Coconut Lime Cupcakes

This idea started because one day while running to the store for a few items, in the clerance section of the produce section (yes, I know how strange that sounds), I came across a giant bag of limes marked down to $1.  Normally these bad boys are like 2/$1, so I was pretty excited about it.  I didn't know what to do with them right away.  I was mulling over some ideas, when another day at the store there was a sale on fresh whole coconuts.  Knowing that my family never shies away from new fruits to try, I took one home.  Needless to say, no one likes raw coconut.  But Adam pulled the flesh out of the shell, grated it, and toasted it.  Now we are talking.  The lightbulb went off!  Aha, we have that giant bag of limes in there and a large bag of toasted coconut.  I should make cupcakes.  Now after doing a google search for such a recipe, I didn't really find just one that spoke to me.  So I combined 2!

I got the cupcake recipe here at In my tiny kitchen: (and yes, I'm just cutting and pasting)

 2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 stick butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
zest and juice from 1 lime (I think I put in 2)
1/2 cup plain yogurt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line muffins pans with liners.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a clean bowl.
3. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy - about 2 to 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time. Beat thoroughly in between.
4. Mix lime zest and juice into yogurt. Alternately stir in flour mixture and yogurt into the batter into 3 batches. Stir until well combined.
5. Drop into the prepared pan by tablespoon. Be careful not to fill more than half. The cake will rise a lot. Bake for 18 minutes. Rotate the pan half way through the baking time

     6.   Let cool in the pan for a minute then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Now the frosting I got from this blog, Eggshell Green:

• 3 Tbsp.  softened butter
• dash of vanilla extract
• Half jar of Marshmallow Fluff
• powdered sugar

To make frosting, whip the butter until light and fluffy using an electric beater. Add vanilla extract and Marshmallow Fluff and whisk well. Add about 1/4 cup sugar, and whisk again until well combined. Keep whisking in small amounts of sugar until you get a good fluffy frosting.


They turned out great.  I sent them to work with Adam, and heard back a lot of great feedback.  Everyone liked that they were nice and full of lime flavor, but not over the top with the coconut flavor.  I think these were a hit!

L is 4!

And my little boy turned 4 this month!  He is no longer a little boy, but a real boy.  This birthday has been harder on me than any of the others so far.  He came into this world in such chaos that it is hard to believe that most times he is so mellow.  L of course requested a blue dinosaur cake, so I had to comply ;-)  Since his birthday this year was also Father's day, we tried to sort of split the day in half.  Of course Adam was very happy to give his little boy what he wanted to do on his day.  He also started off the morning with a small stack of presents next to the couch.  He very sweetly "read" his Toy Story card to his sister.  (Daddy was most excited about picking out the cards for both kids)  He got his very own Adventure Book, a Yo Gabba Gabba block set, and this baseball/t ball set.   We headed over to the Leeper Art fair, which is sort of a tradition for us.  That started when we were stuck in the traffic on the way to the hospital to have D.  There was also a Pioneer Days going on in the park across the street.  Okay, that was super lame, and Adam and I spent most of the time explaining everything that was set up.  But then we headed back to the play ground.  L ran over to this giant old school metal slide before we could get to him.  Climbed up that ladder, and came flying down so quickly that he actually bounced when he landed on the ground at the bottom.  Not to be deterred, he kept going, and that became his favorite thing there that day, and insisted on having his picture taken at the top.

L picked McDonald's for his birthday lunch, and we treated the kids to Happy Meals.  They were in heaven!  After naps, we played outside with the new Sand and Water table we got from Pupsi, and then we busted out the new slip n' slide.  The only problem was that neither kid wanted to slip nor slide.  Leave it to Daddy to take the hint and show the kids proper technique!  We all took turns on it then.  Ended the day with grilled fresh green onion sausages, and cupcakes of course.

D is 3!

My little girl turned 3 this year!  I can't believe it.  It really doesn't seem like it has been that long.  Now if you don't know, my kids were due the same day a year apart.  Yes, Irish twins!  No it was not planned that way, and yes they are the same age for 4 days since the boy came late, and the girl came on time.  Every year we have 1 family/friends birthday party for the both of them, since their birthdays are actually the same week.  This year, L's birthday actually fell on Father's day, so we had the party the weekend before.  They really wanted some of their friends to come.  It was a small party, but tons of fun.  D picked a princess theme of course.  I attempted a different princess castle cake.  I'm not really happy with how it turned out, I feel that it is lacking something.  Oh well. 

On her actual birthday she woke up to find a small stack of presents waiting for her by the couch.  She was really happy to see a Toy Story card from mom and dad.  She got a Barbie fishing pole, a play guitar, a wooden doll car, and a My Little Pony.  On their birthday's we let them choose where they would like to have lunch and what they would like to do that day.  Adam took the whole week off for vacation so that we could do really fun family stuff all week.  We were able to go anywhere big, but did fun things around the house all week.  D picked going to the beach.  So we headed to Potato Creek State Park.  There we did swimming at the little beach and a little hiking.  There was even a playground for the kids to play on.  Since we were still at the beach for lunch we just grabbed food there. The kids and Adam napped in the car on the way home, and then we headed to the library by our house.  The kids got their very own library cards.  Boy were they happy about that!  D then picked a root beer stand close to home for dinner.  We topped off the day by celebrating at home with cupcakes.  I really hope she had a fantastic birthday.  I think she did!

Take me out.....

to the ball game!  The family and I have gone twice now this summer to our local baseball games.  It isn't anything awesome like going to Chicago and seeing the Cubs play, but much more affordable.  The stadium here has special Dollar Days on Monday home games. 
Tickets-$1
Hot Dogs-$1
Pepsi-$1
The kids under 5 are free, and that means only $2 for 2 adult bleacher seats.  We can go to the game, get 6 hot dogs, 3 bottles of pop, a big tub of popcorn, and a 26oz. beer all for $20!  You just can't beat that!  The first time we went, it was cold and rainy.  I think we stayed until the 5th inning.  The kids just loved it.  D actually cried the whole way home because we were leaving the game.  When we got home, there were 2 packages of baseball cards for the kids.  They were so excited about the cards and their tickets, they got their treasure boxes out to put them in for safe keeping.  Of course that lasted about a day until they started to fight over whose was whose.  Good old mom color coded the tops of the cards, that way we always know what cards belongs to whom.

We went again just this last Monday.  The weather was perfect to take in a ball game.  The sun was up, but not too sunny.  The weather was warm, but not scorching like it has been.  And a cool breeze was blowing in.  It was great too because some of our friends from the mom's group were able to go and sit near us.  One of the dads even caught one of the foul balls!  On our way to our seats, we even got to meet Cinderella.  Not sure why she was at the ball game, but whatever.  The kids were thrilled!  This time the weather was so nice we actually stayed until the end of the game.  And our team won!  Everyone was yelling and screaming with excitement, so we had the kids scream as loud as they could.  When else would we let them? 

It looks like we will be heading back again next month, only next time we will be hopefully bringing all of Adam's brothers with us.  That will be a blast!

The South Bend Silverhawks!

Handprint Flags

 Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted.  We have been super busy over here this last month.  We had both kid's birthdays, a party, vacation, too many really bad storms, cake class, mom's group stuff, and so much more.  I will try to play catch up over these next few days.  One thing I did come up with is a index card box that I am starting to keep all the fun craft ideas in.  If your like me, you will see a really neat craft someplace, whether that be a website, blog, or magazine, and then I totally forget about it.  I figure this way, I can write it down right away, along with the supplies and directions.  When I'm stumped for a craft idea, because my kids wake up asking for one almost everyday, I can just scan through my box of ideas.  

While searching for fun ideas to add to my box, and looking for a kid friendly fourth of July craft, I came across this one on Muffin Tin Mom.  I can't say enough how much I LOVE this site!!  So many great ideas.  If you haven't checked it out yet, you must!

Supply List:

Red, white, and blue paint  (We used the crayola kids washable paint, and just plain acrylic)

brushes (again, we like the big foam ones you can get cheap at Michaels)

blue construction paper

large popsicle sticks

glue sticks

star stickers

ribbons

hole puncher

and of course wet wipes or a washcloth to clean the little hands up with

This was super easy and fun!  Both kids have been asking to do something with paint for about 2 weeks now after we painted their feet and made Father's day crafts.

Paint the palm blue, and each finger (other than the thumb) red and white.  Place the painted hand on the paper.  And let dry.  We did this on Monday and let them dry overnight.  

Add your star stickers to the blue palm part.  Have the kids glue the paper to the stick, and punch a hole in the top.  Slip through the ribbons and tie in a knot.  I did trim the paper before we glued them to the stick.  Tons of fun!  Now the kids have a fun gift to give grandma on her birthday, which is of course the Fourth of July!