Today’s Fortune: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao Tzu

I don’t know who Lao Tzu is. Maybe he is the guy who writes all the fortunes that go in my cookies.

Tomorrow is my birthday party!! Me and Dharma got to make cupcakes today. Mom saw a magazine with some really good monkey cupcakes a couple of months ago. We don’t remember the name of the magazine, but you can find the instructions at tasteofhome.com.

If you want to make some of these cupcakes, here is all the stuff you will need:

The first thing you do is mix up the cake batter.  It is best to get out the mixer for this one, because it has to blend for a long time, and your arm will get tired if you try to stir it.   Then you will be grumpy, and your cupcakes will not be as much fun.

After the batter is mixed, you should put those little paper things into a muffin tin, and fill them  up.  Then you can put them in the oven to bake.

While they are baking, you will have other stuff to do to get ready to turn them into monkeys.  The vanilla wafers and Nutter Butters have to be cut to make faces and ears.  It is best to get your Adult Supervision to do that part.  It takes a very sharp knife and a lot of patience.

Mom cut the top part off of the vanilla wafers, and cut the sides off of the Nutter Butters.  She took the peanut butter filling off of the Nutter Butters, because you do not need that part for the cupcakes.  She got pretty grouchy while she was doing this part, because a lot of the cookies had broken or chipped edges.  Those would have made some ugly faces and ears, so she had to choose carefully which ones to use.  A bunch more broke while she was cutting them.  Dad was pretty glad about this, though, because there was a whole bowl of broken cookies to snack on when he got home from work.

You have to cut 24 pieces of vanilla wafer, and 48 pieces of Nutter Butter.  This is what they will look like when they are cut:

When your cupcakes are done, you have to put them on a wire rack to let them cool.  And you have to wait until they are completely cool before you can frost them.  This part is really boring, but it is important.  If you frost the cupcakes before they are cool, you will be sorry.  The top part of the cupcake will peel off and get all in your frosting, and your monkeys will look like they have leprosy.  And nobody will want to eat them.

After the cupcakes are cool, you get to do the fun part, which is decorating them!  I found out that Dharma does a really good job frosting cupcakes.

I also found out that I do a really good job eating the leftover frosting.

After the cupcakes are frosted, all you have to do is stick on the face and the ears, pick out the white York Peppermint pieces to use for eyes, and then squeeze black gel icing dots for the eyes and nose, and red gel icing for a mouth.  You can also squeeze some of the frosting through a cake decorating bag to give your monkeys some hair, like we did.

We made a whole army of monkey cupcakes, and each one was original, with a unique personality – just like sock monkeys!

I think me and Dharma make a pretty good team!  We did such a good job on these, and we had a lot of fun, too!

Tomorrow is my party!!  I can’t wait!  I will finally get to open those Hot Wheels packages that Dharma brought from Connecticut with her!

Birthdays are the best!