The tornadoes and all sorts of crazy weather that blew through this week kept us from the internet for a bit, but fortunately we escaped with sunshine and no damage - just a little adventure.  Even Mama's garden held up just fine.  Thank goodness.

 

 

 

Last Wednesday, I turned 20!

Mama and Libby baked a chocolate cake accompanied by French vanilla cupcakes, both wrapped in homemade strawberry lemonade icing decorated with real daisies and pink polka-dotted pinwheels.  They also made the hanging pastel pom poms, the alternating patterned banner, and the letters spelling my name.  What a perfect birthday surprise!

 

 

 

Rainy Day Treat:
Sunshine S'more Cupcakes

(As found here!)

What you'll need:

 

1 (18.25 ounce) package of French vanilla cake mix

2 tablespoons of graham cracker crumbs

1 1/2 cups of water

3 egg whites

24 milk chocolate Hershey's kisses

1/2 cup of graham cracker crumbs

1 (7 ounce) jar of marshmallow creme

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, then line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

(We only did 12, because Lord knows we don't need 24 cupcakes lying around.)

 

2. In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, 2 tablespoons of graham cracker crumbs, 1 1/2 cups of water, and 3 egg whites.  Beat for 2 minutes at high speed with an electric mixer.

 

3. Lick the beaters.  Divide batter evenly among paper lined cups, filling them to about 2/3.  Place a chocolate kiss in each cupcake (or leave a few kiss-less for non-chocolate lovers like Libby).  Spoon 1 teaspoon of graham cracker crumbs into each cupcake.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 18 to 25 minutes.  Remove from the oven and top each cupcake with 1 teaspoon of marshmallow creme.  (Dip spoon in hot water to prevent sticking.)  Return to oven for about 1 minute to gently melt.  Once finished, decorate the tops with graham cracker crumbs, whole graham crackers, and Hershey's kisses.

 

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5. Take your yummy s'more cupcakes and pretend to camp out.  Enjoy!

Taking a cue from our photographer mother, whose creativity and love for the whimsical and aesthetic must have swum through the gene pool, we created this blog simply because we love to create.  The idea blossomed this spring when we realized we had no idea what we were going to do with our summer.  Mama, who has never lacked an idea in her life, answered: “Document it.”  After some sisterly brainstorming, we could think of no better way to honor our artwork, baking, cooking, photography, and writing than to chronicle our adventures during the sunshine months to share with family and friends.  Hence, The Sister Chronicles.

From today until early August, we hope to color your lives with as much joy, beauty, imagination, and gracious style as have always colored ours, as well as to record our love for the exquisite and each other.  And, if nothing else, it will keep us out of our parents’ hair and ward off boredom until the school bells ring – junior year of college for one of us, freshman year of high school for the other.

While separated by five-and-a-half years, we are the closest of friends and the perfect pair (that only happened after the older one grew out of telling the younger one that there were monsters in her closet, and after the younger one grew out of being a pest).  With the oldest being a frilly, lipstick-wearing writer and the youngest a funky, toenail-painting artist, we are as similar as we are different.  For instance:

  

Libby's.                                                            Alex's.

  

  

  

 

 

Blue or pink, artsy or literary, fourteen or three days away from twenty – we are two sisters.

This is our summer.