Chocolate cupcakes. And kids.

I made these cupcakes and they’re stupid delicious and I’m upset that I can’t shove them all in my face right now instead of being nice and waiting for other family members to come home so I can share them.  Hrmph. 

My children are getting older.  And losing teeth.  Oliver seriously looks like “Bubba Hillbilly” right now.  Once those top two teeth come back in, his face will really start changing.  It’s already lost a lot of the kidness in it, but then?  Oy.  Of course, it’s all about me, so the older they get, just means the older I get.  I’ll say it again.  OY!

It’s April 1st which means you pretty much can’t trust anything anyone says today.  Except me.  I never really learned the art of pulling genuinely funny pranks.  Or, any funny joke at all. 

Soccer is in full swing which means are weeks are full and days fly by and I turn around and realize that I don’t really feel like I’ve done anything noteworthy.  But, the boys had their yearly checkups and they’re both “perfect” (the official medical diagnosis), so we’ve got that going for us. 

There really isn’t much point to this except I wanted to brag about the cupcakes.  That I didn’t create and altered the recipe so mine are slightly different than what’s written.  I still want to eat them all. 

I love tacos.

Seriously.  I could shove my face full of tacos every day and still be happy.  Nom nom nom!  I’m not eating tacos now, though. Now I’m eating leftover this recipe.  It’s seriously delicious.  Yay after workout snack! 

Workouts.  It’s been a long time since I’ve done 3 day splits with sprints after, so I decided to get back on that.  Let me just say: OOOWWWWWWW!!!!  Ridiculously ow.  And slightly humiliating when your shoulders give you the ole “F You!!  You worked us to failure and NOW you want to try to do push-ups?!  Here!  We’ll show you!” and drop me on my face.  At the gym.  That’s awesome.  Thanks, shoulders!  But, I’ve seen the pay off, so whatever.  I’m sure they’ll get over it. 

I’m going to stop talking about my shoulders as if they’re sentient beings now.  That was a little weird. 

The vacation pictures still aren’t done.  And I can’t even blame Alan this time.  I have all the pictures, just have to go through them and put them in order and make an actual thing.  Vacation slides!!  Man, I wish.  One day. 

Here’s other pictures, though.  Last Sunday we met up with friends at the gun range.  It was the boys first time and they REALLY enjoyed it.

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Oliver

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Colin

From there, we went to the Stars game that Mom got us for Christmas.  They lost, but it was still a fun game.  Even if Colin started asking in the first period if it was over….again….

Stars!

No, that’s not Oliver’s beer.  At least, not that we’ll ever tell…

I had visions…

I had visions of being the ultimate badass chick and changing my own car battery.  Yup, ended up holding the flashlight.  Ah well, seems an appropriate way to end the month. 

Oh, October.  What a month it’s been.  Can’t say I’m terribly sad to see it go.  November can only be better, right?  That’s what I’m going for.  We did get the Halloween decorations up and Alan managed to carve one pumpkin.  The Arboretum was visited (unlimited mimosas!!), eating in a storm was done, and entirely too much money was spent on things we may or may not technically “need”.  But, trick or treating will be done tonight, so there’s that. 

I’ve been super slack about cooking.  This week I decided to get back on that and have made two really awesome meals, if I do say so myself.  And I do.  The first one was paleo meatballs in tomato sauce stuff (that’s a link, click it).  I was a little concerned about the amount of garlic, but Alan said it was just fine.  While that wasn’t my favorite meal, it’s definitely something that I can add into rotation.  Yesterday I made paleo pork roast (another link -yes, Liz, I’m pointing them out for you, click them!), garlic mashed sweet potatoes (yup, click it), and blackberry cobbler (you know you wanna).  At first, all the different smells of the pork roast kept messing with my smeller.  After a few hours, however, it smelled amazing.  Seriously, so much awesome-smell was happening in my house yesterday.  The sweet potatoes, I was a little concerned about.  I’ve only ever had them plain or doctored with butter and brown sugar.  But, these, oh man.  I’m making more of those tonight to go with another new recipe: sausage spaghetti squash bake (surely I don’t have to keep telling you…)  I’ve never bought a spaghetti squash until yesterday.  Hopefully, I don’t ruin it.  I’m kind of excited about this one and hope it comes out as good as it sounds.  The blackberry cobbler was…blackberry cobbler, I guess.  I’m not a huge fan of blackberries to begin with and the crumble part needed a sweetness to it.  Since it wasn’t baked in, we improvised and dumped ice cream all over it. 

Now, I’m going to go drink coffee and contemplate whether it’s really a good idea to start drinking beer at 10.45 in the morning so I can make room in my fridge for more…

 

Let go!!

Every time there’s someone beside me on the treadmill and they’re holding on with both hands, I want to scream that at them.

I had a physical yesterday and part of that was getting blood drawn.  For whatever reason the thought of getting poked with a needle will break me out into a full body sweat.  Getting a tattoo, not so much.  So, the nurse had me lay down and went through her spiel of telling me not to be scared and then looked down at my arm and said “What are you even worried for??  You’ve got huge veins, I could do this in my sleep!”  To which I politely asked her not to.  Then she said “You’re lucky.  You’re skinny and usually you skinny girls have skinny veins and it’s hard to get them.” 

The whole point of that story was: someone called me skinny!  (AND! while I’m in a very not skinny phase, you know, due to the whole donut phase…) I’ve had numerous comments on my weight loss, but I can’t remember one where the person flat out said skinny (it’s possible it’s happened).  Thankfully, she said that right before poking me with a giant needle and then draining me of most of my blood so I was slightly distracted. 

I made these the other day.  The batter was super thick so I thought they would be better to make into cookies.  Downside to that was, cookies need sweetness.  Yes, they have chocolate chips, but…  Now, I warm them up for a few seconds in the microwave and then drown them in honey.  While not great on taste, they do help with the late night snacking cravings.  And are full of protein!  Double win. 

Dulce de Leche Cheesecake

That’s a lie.  It doesn’t really taste anything like cheesecake.  But, large chunks of heaven in your mouth?  Oh yeah.  The best part is (that’s another lie, there’s lots of “bests” about this cake), the more days that pass the better it tastes.  Originally, I wasn’t too crazy about it.  It was very keylimey and I’m not a huge fan of keylime.  Now?  Now I could eat the rest of it that’s sitting in the pan and be upset there wasn’t more. 

There’s four layers to this thing.  Each one is awesome in it’s own way.  I super love it because the crust is very graham cracker tasting and would go awesome as a pie crust.  The de leche sauce, I could make crackers out of the crust and dip them in the de leche sauce and be super happy with just that.  The recipe creator lady doesn’t lie, though.  The sauce takes forever to reduce down, but totally worth it.  The “cheesecake” part was my least favorite.  The day it was made, and the day after, it was heavy on the lime and cashew taste.  While it wasn’t bad, per se, it just wasn’t great.  Again, after a few days those mellow out big time and the result is just awesomeness.  The final layer is chocolate.  And, it’s chocolate.  Can’t go wrong there. 

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http://swisspaleo.ch/dulce-de-leche-cheesecake-bars-oh-my/

I fail at waffles.

Epically.  I was never great with them in the first place, but throw in funky ingredients and I’m a goner.  Twice I’ve tried and twice they went horribly wrong.  The first time, they tasted horrible.  Ugh.  Just, bad.  I looked around off and on for a different recipe and finally settled on one that I was excited about making (side note: it was one of the main reasons I was so excited about getting my food processor and it took me weeks to use it for the actual waffle recipe).  So, yesterday I decided I was going to give it another go.  The first one came out great.  Not the greatest of presentations, but it held together and tasted pretty darn good.  Then, I tried to make a second one.  Then a third.  Those, those did not turn out so well.  I don’t know what the crap happened, but it ended it mass failure.  At least I got to eat the one good one. 

Yesterday, I realized that I missed biscuits.  Granted, it was only after hearing someone telling me they had biscuits and gravy for breakfast that I realized it, but still, I realized!  So, off to the internet I went.  I found this one that looked easy enough so I made them this morning.

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While they aren’t bad, and in fact are pretty decent, they lack any sweetness.  After a dab of butter and a dollop of honey, I think I may have found my biscuit replacement.  You know, come to think of it, they remind me of cornbread in the texture….random thought.  Now if I can figure out how to make gravy…

Other random thought, I take crappy food porn pics. 

Here’s a whole lotta pictures.

Last Friday, Oliver graduated kindergarten.  That freaks me out a little.  Not a whole lot, but mostly because I refuse to think about it too much. 

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This was walking into his last day of class.  It’s a little blurry because, well, we were walking.  Colin noticed the camera…

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I finally got him to be still long enough to get a good shot. 

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And then, Colin noticed the camera….

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Here are the ceremony pics.  I’d write something about each one, but eh…I’m lazy.  The one where he’s excitedly waving is when he spotted Gramme.  The one with the blurry Gramme, yup, Colin again. 

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Mom took the kids after lunch so Alan and I had date day.  Which had some Macy’s shopping in there.  They had a food processor on sale that I have borderline rabidly been wanting.  So, I got it.  I love it.  I’ve only used it once.  But!  I do plan on using it quite a lot.  For real.  They made the donuts so much easier to make, and with better batter consistency. 

I did end up making this recipe.  Naturally, I changed a few things (not as much honey, coconut oil instead of butter in the batter, coconut milk instead of almond milk.  For the streusel, I used butter, brown sugar, honey and coconut flour.), but the consensus was it was a really good cake.  At first, I wasn’t sure if I actually liked it so I just kept eating.  After a substantial portion of a corner, I came to the conclusion that it was pretty damned tasty.  I had to walk away.  The other conclusion I came to is I need much better almond flour.  I’ve remedied that situation today by ordering some blanched.  Hopefully, it’s as good as the recommendations say it is. 

On Monday Oliver made his very first batch of pancakes.  This is him tasting them.

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They tasted really good and he was quite pleased with himself.  To the point where all he could talk about yesterday was how he was going to make pancakes and sell them in the Walgreens parking lot. 

And since I don’t have enough pictures or spontaneous purchases, here are some of the new dog we got yesterday from the SPCA.  I really wanted a playmate for the dog we already have, but so far, she’s good with sitting on one of us and/or sleeping.  Best part, I have yet to hear her make any noise except for snoring or whining because she wanted out of her crate. 

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She woke me up way too early this morning for this.

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After we dropped Colin off at school, we ran to Wal-Mart and I picked her up a bed of her own.  She didn’t get to keep it long.

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So much stuff.

This one might be a bit picture heavy.  I kept taking pictures with the intention of making a post about them and, well, obviously that didn’t happen. 

So, here we go.

Mother’s Day was a good one.  On Saturday, Oliver had his last regulation soccer game that was the longest.game.ever.  Seriously.  Even the kids were ready for it to be over.  It was a tie game so they went into a 4 minute sudden death.  Still tie.  Shoot out.  Still tie.  Another 4 minute sudden death.  Still tie.  (By this time, Oliver kept looking over at me mouthing “I WANT TO BE DONE!”)  Another shoot out and finally, an Arsenal made a goal and another Arsenal defended the last kick of the opposing team for the win.  So, off to the championship we go!

There’s Oliver way out in the field “defending.”  Aka, twirling, dancing, watching birds…but when that ball starts coming at him, he’s got the kick-it-downfield down pat!

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After the game we decided it was a nice day for fishing.  In a “lake”.  With fish we can’t actually eat.  You know, FUN!  Alan got everything ready, even did a Walmart run for snacks and earthworms.  Grabbed our neighbor (literally.  Broke in, slapped the video game controller right out of his hand and yanked him out of the house.  Or not.) and off we headed.  Made it to the lake, picked our spot, cracked open some cans, pulled the poles out and….no worms.  Oh well.  They’re still sitting in their bucket waiting to be fish food. 

use

This picture pretty much sums up Colin’s personality.  When he does something, he goes all in.  Click the picture and get a good look at his face.

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Oliver was all about digging in the holes on the bank.  He found a roly poly nest in this one and that was the best thing ever, for about 10 minutes. 

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This is probably one of my favorite pictures of Colin.  He didn’t get a hook on his line, just a weight and a floating thing (that he obliterated against the rocks).  After he got tired of casting, he sat down on the rock.  I asked him if he was going to get anymore fish and he said “No, I’m just going to sit here and wait for the fish to get on.”  The best part, the shoreline is just on the other side of where the picture cuts off. 

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For Mother’s Day proper, I did a whole lot of nothing and it was marvelous.  Well, I did crochet a lot.  And portions of my house got clean, that I didn’t have to clean.  Those two things mean way more to me than flowers.  Not that flowers are bad, but if I had my choice…

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This is the current blanket I’m working on.  Looks wise, it’s up there with my favorites.  Execution wise, it’s a monster pain in the butt.  It’s a good thing it’s pretty. 

At some point I finally got around to making some paleo donuts.  I’ve been making (and eating) regular donuts for the boys so I decided I was going to break down and actually use the pan for what I originally intended.  I used this recipe.  The author said the recipe made 6 perfect donuts.  That didn’t happen for me.  At all.  The first 6 came out horribly wrong. 

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They were doughy and flat and fell apart.  The upside is they still tasted awesome, so I ate them anyway.  After adding in about a tablespoon extra of coconut flour and cooking for 5 extra minutes, the next 6 did come out perfectly. 

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Those got dunked in melted dark chocolate (no salt or coffee like the original recipe) and that made them taste that much better.  So, I got 12 donuts out of the recipe.  It was probably an error somewhere on my end, but they taste awesome and I’ll probably gear up to make them again when I can be sure that I won’t eat 8 in a sitting.  Because I’ll probably eat all 12. 

On Tuesday, Alan and I went for a bike ride for our cardio day.  Again, it was a gorgeous day and I just didn’t want to get on the treadmill.  We went all around our neighborhood and then ventured over into the north side.  I’ve only ever been over there once, but I had remembered that there was a cemetery there.  Yup, we got a cemetery right in the middle of our development.  I’m convinced this is where our ghost kid comes from. 

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It’s Just a Giant Pizza Topping!

I decided to get all fancy and add a recipe widget for this post.  Got 75% done with making my recipe and it disappeared into the ether.  Too bad.  Now you’ll only get to read how awesome portobello mushroom pizzas are. 

They’re amazing.  The end. 

Well, here, you can have a picture of one.    I meant to take a pic as soon as it came out, but I was almost half way done with it before I remembered that tidbit.  

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Not dairy free.  Mmmm….cheese….  It’s sort of Paleo if you don’t think too hard about the cheese.