LOL yoda and tentacles

I just have to share a couple of interesting conversations I've had with my, now, 7 almost 8 year old son.

We were in my bedroom, I was folding laundry and he came in asking about our ipad. I asked him where is say it last. He responded by saying "I saw it last on that thing, by the bears, pictures and yoda." I jerked my head up at what he said and asked "yoda?". I looked at where he was pointing and saw he was pointing to my dresser where two teddy bears sat, next to a frame with a couple of pictures and a statue of Buddha.

Late one night, I was watching Bizzare Foods and my son sat next to me as Andrew was about to take a bite out of a BLT (Bacon, Lettuce and Testicles). So I groaned "testicles?" and Cairo repeated "testicles?". I asked him, "Do you know what testicles are?" and he kinda thought about it for a second and say "oh yea, they are octopuses arms." I never laughed so hard in my life! I gave him a hug, kiss and told him I loved him. I of course explained the difference between testicles and tentacles at which point he covered himself up and asked "eww who would eat porrongas?!?!" "Porrongas" is the term grandpa has used to refer to man parts and it just stuck.

I really do love my little monkey boy. I don't know what my life would be like without him and I don't care to know.

OMG...I'm tired.

It's been a while since I've posted on this blog. I've actually been working on a 3rd blog :| I know, I know....I don't have time for the other two and now I've got a third. oh well...what can I do?

I've actually been really busy with work and home lately. The only times I've been able to blog about anything has been during my breaks at work but now I've gotten so busy at work that breaks are now as scarce as my time.

I've officially become a soccer mom! I signed up my son for soccer this summer. It's his first time playing the sport and he's ubber excited. We are about three weeks in and we're scheduled to go until the end of August. He's got practice 4 days a week and has a game every week, so that's 5 days a week of soccer!!

He had been signed up for baseball last summer but we quickly realized that was not for him. He was diagnosed with ADHD this spring and now we know why baseball was not working for us. Let me say, soccer has been amazing for him so far. He's a newbie, and you can tell but he's doing much better this summer. He has no time to get bored. In baseball he would literally play with the dirt, his mind would be elsewhere constantly, it was very frustrating. Now with soccer he is constantly on the run doing drills etc... I'm loving it...but I'm tired.

For the last week and a half, DH (dear hubby) has been out of town for work. He's not scheduled to come home for another week and a half....which means I'm on double duty. Now that my son  is on summer vacation, it's not as stressful buuuut....we...and by we I mean me...are on the go go go!

Weekdays are the craziest. We are up in the morning, I get us breakfast, prepare my lunch for work, get showered, get his soccer gear together and get us ready to get out the door. He gets dropped off at grandmas or aunties and I head to work. I get out at about 4:30-5pm, call ahead to make sure my son is changed into his soccer cloths. When I get to him I get his shin guards, socks and soccer shoes on him, get his stuff head out the door to get him to practice by 6pm. That's 4 days a week. Practice runs for 2 hours....yes...2 hours. It's not convenient for me to leave him there then go home....by the time I get home, I'd have to be on my way to pick him up again so I just wait for him. We get home by 8:30-9pm, he get's in the shower (very reluctantly every single time), I make him something light to eat...wash dishes from the morning and get him into bed hopefully before 10pm. This is 4 weekdays a week.

The other week day, is pretty much the same thing only we have therapy instead of soccer. Saturday, I try (and have miserably failed) to clean up the house and do laundry and Sunday we go grocery shopping, more laundry and soccer game. I have to admit, there have been some nice upsides to all this madness:

1. My monkey boy has something to do this summer that is good for him and he enjoys it.
2. I don't have to cook dinner every night and as a result have lost some weight :)
3. I exercise during soccer practice...I walk and I walk and I walk...which has contributed to the whole weight loss thing...double bonus!!

So yeah...I'm tired. I don't know how single working parents do it. I have a new found respect for them all, moms and dads.

Easter Cupcakes!!

This Easter we had dinner over at my parents house. I decided to make Easter cupcakes for dessert. I made about a dozen and a half of vanilla flavored cupcakes.

While they cooled I made a batch of green frosting. I don't make frosting from scratch...unless it's cream cheese frosting. It didn't take much to make green. I used Wiltons ready to use frosting, it's the one I like to use for decorating.

I didn't want make anything elaborate. If I had more time I would have done much more to these little guys, like add flowers or something but it was late and I wanted to go to bed so I said screw it....a nest with eggs should be good enough. So I made a simple "well" for the base of the nests.

Then I used the "grass/hair" tip to make the wells look "nesty" and added some peanut M&Ms.

I got a little silly and started adding grass with the left over frosting then just gave it a rest. They turned out pretty cute. My son loved them. They kinda looked like mountain top nests.

Stuffed Jalapeños...oh my

Not too long ago I went to a birthday party and the hosts cousin brought stuffed jalapeños. Gordos's cousin came over to where I was sitting with other family wives and handed a plate over with these ginormous jalapeños stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. I'll be honest I really didn't think I was going to like them, I'm not a fan of cream cheese filled peppers, but these suckers looked so good with that crispy bacon snugly hugging them that I could not refuse. I was amazed at how good they were, I mean the pepper was tender and cheese was soft and gooey and the bacon...oh the bacon just brought it all home! My only regret that day was to not have piled on a plate of those jalapeños and taken some home! I decided I'd take a crack at making them myself.

You start out with your basic 3 ingredients: cream cheese, bacon and jalapeños:

Cut open the jalapeños, clean out the seeds:

 It's about a tablespoon of cream cheese per pepper. Oh and please oh PLEASE wear some gloves if you're gonna try this. I made the mistake of not wearing any and OMG did my hands burn for hours...no kidding!!

Put the haves together and wrap some bacon around them:

Stick them in the oven at 350 degrees and wait for the bacon to crisp and the peppers to get soft:

They are ready to be eaten! My husband really liked these. I had never eaten jalapeños like this before. I would like to make them again soon....but I need to make sure I have gloves this time!!

Conchas Mexicanas

 Some time ago Gordo had a taste for pan dulce, conchas to be specific. We headed out to our local panaderia to get some and he was content....but then this image of conchas I had seen online had popped into my head. It was fuzzy at first but then yes, it all became clear...I remembered Leslie made conchas with Girlchef and I decided that I should give making conchas a try. I decided to use Girlchefs recipe for conchas first, depending on how my skills work out with these then I'll try Leslies They turned out pretty good, I must say.

I started with mixing the dough. At first it looked pretty crappy:

But then it looked pretty when I set up for the first rise:

The sugar topping came out nice. I didn't want to jinx myself so I left it all in one color:

Assembly was not so bad. I actually like doing it:

They were beautiful when they came out of the oven:

I will be trying to make these again. I really want to make them in a rainbow of colors :D