My little guy wanted a super hero cake and cupcakes for his birthday. I decided to try and use fondant for the first time. My husband hates the taste of fondant, so I decided to learn how to make marshmallow fondant. It's actually pretty tasty! It was a devil to work with though.  Next time I will make it firmer. As for the cupcakes, I cheated and bought one of those piping tools that holds three bags at a time. It's amazing and I love it. 

Please forgive the combination of Marvel and DC. I know it's a no-no. 

Kid eats sauce packet from lunchable

Oscillating fan bothers kid while he draws

Kid doesn't know how to "smile" for the camera

Cookies N' Cream Pizookie

As I mentioned in my previous post, I love sugar, which means I love junk food. I'm trying to cut back, but it's a work in progress. SO... until then, here's a deliciousness that took me forever to find.

My sister and I love to go to BJ's restaurant every once in a while, particularly on her birthday or mine. Every time we go, we order a cookies n' cream pizookie (pizza cookie). They are delicious, and it's her favorite one (mine as well. I've tried the others and they just aren't as good). We go there just for those, basically. We even order the darn thing before we order our food. We also eat it before we eat our meal.

So, since we love them so much, I decided to get my sister (a.k.a. Clara) a pizookie pan for Christmas. The down side? The cookie dough that came with it sucked big time. I decided I wasn't going to let my $5 go to waste, so I had to find the coveted recipe. It took a couple of months, but we finally found it and tried it out last night. It was....perfect. I tried to pin the recipe, but there are no pictures of the darn thing on the forum where I found the recipe, so I'm posting it here on my blog. I will also attach a link to the forum so as to give the original author (so far as I know) due credit.

Also, please note that I baked a single serving size at a time. I decided that baking it per the instructions below would be overkill. So I now have a turd load of cookies n' cream cookie dough in my fridge to be periodically consumed....after I bake it......maybe.....

Yes yes, you're welcome.
 
Cookies 'N Cream Pizookie


A rich chocolate cookie featuring the unforgettable taste of OREO® cookies. Topped with 3 scoops of vanilla bean ice cream and a dollop of creamy mousse - it's amazing!

-8 servings

Pizookie
2 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter
1-1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup corn syrup
3 ounces chocolate (3 squares) melted and cooled (Bonnie used milk chocolate)
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 ounces milk chocolate chunks (Bonnie used semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Chocolate Mousse
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
1 tablespoon cold water2 tablespoons boiling water
1/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup powdered sugar

To Top Pizookie:
3 scoops Vanilla Bean
Ice Cream
Hot Fudge Sauce


Preheat oven to 350°.

Prepare (2) 8 inch round cake pans. In a small bowl combine flour, baking
soda, salt, and cocoa; set aside.

With an electric mixer cream sugar and butter until light. Add egg and mix
until light and fluffy. Mix in corn syrup chocolate and vanilla.

Blend in flour mixture on low speed until just combined.

Fold in the chopped milk chocolate. Spread the dough onto the prepared cake rounds.

Bake for 16 to 20 minutes. Cool on the cookie sheet 2-3 minutes.

Chocolate mousse: Sprinkle gelatin over cold water to soften. Add boiling
water, stir until gelatin is completely dissolved. Mixture will be clear.

Stir together cocoa and sugar in small bowl. Add cream and beat at medium
speed until stiff peaks form, add vanilla. Pour in softened gelatin mixture
and beat until well blended. Chill 1 hour.

Assemble Pizookie: Top cookie with 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream, hot fudge,
and a large dollop of chocolate mousse.

http://www.recipesecrets.net/forums/recipe-exchange/30205-cookies-n-cream-pizookie.html

Self Control, Anyone?

As most of you know, I just had my second boy one month ago. My first was born almost a year and a half ago. Before I had my first child (let's call him "Alex") I was five-foot-four and weighed 105 pounds. I could eat anything I wanted to and didn't have to suffer the consequences. I couldn't gain weight if I tried. I know this, because I actually did try just to see if I could. I would look at billboards of sexy, flat-bellied models and could honestly say to myself, "I look just like that." I loved my figure, and quite honestly liked to flaunt it at times.

Then....I got married and ended up pregnant with my first child. This was great! It was what I always wanted; a husband and children. However, that meant losing my slender figure.

During my first pregnancy, I had a lot of self-damning views of myself. I thought I was wholly unattractive (because I was) despite the constant flow of sincere complimens from my adoring husband. I refused to exercise and eat properly, and therefore gained forty pounds. How was I supposed to feel sexy after gaining that much weight? However, after Alex was born, I lost almost all of my pregnancy weight within the first two weeks, save five pounds. I was determined to lose that five pounds and worked at it constantly. However, eight months later I was pregnant again. Oops..time to start over...again....dang it.....

So, this time around I walked five days a week for most of my pregnancy and felt great in many ways, one of them being my self-esteem. I still felt a bit like a heifer, but I was a sexy heifer, doggone it! I gained ten or so pounds less than last time! Again, after my second child was born (we'll call him "Charlie") I lost most of the baby weight within two weeks, save five pounds more than my pre-pregnancy weight.

So, two babies later, here I am with love handles and ten to fifteen pounds (depending in the day) heavier than I've ever been in my life (boo hoo). I made a resolve to lose that ten pounds, and by golly, I'm gonna do it! I can't just be grateful that I almost instantly lost most of the weight I gained. I just HAVE to lose it ALL, because I'm ungrateful and unrealistic like that.

Yeah right. Hey, squishy version of Bonnie, get used to it. Because, quite honestly, you and I both know that your sweet tooth really gets in the way. I sit and wonder to myself as I browse the junk food boards on Pinterest, "Why can't I lose that ten pounds. Even five would be great for now. Is that too much to ask? Ooooh, that looks delicious! Definitely making THAT one later. *repin*"

So, long story in a nutshell, I have NO idea what's more important to me; feeling sexy, or eating delicious food whenever I want to. I definitely enjoy both, and I used to be able to enjoy both at the same time. However, justice is cruel and finally came back to bite me in the hiney, and I'm mentally unable to adjust. So, I am daily in this little fantasy world that I can eat whatever I want and do minimal exercise (well, none actually, for two more weeks) expecting my weight and pant size to magically drop back down to their original size, which actually will never happen. I'm a mother now. I will likely never look the way I did before I got married. Especially if I keep staying up until five in the morning writing blog posts when I should be sleeping like my babies are.

I'm not looking for sympathy, so please don't give me any. I just wanted to tell people how pathetically warped my way of thinking is. I find it rather amusing, actually. I laugh about it often. Not in a self-pitying way, but more in a "hey, exercise and eat better, or else!" kind of way.

Sometimes Parenting Is Tough

This post may be a bit.....jumbled and unclear, because it's difficult for me to put all of my thoughts in coherent order, so forgive me.

Over the past couple of months, Tyler and I have been incorporating 'big people food' into Alex's diet, so as to transition him to eating regular food instead of baby food after he turns a year old. He will be a year old this Friday. Alex loves eating 'big people food' so much, though, that he has pretty much stopped eating his baby food. He turns his face and screams when I try to give him something pureed. This would be fine and dandy in my mind if he would eat his fruits and veggies adult style, but he just won't. Well, he will his fruits, but not his veggies. He's a lot like his mother in that respect. So the pureed version that we have (which he has always loved) is his only option from me. Plus, it's cheaper for me to give them to him that way because I get it through WIC and I don't have to pay for it. So in other words, when you're poor, you eat what you have.

So, here's the dilemma. I'm trying to teach the little bugger that he's to eat what I present to him WHEN I present it to him, or else he can just go ahead and be hungry until the next meal. This is difficult to do for a couple of reasons: 1) I previously would just try to find something he liked until he ate, so he has gotten used to being catered to, and 2) It absolutely BREAKS my heart to make him be hungry. It kills me. I literally was on the verge of tears this morning. I love my little man, and I don't want him to suffer like that, but I also love him so much that I don't want him to learn to be a little brat just so he can get what he wants. To further the dilemma, he only does this when presented with baby food that has been pureed. If it's baby food that I pay for that I can't get through WIC (anything with chunks in it), he'll gobble it up. He just hates pureed food. BUT, he needs to eat it for health and financial reasons.

As a result of the things listed, I keep going in a loop of thoughts in my mind. It pretty much goes like this; "He needs to eat his fruits and veggies, but he hates to eat them this way even though he's almost ALWYAS had them this way. So why is he too good for them NOW? I should just buy whole fruits and veggies and prepare them differently for him, but we can't afford to do it that way. Well, not daily, anyway. We could do it three times a week, I guess. Does he need to eat fruits and veggies more than three times a week? Tyler wants me to teach him to eat what I present to him, and I want the same thing, but if he can't verbally communicate with us, then I hate to force anything like that on him, because he can't tell us exactly WHY he won't eat it. But I'm also confused because he won't eat the containers of pureed food, but he will eat the pureed food out of the pouches that he can suck on, so what's the difference? The delivery?"

It's quite the conundrum. So, I need opinions and advice to sift through until I find something I feel will help. Please let me know what you think.