Taste the Rainbow

Knowing that tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day {and also a day we meet for walks with friends and go to Farmers' Market}, I decided to make David's Once a Year Corned Beef and Cabbage.  And, because I love sweets and a fun Mommy & Me project, I also tackled these Rainbow Cupcakes.

Let's just say that they ended up being exactly that - a whole lotta Mommy and a whole lotta ME.  Good thing Olivia is great at entertaining herself because these were very time consuming and she got bored very early on.

She did help out a little bit, but got very frustrated that she couldn't "bite it" all the time.  Patience is a virtue, my child.  Even with cupcakes.

This is seriously her favorite part of baking.  She absolutely loves it.

Like I said, making these cupcakes was a lot of work.  You have to divide the batter evenly {which ended up being a little of 3/4 a cup per bowl in case you have about 3 hours to spare one day} and then color the batter and then put just a little forkful of one color at a time into the muffin pans.  And, to get that pretty rainbow effect, you have to gently spread the batter over to the edges.  And after about 2 colors you pretty much wish you had just made green cupcakes.

Here's a sort of before/after shot of the layer between blue and green.

In the end, it really was worth it.  We were watching them bake in the oven and they just looked SO pretty.  Who even cares what they taste like?! {Oh wait, I do.}

Of course after making 12 cupcakes, I had a little bit of batter left and decided to make minis too.  I was less picky about how they looked, but I still went for the rainbow look as opposed to the tie-dye look.  {But think those would be cool for a 70s party!}

I thought they looked so pretty, I didn't even want to ice them.

But, I did anyway.

Naturally, I had to let Olivia have one {or two by the end of the day} and she thought it was the best thing ever.  All day she talked about Rainbow Cupcakes!!  We delivered some to our neighbor and the Schwan's Man was lucky enough to get one as well.  We also plan on making some special deliveries tomorrow up in SLO.  The fewer there are in the house, the better!

Excuse the picture overload, but there were WAY too many cute ones to decide on which ones to put up.

So, do you want to see what the cupcakes look like on the inside?  You know you do.

Love it!

Alright, let me deviate from the rainbow theme for just a minute {but sort of not since she is wearing a rainbow outfit}.  Our friend Maren emailed me the other day asking if we would be interested in getting a Little Tikes car that her neighbor had given her and she didn't have room for.  Ummm, yes please.  Olivia loves those things.  How many pictures of Olivia have I put on this blog of her sitting in one of those cars at Parent Participation??  

I surprised her with it this afternoon and she was so excited.  She sat it in for awhile and then pushed it up and down our street....literally, she pushed the thing ALL the way down the street.

And since someone decided not to take a nap today, she was pretty much tuckered out by the end of the night.....and so was I.

Happy {Early} St. Patrick's Day from the Central Coast!