More Cupcakes

I will be doing a lot of baking this week, and I am excited to be doing it! Today was one of my professor's birthday, and since we have her class on Tuesday nights, we thought it would be appropriate to throw her a food party. Little did we know she had the flu over the weekend, so she still wasn't back to 100%. We enjoyed the food anyway!

Here are the cupcakes I made, and let me just say- delicious! I am not creative enough (yet) to come up with original ideas- but I love trying new recipes. These were easy to make- and all the ingredients were hanging out in my pantry (well except for vanilla frosting- but that was easy enough!)

Here's what you need...

I took the easy way out and bought cookie decorating frosting for this... It made the job go by quickly, but I cut the tip on the blue in the wrong location and didn't have the fine line I wanted.


Next the frosting. I really loved this... maybe even better than ganache. The jury is still out on that. The recipe recommends dipping them in the frosting, but I tired of that pretty quickly.


Now decorating. I may not surprise many when I say I am not artist. I envision great things when it comes to decorating, but fail miserably :) Here are my failed attempt at flowers (or oddly constructed geometrical blobs), a flower I salvaged into a butterfly, my fail-safe design and a smiley face. Oh, and the pitchfork looking thing is a symbol representing Psychology. Geeky. I know.


And the final product....

and the delicious inside...


Of course I sampled this one :)

Next up... cupcakes for Grandpa's birthday! I am pretty excited to share my treats with my family.

Boston

Last week I had the really wonderful opportunity to travel to Boston for the annual National Association of School Psychologist Conference. More than 5,000 School Psychologists from across the country were present, taking over three hotels.

While there, I presented my research which looked at Online Aggression (cyberbullying) and how it impacts schools. As I have mentioned previously, this project was a large undertaking, and I poured my heart into writing this manuscript and creating a research project that I am very proud of. Geeky, yes.

Adequate time was spent at the conference- but sight seeing was high on my list. While there, we walked Newberry St, saw Quincy Market and Fennel Hall (pronounced Fenuall) and saw many of the stops along the Freedom Trail. We also had our own Boston Tea party equipt with "New Orleans Long Island 's" on Mardi Gras. This was immediate followed by a "cheer off" between a friend and I and a long journey to find more adult beverages. We also visited the Museum of Fine Arts, which was really cool.

I spent the entire trip frustrated that I didn't bring my "good" camera in an effort to conserve space in my carry on, but I am pleased that my pictures turned out alright. I guess its hard to screw up buildings and architecture... its doesn't change much!

I had a great time with friends from school, and enjoyed meeting other school psychologists from across the US.

Here are the highlights with captions :)

Myself, Brian (my advisor), Megan and Trina in front a poster we worked on together.

Myself in front of my EdS Poster which I presented on Thursday.

This was taken from inside the Boston Library out to a church. I am terrible at remembering names... so I am not sure what church, except that it was a tourist attraction!

Newberry St. A fun afternoon of shopping.

On Boston Commons.




Standouts at the Museum of Fine Arts.

At the beginning of the Freedom Trail. This is the first public park.

Another view at the start of our trek

State house.


View of the public park on our trek back to the hotel. As you can see the weather changed drastically from 50's and gorgeous to 30's and cloudy/windy.

Here is the church I showed earlier (the shot taken from inside the Boston Public Library).

Inside the Boston Public Library.

Inside Quincy Market.

Boston- night scene.