As Schreiber tradition, we usually go out to eat on the kids' birthdays and since they choose the restaurant, it's usually Red Robin. Why? Because they get a free sundae, of course.




Al got to wear a nice little crown all day at school, and the whole lunchroom sings "Happy Birthday". I brought in treats at the end of the day, which were horse cupcakes.................................................................

What a friggin' nightmare!! The sleep-over cupcakes were a breeze, so I got a little over-confident. First of all, the cupcakes call for white circus peanuts. I didn't even know white circus peanuts existed. Well, they do, but are really not easy to find. I finally found some in a mixed bag of white, yellow, orange and pink. I had to buy three bags to make sure I'd have enough. What I like about my new cupcake book is that it doesn't require you to go out and purchase a lot of items you may not use very often, if ever, again. Even though I do have cake decorating supplies, I don't always have the icing bags on hand. No problem according to the book. You can use sandwich bags. Excellent - much cheaper- than actual decorating bags. Have any of you heard the phrase, "Cheaper is not always better." ? Or, how about, "You get what you pay for."? I start out this process of decorating the horses and my bags spring leaks. Each and every bag. My usual remedy for something like this is to duct tape it. Not even duct tape can fix this. By the time I get the horse necks into place (which often times split the cupcake into two pieces down the middle), decorated with what utensils I had on hand..ummm...my fingers, sprinkled the jimmies and attempted to make ears, I was elbow deep in chocolate frosting. I'm not exaggerating, because I still had it on my elbow when I delivered these treats to school. I ended up saying "Eff the tails", because I was sooooo done with them by this point and I doubt the first thing that will pop into a first graders mind is, "Hey, dude, where is the freaking tail on this horse?" These will not be attempted again, but there are many, many more that will be. I haven't been completely deterred from cupcake making!!!