Cake Balls! {A Tasty, Not-Too-Naughty Treat!}

Though my heart will forever belong to cupcakes, (Sorry, Patrick) but I thought these cute cake balls would be nice Spring treats!

I have lately been obsessed with a wonderful cooking blog called Skinnytaste! Gina is the author of the blog, and she creates tasty, healthy, low-fat recipes for her family and shares them weekly! Seriously, I'm obsessed. I've been on Weight Watchers to aid me in getting back into pre-pregnancy shape (that's another post), and she creates such delicious recipes and even includes the Weight Watchers PointsPlus value! They aren't your typical diet recipes either --- the other night, P and I enjoyed homemade buffalo tenders for dinner and they were delicious and not too bad for us! Healthy comfort food? You betcha! She creates innovative recipes to make foods that are normally much worse for you (be they loaded with sugar, carbs, butter or worse!) and makes substitutions to make them healthier! 

Along with a large assortment of recipes for dinners, lunches, breakfasts, desserts, smoothies and snacks she posted this one that caught my eye...

Skinny Cake Balls!!!

We were visiting both sides of the family for Easter this year and I thought they'd be the perfect treat to bring along. So I raided my favorite craft store for supplies and got to work!!!

You Need:
16 oz Box Cake Mix, 6 oz Non-fat Plain Greek Yogurt, 2 Large Egg Whites, 1 Tsp. Vanilla, 1 Cup of Water, 48 oz of Colored Candy Melts, Sprinkles, Baking Spray

It Would Help If You Had:
Cake Ball or Mini-Donut Pan*, lollipop sticks, wax paper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray your pan with baking spray. Combine all the ingredients (except the candy melts) in a large bowl. Transfer your batter into a pastry bag, or a gallon bag, (cut a corner off the gallon bag and BOOM! Pastry bag) and squeeze into the pans. Fill a little over 3/4 full. Bake for 18 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack. 

                                 

If you notice above there are seams on some of the cake balls, because of their rising while baking. You can use a serrated knife to cut the seams off and make them more rounded. 

Stick the completed baked cake balls in the refrigerator for at least 45 minutes, this makes it easier for the chocolate to stick to the cake ball. Melt the chocolate according the the packages' instructions. I used glass cups to hold the chocolate, and did one color at a time. I also took out five of the cake balls at a time to maximize the coolness of the cake balls! (Also, get your sprinkles ready!)

                                 

Dip the tip of the lollipop stick into the melted chocolate, then into the cake ball, and dip the cake ball into the chocolate. If you are using sprinkles, sprinkle them on immediately before the chocolate hardens.

                                 

This recipe makes about 48 cake balls AND they are at only 3 PointsPlus value from Weight Watchers --- which is a really good thing for me! They're delicious, and such a cute little treat for any occasion. 

                                 

                                 

They were a big hit at the Easter dinners! So was a certain little bunny! ;-)

*For this recipe, you really do need the rounded mini-donut or cake ball pan. If you don't have one of these you can follow this recipe from Epicurious!

Happy Spring!

Micah

Family, Friends, Toasts & Champagne! {Rehearsal Dinner}

First things first: I apologize for disappearing. As soon as we returned from the honeymoon, my theatre company opened our second production (of which I was the production manager), and then Patrick, myself and a few other friends went into rehearsals, and opened a run of the musical Next to Normal, followed by me immediately going into rehearsals for Evil Dead: the Musical (yes, that's right...Evil. Dead. The Musical.). Needless to say, our life as newlyweds began and continues to be super busy!

I want to begin re-caping our wedding, if only for the joy of re-living it. It was the best week of our lives thus far. Let's start at the very beginning, The Rehearsal & Rehearsal Dinner!

Our rehearsal was at 11:00am on the Friday before our wedding (there was another wedding happening that day in our venue), so we woke, got ready and headed out immediately to the Towers. I wore my white strapless BCBG I told you about, with my DIY beaded necklace!

My Soon-to-be Husband wore a matching shirt! Love.

I admit I was getting nervy and stressed on the way to the Towers for our rehearsal. We had spent the night before assembling the favors (which, of course, I'll tell you all about), and there were a few things that still needed to fall into place. I hadn't seen Patrick for a few days (I had left work early to be able to finish up last minute errands/projects before the wedding, and had headed down to RI), but as soon as I saw him, I felt the nerves calm and excitement grow!

To tell the truth, as soon as our Officiant arrived and took charge, things went relatively smoothly! Our groomsmen and bridesmaids stepped up to the plate! With our friends looking on, my dad and I preceded to practice our walk down the aisle to Patrick who was waiting for me. During the rehearsal of the Ceremony, both Patrick and I suddenly became very emotional. I believe it started really to sink in that the following day would be our wedding day. We could barely make it through the vows! I looked around at my friends; some from when I was in elementary school, some new friends; and to my family, the smiles shining from their faces. I started to really feel the love and support around us that would continue to grow through the rest of the day and continue past our wedding day that still goes on today. We completed the rehearsal and finally got a clear picture of what our ceremony would be like. It was just as we hoped for, but until then, couldn't fully picture. We were so excited!

After that, we parted ways again; the girls and I to mani/pedis and the boys for lunch and maybe a game or two of disc-golf. I opted to drive with Bridesmaid Joelle, who sweetly offered to cart me around. But when we got back to the place where she had parked her car, we noticed that her driver's side rear-view mirror was hanging by a thread! Someone had swiped the car, and knocked it almost off! We headed to the police station to report it (all the while, my stress levels slowly rising). When we got there, a nice family was reporting that they had swiped a car a few moments before! We found that it was the same accident, and cheer was restored to both Joelle's and my own faces as the report was filed and apologies were accepted.

We arrived late to the nail salon, and I made a few changes to my original plan for my nails (opaque white heart on the ring finger and bright blue toes). But I went with a soft pink for fingers and toes and outlines of hearts on the ring fingers --- I think they came out really well!

Final pic of my sparkly without the wedding band!

After all the ladies were properly pampered and polished, we headed home. I gathered up the peacock fingerprint guestbook and headed with my parents to the Tower House, the beautiful bed & breakfast where we stayed the night we got engaged!

My handsome little brother and beautiful MOH sister!

Guys, I can't sing enough praise for this place. Not only was the rehearsal dinner delicious and full of family, friends and love, but they decorated for us and made the place into (seriously) an enchanted garden. The weather was perfect, everyone was outside, there were lights and lanterns in the trees, and delicious nomblies around every corner.

But the best part of that night was the toasts. It's actually quite hard to capture with words the amount of love, honesty, friendship and family that were poured into each toast; and almost all of our friends and a lot of family members stood up and said something. P and I were overwhelmed with happiness! Our best friends made us all teary with their sentiments. Patrick's cousins made us laugh and cry and our ring-bearer and my little cousin stole the show with some fantastic lines ("I remember when you two started marrying each other..."). The toasts were such a gift to us. My grandfather came up to me at the end of the night and said "You know, you have amazing friends." And I do know that. I couldn't be more grateful.

 

With a beautiful rehearsal dinner where we re-connected with far away family and old friends, laughed and cried happy tears with our dearest and toasted and ate delicious treats, Patrick and I got ready to spend our last nights as an unmarried couple. He drove me home, just like he did when we met and carpooled to rehearsal in that fateful production of Birds of Paradise. We kissed goodnight. And turned in, dreaming of our wedding day!

More to come!

Love,

Micah

A Jack & Jill Shower!

Before everyone gets all uppity, I'm not talking about that kind of shower! We attended our Jack & Jill Wedding shower last weekend!

A few weeks ago we received this in our mail!

EEE! Blue envelope!

 It was a sweet little invite made by my future-in-laws! They wanted to celebrate our upcoming marriage, but wanted to do a Jack & Jill Shower! Now, before the wedding, I had no idea about these sort of traditions and customs. And even during wedding planning, Jack & Jill's weren't really on my mind. So this was a happy surprise!

Now last weekend actually kicked off this year's wedding season for Patrick and I (OMG WE are getting married this wedding season! AHHHH!), with the marriage of Patrick's friends from undergrad. So we knew that this was going to be a wedding-y weekend for us.

Saturday, we woke up bright and early to head down to CT with our good friend (groomsman) Andrew, and arrived at Patrick's parents' house to find it was a glorious hot summery day, and the house was beautifully decorated in our wedding colors with a peacock theme!

That little picture is from the night Patrick proposed!

We actually got there quite early because I am a FIEND and insisted on leaving early so that there would be no chance of being even a minute late to our shower. Walking around, I took in the gorgeous decorations, beautiful flowers, and the delicious looking food! As I took pictures (like a good little blogger), emotional feelings of gratitude, excitement and love rushed over me and I felt truly blessed not only to be surrounded by such pure love, but by the feeling that maybe this (magnified of course!) might be a glimpse into what it will feel like on the actual wedding day...

Gorgeous peonies from my FMIL's garden!

Peacock-y Balloons cheerfully greeting everyone in the doorway!

Wedding parasol adorning the mailbox! First thing we saw as we rolled up...

A happy, grateful, giddy couple we were!!!

Paper lanterns, balloons and benches -- oh my!

Being awesome, FMIL kind of began my craft-crazy ways, so it was only fitting that there was some DIY bunting in the decor!

May be hard to tell from the picture --- but it says:
"Micah & Patrick"

When we got there ridonkulously early, Patrick and Andrew decided it was beautiful enough outside to get all manly and play some baseball. So while I was snapping away and trying to keep from stealing food before the rest of the guests arrived, they tossed the ball.

Men, men, men, men --- Manly MAN!

Did I mention how beautiful Patrick's family's gardens are? I think I did. But I'll do it again. GORGEOUS!

We had a blast! We played a cute little shower candy game, that Patrick's mother prepared: There were about 16 different candies were stuck to a board, and Patrick's mom asked wedding/honeymoon/couple related questions about us where the answer was one of the candies --- and there was a prize for the winner! We opened lots of gifties and then BM Joelle and GM Torin read a hilarious transcript of what we said while opening them as a "script" of our wedding night (jokes!)!

It was a beautiful, very happy day surrounded by friends and soon-to-be family. Patrick and I are very grateful, and can't stop saying to each other how much fun we had!

Min bags of Hershey Kisses as favors!

Peacock feather Centerpieces

Yum! Rainbow Fruit-kabob!

Oh, hey little peacock!

Desserts were mini strawberry-shortcakes, mini chocolate PB cakes,
and an ice cream bar!

Remember how I LOVED making the rehearsal dinner ribbon bouquets for my friends? Well, they made a beautiful one for me!





And I wore this, as well as a sassy crown, while Patrick wore
a 'Groom' top hat and tie!

Everything looked beautiful, we laughed and cried and had a wonderful time. I am sorry to gush and repeat myself --- but it was fantastic! Also, having Patrick at my side was one of the best parts. We both shared in the love and joy surrounding us. It's a way of putting the focus on both the Bride and the Groom, which I think is often neglected in today's booming Wedding Industry.

Gorgeous wreath that give my wreath a run for it's money!

To all of our friends and family, thank you so much for showering us in such love and kindness. We are so lucky to have you in our lives!

Can't wait for the wedding!

Best,

Micah