Green!

I am often asked, "What is your third favorite holiday?"

And I immediately answer with St. Patrick's Day! 

[It's the one day of the year where I can pretend that I am Irish and green is my favorite color:)]

I didn't realize this until now, but I guess the main way that I chose to celebrate this year was by baking a lot of St. Patrick's Day themed things.

This weekend I made some mint-chocolate cupcakes:

I recruited my mom to make the dark chocolate cupcakes, which I filled with chocolate mint ganache.  And then I topped them with some homemade whipped cream, which had some mint flavoring and green food coloring (naturally)!  The critics (my mom and dad) have spoken and they decided that they were super great.  

 I also decided to make chewy chocolate cookies with crushed Andes' mints:

[I may or may not have set off the smoke alarms in my apartment in the process of making these..]

Of course, I take every excuse to make sugar cookie cutouts.  These are not super pretty - but they are fun and my fellow TA's that I made them for seemed to enjoy them:

Ignore this super horrible photo. 

You're probably thinking, "Wow, you have a lot of free time!"

This isn't true, but baking for friends is a stress-relieving activity, so I press on.

I apologize for this very inconsequential post about my minor obsession with St. Patrick's Day.

Stay tuned for my post on my Spring Break Trip with Hope Community Church.  It was a such a great week.  Ah!  Friends, God is so good - let's tell the world!