Her imagination knows no limit

If my blogging seems scarce lately it's because there's just no time for it right now. We are getting ready to sell our house which means that all of my spare time is focused on touch ups, cleaning, and organizing. It also means a lot of trips to Lowes....

Don't you wish your bathtub doubled as a phone!

How could I forget about my helper

Making cupcakes wouldn't have been nearly as much fun without her. The best part is when I would turn my back for just a second and here her shout "Mmmm, dat good!" Then I would turn back around to catch her with her whole hand in the mixing bowl.

And, I think you should all go check out my sister's new Etsy shop. She is the one that got me started making jewelry and is now selling her adorable baby jewelry. Too cute!

A cupcake for everyone

I wish I had an actual cupcake to give everybody, but instead you'll have settle for a cupcake recipe.

Last week I threw a baby shower for my friend who is about to deliver twins. It's her first pregnancy and quite possibly her last so I wanted it to be extra special. We had yummy food. I found this recipe for AMAZING croissant chicken salad sandwiches that got rave reviews. We made appliqued onsies and adorable hair clips. (In place of guess the candy bar in the diaper!) And for dessert I thought I would try my hand at cupcakes since they are everywhere these days.

If I am going to eat cake I would prefer it to be vanilla and have cream cheese frosting on it, but I have friends who live for chocolate cake and others who love butter cream frosting, so I decided on an assortment. This way everyone would be able to find something they loved.

First on the list is Coconut lemon:

These were actually the last cupcakes I made and because I did not have an extra french vanilla cake mix I was forced to make these from scratch. I found a recipe and then ended up modifying it slightly though because I was afraid they would be to0 dry. Overall they were delicious and super moist. My only complaint is that I would have liked to taste more coconut. A few of the recipes I looked at called for coconut milk, but I didn't have any so that is why I chose this recipe.

My only suggestion is that if you do make these to use buttermilk instead of regular milk and add lemon extract to the frosting.

I found the recipe for these Oreo cupcakes in a random cupcake search and thought they would be fun. A few of the girls had to bring their kids so I knew they would get eaten up. My kids sure loved them. The best part about them is the hidden Oreo at the bottom. Oh, and the whipped cream frosting, I loved that. Recipe found here.



And I just had to try Anne's mint chocolate chip cupcakes. Except I opted for Andies mint chips instead of chocolate chips. These truly were amazing although much too sweet for me to finish a whole one. I'm wondering how mint cream cheese frosting would taste. Please don't compare the presentation of mine to hers, she has a lot more experience than I do.

And for anyone else like me who loves any type of fruit dessert I came up with these vanilla raspberry cupcakes.

For the actual cupcake I used a Betty Crocker french vanilla mix. And thanks to my friend Joni I now always substitute buttermilk for the water and Crisco for the oil. Not so healthy, but oh so yummy! And for the frosting I actually followed the same cream cheese recipe that I used for the lemon frosting but instead of lemon extract I added raspberry extract and then I mixed in a couple spoonfuls of defrosted raspberries. (Make sure to squeeze all excess juice from the raspberries or it will make the frosting runny)

Everyone at the shower had a different favorite, which was my exact intention, so I can't tell you which one is the best, but I can tell you that they are all worth trying.

It was a perfectly beautiful day to get stuck in the mud

With a high of 63 degrees today and no school, the kids were in heaven playing out in the backyard. I was in heaven too!

Then of course as I'm trying to get dinner ready James walks in and nonchalantly says "Mom, Macy needs your help." I asked him if he could help her and he just shrugged and replied "no, she's stuck" as he walked off into his bedroom.

I have to admit that I was slightly annoyed at this because usually when one of the older two tells me that Macy needs my help, it is something they are very capably of helping her with, but don't want to. In this case though, she really did need my help.

And because she wasn't crying or upset I took a picture.

Then I asked Samm to go out and rescue her, but she almost got stuck herself.

In the end, Dad had to be the one to get dirty.

My baby girl is 2!

She is darling, and sweet, and happy, and very much 2! High pitched screaming is a regular part of our daily routine.

But today she had on a pretty new dress ($5 at Target) and was very much darling.

A Grandma's gotta do what a Grandma's gotta do!

A few weeks ago we took Samm and James to see The Princess and the Frog. Betty was nice enough to watch Macy for us so we could all sit and enjoy the movie. It was just as we were pulling into the parking lot of the theater that I remembered Macy's extra diaper was still sitting in my purse.

I called her immediately and assured her that I just changed her so she should be fine until we got back. That is, unless she pooped.

Of course that is exactly what she did 20 minutes later. So when we picked her up this is what we found.



There was a firm no juice rule in effect while the dishtowel was on!

Want to learn how to cut your bangs?

I'm posting over at Bloom today on how to do just that. Someone please let me know if it's really confusing.

Sometimes Family Home Evening gets a little bit silly...

and stringy.

The snack box

Almost four years ago our family started out on a very long, rough, but exciting journey. Josh and I decided early on that when it was over we were going to celebrate in a BIG way. So, for the past four years we have been setting aside a little bit of money every month.

Now, with graduation only months away and Italian beaches in sight, one of us is wanting to loose some weight, and one of us is wanting to turn our flab into muscle.

We've both done the basic diet and exercises before and while the results are good, the motivation just doesn't last very long. So this time I set up a sort of checks and balance system.

As far as the working out goes, Josh isn't allowed to get online with his brothers to "veg" after a long day until he has been on the treadmill, but if I don't cook dinner than he doesn't have to exercises. This keeps him working out and me cooking healthy meals for our family. So far it's working great and I am definitely feeling much better. Today my legs feel like jello, but I love it.

OK, here is my favorite part. One of the biggest problems we both have is our snacking. I eat a lot of sugar loaded crap and Josh tends to eat too much. So the solution to both our problems is the snack box.


I bought a few snacks that were already in the 100 calorie packs and then chose some other low fat snacks that I could separate into portions myself. It definitely surprised me how small some of the portions really were. Another testament that most Americans over eat.

*Side note- if you plan on doing something similar to this you will need a small food scale because most of the portions are in ounces. I think I got mine at Wal-Mart for pretty cheap.

Now, when it is snack time I can pull out some cut up veggies from the fridge and one item out of the snack box. Not only is it helping us to be healthier, but I think the box is pretty cute so it also makes me smile.

How cold is too cold?

Apparently in Oklahoma it is 12 degrees, because that is when they shut down school. Seriously, no school today or tomorrow and last time I checked my kids still went to school inside a heated building. So, the wind chill is -2, big deal. Are there really parent's out there who are not smart enough to bundle up their kids for the bus stop?

Sadly, I already know the answer to that.

So, what do we do when there is no school and we aren't about to leave the house? Nothing terribly exciting, but I took pictures anyway.

Macy was happy to simply be naked and empty contents from one bag to another.

James played his little video game heart out.

Samm played on the computer

And when all that got old and there was energy to burn, I turned on the treadmill and let them have all the crazy fun they wanted. That is until James got a wicked treadmill burn on the side of his foot. And then an hour later they were asking to do it again.

I'm thinking tomorrow we will do it all again. Including the whole uncombed hair bit.

Immagine if I were a real live grown up...

I would do all sorts of crazy things like cook dinner every night, clean the bathrooms more than once ever couple weeks, fold and put away the laundry as soon as it was done, play educational games with my kids instead of letting them play video games, and eat vegetables for snacks instead of jelly beans.

If I was really a real grown up I would do all those things, or at least resolve to do them.

But I'm not. So for 2010, my resolution is simply to return the wheelbarrow I borrowed from the Bloxham's several months ago.

I think this is gonna be my year!

In a completely backward and random order...

here are the rest of my pictures from our trip to Colorado.

Most of what we did involved being in the snow. Skiing (my first time ever) , sledding, and fort building. The rest of the time was spent playing games, reminicing, eating, and of course Sally's traveling hair salon.

After our run down the hill together. Macy wasn't so sure about all the snow that got blown into her face.
Samm took a different approach to sledding.

Crawling in the snow cave Dad made.

Proudly showing off the snow fort with Aunt Krista.

"Hey Mom, can I put my face in the snow?"

"If you really want to."

Building snow forts is REALLY hard work!

Josh digging out the snow cave

This is actually what Josh did most of the time, breaking only occasionally for a bowl game!

Snow ball fight with Uncle Chris.

The Christmas morning walk.

Ahh, the loveliness that is Christmas morning! But hey, check out my new bag!!

James was pretty excited about getting a "bone and arrow."

Macy decided to help herself to Ava's dress up clothes.

More fort building with Grandpa.

And more sledding of the non emergency room variety!

It was a fantastic way to spend our Christmas vacation!