Teeth Cupcakes

I did do something fun on Saturday. Well at least what I would consider to be fun. My mother in law, Barb Brown, said I had crossed the line into mentally disturbed. I am not going to argue with her, she is probably right. I made teeth out of cup cakes!! 

First bake up cupcakes, I just used Duncan Heinz classic yellow.

With another box of cake mix make two rounds. You will crumble the two cakes and mix them with butter cream frosting. I cheated and used store bought. Don't tell my mother.

This is the cake crumb mixture. You will use this to mold the tooth shape on the top of the cupcake.

I made a blank on the cupcake and then used a wet dowel to shape the crumble mixture.

Here are the three steps. (1) cupcake. (2) frost cupcake to help mixture stick to cupcake. (3) make blank and mold with wet dowel. *Keeping the dowel damp keeps the crumble mixture from sticking to it while molding.

Cover with marshmallow fondant. I will post the recipe to this below. I used the dowel to push the fondant down into the crevasses of the tooth. 

Marshmallow Fondant

16 oz. of marshmallows

4 Tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon Vanilla

4 Tablespoons water

2 lbs. powdered sugar

Place butter in a shallow dish and set aside.

Place marshmallows in microwave safe bowl. Pulse in microwave in 1 minute increments until melted. Be careful marshmallows do not boil over in microwave.

Carefully stir in water and vanilla.

Slowly beat in powdered sugar. Reserve one cup of powdered sugar for kneading.

Rub hands thoroughly with butter before kneading the fondant.

Knead fondant until it is smooth and no longer sticky.

Form into a ball and wrap tightly. *It is important that no air gets to the fondant as that will cause it to harden and make it un-workable.

Be sure working surface is coated in powdered sugar to prevent fondant from sticking.

The reason I have a constant eye twitch...

We are going out to pick out graduation announcements, get a suit over coat altered, and run other errands with my mother-in-law, Barb Brown. My 18 year old comes out of his room in a raggy shirt and jeans with holes in them. I stated, "You can't wear that! Your grandmother will think you don't have any nice clothes to wear and she will ask me why I am not providing you with nice clothes to wear!" He shrugged his shoulders and informed me he sees no problem with his choice in clothing. I told him go change, please......

He stated, "All my pants have at least three holes in them."

Me: "How?? I know you have pants without holes??"

He then said, "They have to have three holes.....how else would I get in them?"

OH SHEESH!!

He does clean up okay....even with three holes in his pants.

The Reptile Man

The Reptile Man came to the kids' elementary school this week. He put on a show on Thursday night for anyone who wanted to come. It was  only $1 per person. I found the price to be within our budget so we took the whole family! Some members were more excited than others. But by the end of the show we all came to the same conclusion...he puts on a good show.

Here he is with an alligator snapping turtle. It is even uglier in person.

 This is just one of the many snakes he brought along to share. She was so big the kids in the front row screamed as he swung the tail out over the audience. All the animals were very well trained and had their venom glands removed.

 He had a huge python. It was so long it took eight kids to hold it. I wanted to get a picture, but as you can imagine it was very crowded and I tried to be sure not to get random pictures of kids in my photos because I did not feel like hunting down parents and asking if they minded that their kid's picture would be posted on my blog. The girls did get to pet the snake and collect the scales it was shedding. I now have a nice pile of boa scales on my table.

 For $5 the kids could get a picture with one of the boas or the alligator. We tried to get Jake to get a picture with the alligator, she was such a sweetheart, but Jake was a no go. The girlies wanted to get a picture with the snake. He was very heavy. I love the look on Anna's face in this shot.

We got home and I had to give the lecture we are not getting any pet snakes, alligators, lizards, or alligator snapping turtles. The only pets we have at this time are the dust bunnies that live under the table bench and I am completely okay with that.

Adios Muchachas...

I have a section in my address book dedicated to best friends that have moved away over the past 13 years.

You don't believe me that I have had enough move away to warrant this??

I have compiled a list!

Sheryl D.
Julie W.
Holly S.
Mikaela S.
Traci M.
Christy O.
Monica G.
Lanae L. x 2
Nicola T.
Anna N.
Brinn E.
Linda R.

If you ask me this list seems a little long. Suspiciously long. Is this normal to have this many people move out of a person's life?

It seems unusual to me and frankly I am sick and tired of it!! I have a hard time relating to people and therefore struggle making really good friends and it sucks to have them just move away.

The most recent one to move away is really bringing me down. Brinn and I have been besties for the past 5 years. She's been my workout buddy, painting buddy, got me through the loss of my husband, and in general just put up with me (which is really hard to do). I am gonna miss her!!

Dental Hygiene School...year one

So this has been an extremely busy two quarters of school. The program is insanely intense. But it does have its fun side too. 

I got to participate in a tour of our clinic with the speech and hearing program. The kiddos were just adorable.  

Also was able to teach a class on how poverty affects dental hygiene. As you can see, two of my classmates were just enthralled with the topic. ha ha

The kids are good. I will try to post more of what we have been up to over spring break in between the assignments we receive to work on over spring break.