Burger Cupcake Idea

I needed a cute cupcake idea for my daughter’s bake sale at school and saw these “slider” cupcakes online – I decided to try my own.

Mine aren’t quite as professional-looking, mind you – but I think they turned out pretty cute:

The buns are vanilla cupcakes, the burgers are chocolate cupcakes, the ketchup and mustard are icing and the lettuce is colored coconut.

Will we win for originality?

A “Me” Day

Yesterday I had a chance to spend some time on myself – a rare thing for a working mother of three!

In the morning, I went to an exercise “bootcamp” with my friends Cheryl and Kim.  It was pretty intense, but surprisingly, after all the exercising I’ve been doing lately (I’ve lost 19 pounds now since Christmas), I kept up pretty well.  I was actually a little bit proud of myself – it’s nice to see my hard work pay off.  A few months ago, I NEVER would have been able to keep up with the class. 

And after the class yesterday, I decided to go do a little bit of shopping for some new work clothes.  I’m down 2 sizes now – yipee!  I went up into the attic a few weeks ago to find some of my smaller sized clothes and found that all I really had in that size were jeans – It seems that the last time I was this size, I was a stay-at-home mom and all I wore were very casual clothes.

But at least the jeans I found fit me – so I started wearing them to work. 

While my workplace is pretty casual, people starting commenting on the fact that I was wearing jeans every day – I blamed it on Mike.  He doesn’t see the point in spending money on clothes that I will (hopefully) not be wearing for very long as I continue to lose weight.

Speaking of work, I’m finding that people are starting to notice my weight loss.  And for some reason, it makes me extremely uncomfortable – not sure why.  I guess I don’t like to think that I’m the subject of conversations – I’d rather not be noticed at all, I suppose.  Mike thinks it’s a control issue – since I’m not present during the conversations, I can’t control where they go.  I may need to examine that a little further…

Anyway, I finally broke Mike down on the spending-money-on-smaller-sized-clothes issue and I went out in search of a few pairs of black pants to get me through the next few months.  After trying on MANY pairs of pants at Gap and Macy’s, I found the perfect pair – the new pants from Dana Buchman at Kohls.  They fit me so well, I bought two pair!  While the tops in her line are a bit too colorful (and a little too wide) for me, the pants seem to be made to actually fit a woman’s body – no gap at the waist, just the right amount of stretch…love ‘em!

So while I’m holding off in buying a whole new wardrobe, at least I have some jeans and black pants – what more can a girl want?  A new pair of shoes, maybe…

Back from Florida

The kids and I are back from our trip to sunny Florida – and have been welcomed back with a snow day!  I am SO not a winter person – I just don’t understand why anyone would enjoy being cold.  When the colonists decided to settle in America, why didn’t they go further south so they wouldn’t have had to worry about those severe winters anyway?

At least for a few days, we enjoyed some gorgeous weather and great company.  We stayed with my dear friend Linda, her husband Tom and their children Kylee and Zachary.  My kids were excited to be able to swim outside in February. 

And yes – I took all three kids to Florida by myself – Mike stayed home with the dogs.  Getting through security at the airport was interesting – we had to take out all of our electronics, remove our shoes and put all the bags, coats and liquids on the belt – not nearly as easy as it sounds.  With three of us, it was quite the project.  To make it easier on the way home, I pulled out all of the iPods, Gameboys, cameras and cell phones ahead of time – plus, we were able to go through the faster “employee” line after I showed my FAA badge (it doesn’t come with many perks, but that’s one of them).

This was Matt’s first time flying and I was afraid that with his AS, he might have an anxiety attack.  He did, at first, but I was able to distract him by letting him play on my laptop (something he is not normally allowed to do).  Mid-flight, he looked over and said, “I don’t even feel like I’m on a plane – I feel like I’m at home.”  I was happy he had a good flying experience on the way there, because on the way back, we flew through a front that caused some moderate turbulence during the ENTIRE flight (even I was stressed – FAA perks don’t help you there).  But he handled it okay – I told him it was just like going over bumps in the road.

While we were visiting, we spent a day at Epcot which was a GREAT choice for Matt (he doesn’t like rides at all) and the other kids as well.

Epcot was a great combination of hands-on science stuff and cultural displays which was perfect for the kids.  They also had a new scavenger hunt program using a Kim Possible theme.  You’re given a Kimmunicator (aka cell phone) that gives you clues and activates special features throughout the park – even Andrew thought it was really cool!

We also visited the beach while we were there:

I wish I would have pushed my hair out of my eyes for that photo!  And I’d also like to point out how tall my son Andrew is (although he was standing on a little sand dune).

The kids enjoyed staying with their friends and had so much fun playing and swimming – we also visited Linda’s friend Judi who was kind enough to warm her pool for our stay.  My kids were in the pool for hours – the last time they’ll be able to swim until Lake Kandle opens on Memorial Day weekend.

Oh – and we also attended a ‘Puppy Shower’ – the Brandons got a new Westie puppy after we left and the neighbors threw her a party to celebrate while we were there. It was actually really cute – there were games like ‘pass the rawhide’ and a little agility course for the kids to maneuver while acting as puppies.  Their new puppy Molly will join Geddy’s brother Buddy who was more than happy to attend the party:

It was so nice to be in the sunshine – even if only for a few days.  But now it’s back to reality – and about 8 inches of snow.  Even the FAA Technical Center is closed today – and no one can remember the last time that happened!

One more thing – I managed to stay on my diet and exercise plan (for the most part) while we were away and I’ve now lost a total of 18 pounds since the holidays.  Unfortunately, I’ve still got a long way to go (I was pretty discouraged after seeing the photos of myself), but at least I’m making progress…