Bake-N-Blog: Banana Cupcakes with Maple Icing!

That's right! The time has come for the Bake-N-Blog, hosted by Jess over at Jesstagirl and her Officer! The cupcake recipes themselves come from Ming Makes Cupcakes.

For the Bake-N-Blog, I chose the Banana Cupcakes with Maple Brown Butter Frosting!

The ingredients were many...


And the mixes were not very attractive looking, seen here is the cupcake mix and the icing mix.


And I had some help from Little Man. He really enjoyed "mashing" the bananas. And then Gangsta's Paradise came on and, even though the song came out several years before he was born, he indulged in the fun and broke out in "gangsta dance."


After our gangsta break, we pulled the baked cakes out of the freezer and iced away.


All in all, they turned out really well. They tasted pretty much like banana bread with maple syrup icing.


At least, Little Man says they were good!



Another cupcake success :)

National USAF Museum

Last week, B decided he wanted to take Little Man to the National Museum of the Air Force. We live close enough to it to justify driving there and back in a day, and Little Man loves all things military...so off we went!

The boys had a great time. Little Man was so well behaved I felt like I should have video taped it. It was awesome. I also decided that "Little Man" is not an appropriate name for him anymore...as he's nearly as tall as B and taller than all the other kids in his class by a foot. But, he's still my little man so it's staying :)

The place was actually fairly gigantic, and free, and had planes from the first plane to the current planes. Even some german planes from WWII.

There was a cockpit to play in...



And a plane with a big nose...



Little Man really liked this one...



And B was annoyed that he couldn't pull this out of the side of one...



But, this one was my personal favorite...



This medal was outside the museum...



And of course we drove past Terminator Jesus, so that had to make it in.



It was awesome.

The Hiney Flu

I went to lunch today with my grandmother and my mom. I am still laughing from this simple conversion:

Gram: "Let me tell you this funny story. You know that hiney flu?"
Mom: "...the what flu?"
Gram: "The hiney flu. You know, that one that used to be swine flu? That's what everyone is calling it now"
Mom: "You mean H1N1?"
Gram: "No, it's hini."
Mom: "Mom, it's H1N1, not hini."

I have no idea what her funny story was about, but it was absolutely irrelevant because my mom and I could NOT stop laughing before she even told it! Hiney flu! ;D

Another funny. My Gram and my nephew Little Man, who is the "aisle runner" at our wedding, were talking about the wedding the other day. My niece, Brady, is mixed race caucasian and african-american. Little Man does not have much racial diversity in his life and he's only 8, so he doesn't quite get it. What he does get? Dora.

Little Man: "I might have to help the flowergirls too."
Gram: "Who would you help?"
Little Man: (who is not great with names) "...that little girl. She's kind of brown. I think she speaks Spanish."

Lol! Gotta love kids!

Also, found some serving and place settings I do believe we're going to get. I texted B about them so he could check them out. What I meant to say was "I found some plates on clearance that are really cool." Apparently "plates" and "slaves" use the same numbers on texts, so what I really said was "I found some slaves on clearance that are really cool."

...that solicited a quick phone call from my dear fiance haha!

What do you think? They are color-pop-awesomeness, in my book. They are also $85 for 8 place settings and a serving set, which basically means "I want them, because when I get sick of them I won't feel guilty throwing them away and getting new ones."

Lakes and Bathing Suits

The weekend was...interesting...to say the least. Friday I went into work early and then we headed to the lake again, this time with Little Man (E) in tow. I love the dude, I do--I had him with me every day for five years, I changed his diapers, I fed him in the middle of the night...I love the little dude. But, these last couple years where he's (finally) been with his mom the majority of the time has pretty much turned him into a prissy brat and I've had him since Thursday so it was rather challenging. Does it make me a bad aunt if I say my nephew is a prissy brat? I have a niece who I also think is a brat, just a super spoiled one. I love them both, and being the (sometimes stupidly) honest person I am I'm willing to admit that they are brats, even if that does make me a bad aunt. (...does it? ha!)

But, anyway, Saturday we went out on the boat and Cabbage got her first taste of the lake life in Brady's life jacket from last year pictured here with her fabulous self:


Cabbage sported it a bit differently, seeing as how Brady was in the top 80% for height and weight and Cabbage just got on the bottom of the scale at her last checkup. It basically swallowed her whole:


She was not happy about it. She also sported Brady's float from last year--she was better with that. And on the way in Little Man got to drive the boat (shh!):


Saturday night I took all 7 (potty trained) kids, aged 12, 12, 9, 8 ,7, 6, and 4 to play putt putt on the sorriest course you've ever seen in your life with just a cousin of mine who, bless her heart, has zero authoritative power with children because she's really still in the stage where she'd like to "outsmart" or argue with them rather than the "because I said so" stage. So it was me and all seven kids basically, which wasn't actually bad but I was ready to go back to the campground by the time that was over.

Sunday we hit the cliffs. The Cliffs is an area of the lake where there are, surprise!, cliffs. It isn't an advertised tourist attraction or anything, you just have to know about it. And I'm very, very surprised they haven't shut it down yet. You basically have to jump over trees. They range from 5 feet to 40 feet in height, and higher when the water level is low. We kept the boat kind of far from the cliffs to be safer with the kids around so the shots I got were pretty bad, but here's the best one, as blurry as it is:

That's the highest one. And I know what you are thinking, and yes I did jump off of it. Once. Once every two years is about my quota for that jump. My 6 year old cousin jumped off the second highest one last year (at 5). My 8 year old Little Man? Wouldn't even jump off the boat.

We got home at 1030 sunday night, I had a load of laundry to do so I went to bed around 1215 and got up at 530 this morning and then worked 730am-6pm today. I'll be sure not to volunteer for that too often from now on :)

BUT. My bestie is back in town for the summer, and we went bathing suit shopping tonight. Total failure. However, I did get a $4 ballcap for the water and I put it on when I got home and said hi to my puppy. Chase HATES this hat. The first thing he did was bite the bill and rip it off my head. I thought maybe he just didn't want it on me, but I had to pull it out of his mouth. He hates it so much he'd really like to rip it to shreds. I mean, it's just a ballcap!

It's a Xavier hat, though...I guess my dog's a U of Cincinnati fan!