Giant Cupcake attempt #2

My sister-in-law gave me this pan for Christmas. It works so much better than the Wilton Giant Cupcake pan. I'm sure I would have mastered the Wilton pan, but it seemed like extra work compared to this pan. The silicon version positives: 2 separate pieces, an insert for fillings, a "fill-to" line in the base pan (you pour the rest in the top pan), and it comes out of the pan SO much easier. The issue I did have with this pan was the baking instructions say 35 minutes, then the base will take an additional 10 minutes; it took almost an hour to bake the cake (I only used one box mix for the recipe as instructed). See how clean the base pan is??? A little bit of the top was left in the top pan, but not enough to have to use frosting to put it back together. The plate on the right is the cupcake after I cut each piece to level them.

The plate on the left are the pieces we cut off, frosted and ate over the weekend :)

Fruit Snacks

These Kirkland brand fruit snacks from the makers of Jelly Belly are so yummy. I think these are my favorite fruit snacks. I wish the bag was made in “April size”. But, it keeps me from eating the entire box in one sitting. The little bags are 80 calorie packs and I want more than that. I really like the fruit snacks by Welch’s too, but they aren’t selling them at our local Costco anymore (Welch’s makes an “April size” bag). On a side note: food sizes just keep shrinking….100, 80, 60 calorie packs. Here’s an annoying example: the Jello 100 calorie packs of pudding are actually more calories than the regular Jello pudding packs we would normally buy (thanks to the Eat This, Not That book for pointing this out), but the unobservant consumer doesn’t realize that they are probably paying more for the “100 calorie pack” and are actually getting more calories when they think they are cutting calories.

iPhone

This is such a fun phone. I really wasn't looking forward to the extra $30 a month data charge, but Doug and I really like these phones. There are so many free apps to get. We can stream music online for free, email, look up maps, play games, etc. I upload different things frequently and it's like having a new phone all the time. There are 16G of memory in this phone, so we have a lot of room for photos, music, etc. It's an easy phone to use, customer service is great, and we are glad we bought them. Unfortunately it took dropping my other phone in Tilex, but we've had these for a couple months and don't regret it.

A note about the customer service....AT&T cell phone customer service is amazing. I think AT&T kept the Cingular customer service department when everything switched over; they've been great over the last 10 years, all the way back to when I joined Cingular. I can't stand the AT&T customer service for their internet and phone and have a friend who has fought with them on numerous occasions regarding cable, internet and phone also.