My Pinterest Inspired Blog!!

I waste an enormous amount of time on Pinterest. I am planning my country chic yet modern home with an upstairs tree house/reading loft with a slide staircase, pretending I am a world famous baker/chef, and planning for our yet to be convinced children and how I am going to be the most creative, fantastic, mom ever! Yeah right. I have one general rule while I am on Pinterest,  I have to at the very least look at the blog/website connected with the Pin to see if I could even attempt what I am posting. If it looks simple enough, it makes in onto my board.

Well, there are a crazy amount of fabulous bloggers out there. They are blogging about EVERYTHING, including how to make fun recipes. Now, obviously I enjoy blogging. Not the the extent where I will post everyday, but once or twice a month just because. So today's blog post is inspired by all of those oh so creative bloggers out there that have driven us to believe we can make anything as long as there are fun pictures posted to see the ingredients!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls! I give you "Leigha's oh so wonderful, inspiringly (yes, I realize this is may not be a word) creative, simply fabulous CAKE BALLS!" That's the official title  so if you decide to Pin this exciting post you will know how to mark it!

Step One: Pick out your ingredients. 

I originally wanted to make cake balls for our 2nd Annual Calfy Family Christmas Treat Bake Day (we are going to have to work on my titles for things). I however have no patience and wanted to try them now! One trip to Hobby Lobby and the grocery store later I have what I need for Halloween  themed cake balls. I wonder how many times I am going to type the word balls in this blog...

I chose Rainbow Chip cake and frosting. Why? Because it's my favorite!!! I got milk chocolate and green vanilla  candy wafers to dip the cake balls in. Finally, I have cute monster toothpicks and orange decorator's gel to make them extra cute once finished. At least that's the plan!

Step Two: Bake your cake!

It's not hard to bake a cake, just follow the directions! I would say anyone could do it, but you never really know how well someone can follow directions. I have left the eggs out of cupcakes before, soooo.... yeah. On a side note, the mixer in this picture is one my Grandma bought me several years ago when I rented my first house. She knew I liked to bake and thought this would help! :) I like to use it any chance I get because it makes me smile! 

Step Three: Put cake mix in pan and bake per directions on the box! :)

Just in case anyone is not sure about anything, I want to make sure there are plenty of pictures!

Step Four: Listen for oven timer. Test cake with toothpick to see if it's ready. Remove from oven. Let it cool. COMPLETELY!! 

Again, just in case you needed help! 

Step Five: Crumble up your cake!

I had read somewhere on Pinterest that you should use a food processor. I don't have one, so I read I could use forks or a blender...

That worked as well as a sharp stick in the eye, so I went back to Pinterest and found someone who used a mixer!

Score! It really worked! Who knew? 

Step Six: Add the frosting of your choice! 

I only added about 2/3 of the container. I had read it could make the cake balls too moist if you use the whole thing. 

Step Seven: Make the cake/frosting concoction in to balls! Finally...we made it to the ball step!

I used a melon baller in order to keep them all around the same size. Place them on wax paper and pop them in the freezer for 30 mins to an hour. I ended up balling up about 48 pieces!   

Step Eight: Melt your candy wafers and dip away. 

Really, this is not as easy at it sounds. I couldn't figure this out. I tried toothpicks, forks, dropping them in there then fishing for them...I say do whatever works for you on this step!

Green Vanilla Candy Melt Stuff!

I hope you all can appreciate my attempt at artsy camera angles! LOL!

Milk Chocolate 

My Mess!!This is the place toothpicks come to die...

Step Nine: Decorate and Enjoy!!

I picked up some cute monsters at Hobby Lobby! Only 24 balls made the cut...wait for it...LOL! The others are just waiting in a bowl to be eaten! Enjoy!!

TJ said the green ones looked like boogers...I won't be using that color again.

So all in all, this was a long process. When I do this again for Christmas I will make the cakes the night before to save time! I am also going to investigate how to better dip my balls in chocolate! Ba HA! :) 

Talk to you all soon! 

Leigha

Dirty 30-Zombie Edition

I sit here in insurmountable pain and think to myself..."self you should blog about this day so you don't soon forget the madness and sign up for another obstacle course race in the freezing cold." So here it goes..

In May of this year Kaytie and I ran the normal Dirty 30. 15 obstacles, lots of mud, and not cold! It was fun! I really enjoyed it. It was difficult and I climbed over walls and through the mud and through a cold ice bath, but I did it and survived!

YAY! Happy Warm Mud Run!

So of course when the Dirty 30 came out and said they were doing a Zombie edition in October we signed up and convinced my friend Cheryl to do it too! Little did we know we would have a record low high for temperatures!

So the day arrives and its 44 degrees outside! Woo hoo! Let's do this! We get there and it's too cold to get out of the car so we wait it out for a little bit, then we scoped out the start and finish lines. It's so cold. We make our way to the start line and the nervousness of what is about to happen sets in. A series of zombie songs play to pump up the crowd, then the event coordinator says a prayer in which he thanks the Lord for this opportunity to run from the undead. I'll let that one sink in for a bit. Finally, the race is on! Wait what is that just over the first hill? Oh good, a huge pool of muddy water and mud hill! Nice! Right out of the gate we are wet, freezing and muddy. We continue on this insane 5K dodging zombies, climbing over HUGE hay bales, dodging more zombies, climbing over a wall, more zombies, some crazy huge staircase thing, zombies, crawling under barbed wire, zombies, mud pit, zombies, I think I am forgetting some, more hay bales, zombies, huge slide that leads to a watery pool of mud, and finally the finish line where we climb over a mud hill into the final watery pool of mud. I am so frozen by this point that I can't feel my legs or my hands or my torso for that matter! And to top it off at the finish line my sweet darling husband was LAUGHING at my failed attempt to finish without falling in the water multiple times.

Fine, we did it we finished the race!! YAY! The zombies stole all my flags and technically I was infected at the end, but who cares. It was over and I wanted to warm up, well, after we got our free beer! Okay so we get to the car and it is way too cold to make it back to the porta potties to change. We sure has heck weren't going to use the rinse off station. So concealed by the truck doors (sorta) and towels we tried to take off our nasty wet clothes and put on dry ones. I couldn't feel my body! Trying to get a wet long sleeve shirt and pants off was PAINFUL!! I put my shirt on backwards and couldn't turn it around because I couldn't feel my arms. I have never been so stinkin cold in my life! I hope I don't get pneumonia!! 

So we get home, I take a hot shower, and I was feeling pretty good UNTIL... I text Cheryl and ask her if she is sore. She say not really... I'm sorry what did she say? Not really!? I am limping around the house and my legs look like someone beat me with a bat! So I text Kaytie and she says she is extremely sore. I feel a little better with this information, but still! Who says NOT Really when referring to the torture that we had just endured?!? Wonder Woman. That's who. 

Enjoy these pictures! I am going to go enjoy some more ibuprofen! 

Zombies!!

We so tough!

Drink up peeps!