easter cupcakes

not that i really need a reason to make cupcakes, but it always helps with ideas when decorating them. and since i'm still on my chocolate sabbatical (just a few more days!!!), i like to have them around the house for something sweet to eat. we were also doing an easter party at playgroup this morning so it just gave me that much more of a reason to have cupcakes in the house.






i still had left over coconut from when i make a cake a few weeks ago, so i decided i would dye some green and use it, which i had to make a cream cheese frosting for so the coconut would stick better. but i also wanted some butter creme frosting ones to eat too :)

so i started with making the coconut green and making green cream cheese frosting. and even though i cant eat jelly beans (only a few more days!!!) i thought they would look really cute in the "grass" on the cupcakes.







the butter creme frosting ones i was able to play around with more. i was able to make some different colored easter eggs, a few easter bunnies, and a few more with jelly beans without the coconut. i think they all turned out pretty good and they tasted just as great.

do nothing weekend

it doesn't happen often, but every once in a while we have a weekend with nothing....and i do mean nothing! it was great! there were no soccer games, no places we had to go, and nothing we had to do. so saturday morning we slept in...or as late as little miss lets us, 7:30am. when had some apple turnovers for breakfast and then when we finally got moving we headed over to target to see what we could get into. we bought some new lights for the lanai and a few easter things. we watched the college basketball games (boo kentucky for finishing off my brackets), picked up our packets for the ford island 10k that is april 3rd, and then headed to the dog beach. it was nice to get out in the sun for a bit since we have had so much rain and clouds the past 2 months. tonya and miss k also came along to play and we had a nice afternoon playing in the water and getting alexi some exercise. of course, if we go to te doge beach it means alexi gets a much needed bath when we got home....and so did sara. alexi was really not all that excited about getting a bath, much less having one with sara.



sunday was another kind of lazy day. we did actually get up and make it to church!! after that josh really wanted to work out, so we did some circuit training exercises that his brother had given him, we went for a run, and again we just had a nice relaxing day. although today i am really paying for those hindu squats we did....my legs are very unhappy with me. but what a great non crazy weekend.

my funny child

so little miss has some new favorite sayings right now, and its hard not to laugh when she says them...so i wanted to share. but now keep in mind she has a squeaky voice and does not pronounce her k's and t's very well :)

for no reason other than she likes to put people in time out: "your a bad mama, go to time out." "puppy..your mis-behaving, do you want to go to timeout?"

sometimes at night when we are looking for her puppy,elephant, or little puppy i will get this when i ask where they are: "elephant was being bad, shes in timeout" and sure enough....if we are missing either of those 3 thats where we can check first

when shes in trouble and i tell her, "im not happy with you." her first response is: "are you part of my family?" to which i have to reassure her yes, i am still part of you family.

if you ask her if she wants to do something or go somewhere...like yesterday i told her, when you finish your breakfast you can go take a bath. her response: "oh! that will be fabulous"

or i offered her some chocolate milk: "thats wonderful"

or if shes picking out something....anything...from colors to clothes to jellybean flavors: "i want ______ its my favorite" even if its something shes never had or tied.

when she wants you to speed up: "faster mama....go quickly (quick-a-ly)"

recently i have been told: "mama your a genius" or "your a bad genius"

and sometimes out of the blue she will give me a hug(hub) and kiss and tells me:"your awesome, i love you"

she can be very evil and sly, but most of the time just is just so funny and loving. its hard to stay mad at such a witty little girl with a cute face and voice.

busy busy weekend

what a busy weekend for us! not only was josh out of town but there was always something going on. we took josh to the airport at 11:30, alexi to the vet at 1 and then back to the airport to pick some friends from their trip to maui at 2:30, and from there it was off to soccer practice. and that was just the beginning.



while friday might not have seemed as busy....it was. first thing friday morning i made a trip to the store to pick up and extra cake pan, and then got started on baking the 2 tiered cake. while the cakes were baking and cooling we (tonya and i) started making the icing. we did the first layer of icing and let it dry, then tonya had to go home for a bit. after the icing dried i did the second coat and let it dry again. once it was really good and dry i could start smoothing it out and making it pretty :) when tonya got back we put the finishing touches of the fondant paw prints and the fondant kitty and yarn ball on top. thank goodness we pre-made the cat and the yarn ball a few days ahead of time....we were cutting it close to time as it was (the cat and yarn ball took us about 3 hours and then the whole baking/cooling/icing process took 7.5 hours). but man the look on the little girls face when we brought the cake over was so worth it! she was just so genuinely surprised and happy. it was such a great feeling to see our art appreciated that way.




saturday was also just as busy, but at least i got a little bit later of a start....pictures for my girls team were at 10:30 and from there we traveled to their game on a different part of the island....where they won 5-1!!! go girls!!! after that it was back home to get changed and then over to tonyas to start on the second cake....only this one was even more special. it was for tonya's daughter. miss k wont actually turn 3 until the end of april, but her dad is headed to afghanastan this weekend, so we did the party early so he could enjoy it too. so sara and i got to tonyas at about 4:45 and didnt leave until around 10:30. tonya had already pre-cut all of the fondant, had the flowers ready to go and had the cakes cooling waiting on me to get there :) the only problem this time was we didnt have as much time in between the icings to let them fully dry.....which gave me a really big scare when i couldnt get the icing to do what i wanted. finally tonya had the idea to put it in the fridge for a while and leave it alone. i quickly drove home to get little miss some pj's and my "magic" icing spreader and when i got back 20 mins later the icing was ready to behave and do what i wanted it to do. once that was done, the rest was....well....cake..... we put on the flowers, the fondant, and the cake topper.....tinkerbell! the cake was just so cute!!! with tonyas creativity and my handywork the cake was amazing (if i do say so myself).

of course sunday didnt slow down either, little miss and i ran out to the craft store to get some "pixie dust" (edible glittler) for miss k to sprinkle on her cake, we helped set up the party and put finishing touches on the cake at noon, party started at 1, then my soccer game was at 3 (i was a few minutes late...tonya came at half time)and then we went back to their house to dig into the food that i couldnt before hand.....it was a great party and a great way to end a busy weekend.

rainbow cupcakes

not that i really need an excuse to make cupcakes-especially non-chocolate desserts right now- but my friends birthday and st. patricks day always tend to help add to the cause. my friend ann had seen a great idea for st. patty's day cupcakes and wanted to make some, so we decided to make them together. she brought her 2 little ones to my house and we got started. the kids not only had a lot of fun making and squishing the colored batter, they had just as much fun eating them.....especially little miss. they cupcakes turned out awesome, and tasted just as good too. i know i ended up eating about 6 of them myself (so far).





the one's i had for my friend i had taken to soccer practice to share (shes on my womens team), but because of all the rain, we decided to skip practice and celebrate kirsty's birthday at the bar.....by far our best practice ever :) (notice the blue teeth in the picture)

visitors

we love it when people are able to come and visit us. since we dont get home often it helps break up some of the time away. and last week we had a few great friends come and visit! matt and wally were first. they flew in on sunday and then headed out to maui monday morning for some fun. when they came back on thursday they had boxes of krispy kreme's in hand! since we cant get them on our island it was very much appreciated.....unfortunately sara and i managed to eat almost the whole dozen by ourselves. we got to take them to a few of our favorite places to eat, show them around the town, and take a much needed trip to the beach. since they were flying stand-by the goal was to fly out friday night to start heading back to atl....but that didnt happen. after spending all day saturday in the airport we picked them up to bring them back to our house. since sunday nights flights looked better they just stayed at our house for the day instead of spending all day in the airport. they got to see a little bit more of the island, shop at the stadium swap meet, watch me play soccer, and eat at yet another one of favorite places :) little miss had such a blast this week with them. she especially loves it when visitors come because she always manages to wrap them around her fingers. she talked them into playing outside with her, watching dora and the disney channel with her, and she would pick them to hold her hands instead of us. she really is such a sweet kid when she wants to be :) on our trip to the beach she talked wally into making a sand castle with her....i cant decide who had more fun on that one :)



during matt and wally's visit we also had another friend visit. he was stationed with us when we lived in virginia and we havent seen him since (its been about 6 years). adam actually has a really cool job, he is the 3rd seat on a flight team and gets to travel all of the country and has been to quite a few foreign places flying the commandant and the heads of homeland security around. not a bad job, wish josh could get one like that (although i cant complain...ny and hawaii have been awesome places to live). adam was actually the one who first taught josh how to surf...if thats what you want to call what they did in virginia beach. and it actually worked out really well, they were able to get a few boards and since matt wanted to try his hand at surfing, they all went out to play (one of the guy's from josh's work also joined them). wally, little miss, and i happily stayed on the beach :)

so anyone else who wants to come and visit, just let us know. thats what spare bedrooms and blowup air mattresses are for! it also gives me an excuse to do some heavy duty cleaning that i dont normally have the motivation to do :)

s'mores and soccer

soccer officially started back this past weekend and with that means potlucks!!! i am very happy to report that on saturday my girls team won their first game back 3-0, and after a hard season last year, a win was very welcome. my game on sunday didnt go quite the same. We ended up losing 2-1, but we are calling it a tie because one of the goals was so offside it wasnt even funny. but thats okay, we still had something to look forward too after. potluck! we all popped open a beer and poured them into our red cups (the only way your allowed to drink on the fields) and started the party. we always have great food, and since everyone has a different cultural background its always different foods. a few of my favorites include poke (basically sushi without the rice) and this rice dish that has mushrooms and seafood and stuff like that, but the best part is that you wrap it in dried seaweed. while it sounds weird and was weird to me the first time i tried it, it has become one of my favorites. everything i at on sunday was awesome. we ended up not staying as long as normal since it was freezing! not only had we just gotten through playing 90 minutes of soccer (and i sweat a lot!) but it was so windy that it was just downright cold! (i would say 70-73 degrees)







i took s'mores cupcakes and while i have made them before there were 2 things different. first- since i gave up chocolate for lent i wasnt able to try them as i went along to make sure everything was tasting as it should. second- i made them with my newest muffin pan, the one that leaves spaces for filling. i have to say, its really hard making something when you cant try it, i will not be making anything else with chocolate in it during lent :) and i dont think i will be making them the same way in this pan again. with a large marshmallow cut in half in the middle of it, the tips that create the hole in the middle didnt work very well. the tips kind of pushed the marshmallows to the side so when they baked and grew some of them bubbled over. but the bonus to that was that there was a nice little hole to put the 2nd marshmallow into and then top with ganache. i did make a few more without the special muffin pan and those turned out much better than the first time i made them, so that was good too. i would have to say they were a big hit since 1-everyone told me they loved them and 2- they were all gone and i didnt have to take any home with me (it wasnt hard to twist their arms to get them to take them home with them). but to give credit where credit is due- i got the recipe for these from bakerella.com she always has the neatest stuff!

almond pound cake

this weekend i tried something a little new....its been a while since i have had pound cake, and i was really wanting some almond pound cake. the first time i had almond pound cake was a mix that i got from a friend that does tastefully simple (love tastefully simple!!) it was a great pound cake, but unfortunately i was out and i really wanted almond pound cake. so i decided to try and make my own. i always like to use a boxed mix the first time if possible, and looking at the recipes i needed a few more things and i wasnt going to get to go to the grocery before i made it. so i decided to improvise..... i made the batter as directed and decided i would just add the almond extract at the end. which i did and it worked out great, only problem...it didnt just drop out, its actually got an open mouth and a spout on it....oops :) so i poured (literally) some in, and just kept going until the batter tasted good. I cooked as directed and then tried a little slice to see if it had too much almond. i decided it was good and made an almond glaze to go with it. turned out super tasty! most of it was gone by the next morning...and it makes a great breakfast bread to go with your coffee... next time i will be trying the whole thing from scratch and see how it goes.

trip to the vet

our poor dog hates the vet. well not really the vet per say, but the clipping of the nails part of her vet visit. ever since she was a little puppy, alexi has hated getting her nails clipped. she doesn't really like for people to touch her feet at all, which little miss gets a big kick out of....she will grab at alexi's feet just to watch her pull them away.

alexi was really excited to get to go for a ride in the car, and even more excited when we got to the gate guards for the air force base...they have a dog beach that we often take alexi too, im pretty sure she thought thats where we were going. but when we got to the brick building the fun really started....she was quick to get out and smell around and very excited to see new people. when it was time for us to see the vet, alexi was already worn out from all of the excitement. so as they put her up on the scale i was talking to the vet about her ears (labs get lots of ear infections) and that we needed more medicine to keep at home for when she gets them again. our vet in new york was awesome....we could bring her in whenever and they would trim her nails and flush out her ears for free. and the vet was just great at what he did..... trying to just get an appointment at this one is like pulling teeth, you have to make one months in advance...such a pain. i had warned the vet before hand that her nails were bad ( we try and trim them as much as possible but it not only takes forever, she fights it the whole time) and that she does not do well....she just shrugged it off and said that they could handle it.....so when she was done with alexi's ears i told her again...she hates having her nails clipped..and again, she just said it would be fine. so when alexi started bucking and kicking they finally took me seriously. i had to hold her head, and the vet tech was literally laying on alexi and hold her front and back legs so the vet could trim her nails.... ever time she got through 2 or 3 nails, alexi would start kicking and bucking again and they would have to stop an redo their grabs on her... so after about the 4th time and alexi starting to poop on their floor they gave up....but not before she was able to scratch the vet a few times, hit the vet tech--her neck and arms were very red, and claw me. she did a good number, and i am sure when i take her back in another week to have her ears looked at and her nails trimmed some more.....they will believe me :)









my bruises are now a yellowish black and are starting to fade and they never did show up well in the pictures....but where you see the scratches-are also bruises :) then the next morning when i went to put the medicine in her ears....she went to hide under our bed....it was a tight squeeze.

right

i love the feeling of being right, i mean who doesnt? but i especailly love being right, when im proving josh wrong. i dont mind being wrong, it happens (but not often), but im okay with saying i am wrong.....josh on the other hand....dosent take it so well. the boy loves to argue (he comes by it naturally :) love ya barbara), and not yelling and screaming arguing---just the im right your wrong type stuff. and he wont stop until the point is dead....or when i give up and just walk away. i am not really a big arguer but sometimes he just eggs me on and i keep going with him, but normally i just tell him whatever and walk away. so the other day when i got an official win i was on cloud 9.... its the little things. and then even better, it took less than 30 minutes for me to win my case.....huge victory.

and this is how i won..... i was getting ready to take a trip to the grocery store for a few small items that we needed to last us for the rest of the week. he looked at the list and decided that we really needed to stick to our list better, and that if something wasnt on the list we shouldnt buy it. i told him sure, okay, whatever, like that can really happen. and of course he had to argue with me- we(he) needed to get better about writing stuff down when it ran out, and when we(I)go to the grocery store, we buy whats only on the list...his theory was that we would spend less and just get what we needed. i again said yeah, sure, whatever.... so as i was walking up and down the isles to get what we needed i remembered that josh had said we needed more pull-ups (she only wears them overnight...still working on that part)...but of course it wasnt on the list (and he was the one to notice we were out). but i got them anyways. no more than 10 minutes later i get a text- "pick up pull-ups" i got a huge grin on my face and texted back "sorry...not on my list" he of course texted back " you suck" and i texted back-"your rules sweetie" and the sure sign i had won.... "i hate you" :) ahhh, the sweet signs of victory.

I got another one the other night too, well not really me as much as little miss, but shes too young to get the full humor, so i am counting it as my victory.....she really wanted to take alexi for a walk, but it had been raining off and on. josh told her if it stopped we could go. so he is arguing with her about wether its raining when she opens the door, walks out, puts out her hands and goes.....its not raining daddy....he tries to tell her again that it is and is yet again proven wrong :) yep its the little things :)