Gender Reveal Cupcakes

Vana and Joe are going to have a BABY!! They wanted to do a gender reveal party, and I excitedly volunteered to be in charge of the surprise. First of all, I got to know the secret FIRST! Secondly, I love to make cupcakes! So, I made chocolate cupcakes filled with either blue or pink frosting, depending on the gender contained in the sealed envelope Vana gave me.

Yang hosted the reveal party at his house. We brought a potluck! There was taco dip, salad, Miller's Chicken and pasta salad. Obviously, I brought cupcakes for dessert.



Cheers to babies and cupcakes and secrets!



Mmm. The suspense was killing us.



What color will be inside!?!



They still don't know!



That's a pretty big secret inside that lil' cupcake.



Uncle Moss was excited, too!






Everyone dressed with either blue or pink to represent what type of baby they thought it would be. Clearly some people were undecided!



Let's find out what this baby is!!






And....



It's a....



...BOY!!!!!!






It was overwhelming and exciting to finally KNOW.



Moss was really excited that he was right and will be the uncle of a little boy!



OMG A BOY.



Frosting exchange!



Parents to be.



We dropped some cupcakes off at my parents house on the way, and Dad and Rod got in on the action as well. Fun for the whole family!

Earth Day Cooking Club

Summer hosted cooking club this month. Yesterday was Earth Day, so we decided to celebrate the earth by making earthy dishes!

Yumi made a roasted asparagus and ramp tart. Isn't it gorgeous?



Valerie made a fiddlehead salad from fiddleheads she harvested in her own woods! Don't they look just like little caterpillars?



Baby Gabrielle joined us!



Valerie also brought some morels that were harvested on her land. What a lucky day!



Yumi played with Gabby as the morels sizzled.



Mmm, fried in butter!



Since Planet Earth has more water surface than land, Summer committed to grilling a hefty amount of seafood. And she grilled it on a Himalayan salt block! That's super earthy!



Swordfish and scallops sizzling on the salt block.



Valerie served her fiddleheads with potatoes and smoked salmon, and a dilly dressing. She kept them separated in case anyone was turned off by the fiddleheads. I'm the only one who finished them ALL!



Mmm, looking good!



Summer served her seafood from a platter, along with a minty mango salsa!



Up next she grilled some meaty shrimp and some more scallops. Finger to serve as proportion for how meaty those shrimp are!! Way bigger than a finger!



Nancy made a rainbow power kale salad with peanut dijon dressing!



I made Smitten Kitchen's mushroom lasagna. Talk about earthy! This was so mushroomy delicious.



Smile, cooking club ladies!



Mmm.



Emily made an earth trifle. With chocolate cake for "dirt" and chocolate rocks inside! A delicious caramelly whipped cream layered throughout.



Isn't that just amazing?! It tasted amazing too!

Cherry Blossoms with Dan, Elise, and Henry!

Ben and I went to the cherry blossom trees again this afternoon, this time to meet some very special guests! Cousin Dan was in town with Elise and Henry!



It was nice and warm. Perfect cherry blossom weather.



There were a lot of people there enjoying the blossoms.









Felix!






Elise, Henry, and Cousin Dan! I was so happy that they came for a visit. This was my first time meeting Henry! Dan had never been to the cherry blossoms before, so that was exciting.



Hi, Henry!



Henry was VERY energetic so Dan kept coming up with assignments for him. A popular one was "Go pick up sticks!"



When he started to get bored of that, we upgraded it to "build a little bridge on the tree out of the sticks!"



"Okay!"



Relaxing.



Brother and sister.