has been exciting for all of you as well!

93 days of Lent

Didn't know Lent had 93 days in it did you? Neither did I! Until I felt God calling me to do something pretty sacrificial and challenging. I was at work...a little bored because the week of New Years is not busy at all. I started thinking about common New Years Resolutions and what people strive for so much at the beginning of each year...lose weight, work out more, save money etc.

Saving money definitely is probably the top of everyone's list in this recession, so it got me to thinking, maybe I should give up spending money for Lent. The more I thought about it the more it seemed to become a clear image in my mind. Then I thought...well why just lent? It seems silly to know what I want to give up but wait until the middle of February to start, so we're going from January 1st until the end of Lent which is April 3rd.

Rules: I cannot spend money on anything other than regularly occurring bills right now, example: Rent, Electricity, Food, Car, Gas, Insurance, Day Care etc. etc.

So, no more: Eating out, Movies, Clothes, Scuba gear etc.

My goal is to put at minimum $350 in savings each month, which will total a minimum of $1050. And on April 4th I will make a check of 10% of that total $105 to Life 102.5 our Local Christian Radio Station as my saving tithe.

It's not going to be easy in the least, but I think it will be good for me. Wish me good luck, and all prayers are appreciated!

Christmas Baking

I know I haven't posted in a while. With Christmas coming up so quickly and everything at work I think everyone has been busy!

Ava and I have had a nice couple of weeks though, and Larry is coming today!! Woo hoo!! We are so excited!

We had a Christmas Party at work...of course you can't call it that anymore so it was a "Holiday Party" anyways...I was asked to bake some homemade cupcakes, cake pops and cookies!

So I decided to do Santa hat and Christmas Tree Cake pops with chocolate cake and butter cream frosting. Gingerbread cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting (I make a REALLY good cream cheese frosting) and shortbread window cookies with homemade raspberry jam!!

Everything turned out really well, and we had a lot of fun! Pictures are below!

Twin Birthday's!

Hello!!

It was Belinda and Betsy's birthday this weekend. I made them each their own cake. Belinda is a Nurse so hers had a medical theme. I am pretty happy with my swine flu and medicine bottle.

Betsy is a dentist so she had her own tooth cake! The teeth were so cute and fun to make. She called them bicuspids, so hopefully I did it right!

Lastly a shot of all four of us having fun!!

Lens Crafters...you do not want to piss me off!

An email I wrote to Lens Crafters Customer Service.

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to inform you that you will be losing my family as a customer. I have been overall underwhelmed and completely dissatisfied with Lens Crafters. Not only in the area of customer service, but with Eye glass quality.

I am working on my second pair of glasses in the last two years. The first pair of glasses I took into the West Towne Mall store to be adjusted, as they kept sliding down my nose. The woman, albeit accidentally, broke my glasses. To “make up for it” she tried to show me a small (less than 6 pairs) selection of hideous glasses to try and replace my chic and feminine one’s simply because I had been lucky enough to find a pair I liked that were on Sale. After much frustration on my part they finally widened the selection, slightly. The glasses I chose have now just broken. The arm of the frame has simply slid off, seemingly for no reason as they have been working fine before then.

Furthermore, the customer service at your West Towne Mall is simply atrocious. Perhaps multi-tasking might seem like a good thing to do, but if your reps would actually see the look on their customers faces they wouldn’t see someone happy for multitasking they would see a customer who does not feel important enough to be given the individual time. Today a female sales rep went to ring up a charge for a gentleman customer. When she arrived at the register she saw that a repair man they had obviously hired to do some work was standing there. Instead of choosing to deliver the change and finish up with her customer, she decided to take care of the Repair man first! Does she not understand that Lens Crafters is the Repair Man’s Customer? I could visually see the transformation on the gentleman’s face of being slightly satisfied with the level of service to completely unsatisfied.

I feel badly for your company, your shiny ads will be seen through soon enough if you don’t focus more on Customer Service to keep the limited customers you currently possess. This is the reason that people purchase goods online, and from other countries the current United States Business Plan apparently has no room for Customer Service.

Do you realize how detrimental negative Word of Mouth Advertising can be? I’m sure the West Towne Mall Lens Crafters will soon find out…

Cake Pops in the Shape of Turkey's...

Yes, they are cake pops and they are made of cake and yes they do look like Turkey's. Apparently when I say Turkey Cake Pops people think I am using real turkey meat...not sure how they have that idea...but anyways!

I made these last night, they are a lot of work. But they are pretty adorable so I'm good with it :)