the grass is always greener...

or it should be. my grass did not turn out very green at all. and i actually forgot to ice four extra cupcakes to make my 'field' bigger, so i didn't even use the scoreboard or bench that i made. but it worked out all the same.
i made a 'dora and friends play baseball' themed cupcake-cake for the kids' birthdays this weekend. lily and topher love the show. topher admittedly loves boots, dora's monkey friend, but yes- he loves a 'girl' show. chris doesn't really care, since he just calls dora topher's girlfriend. that makes him a ladies' man, and apparently there's nothing wrong with that.
anyway, i need to work on taking better pictures of my cupcakes, cause i thought i had good pictures, but when i looked at them, i realized they kinda stunk. weird lighting, therefore weird flash.
anyway, i made my own buttercream icing. that added about an hour to my process. and that's not including the dishes. oh how i loathe doing the dishes after making buttercream and washing it out of my icing tips! at least i use disposable icing bags. i am attempting to try to get ready to do more 'homemade' stuff and less 'from the box/can' stuff. it's time consuming though. and it already took me about 6 hours to make all the little figures for the cupcakes. maybe i could do it faster, if i did it all in one sitting. but i did it over three nights, after the kids went to bed, and i watched lots of GLEE (awesome) and American Idol (terrible) all the while. dora did not turn out the way i was hoping she would. but backpack did! and i really enjoyed making the trees and flowers.
the kids recognized their 'friends' boots, swiper the fox, map, backpack, and dora, so i guess my cupcakes were a success in their very young, and non-descriminating eyes. hope you enjoy these pics as much as my kids enjoyed stuffing these sweet confections in their faces.