Cherry & Almond Cupcakes

Michael is utterly obsessed with birthdays, and is about as anxious for my birthday as I am. I told him a few days ago that my birthday was in 5 days, and he's been so kind as to remind me every morning how many more days I have to wait. This morning he pulled out his pom-pom jar and requested another jar to play with. Then he said, "I have 2 jars just like you have 2 more days [until your birthday]!" I was impressed with his object lesson.

I woke up this morning with cupcakes on my mind. I am having a girl's night tonight, and that's motivation enough to get some baking jitters out and then share the sweetness so I don't overstuff myself (well, that was the plan at least--I've already eaten 4).

Using my favorite Theo bar, Cherry & Almond, as inspiration I whipped up a white cake mixed with finely chopped almonds, diced cherries, almond & vanilla extract, and a healthy handful of chocolate chips. The cupcakes were most delicious warm (because I couldn't wait) although I feel they borderline a muffin. But because I slathered them with cherry cream cheese frosting, they are worthy of Cupcake status.

Happy birthday to me (in 2 days, of course).

What heaven sees in you

We learned this song when I was in young women's. Watching this video makes me want to learn photography. Amazing pictures, and lovely song.

Prayers and Toys

I have been asking Michael repeatedly this morning to pick up his toys that are scattered all over the floor. Obviously, my requests are going unanswered because he's doing exactly opposite by actually pulling out more toys. If I was following the steps according to the book, "Beyond Timeout" (a book I highly recommend), I'm sure this battle would have been over an hour ago. Instead, I am trying to do my own things on the side and not really pushing the picking up toys issue. I have just been impossibly wishing that somewhere in Michael's brain it would click that he wants to just be obedient to his mother.

Right....

Anyway, sometime later Michael walked into my bedroom where I was kneeling by my bed. He and I talked for a minute about prayers, and of course we talked about how he can ask Heavenly Father to help him with the desire to pick up his toys (among other things). Michael liked that idea and said, "Yes, we should ask Jesus to come over and pick up my toys for me!"

Right....

From my Journal

I was 8 years old when I started writing in a journal, and good thing because my handwriting needed some help! I love journals, and I love that I started writing as early as I did even if I wasn't consistent in the slightest. Hopefully, you have a laugh at some of my childhood thoughts, and if this doesn't inspire you to start writing (if you aren't already), I hope you find something that will.

November 11, 1994
This is the worst day of my life. No sleepovers during school years can't go to Classic Skating with my friends intell my chores are done I wish I could do whatever I wanted to do but my mom and dad always boss us aroud. I know they still love me (heart around "love me") but I still wish I was a mom. But, I'm going to be nicer. Diana. 

It's true-I dreamed about being a mom since who knows when. I once had 50 imaginary children, 24 boys and 26 girls. We lived in a school building, and our mode of transportation was a school bus. And, of course, all of my stuffed animals were "my children." I kept a notebook of their names, birthdays, likes/dislikes. You'd think with all this prep I'd be a Supermom by now, but I know Michael already has thoughts similar to mine, "Gosh Mom, stop telling me to do my chores!" I should be nicer. ;)

November 12, 1994
This is another worse day of my life. have to clean my room always and I can't go skating because of my dumb sister named Suzanne we call her Suzy for short.  
I'm sorry Suzy. I don't know what you did to dear me, but don't worry I apparently retracted that statement at some point as you can tell by that line being crossed out, and I totally love your guts!

And now for more important news, I give to you a quick run down of what some of my family was up to on February 10, 1997 (This was only a few pages after 1994--so obviously I didn't write that much) I really don't have a lot to say so I'll tell you what's going on. Suzy is practicing violin, Philip is crying, Mom is cleaning the bathroom, James is just standing in our room, and I'm writing in here.

On January 15, 1998 there is a chocolate cake smudge that Philip smeared on my page, and I circled it with my pen and made note of the act. Haha!

From all of this, however, it was a couple sentences at the end of a journal entry that inspired me to blog today at all. But that will just have to wait until another day.

Felt & Blueberry Cupcakes

Look at this adorable chocolate felt cupcake, with a red cherry heart on top, and chocolate sprinkles of course. This is just one of the many varieties Michael can piece together from his new cupcake craft I made for him last week. I downloaded the template here from MoneySavingMom.com. We took it to church on Sunday, and he loved it! I still think I love it more. I'm just mildly fond of cupcakes, if didn't know that by now.

 Here's the most recent cupcake I baked up for dessert when we fed the missionaries. It's a lemon-blueberry cupcake. The frosting has fresh blueberry puree, but I definitely added too much of it and it was runny. I didn't want to end up with a lot of extra frosting, so I only added enough powdered sugar to stiffen it up just a bit. In the end, however, I loved how the frosting fell around the cupcake,. All I did was put a small dab on top, and after a minute, it creeped its way down and domed evenly over the top of the cake. They were perfectly delicious in taste and I ate four of them--completely disregarding my sugar-intake goal of the week.

Kickboxing

A friend and I bought a groupon for 4 kickboxing classes, and one personal training session a while ago, and it was the best purchase I have made in a long time. It has been so great to get an intense workout and do something amazingly fun. We did kicking on Monday, and today my upper thighs and butt are incredibly sore. It's been so great though. This last time I went, we got our free gloves and Michael was so excited when he saw them. I showed him the moves that I learned in the class, and I think he believes I'm the greatest mom in the world now because I'm the one showing him the punching and kicking moves (one of his favorite activities).

Michael will probably regret one day that I took these pictures of him when he was only wearing underwear. 

Just a plug: If you haven't signed up for Groupon yet, sign up here. After your first purchase, I'll get $10 in credit. ;)

KidsBowlFree!

At the beginning of summer, all the "thrifty deal" blogs I follow advertised this great deal from the site kidsbowlfree.com. It sounded interesting, but I just passed it by telling myself it was an unnecessary expense this year. Instead, Michael and I have spent a lot of time at Greenlake wading pool (completely free and out in the beautiful sunshine).

But yesterday I was itching to do something different. I have a coupon for buy one get one free entrance to the zoo. But, then when Richard said he wanted to join, I thought bowling would be equally as fun. Then that site came to memory. It really ended up being a great deal afterall, even if I purchased it late into the summer. I just purchased the one week adult pass (13.95) that gives Richard and I two free games everyday as long as Michael is with us (he automatically gets two free games everyday for the rest of summer just for signing up). Richard has his own bowling shoes--so the price of shoes was cut down. That deal paid for itself by far on our first use. 

After bowling yesterday we stopped at Fred Meyer, and I saw this shirt that I thought looked like it belonged to a pro-bowler. I think Richard should wear it from now on. Not that he's pro. I mean, his highest score was 136 yesterday (which was definitely higher than my 101 score). But, he used to bowl much higher all the time. 

I couldn't stop smiling the whole time we played. I felt like it was "the good ol' days" when we and a bunch of friends would go bowling all the time (thus the reason his friends and I pitched in and bought him bowling shoes for his birthday one year. He still has the note we attached to them.)

So, to make good use of this one-week pass, we went again today! (After Michael and I spent the morning at the wading pool with friends, of course). Our scores were even worse today. And Michael was pretty worn out after the 6th frame, which means we may not end up going tomorrow to give him a break.

Life

Video #1--At Central Market. They had little carts! I love little carts.

Video #2--Michael explaining the game of LIFE. 

What do you think?

Sugar&Greens Blog

I've started another blog called Sugar & Greens. It's a place where I'll journal nutritional knowledge as I read and learn, and also track some of my personal goals. Right now it's not too exciting, as I've just been writing about how much sugar I stuff into my mouth, but I hope to start incorporating healthy recipes, guest posts of friends and their struggles with weight loss and nutrition, and research on organic vs conventional food and home cleaning products. Click here to follow along!

Swimming

This summer has already included a lot of swimming for our family. Michael and I will sometimes head up to the Mountlake Terrace indoor pool, but now that the sun is coming out we've been enjoying swimming in Enumclaw with friends, or going to the Greenlake Wading Pool *My absolute favorite go-to destination.

Last time we were there, I was wishing for ice cream. Then I spotted a guy sitting with his ice cream stand! Sweet. I got my chocolate bar, and Michael requested the Spiderman frozen treat. (Next time I'll just share because the thing melted faster than he could eat it, and he didn't understand that he couldn't just leave it with me for a little while to play).

And some random iPhone video of our swimming. (Michael was scared of the big pool and preferred to play outside of it the majority of the time). And the other video is really wiggly (because we were walking back to the car), but it shows Michael beating the ninjas and zombies that were in our way.

Hello Cupcake

I know, I'm on a roll with this sugary deliciousness here. Perhaps you'll remember one of my all time favorite posts on this blog about me. Upon first moving to Seattle, I was really into cookies, and now it seems I've moved on to cupcakes.

Well, feast your eyes on these:

Chocolate Balsamic Raspberry Cupcakes

This is the first time I have ever made cupcakes, and been absolutely terrified that I would even like them at all. I have never worked with Balsamic vinegar before, and the minute I opened it, I wanted to run away from that smell. I cautiously poured it in--tablespoon by tablespoon. When the frosting had thickened up, I dipped my finger in, closed my eyes and thought, "Here I go!"

I was blown away.

At first my tongue was wowed with the flavor, but shortly the taste of sweet raspberry rested on my tongue. I was quickly addicted--and of course, went back for more. It tastes 10x better when it's complimented with the chocolate cake made with pureed raspberries, coconut milk and balsamic vinegar.

Believe me. These are well worth your time.

Recipe stolen from Layla's blog, who stole it from Love and Olive Oil. I love how all of our frosting styles come out very different from one another. Word of suggestion if you use Layla's recipe: Either double your cake batter recipe, or 1/2 your frosting measurements. Got it? Good.