One of the best parts of Halloween

Feliz Cumpleanos

Happy Birthday to my favorite husband!

Chris just celebrated his 38th birthday and he just keeps getting better with age!

Love you.

Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes

As of now this is my favorite recipe. I made these to take to Chris at work to celebrate his birthday. They turned out so yummy. I frosted them, but ran out with a few left to go. I decided I like them better without any frosting, maybe just a little powdered sugar sprinkled on top. They are very moist and have stayed that way for a couple of days.

This is the original recipe, but I made same changes noted below based on some reviews.

Yum!

Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes

2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate, melted*

3 eggs

1 3/4 cups packed brown sugar*

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups grated zucchini

3/4 cups chopped walnuts

1 (16 oz) package chocolate frosting

1/2 cup walnut halves

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees

-In a large bowl beat eggs with sugar for about 10 minutes or until thickened and pale. Blend oil and cooled chocolate into the beaten egg mixture.

-In a small bowl stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; stir flour mixture into egg mixture until just blended. Stir in zucchini and chopped nuts. Using an ice cream scoop, spoon batter into 24 paper-lined or greased muffin cups, filling the cups 2/3 full.

-Bake for 20 minutes or until fork or toothpick inserted in a cupcake's center comes out clean. Let cool in pans on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pans. Let cool completely. Spread with chocolate frosting and garnish with pecan halves.

*The instructions and ingredients are what the recipe asks for, but as per suggestions here is what else I did:

-double the chocolate and add 2 extra TBS brown sugar

-Add 1 1/2 tsp vanilla

-Add 1 tsp cinnamon

It's A....

GIRL!!!!!

We are excited to announce that the future Baby Bell is an adorable little girl. We are thrilled and are looking forward to all of the cute and wonderful things that come along with having a girl. We had originally supposed a girl and Chris was glad to have his sonogram findings validated to show that he is still pretty handy with the obstetrical ultrasound. The due date is still March 9th. Two more weeks and I am half way there.

Health

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not. - Mark Twain

So it is...especially when swallowing my prenatal pills that smell like horse poo and taste like it, too.

San Dimas High School Football Rules!

Anyone familiar with the ever so well scripted and played out movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure will have a fondness for Sand Dimas High School. Chris is doing the medical coverage for a high school football team that played against San Dimas. They sell t-shirts that say 'San Dimas High School Football Rules!', only you have to buy them at the spirit store when the school is open. I was pretty bummed about not being able to pick up some paraphernalia with the famous line on it.

Photography 101

Like many women who 'stay at home' and have a nice new camera, I decided to take a class on how to use that camera. It's just a short 4 week course where we meet one day a week. Each week we learn about a camera setting other than Auto and then have to take a picture in it. The first week was Program Mode (which is pretty much almost Auto mode anyway). Chris and I usually cart our camera with us everywhere but never actually make the effort to take it out and take a picture. I think our iphones get more photo action than our camera.

Anyway, here is week number one in Program Mode.





Next week is aperture. We'll see what happens.