Ode to Stay at Home Moms (and Dads) {Hydrangea Cupcake How To}

During Spring Break from school, my 6 year old niece came to stay with us for a few days.  I absolutely love having her over.  What a great excuse to do all the fun things you loved as a kid but might be shunned doing now, like coloring with crayons or watching Beauty and the Beast 5 times in a row.  Plus, it gave me insight in what it might be like being a stay at home mom, which I've learned can be abbreviated as SAHM.  It seems people I know are either team SAHM or team successful working mom.

Dear Lord, what a glimpse I got.  I was trying to spend time with her, clean, bake, and still shower and look presentable.  I've seen TV shows and met women who can do it.  They look amazing!  Their houses are perfectly ordered.  They violate thermodynamic laws of entropy!  It's disorder to order. 

From a scientific standpoint this is NOT POSSIBLE!  I tried.  Those women must be TV magic or aliens.  Or perhaps it takes years of practice.  That's not to say I didn't complete some of my tasks, but all were not accomplished or all were only half done.  How do they do it and make it look so easy?  How is it that our society shuns these individuals as if they don't have 'real' jobs?  Let me tell you, before you DARE insult a stay at home parent, try it yourself for a few weeks.  Some people can't even handle their own kids that long.  It's challenging.  However, it was a truly rewarding experience and I only did it for a few days.

One thing we did she got a big kick out of was frost some leftover strawberry cupcakes I had frozen for this exact purpose.  I placed some purple buttercream frosting I had from a couple of days before in a pastry bag with a 2D tip.  I've also heard you can place the same tip in a big plastic bag you snip a corner off of.  I've even done the work with a smaller star tip when I didn't own a 2D.  The result of this is hydrangea cupcakes.  Yep, the beautiful 'snowball' flower as we called it when we were kids.

She was so proud!

Then with me holding and positioning the cupcake I taught her to "squeeze and lift" the frosting bag all around the cupcake.  I said, "Boo, you just hold the frosting in the same hand you color with like you are about to milk a cow."  Being a country girl, I think this was the easiest way to explain it.  So all over the cupcake we "squeeze and lift".  It's a decent amount of pressure to get medium consistency frosting out so I helped hold it a bit too, but she did most of the work. 

Isn't this just the cutest!?

Since we were also working on decorating cookies (a later post), she added some yellow royal icing centers to a couple of the cupcakes for a different look.





These cuppies would look even better with a mix of lighter purple and blue or pale green and pink to mimmick real hydrangea flowers.



Oddly, she really just wanted the icing off them.

It's a really simple activity that you can get the kids in on.  While they eat the fruits of their labor you might even be able to fold a load of laundry. 

Hope your day is as delicious as ours was and God bless SAHM's everywhere.