Project 365: May

May just flew by! I think May is my favorite month of the year. It's warm, but not too hot, and all the flowers start blooming. I love it! Here's my Project 365 photos from this beautiful May.....

May 1 - Mom bought me Edward's pies since it's exam week!

May 2 - Picked up cookies for my birthday. Yum!

May 3 - It was a beautiful day and I went to the Cabana for my birthday. It doesn't get much better than that!

May 4 - Went to dinner with Ashley and Danielle, and then came home and went to bed early with Coco.

May 5 - Went to the mall with Maddie, Sydney, and Savannah tonight!

May 6 - Saw Mamma Mia tonight. It was SO good!

May 7 - Cutie!

May 8 - My delicious Georgetown Cupcakes came in today. So yummy!

May 9 - Loving how cute this Lilly Pulitzer gift card is. I can't wait to order something with it :)

May 10 - The mint cookies and creme Georgetown Cupcake was delicious!

May 11 - Went to Louisville for the night. All I did was basically have dinner and go to bed - ha!

May 12 - Went to Maker's Mark before we headed home from Louisville.

May 13 - Made cupcakes for Dad's work. Yum!

May 14 - Walked at Fernbank with Nicci tonight!

May 15 - Tried the new Starbucks Cookie Crumble Frappuccino while I was out shopping tonight by myself :)

May 16 - Finished up my AP tests for the year, went to Chipotle & Graeter's, didn't have to babysit, and went shopping at Rookwood. Fabulous day!!

May 17 - Doing what I love to do - baking!

May 18 - Got out of school at 11, went to lunch, and got ice cream at Zip Dip. Great day!

May 19 - Worked on some cake pops for my friends today :)

May 20 - Went downtown tonight for dinner and to walk around the new park :)

May 21 - I love this dog!

May 22 - Decorate cake pops with Sydney and Tyler today. So fun!

May 23 - Had a great day! Dinner, pizza party at Erin's, and seeing these cute bunnies in our yard.

May 24 - Love this picture of Coco and I!

May 25 - Went over Aunt Joan's to hang with the girls tonight!

May 26 - Worked on Lalaloopsy cake pops all day. So fun and my best ones so far!

May 27 - Big Lalaloopsy party today!

May 28 - Memorial Day Party!

May 29 - Bought this book today - it combines my love of Paris and sweets. I can't wait to read it!

May 30 - First day of summer!! Went to Yum and Rookwood with my friends tonight.

May 31 - Beautiful day! Went shopping at Kenwood with Maddie, Sydney, and Savannah :)

My summer is off to a pretty good start - I can't wait to see what the rest of summer brings!

Books, Recipe, and Cupcakes!

Summer is already amazing! Not having to wake up and go to school today was just pure bliss! The only downside is that I had to turn my laptop into my school for a few weeks, so I'm stuck writing blog posts on our old computer :/

But I wanted to drop in and write about a few things - some good books, a really good recipe, and what I did tonight!

First off, yesterday I finished this book. It was SO good. It was a fiction story about 2 friends that open their own bakery. Right up my alley! The ending was my favorite though - it had a lot of twists at the end that I wasn't expecting. I'd definitely recommend this book!

Then I just bought this book yesterday and started it today. This one is nonfiction, and it's about a woman who lived in Paris. I'm not really far into it yet, but so far it's been all about Paris and the bakeries she discovered there! I can't wait to finish it.

This afternoon I made some really good rice krispie treats! I found the recipe here, but I thought I'd post it on here too in case you want to make it. It's a little different, but really good!

Cake Batter Rice Krispie Treats

Ingredients

3 tablespoons butter

1 (10.5 oz.) bag mini-marshmallows

1/3 cup of yellow cake mix (not the batter - just the dry mix!)

6 cups Rice Krispies

1 (1.75 oz.) container rainbow sprinkles

Instructions

Spray a little bit of Pam in a large saucepan. Melt the butter in the saucepan. Add half the marshmallows. Stir. Add the rest of the marshmallows. Keep stirring! You pretty much have to stir the entire time so it doesn't stick to the pan :)

Once the marshmallows start to melt, add the cake mix, a little at a time, stirring in between. Add the Rice Krispies 2 cups at a time, stirring after each addition. Once all the cereal is all completely coated, add about half of the sprinkles and mix.

Press the Rice Krispies mixture into the bottom of a lightly greased baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining sprinkles. Cut after they've cooled for about 30 minutes. Yum!

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Tonight a few of my friends and I tried out a cute little cupcake place, called Yum! I'd had some of their cupcakes before, but I'd never actually been there. It was really good and cute!

I got their cookies and cream cupcake!

After that we had dinner at Five Guys and walked around Rookwood for a little bit. I'd say it was a pretty good first day of summer!

The End Is Just the Beginning

I have officially completed my Junior year of high school!

Obviously I haven't finished high school yet, but this year was rumored to be the toughest year at my school. I'm not holding out my hopes just yet, but after getting through this year, I know I can handle whatever!

This year was definitely a tough one. I had to spend so much time on school work. Most days I would go to school, babysit, come home, work on homework, take a shower, go to bed, and do it all over again the next day. But I survived, and I'm proud of myself for that.

I'm just SO happy it's summer so that I can have a little break from everything. I don't have a big summer job, just babysitting my cousins here and there, so I'm excited to just relax and enjoy my summer because I know I don't have too many "non-working" summers left :)

via

This is one of my favorite summer songs!

And even though it's the end of school, it's also the beginning of a whole new adventure: SENIOR YEAR!

Happy Memorial Day!

I can't believe today was Memorial Day, the "unofficial" start to summer! It's hard to believe that summer is almost here (only 1 more day for me!) - it doesn't feel like it's already the end of the school year.

Coco was all dressed up for the occasion today!

We had a pizza party with my mom's side of the family today. That's always fun!

My grandpa is in rehab at a nursing home right now, so we thought it'd be fun to have the party there. After we were done, we explored the place a little bit, and accidentally set off one of the fire alarms. It's always something with my family :)

I just have to add in this picture too! I took an AP American History class this year, and it was a lot of work. Every single night we had a reading assignment out of our textbook, and then the next day we would have a quiz over the previous night's section. Well, today was my last reading assignment. We actually made it to the very end of the book - page 921, with Obama being elected president. I can honestly say I read ALL of those 921 pages. I've never read an entire textbook cover to cover before, so it will be nice to finally turn this book in during our last class tomorrow :)

And I'll leave you with this random picture! I decided to get fancy with my nails tonight. I think it's fun and funky.

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day! I'm so proud to live in the US!

Lalaloopsy Weekend

I had a weekend full of family parties! I love that about summer - it seems like I always have some kind of family event to go to.

I got out of school early on Friday because of exams, so I went home and got to work on another batch of cake pops. I made these blue and green swirled ones for my family birthday party, which was on Saturday.

Then my dad and I got Zip Dip (yummy!), and I went over my aunt's house to hang out with my cousins. My cousin Sydney had a Lalaloopsy themed party today, so she was showing me all of her Lalaloopsy goodies - rings and tattoos!

On Saturday I got up and started right to work on Lalaloopsy cake pops for the big party. They were very time consuming, but I think they're the best ones I've ever made! I was especially proud of them considering I came up with all the decorating ideas myself and didn't just use an online tutorial :)

I went a little overboard on all the pictures....

I think this one turned out to be my favorite! My parents were laughing at me because I just kept saying that it "had the best hairline". Ha!

My cousin Melissa sent me this picture of the birthday girl with the cake pops. I love how happy she is here! That makes all the hard work totally worth it!

Saturday night I went over my aunt's house for a combined birthday party for my cousin and I. It was fun - we ate cake pops and discussed future plans for my own bakery :) I even got some new baking supplies - new sprinkles and candy flavorings! How amazing would a chocolate cake pop be with mint flavored candy coating?!? I'm such a baking nerd!

Then today was the big Lalaloopsy party! I loved all the fun decorations!

Savannah was looking super cute today too!

They even had a princess bounce house!

I'd say it was a fun weekend! I only have one more day of school left (actually only an hour and a half) on Tuesday until it's officially summer. Yay!