Cupcakes

Some of you know that I have a love affair with baking. Especially baking cupcakes. I truly think they are the prefect dessert. They are the perfect portion size for a dessert, they are delicious and utterly adorable.

So one of my ambitions is to own my own bakery. It is a far fetched dream that I hope will someday come true. But until that time I am just going to bake away in my home, for fun and a little extra spending money ☺ One of my goals for the new year is to bake one thing a week. I want to build a repertoire of desserts and sell them. So I am going to use this as my outlet to share with the world my lovely desserts!

This past weekend was the Super Bowl. So I racked my brain for a cupcake that any guy would like. Then I started thinking of all the things that Matt likes (which isn't much, he isn't a huge dessert person) and I start thinking about candy bars. He loves snickers, so I made a snicker cupcake. Who doesn't like Snickers? Man or woman alike, it is a yummy treat and top it off with some caramel... Yummy!

So here is my Snickers Cupcake! In the future I plan to show pics of the process and the recipe, but to be honest I am too lazy for that today. Hopefully a picture will work for this week!

Parental Advice

When you have your first kid everyone gives you tons and tons of advice from breast feeding to swaddling to sleeping... whether it is wanted or not, people will give it to you.  And as a expectant parent you try your best to take in all the information. You think you know you will be up all night and you will get little sleep. You think you understand that when you breastfeed, it requires a lot of time... but you don't realize that you will truly be exhausted, your body is no longer yours, you will be very concerned with what your kid's poop looks like and you will smell like milk at all hours of the day. But when that baby is cuddled in your arms and you smell the top of their head, all the craziness goes away.  You fall so in love and can't imagine how you could possibly love another human being so much.

I have learned that each child is born different and unique. They have their own quirks and you just figure them out as you go along.  And I would also say that the second one grows up so much faster!  In the blink of an eye they start smiling, sitting, eating table food, crawling and then you are planning their first birthday party... Gulp!  I have to make myself stop and appreciate all the little milestones and realize that this very well might be the last time that I get to experience it.

So when people say that the second child is easier, they are partly true. With the second child your life has already made major alterations. You are used to having little people depend solely on you for their care, but you just adjust and now take care of another little person. You also learn that someone is going to cry. It's just the way it is. You can't make everyone happy and you have to prioritize needs.  You are going to lose sleep.  It is inevitable, there is no way around it.  As soon as your baby starts sleeping well they will get sick or start teething, and it is so disappointing.  My final tidbit of advice, go ahead and realize that coffee and wine are your best friend!

... And I am Back!

So I have been off the blogging world for some time now.  There are several reasons for this, but the main one being a had a baby... almost 11 months ago!  Two children under the age two is no joke!  It isn't hard, but you stay constantly busy. Even though I had a baby, I should have blogged.  Oh how I wish I had.  I wish I wasn't being so lazy and took the time to document my sweet children's life. 

Since I have last written in this blog I have begun staying home with my two darling children. I think I thought that it would be realtively easy.  That I would play with my kids all day and then be refreshed for when Matt got home.... Umm, not exactly!  You are not only staying home to just be with your kids... you are staying home to feed them at every meal, change every wet and poopy diaper, entertain them, put them to sleep, put them to sleep, put them to sleep (did I already say that?  yes, that's because 75% of my day is convincing them that sleep is a good thing), cleaning up after them... constantly, laundry, dusting, sweeping about twenty times a day (especially with a crawler who eats everything on the floor), cooking, grocery store, errands, and the list goes on.  So long story short, being a stay at home mom is tough work!  

I am by no means saying that a working mom doesn't have a tough job, because she does.  I truly believe that as moms we all struggle daily with balancing work and home life.  And one of the tough things about staying home with your kids is that in a sense, they and the house are my job.  And I don't like feeling that this is the situation, but it is.  So I feel like since I stay at home, my house should be immaculate.  When this is not what my primary job description is... that isn't even my title.  My title is stay at home MOM.  So I am going to do my best to keep a clean house, but not stress out if I have a ton of laundry and Conner wants me to play rockets with him.  I am going to play rockets with him and the laundry can wait.  

So with all that being said... I am going to start blogging again.  And it will truly be about Life, Love and Being a Mom!

Back in Business

So I have been out of commission for some time now. I have been ridiculously busy with LIFE!  Conner just celebrated his first birthday this past weekend... It was bittersweet.  I am so sad that this first year has flown by and I already miss the babiness, but I am so excited of what is to come.  He is developing such an adorable personailty day by day.  I LOVE that sweet boy!

I will finally get back in the groove of things...  posting about crafting projects, money saving deals, delicious recipes, and much more about being a mom.

Up for this week, pictures of the First Birthday Party, Cake Pops and Bunting!

Until next time...

Royal Wedding

I am a sucker for a wedding, but I am obsessed with the Royal Wedding.  I think it is such a special thing that a regular woman walked down the aisle in a beautiful dress marry her Prince Charming (literally) and walked out as the Duchess of Cambridge.  Can you imagine what that must feel like?  I was a nervous wreck to walk down the aisle to the 150 guests we had... I can't even imagine what it felt like to do it in front of millions of people!

In honor of this momentous occasion, I am throwing a party!  A Royal Wedding Viewing Party to be exact.  I am gathering all the girls at my house and we are going to enjoy an English breakfast as we watched the DVR'd wedding.

I made a very girlified table runner, pulled out all the fancy serving ware and am going all out on the food.  I am going to make blueberry scones, crumpets (hopefully, this seems very difficult and if I screw it up we will be having store bought English muffins... fingers crossed!) with clotted cream, lemon curd and raspberry preserves to top it with, pomegranate mini muffins, and fresh fruit salad.  This menu is more of a "high tea" accompaniment, but I just wasn't in the mood for bangers and baked beans!  This seems more dainty...

I will post pictures of the party, wish me luck.  I have worked 2-12 hour days in a row, so I only have from 8pm to 9am the next day to get all this done!

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