Summer is a tricky season, isn’t it?


I wanna love it, I really do. I remember how much I loved summer as a kid. Summer used to mean rainbow sno-cones and riding my bike to my friends house to sleepover…and walking to the pool to spend the day.

Those were the days.


Now, Summer = bored kids……bored kids = crazy mom

Not such a good thing. Not when you’re the crazy mom, anyways.


And it isn’t like when I was a kid and we’d walk miles in the heat just to get to a gas station and buy a handful of Tootsie Rolls. Kids don’t want to do stuff like that anymore. Not that I’d let them anyways. Someone might see them and call the parent police on me. 

That’s how it is nowadays.

So, I’ve found other ways to combat the madness and boredom–I drive the kids crazy right back. I realize that this falls under the whole “two wrongs don’t make a right” category, but it sure is more entertaining than any other options available to me. Also, it allows me to let out some of my pent up madness.  If my husband came home and saw me looking at him with the crazy eye, he might run away. 

And I need his help.


There are several methods one can use in driving their children to madness. Here are a few of my favorites:


Pretending that you think your kid is a zombie. This really only works on my 5 year old son, but that’s just fine. It goes something like this:
Son: Hey Mom
Me: You don’t sound like yourself, you sound zombieish
Son: Okay……
Me: What’s up with your eyes? You’re freaking me out. You’re a zombie, aren’t you?? Where is my son??
Son: Mom, it’s just me…I was just gonna ask you for a Fruit Roll Up
Me: You ARE a zombie, I KNEW IT!! Everyone knows that zombies need fruit rolls ups for energy. Where is my son?? Stay away from my Fruit Roll Ups!!!
Son: Uhhh…(looks at himself) do I look weird?
Me: You KNOW what you are!!

**Keep in mind that in order for this to really work, you have to keep your voice and facial expressions very serious. A half hour of this, and my son is half crazy between trying to convince me that he is not a zombie, and actually starting to wonder himself.


Getting all up in their grill. This works best with kids over ten.  If I get up in my little boy’s grill, he will just get excited and grab a blanket, thinking I want to snuggle. My stepdaughter though, gets super paranoid. I’ll follow her around, sit on her bed, ask her what she’s watching, who she’s talking to, why, why, why, why… sometimes I even stick my face against the crack of her bedroom door and ask what she’s doing. “Are you getting dressed..?? What’s taking soooo loooonnng? Can I come in yet???” You know, basically all the stuff they’ve done to us every day of their lives. Only, I’ve found that it drives them much crazier.

They just don’t have our kind of patience.


Reverse psychology. An oldie, but still a goodie for a reason….it works!!! When I really, really want the kids to go outside, I come up with a big list of stuff we need to get done around the house. Magically, the kids are just DYING to go outside. And because they think it was their idea, they play outside happily, congratulating each other on getting out of housework.


They think they are so dang smart.

I refuse to be one of those crazy moms…the ones who have been driven to madness…who are so mentally exhausted that they just submit to their children and walk around in a haze saying yes to everything that is asked of them. And the good news is that a crazy kid basically works the same way. Better them than me, I always say.

It’s a tough world…I’m just doing what I’ve gotta do to survive.

The other day I decided to make a cupcake that captured the good things about summer. Things like ice cream. When I was a kid, nothing was better in the summer than a dipped cone or a Blizzard from Dairy Queen. So why not make a yummy Dipped Blizzard cupcake??

I decided to make two different cupcakes, both with a yellow cake base. One one, I piped peanut butter frosting, dipped in chocolate shell, and sprinkled with crushed Butterfinger. On the other, I piped plain vanilla buttercream, dipped in chocolate shell and sprinkled with M&M’s. Both were completely yummy but I’d have to lean more towards the Butterfinger one. 

INGREDIENTS:

Cupcakes: (From Hello, Cupcake)
1 box (18.25 oz) yellow cake mix
1 cup buttermilk
vegetable oil called for on box
4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 and line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

Put cake mix, buttermilk, oil and 4 eggs in a bowl and blend with an electric mixer on low speed, about 30 seconds. Increase mixer speed to high and beat for 2 minutes, scraping bowl as needed.


Fill paper liners 2/3 full with batter and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Remove cupcakes from pans and allow to cool on a wire rack.


Buttercream Frosting:
2 sticks of butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
3-4 tablespoons of milk
4 cups powdered sugar
About a cup or more creamy peanut butter 
Corn syrup

Beat butter, milk and vanilla on low speed until well blended. Add powdered sugar and beat on medium for about 3 minutes. Add enough corn syrup to achieve desired consistency and beat about 2 minutes, adding more syrup as needed. Stir in peanut butter, adding at least a cup or more to taste. If frosting is too thick, beat in a bit more corn syrup.


Frost cupcakes or pipe frosting on with a large piping tip. Place cupcakes in the freezer, as the frosting needs to be cold in order for the chocolate shell to harden. Leave cupcakes in freezer for only about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare chocolate shell.


Chocolate Shell (adapted from Little Cakes from the Whimsical Bakehouse):
6 regular sized Hershey milk chocolate bars, broken into pieces
1 cup vegetable shortening


Combine chocolate and shortening in a glass bowl and microwave, stirring at 30 second intervals, until completely melted, about 2 minutes total. Whisk well to combine.


The chocolate mixture needs to be warm and your frosting needs to be cold in order for this to work properly. Take your cupcakes, two at a time, out of the freezer and dip upside down in the chocolate shell, making sure to only dip the frosting part. Allow the excess to drip off, the set cupcake down and sprinkle with desired topping. Set finished cupcakes in the refrigerator to finish setting up, and remove two more from freezer. Repeat process until all are finished. You may need to microwave your chocolate for a few seconds and give it a whisk every now and again.

These cupcakes were so easy and the results were mad crazy wonderfulness. Who wouldn’t want to bite into one of these?

Ummm…hello…delicious much?


These cupcakes make all the wrongs of the world right again…try them and see!!!


**I’m linking these at Hoosier Homemade’s Cupcake Tuesday..go over and check it out!!**

Happy Tuesday!!!

Do you ever look back on your childhood and get embarrassed at what an idiot dork you were?

Don’t even try to say you don’t. 

Liars are not allowed on this blog.

My stepdaughter is here for the summer and she is currently obsessed with Silly Bandz bracelets. I had never heard of them, but apparently they are these rubber bracelets that turn into different shapes when laid flat. You buy a package and wear all of them in a big bunch on your arm.
   
I did a little research online and it turns out that these things are like, all the rage right now.

I even had to stop at Hallmark so she could whack out twenty of her hard earned dollars on four packs of those suckers. And then proceed to oohh and ahh absentmindedly as she showed me the shape of EVERY. SINGLE. BRACELET.

And I’m thinking to myself, “how goofy is this….they are rubber bracelets for crying out loud…” and then I remembered back to when I was about twelve. 

Two words: Friendship Bracelets 


My friends and I were obsessed with making friendship bracelets. All we ever wanted to do was earn money for the embroidery floss to make them, and then get a ride to the craft store to buy it. We’d get all excited about different color combinations and tie the bracelets to our headboards so we could sit and tie dozens of knots.

I would take orders for bracelets from other kids during class and be all “yeah, I made this last night in like, an hour….I can do like five in a day” and I’d get out my little notebook all professional and take down the details.


It was serious business.


Sometimes I’d even throw in something like, “Well, if you order three, I’ll give you a fourth for free…” or “Hmmmmm…well…it might be about three days on this one, I have a ton of other orders”.

I cringe. 

Who the crap did I think I was? The Alex P. Keaton of string bracelets? 


Apparently so.


But at least in my day, we had to MAKE our bracelets. By hand. Straight up Little House on the Prairie style.


So I make peace with the fact that I may have been a dork. But I worked hard at it.

Nowadays, I work hard at other things. Like baking muffins. And because it is almost officially summer, lemon muffins sounded mighty nice. 


Adapted from: Taste of Home April & May 2008


INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice


Streusel:
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cold butter


Glaze:
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice


Preheat oven to 350. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with liners.


In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, sour cream, butter, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Stir into the dry ingredients until just moistened. Fill muffin cups three fourths full.


In a small bowl, combine flour and sugar; cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over batter.


Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks. In a small bowl, whisk glaze ingredients; drizzle over warm muffins.


These muffins were sugary, lemony, and delicious!! Even my picky husband loved them. And he is picky.


I could give you a list of all the foods he hates, but I don’t have that kind of time.


So make these muffins for your dorky kids…and eat a few yourself while your at it!!!


Happy Monday!!