Cupcakes and Commentary |

Five new things for our Disney trip

September 19, 2018 No Comments

We’ve learned a few things over our past two trips to Disney, so I thought I’d share five new things that we are either bringing on our next trip!

First up is new raincoats for the boys. Their raincoats from the last trip worked fine, but they complained about how sticky they were with the humidity, so I’ve purchased some sturdier coats that still fold up well.

Second, is Teva sandals. On our past two trips they’ve worn closed toe shoes, like these, but now that they are older, they wanted to wear flip flops, and Teva sandals were our compromise.

Third, is Disney gift cards. If you have a Target Card you can get Disney gift cards at a five percent discount. This means a set limit for souvenirs for the boys and hopefully a lot less complaining.

Fourth, is new cushioned flip flops for me because I wore out the soles on my old reef flip flops on our last trip:

Fifth, is AT LEAST four extra outfits for each person beyond outfits for everyday. There are some days that it is so hot, or you get soaked on a ride that you need to change back at the hotel. Both of our previous trips I have run out of clothes for everyone by the end of the trip.

This day was the hottest day of any of the trips we’ve been on. We went back to the hotel, changed, and went back out on this day.

And that’s our top five new things we’re bringing to Disney this year! We’re counting down the weeks!!

Favorite Recipes

Red wine marinated steak salad

September 18, 2018 No Comments

This is our quintessential it’s almost fall, but still feels like summer meal. A grilled flank steak, marinated all day, combined with roasted sweet potatoes, on top of fresh leafy greens takes us from summer to fall.

So the first thing your going to do is make your marinade. We use this recipe. I typically put the steak in the marinade in the morning before work, so it’s ready when we all get home.

The other ingredients (besides flank steak) you’ll need are:

Green leaf lettuce

Two sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

4 oz shredded cheddar cheese

1 tomato, diced

Olive oil

Balsamic glaze *optional

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roast sweet potatoes (drizzled with a bit of olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper) for forty minutes. Meanwhile, grill the steak for about 5-6 minutes per side (depending on the thickness of the steak), until preferred doneness (we aim for about 155 in the middle). Top green leafy lettuce with tomatoes, steak, sweet potatoes, cheese, and a drizzle of balsamic. Enjoy!!

Family Style, How was your weekend?, Mini Cupcakes, Philosophical Cupcakes, Traveling Disney Style

This and that

September 17, 2018 No Comments

I would love to say everyone on our house is on the mend, but I’m really afraid of jinxing it at this point, so I’m just going to say nothing and continue on with some happenings around here.

First up, B and I are officially the same age again:

We didn’t celebrate like we had intended since A caught J’s croup by the end of the week, but the four of us had fun nonetheless:

I made Halloween candied popcorn, mainly so we could drown our Auburn loss sorrows in it…ha!

I can’t say enough how much I love my work. In part because my hybrid courses have given me the flexibility to join the boys on field trips that aren’t on Fridays. I went with J’s class to learn about animals and plants:

And we saw a goat that was the GOAT:

I went to pick up some items from Target and came upon this:

The only time a Target worker hasn’t asked if I need help with anything.

And the boys got to have donuts with Granna that they were very excited about:

The boys love that Granna teaches at their school and so do we!

Lastly, our final countdown to Disney is on now that our magic bands arrived:

I’m so ready for this trip!! We are praying for everyone to be healthy and for good weather!!

Gardening, How was your weekend?, Mini Cupcakes, Seriously. Fashion. Love.

This and that

September 10, 2018 No Comments

Okay the sickness in our house needs to go away. Stat! I’m currently running around like:

As soon as one person gets well, somebody else gets sick. So I’ve been cleaning everything and then cleaning it all again, and then saying a whole bunch of prayers that this week we are officially on the mend.

In between all that, J had a soccer scrimmage:

We harvested hydroponic basil that is literally the size of your fist:

This is my new favorite hat:

The hat is Codeword hats and the donate a percentage of their profits to children’s hospitals in that area code.

And despite the fact that it’s still 90 plus degrees I’ve been doing some fall online shopping and picked up this top from Nordstrom:

And finally the boys are obsessed with battlebots, so I already started Christmas shopping:

It’s never too early, right? Ha!

Friday Favorites

September 7, 2018 No Comments

How is it that a long weekend makes the week feel too long? It’s almost like we had too much recovery time and now we can’t handle it, ha! This weekend we are having dinner with friends, soccer practice, Cub Scouts, and hopefully also get the boys’ piano lessons in as well. And sleeping in! I mean for us, sleeping in is 7:30 a.m., but I’ll take it!

These hammered leaf prints would be a lovely fall craft.

Destination Hawaii.

The Secret Lives of Color.

Chilled dough makes the best chocolate chip cookies.

“Lies, all lies!”

Cinnamon raisin bagels.

Sweatshirt I’m adding to my Christmas list. For that one week it’ll be cold here.

We learned the hard way last year that fall tasks are important.

Romantic and flannel = two things that don’t seem to work, but do.

Sheet pan chicken, with a bonus recipe!

Lovely light filled house.

Favorite Recipes

Salmon with tomato relish

September 4, 2018 No Comments

This recipe starts with, I went to Costco this weekend and bought all the meat. Then I came home and spent a good hour with our food saver getting it all ready to go in the freezer. I bought ground beef, ground bison, rotisserie chicken, pork tenderloin, flank steak, sirloin steak, and salmon. I also bought a big package of peppers and diced or sliced them and used the food saver with them as well…

With all of this we have at least several months worth of meat. In addition, because Costco typically provides larger portions, many of these meals (tacos, roast tenderloin, chili, etc.) I will then freeze the leftovers for an additional meal (or two!). So for our first meal I made a salmon fillet (I purchased their one with butter in the cold food section and froze each fillet individually) with one freezer pepper package, and fresh cherry tomatoes (brought over by our neighbor!).

So I defrosted the salmon overnight first. Then I started by sautéing the peppers in just a little olive oil (from frozen, no need to thaw) on medium heat for about 3 minutes:

Then I added the salmon:

And put a lid on it (and cooked for about five minutes), then I took the lid off, flipped the salmon, added the cherry tomatoes and cooked it for an additional five minutes (or until done):

I also cooked up this rice:

It is not as good as the rice B makes, but it’s decent and works well in a pinch.

I made the entire dish (start to finish) in less than twenty minutes:

After the salmon was done, I took it out of the pan to rest then quickly sautéed the veggies on medium high heat just a minute more with a few dashes of balsamic vinegar. And that’s it! So simple, and tasty.

Friday Favorites

August 31, 2018 No Comments

It’s a boiling 100 heat index here, friends….somebody send Fall, stat! Oh, and I turned 36 this week, so there’s that.

The new Mary Poppins books’ illustrator is my current favorite Instagram.

Loving the video of Magnolia getting set-up for Fall.

The flats I want for Fall (I’m noticing a theme starting).

A and I both read Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and really enjoyed it!

Currently searching for pens for my new square Moleskin journal.

The five minute make-up tutorial that I’m currently watching.

You do not have to be perfect. Current mantra on repeat.

Say it ain’t soho reminds me of one of my favorite polishes from high school, and since they’re bringing everything 90s back, I might as well jump in!

Something to make with our home grown tomatoes.

And finally, color. My boys would love this!

Learning with A & J, Seriously Crafty Treats

Current favorite art supplies

August 28, 2018 No Comments

The boys go through cycles of art interest. Sometimes they are doing many projects, writing books, drawing pictures, etc. and then other times things are in a bit of a holding pattern. I keep quite a few supplies on hand, so the boys have items whenever they decide they need to draw, color, or write a story. I thought I’d share some of our current favorite supplies:

My on going struggle is where to store everything so they can easily get to it, but it’s not sitting out all the time. I typically store it all in our kitchen hutch, but my dream is to have an area of the house where all of this can be out and they can leave projects out while they work on them.

How was your weekend?, Seriously. Fashion. Love.

Treat yo self Saturday

August 27, 2018 No Comments

Since my birthday is just around the corner, my Mom, sister, and I headed out for Treat Yo Self Saturday, one of my very favorite days of the year. We shopped around our downtown and local stores this year and my favorite finds were re-stocks on some of my favorites from Sweet Pineapple and a 334 hat from Scout and Molly’s.

In addition to those finds Anthropologie was having a huge online sale (and I think still is…maybe?) and I bought five tops to refresh for end of summer and beginning of Fall (because realistically it’ll be summer here until mid-October).

I kept all of the tops except the polka dot one, it was way too small. I mean WAY too small. So I’ve got that on my return list, but the rest were keepers! I wore the one on the far left for our Saturday outing. Our downtown is gorgeous to walk around right now too! Lots of butterflies: