Sweet Labor Day

We have had such a nice Labor Day weekend.  Friday night was the opening NCSU Football game - while it was hard to watch, it was a nice evening. Saturday was gorgeous and we enjoyed the pool with lots of friends and did some shopping. Sunday, Ryan enjoyed golfing and Madison and I were lazy around the house.  We enjoyed a few BBQs and lots of extra time together as a family.  Our contribution  was dessert and Ryan requested cupcakes!  I wanted to share my favorite recipes with you.  I feel like I've tried a lot of them and these are the best for homemade cupcakes!

Chocolate Cupcakes via Magnolia's recipe - follow this link
* We didn't have any buttermilk, so I used a substitute of 1 cup milk and 1 TBSP white vinegar.  This worked just fine!

I love these cupcakes because they come out fluffy and moist.  Also, I have stopped coating the cupcake liners with any Pam or similar product.  They really don't need it and can sometimes come out greasy if you do add it!

Butter-cream Icing, this is truly the best icing recipe I have found!  This is my go-to and it almost always comes out perfect.  I do add the 1/2 block cream cheese.

For today, I had 30 cupcakes.  So, I doubled the icing.  This yielded way too much, but I'd rather have too much than not enough.  I experimented with freezing icing - so I'll let you know how it turns out.  If you've done this before, do you have any tips?

We did red, white and blue icing in honor of Labor Day!  

Sweet Madison today.  She is one lucky girl to enjoy so much fun with so many friends today. At our first BBQ, she was amazed at all the big kids and loved following them around.  With our dear-friends, the Logues, she was so sweet and loved laying on the floor and playing with them.  Addison is like an older sister to her and is so loving to her.

*By the way, a family friend made this dress for her! Let me know if you are on the market for an adorable outfit for your daughter and I can pass along her info.  She is amazing!*

Sweet kiddos - and Madison trying to flee!

HAPPY LABOR DAY to you all!