Here is my recipe for Cinnabon Fakes Cupcakes. Finally!

Cake
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter-room temp.
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
2 tspns baking powder
1/4 tspn. salt
3 eggs & 1 egg white
3/4 cup milk
2 tspns vanilla extract

Cinnamon Mixture: 4 tblspns sugar, 3 tspns cinnamom, 2 tblspns butter. Mix with a fork until you make a crumby, coarse mixture. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a mixer, beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy. While that's beating sift together the dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl combine eggs, milk, and vanilla. Mix with a fork.
Once butter/sugar mixture is light and fluffy add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter/sugar. Mix on slow speed. Add 1/2 the wet ingredient mixture. Alternate until all of the ingredients are incorporated. Do not over mix.
Line cupcake pan with liners and fill 2/3 full with batter. Sprinkle cinnamon mixture on top of the batter. It will sink in during baking. Bake for 10-12 min at 350 degrees. Let cool.

Frosting

8oz. package of cream cheese-room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter-room temperature
4 cups powdered sugar
2 tspns vanilla
1/2 tspn lemon juice
1 tblspn milk

Beat the cream cheese and butter together until thoroughly mixed. Add sugar one cup at a time. Mix well after each cup. Add milk and mix. Beat on high for 12 minutes.* This is very important because we want air in this to make it really fluffy. Trust me on this. After about 10 min add vanilla and lemon juice and mix for another 2 or 3 min.
Frost cooled cupcakes and sprinkle a little cinnamon on top. YUM!

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She is Apathetic no more!
I managed to procure Christmas cards and put them in the mail. I got some shopping done and wrestled with myself over feelings of guilt about not being able to get everyone something. I won! No guilt. C'est la Vie. You cannot get blood from a turnip. lol
On Saturday we FINALLY got ourselves a tree and spent the next 3 hours decorating, rearranging furniture and vacuuming under said moved furniture for the first time in 2 years. Haha. Just kidding. But not. I just wish I hadn't STARTED at 9pm as I didn't get to bed until 1AM. New wrinkles have now found a home underneath my eyes and plan on staying for quite some time. Christmas brings it's own set of presents for me apparently!
On Sunday I got it into my head that the kitchen just wasn't nearly as destroyed as I thought it should be so I decided to whip up some cupcakes. White cake with an Eggnog Italian Buttercream sprinkled with freshly grated nutmeg, and a chocolate cake with Peppermint Italian buttercream sprinkled with candy cane bits. HEAVEN!
After a self-induced sugar coma I dragged myself to grandma's house to clean and ready it for our relatives. Am so tired.
I took a bunch of pics of our holiday merriment. You will become witness to the humiliation we impose on our cats for our amusement.

This one was not of our doing. This is what you walk into in our house sometimes. lol Or as I titled it. " I can drink a cat under the ru.....I Win! "


Kisses!

Mas besos!





Chaos!








yes those are totally Reeses pieces from Halloween. Haha. Use what ya have.

SOOOOOO GOOD!



I just want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope Christmas finds you happy and content and in the company of those who love you the most.

* For those of you asking for my Cinnabon Fakes Cupcakes recipe, I will be posting that recipe tomorrow. I'm sorry I've dragged my feet on that. It will be here before ya know it! *

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With relatives from California flying in on Friday for the holidays I have been busy at my grandmother's house cleaning out the spare room so people can actually habitate. My grandmother moved here in May and threw a lot of boxes in here to make room until such time that she could go through them all. We don't really have time to go through them all right now, but we manages to open a few of them to see if there was anything pertinent we needed. I found nothing pertinent, but I DID find a lot of funny and/or cool things. Such as....

A Pet Rock circa 1975. Nuh-hice!


I never had one of these and I can only imagine people bought these as gag gifts because....a rock? Really?? The thing that cracks me up is that she KEPT it!!

I pity the fool!!!!
Seriously, how cool is this? I loved Mr. T in the 80s.

Who could forget The "Fonz"
This one has genuine thumbs up action! lol She plans on selling these and many more on Ebay. I kind of want them. Am I weird? lol

This last thing just confused me. It's hideous for one, no confusion about that, but who did she buy it for?? That better not be my christmas gift. Haha.


I had to tell my mom.

" Mom! Come here and look at this!" I say quietly

" What is it? It's awful.", she says with a look of bewilderment on her face.

" Oh you're telling me! Haha Why does she buy this crap?", I say laughing.

Just then my grandmother walks down the hallway and appears at the door. My mom grabs the bag and shows it to her.

"What is this Mom?" my mom says holding the bag up.

"It's a bling." my grandmother says matter-of-factly.

" A WHAT??" I say sounding surprised and amused.

" You know. What all the girls buy. A bag or a purse. A bling bling." she says exasperatedly

This is when I started laughing.
My mom then says, " Oh thank God. I thought you bought yourself a sequined halter top."

And that's when I lost it completely.

Generation gap understanding of slang= FAIL

I'm still laughing.

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Since becoming a parent I have always been searching for ways to effectively communicate with my child so that we had a solid foundation of respect and mutual understanding of each other. I have come to find out even more how important it is to be able to talk to your child especially as they get older.
Since Colin was diagnosed with ADHD last year I have become even more aware of this need to communicate in ways that would work better for him. One of these ways was in notes. I figured if I wrote it down he would have a tangible reminder of things he needed to do or know. I would write down his chores, remind him of appointments, and even tell him I love him, because who doesn't love to see it in writing? As a result of this Colin has taken this and run with it. He now writes his own notes to me. FOR ANYTHING.

This note he wrote and stuck on the bathroom door. It says, " OFF LIMITS! DO NOT GO IN! IMPORTANT BUSINESS BEING DONE. THIS MEANS YOU MOM A.K.A. MC LEESH." And he drew a little stick figure on the toilet. Nice. Classy. Effective. Hilarious.



This next one came about because I told him to find the yellow envelope for a birthday card. He starts a conversation on it and then gives me a follow up note on the progress. lol


This note was on my desk this morning. To charge his MP3 player and look at pictures of the cat he took. AT 6AM this morning.


This kid is sometimes so cute I want to eat him up and crush him with hugs and chap his skin with kisses. He makes me laugh and makes me realize that maybe I'm not doing as bad of a job raising him as I thought. lol
*Post script* He left the milk out of the fridge all night.*sigh* I'm writing him a note!

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I've been a procrastinator my whole life. I think even at a tender age I was like, "no, I will clean up those toys LATER." "I do my best work under pressure!" I'm a mess. lol Lately though I have been trying to take small steps to change that attitude. One of the big problems with me is dinner. I hardly ever plan and mostly just pick something to make 10 min. before. This inevitably means that the microwave is the main method of cooking. Ok, Ok...re-heating. I do try to make it healthy though like steaming plenty of green vegetables and stuff. That way the guilt is lessened. Oh the guilt!
Yesterday afternoon I was reading a feed on my google reader and found an easy peasy recipe for Bolognese sauce. It didn't have very many ingredients. All it needed was a lengthy time to cook. I figured I could just make it while I made dinner and then refrigerate it until tomorrow then all I would have to do is boil pasta and heat the sauce. Actual homecooking, made in ADVANCE! Wow!
So tonight....Penne Bolognese with garlic bread and a salad. I'm so excited. I planned and cooked ahead! Progress. So while that is heating I will make Albondigas soup at my leisure and just refrigerate for the next evening. I figure if I just do that more often, like maybe cook 3-4 nights a week in advance, I have dinner for the next night and then we can just eat leftovers the rest of the week. Finally! I'm getting it. Plan ahead Felicia! Life will be easier! Life will be filled with more time to read and do fun stuff like... laundry! Oh yeah...the laundry. That's next.

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2008/12/rigatoni_bologn.html

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Turkey for me
Turkey for you
Let's eat the turkey
In my big brown shoe
Love to eat the turkey
At the table
I once saw a movie
With Betty Grable
Eat that turkey
All night long
Fifty million Elvis fans
Can't be wrong
Turkey lurkey doo and
Turkey lurkey dap
I eat that turkey
Then I take a nap
-Adam Sandler-The Thanksgiving Song

I'd like to change the last line to " Turkey lurkey doo and turkey lurley lick. I eat that turkey then I get real sick." Oh cuz I so did.

Thanksgiving 2008 will go down in my history as a bonafide suckfest. Oh we had all the trimmings and everything seemed great, but trouble was afoot.

Since this was my grandmother's first Thanksgiving in Alabama in her new home we were all excited to head over there and spend the holiday weekend reminiscing on past holidays, mourn and fondly remember our family member who died 2 weeks ago, and enjoy some good family cooking.
I was in charge of the green bean casserole,sweet potato casserole, cranberry mandarin orange sauce, and the rolls. I got ambitious too. I made the rolls from SCRATCH. With YEAST. Oh yeah...go me! I was rockin' the home cookin y'all! By 2pm we headed over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house. Ok...so there's no river, but there IS a creek and technically some woods. We arrived to a very sick grandmother who was not feeling the spirit of Thanksgiving. No, she was feeling the spirit of Nyquil. God Bless. So my mom and I prepared most of the rest of the stuff while she took a little pre-turkey nap. The turkey was already cooking and the pies were baked, meringueless lemon and pumpkin. My mouth was watering.
An hour before it was time to eat my grandmother gets up and gimps into the kitchen and proceeds to unleash a torrent of grumpiness on us. FUN! She got upset because the stuffing she made was too wet and my mom tried to help her. It became what I like to refer to as a "savory bread pudding". Um...pass, but you must not offend so you say, "Yum grandma! Looks good!"She also proceeded to get onto Colin about god knows what...maybe being a kid.
By the time we sat down I had already had a bloody mary, 2 glasses of wine and coffee with Bailey's. Escape much this holiday? haha. I ate with total abandon even though I wasn't really hungry. Big mistake. I felt like the turkey. Stuffed and cooked. I was officially done with Thanksgiving. An hour later I couldn't take anymore and said my goodbyes as the evening was only getting worse. I left with promises of returning the next evening for leftovers.


The next day I woke up not feeling well, but pushed it aside and went to work. I wasn't really hungry and didn't eat all day. By the time we got to my grandmother's house it was after 5pm. She was feeling much better. I was not. We finally ate around 7pm and ended up looking over old family photos that had been "lost" for 14 years. Around 9 I started to feel like I was breaking out in a cold sweat and things quickly went down hill. I said goodbye and practically ran out the door and raced home. I spent the next 7 hrs becoming very intimate with the porcelain god. *I love you...call me.* I didn't get to sleep until 5am. And the next 2 days were a blur.
I feel better now if somewhat weak. My grandmother called to see if I wanted to come over for leftovers again. Again...pass. I have no craving whatsoever for turkey or anything that goes with it. Although bonus...nothing like a stomach virus to kick start a diet.
One of the big plus sides was that Rick entertained me throughout and made me feel heaps better...and still managed to find me attractive despite my pale, sickly appearance. You have to love a man who can do that.

I hope you all had a wonderful and much better Thanksgiving than I did.

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