Buggy Cupcakes

One of the downsides of having a birthday between Christmas and New Year's is that your birthday always falls on a school holiday. Seeing that Molly has a summer birthday, I couldn't quite bear the prospect of NEVER bringing special birthday snacks into school. So, I decided that it was perfectly acceptable to bring Max's belated birthday goodies in to school during the first week of January.

This year, Grandma gave me a neat cupcake book and an awesome cupcake carrier (it holds 27 cupcakes!). I hadn't decided what cupcakes to make for Max's birthday and it was just the inspiration I needed.

I loved the Creepy Crawlers cupcake idea and, after a little discussion, got Max on board. He originally wanted to make gingerbread man cupcakes, being enamored of all things gingerbread after making cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve. But, he changed his mind and decided that he loved the "buggy cupcakes."

This year the cupcake production was a bit more intense, since Max has twice as many kids in his class (necessitating a double batch of cupcakes). Surprisingly, the bugs were the easiest part of the process -- the cupcakes and frosting decided to be ornery. In spite of the less-than-perfect frosting job, the cupcakes were a big hit -- Max said that nobody was scared of the bugs because, "Mama, they're just cupcakes." Max was happy to report that he ate the orange caterpillar (centipede) and Molly (who scored one of the extra cupcakes) told me ate a "yellow spider with a BIG M&M on its back"!

I'd better start planning for next year!