Halloween Cupcakes

I should be in be nursing my cold and getting a good night's sleep, but instead I am trying to catch up with some blog posts and finishing up the "snack time" project I volunteered for at Seamus' nursery school.

So we decided to make pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese icing in honor of Halloween.

Seamus has been my little helper in the kitchen for quite a while. Thomas is just starting out...here's a play by play of the night...

• We read the ingredients and realize we have no buttermilk (argh! the infamous buttermilk ingredient which one never seems to have... if I only had some milk and a lemon but argh! no milk)
• We run to the store for buttermilk and end up with 50 other things, mostly candy for decoration
• The boys are happy as clams as they get to ride in the half carriage/half truck (I'm getting smiles from passersby and I'm proud)
• I try to scoot past the seafood counter to avoid the discussion of whether the lobsters are happy in the tank - no such luck...the boys are out and gawking at the tank...ten minutes later
• We pass through the deli aisle and I see Seamus eating something...turns out he had helped himself to a roll (we went back and bought a few to ensure I captured the one picked at)
• We get to the counter and they are running circles around the Halloween candy display (fortunately nothing comes toppling down)
• Back home...back into the kitchen
• I had them put the paper cups in the tins - success!
• Next I had them sift some flour on the floor - sort of successful, but flour is finding its way out of the bowl
• Next I had them mix some spices into the flour and take turns whisking - not so successful. The boys were splashing flour all over each other, Thomas was grabbing fistfuls of flour and putting it in his mouth (and realizing quickly that flour is not really palatable). Seamus was banging my foot with the whisk while getting flour all over my legs/shoes. Then they decide to chase after each other with whisks in hand, running around the island in the kitchen until they crash into each other and end up crying...

I put them the boys to bed so I can finish icing and decorating. Of course, it wasn't until I had ten bags of candy opened that I realized half of them had been made in a factory "where peanuts, treenuts, eggs, wheat and barley" were processed.  So my creative options were downsized, but I think they were successful (though I have yet to try one).  Something tells me that cream cheese icing and black licorice don't really pair up nicely, but whatever...