Pinterest Moms

After working on Darrow and Ione's Halloween costumes and Trunk or Treat decorations, Cameron told me "You know, you can't post that online. Your Pinstrosity people will hate you. You can't be one of the Pinterest Moms" And I got a little offended by his comment. But I knew it wasn't meant harshly, and it wasn't worth getting worked up, so I brushed it off. Then last night after laughing over the results of Darrow's birthday cake (he requested a black cake) he said, "You can show this one!" I wasn't offended this time, but it did make me stop short. 

Can we talk about "that Pinterest Mom" for just a minute? 

You know her. The woman who just blew up your feed with the pictures of her perfectly executed themed birthday party fit for a rock star. Or she's the woman who is always posting pictures of the cute and educational things she is doing with her children. Or she's the woman who is posting about her kids quietly playing in their room while she does her hour of yoga and meditation. Or she's the woman who always looks on point and gorgeous. Or she's the woman who always has the cutest date night pictures of her and her "bae" (really...where did that come from?!) and their cute and perfect relationship. See, you do know her. 

We all know her. Or a few "hers". And for some reason so many of us feel threatened by her. Enough so that "Pinterest Mom" is becoming a derogatory term.

Now I know that there are some exceptions, but really for the most part, I don't think these "Pinterest Moms" are out there doing their thing to make any of us feel bad. That's not their point at all.

And you know what...none of them have it all 100% together. I know I don't. I know that none of the amazing women that I know have it all together. Some have it more together than others, but none of us are spotless and we all are hot messes in various aspects in our lives. But we compare our hot messes with our other's shining successes all too often. Of course there is going to be a disparity in that comparison! 

We have to stop it. Stop the comparison. Stop the "Pinterest Mom" shaming. Her success is not my failure. Say it with me. Her success is not my failure. We each have strengths. Every single one of us. We also all have thing we're not so good at. 

I make a mean cardboard Mater, but can't make a pretty cake. I take my family out on day trips, but I really dislike sitting and reading stories to my kids. I love making bouquets and wall hangings, but I can't keep my house clean ever.  Would I like my weak points to be stronger? Of course! But just because I am a crappy housewife, doesn't mean that now I can't buoy up and cheer on those that are fabulous at that. 

"Real" is such a buzzword right now. I love the movement of showing real life and not putting up a fake front, but don't get so enamored with real that you forget that talents are real too. It's okay to be a Pinterest Mom. It's okay to not be a Pinterest Mom. We all have our differing abilities!

So here's your Pinstrosity homework: 

If you find yourself putting anyone down for something they did well...stop. Stop immediately, and find a sincere compliment you can give. Even if you were just putting them down in your head, stop, and tell your Facebook friend that you love how happy her kid looks at her party, or how beautiful the quilling was on the card she just made, or how fun the sign is that she holding at her child's game, or that you are so glad they get to go on date nights. Be sincere. And soon you'll find that your outlook will change, your mindset will morph, and you will be happier! 

We can do this! We can lift each other up instead of tearing each other (and ourselves) down! 

DIY Geode Cake

Pinstrosipeeps! 

I literally have THE coolest friends. They are so good about sending me pictures that remind them of me, and most of the time they are funny and cute,but every once in a while they speak to my soul. Marquette sent me a Instagram a few weeks back that was like my soul in a cake. And I just HAD to have it. 

Fast forward to one of my other BFF's coming to visit, and we decide that we are going to tackle said project even though it may be way over our head. We fear no fail. 

This is what we decided we wanted to recreate:

Photo and Cake Credit: Charla Chouinard Instgram handle: charkala_

 

Fun fact of the day...I didn't even realize until right this very instant that this was a girl I went to high school with?! What?! Small world! This isn't the first first picture we saw of Geode cakes, but it pulled up when I did a search and was similar colors and super pretty, this was just an idea Marquette had seen and showed me on google when she came to visit. When I did the search of images for this blog post a few days ago, this is one of the first ones that popped up and just happens to be made by someone I know!

 

 

Isn't that fantastic?! So beautiful!  So I went to work, I called around town looking for gold leafing, I went to Michael's and Hobby Lobby looking for edible gold leafing and  priced some of their baking tools, and I even called some places in Salt Lake.

Manny my New Mexico BFF came and we got to work! We went to all our stores to pick everything up, we even went to three different stores to get all the rock candy we needed for this!

As for the gold leafing...I called 5 stores and went to 3 different stores and only found ONE place that had edible gold leafing. Here's the kicker...it was $75.00 for 3 ounces!! WHAT?! So...we went with a gold luster dust and gold faux leafing alternative that we found at Hobby Lobby for about $3 a piece instead. Apparently gold leafing is really only for super fancy occasions...because at my house Thursdays just aren't good enough for $75 cake décor.

 

Here's our stash:

 

 

 

We bought rock candy in light blue, dark blue, white and purple. They were SO yummy, of course we sneaked some during the process!

 

We also had blue and white fondant, generic frosting and rainbow chip cake, and then some of the supplies for the cake itself.

 

The fondant was probably the hardest part, we followed the directions and rolled it out, kneaded it and then we roped the two colors together to create a marbled affect when it is all rolled out.

We baked the cakes beforehand and crumb coated them and then put them in the freezer so they would be easier to work with and not crumble-y. When we had the fondant where we wanted it, we pulled the cakes out of the freezer and threw it on there! Getting a smooth coat on the cake was really difficult. Did I mention this is both of our first foray's into fondant?! Because it was.

 

We used powdered sugar to keep the fondant manageable, you can also use corn starch.

 

Then came the really fun part, decorating!

 

We pulled all the rock candy off the sticks and put them in ziplock baggies and then used the rolling pin to crush them to a more manageable size. The air smelled sweet during the beating part lol

 

We cut out our desired geode cave shape with a small knife, and then covered it in frosting before placing our rock candy.

Lastly we put our "gold leafing" on the cake and threw some luster dust on there for good measure.

 

 

 

 

Here is our final result!

 

Not too shabby for our first fondant cake EVER. It's not perfect by any means, and the more I look at it, the more I tend to find faults, but it's a cake not a Saint, so who cares if it isn't perfect?! It was REALLY sweet, but it was good and it was just really fun getting to do this project with a friend!

Are any of you mavericks with fondant?! What are your secrets?! Share below!

 

Happy Monday all!

 

Prickly Pear Cupcakes

In my plan for the week, I actually didn't intend to make Prickly Pear cupcakes, or much by way of desserts. But things change. 

For a few weeks I'd casually mention to Darrow that if he'd use the toilet I'd make him any treat he wanted. He'd say "Nope!" or "No, thank you." and we'd leave it at that. Well yesterday it happened and he promptly remembered the promise of treats and cupcakes were the prize of choice. So I got to looking for Prickly Pear cupcakes (because he doesn't have a preference yet). 

I almost just did a substitute in a cake mix like I did for the waffles, but wanted to find something that might have a stronger Prickly Pear flavor. Through Pinterest I found a great recipe by Cupcake Project. It looked like it'd have good flavor and would be very doable. And it was! It was easy to put together and baked up beautifully. I got 23 cupcakes out of my batch. Weird. But oh well. 

But then it came time for the frosting. I didn't wan to make the prickly pear lemon bars to blend into the frosting that she had, and it sounded like there wouldn't be much prickly pear flavor, so I went on the hunt for a frosting that would do the flavor justice. 

In my searching, I remembered reading about a flour frosting, so I searched it and found an easy recipe quickly. It involved combining flour and milk, and cooking until you get a thick batter before adding vanilla, butter, and sugar. With the recipe calling for 2 cups of milk, I got curious if I could substitute the prickly pear juice for the milk in the recipe. I wanted to use as much juice as possible in the recipe, and this one fit that bill. I figured it was worth a try!

And it worked!! That was the best frosting I've ever had. Light, but so totally yummy! The substitution worked perfectly! I only did a half batch because a full batch covered 3 dozen cupcakes and I didn't need that much frosting.

Now, I'm not an expert frosting applicator. So my frosting looks meh...but we weren't going for pretty, we were going for yummy! Taste before beauty!

So they baked fine, and the frosting held together. But if it doesn't taste good, what's the point?

Luckily these taste great! There is a subtle fruity flavor without being truly fruity. Great description there, huh? The frosting was light, fluffy, and had the perfect flavor without tasting like sugar! It was sweet, but not overwhelmingly so like many frostings. The cupcake was moist and yummy while being fluffy and cohesive. These are definitely some new favorites!!

So there it is! Prickly Pear recipe test #2 done! And it was a success! 

The Kett-Files: Keeping Up Appearances, Day 2

**For 1 Week (and only one week, thank goodness!) Emilee and Marquette attempted to live a life that matched up to Social Media Standards, mostly just to show what that could look like in real life and how ridiculous the idea is. To see Marquette's Day 1 of the Keeping Up Appearances Project, click here.**

Don't worry...today's post isn't as long as yesterday's. I revised my journal keeping ideas and went way less detailed. 

So...if I were posting on Instagram...this could be my feed from the day: 

"My morning cup of hot lemon water (with MiO!) in my new mug! It makes me so happy!" 

"Homemade Pomegranate Prickly Pear Molasses! Yummy!!"

"The first layer of the cake is done and perfect! This is going to be amazing!!"

"Glazed and roasted to perfection! I want these every night!"

But of course there's more than just meets the Instagram. Here's how my Day 2 went. 

• It’s 8:52 and I’m just doing my first journaling. I think I’ll try a different approach with journaling today…yesterday was tedious and I’d like to end today happier, especially with it being our Autumnal Equinox dinner.
      Growing up, Cameron's Mother prepared a Winter Solstice Dinner. As they had the traditional New Mexican tamales and posole for Christmas, they would have a traditional Christmas meal (ham, potatoes, and the fixings) on the Winter Solstice. This was a time to teach etiquette, have good food, be together, and it really created a neat tradition. We wanted to start that tradition in our family but when we decided that we were childless and in the middle of college. Most of our Christmas breaks were spent at the homes of our family. So we decided that for now we'd make the Autumnal Equinox our time to do these special meals as we'd always be at home during then (it being the middle of the school semester). It's stuck around! So for this year we decided to hold our meal the Friday after the Equinox so we could invite our friends over to join us. 
• Darrow woke up at 5:15 this morning and crawled in bed with us. One drawback to not having a side on the crib and us all sleeping in the same room. We put him back in bed a few times but by 5:45 we just let him snuggle in because he was being quiet and still. By 6:10ish he was back asleep. I hadn’t slept super great last night so instead of getting up at 6 like I’d planned I stayed in bed and snuggled Darrow and snoozed a little. I figure I needed energy for today and I want today to go more smoothly than yesterday. I finally got up around 7:15ish and got my lemon water in my new mug. 

I love my mug! It is so happy and cute and I love the feel of it in my hand. It’s a nice way to start the day. And I got MiO yesterday so the lemon water was palatable today. Then I sat down to get my day planned out. I made a rough plan, more of a list of things to do in order of importance. But my mind just wasn’t’ ready yet. It still was cowering from yesterday. Could I really do this today? 
• So next I decided to make a tweak on my photography website to fix a problem Cameron pointed out. That got done quick, so I checked the blogs and email. Nothing new really. Yesterday I hung up the Mini-Mowers (with the new addition) and was going to post a picture as our pregnancy announcement, but I wanted to do it on a day where I felt like I could survive with two kids. So I got the picture taken of the wall arrangement and posted it online.
  
  
  I didn't say pregnancy or baby or anything…just the picture in a blog post and then posted the link on Facebook…so it will take some time to filter through as people see comments, but it’ll be fun to see if it catches on or not. 
• At 8:11 Darrow woke up and came walking out of the room smiling and happy. Maybe today would be better! We got him a diaper change and dressed and then he and I both had a bowl of Frosted Mini Spooners (they make much less of a mess with him than cheerios!). 
• I got our breakfast cleaned up, checked Facebook to see if anyone had caught on yet, and then decided to journal what had gone on so far today. I think I’m procrastinating, which isn’t good because I do have a lot to get done today. So now I’m off to rinse out my lemon water mug, make the grenadine ice cubes for the Cherry Bombs, do my squats and 3 minute workout, and start on the scary scary cake! Wish me luck! 
• 10:06am: The sweetened condensed milk is in the pot turning to dulce de leche so I can make The Cake (I have a feeling this is going to be an all day recipe!). I should have made those yesterday…but yesterday was crazy, so maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t. 
• I went to make the pomegranate molasses for the glaze for the hens and realized I’d only gotten ½ the amount of pomegranate juice that I need, and Cameron has the car today. I need to make the molasses now to have everything done on schedule. So after picking my sister’s brain (since she’s made this recipe before) I decided to use ½ pomegranate juice and ½ prickly pear juice. They are similarish…ish. At least they’re the same color. I tasted the mixture before it went on the stove to turn into molasses and it tastes really yummy, so I think this will be good. Apparently I need a more detailed shopping list. Or I at least need to take the phone with me to call someone to look it up. We’ll see how this works! 
•  Darrow has been playing nicely this morning. The living room is trashed, but as soon as I make the cheese balls I’ll have a few extra minutes and can work with him to straighten it up. Today I’m going to see if I can’t pay more attention to him and still get my “chores” done. Good thing his little toy broom came in today, because we’re going to be doing some sweeping! I read a bunch of articles yesterday from Catholic All Year about parenting and how to work with Darrow. We’ve used Kendra’s “Not for Babies” and “Crying Babies Go to Bed” and that’s worked marvelously…so I reread her postabout how they handle food/eating and it makes so much sense. I tried that “homemade lunchable” yesterday and he ate only the crackers. What a waste of time and food. So now he’ll just get offered whatever I eat during the day and we’ll learn how to make this work, rather than me battling with him all the time about food. I didn’t find much to help with the whole staying in bed thing…I think we’re just going to have to figure that one out.
•  I’m anxious to get some of these early chores done so I can go out and finish painting my table base. I think it’s going to look great!!
•  I don’t know why I feel so much more relaxed today than I did yesterday. But really…I guess at this point yesterday I was feeling pretty good too. It was just after Darrow’s nap that things kinda fell apart. Hopefully I can get much more done before he wakes up today and have more time for him and less I have to get done. 
• 11:31am: Between Darrow and I, you can’t tell at all that I swept and mopped yesterday. I’ll need to do it again today before the dinner party.
•  I just finished the pomegranate/prickly pear molasses.
  
  
  I think I got it just right…any more and it would have burned. Now I just have sticky mess to clean up.
  
  
  Hold on, Darrow’s out of bed. 
• Okay, I’m back. Anyway. The molasses is cooling, as is the dulce de leche. I hope those worked! I can’t see in the cans of course so I hope I cooked them long enough. 
• I’m sitting here eating one of the meal-prep lunches I made yesterday. It’s phenomenal! I love these recipes! It took all day because I forgot to soak the beans overnight and then had to make the food in the evening when I was worn out. If I soak the beans beforehand next time it’ll be much easier. And I have lunches in the freezer for next week! I love this! And, it’s healthy, but it doesn’t taste like “diet food”. I’m sold!! After I finish eating I’ll give the table another coat, take clothes off the line, and get the layers for the cake baking.
• 1:04pm: One layer of the cake is baking. Not the most beautiful…the ends came apart, but still workable I think. I did another layer on the table. Once it’s dry I need to flip it and get the underside.
•  Darrow still won’t go to sleep.
•  8:13pm Man, I’ve got some catching up to do. It just got busy and I couldn’t take time to get notes written down. I got all the layers of the cake baked. They weren’t beautiful, but I thought they’d work anyway.
  
  Cameron came home after I pulled all three out (around 2:30ish) and Darrow STILL wasn’t asleep. By this time he’s exhausted, but I’m bound and determined not to give in. The next while I go back and forth between preparing cheeseballs and the cake and the chickens and getting the house slicked up. I got the last paint layer on the table and after it dried brought it in. Looking at it in these lights, it may need another coat. But that’ll have to be later.
  
  Now the results of each cooking/baking endeavor today:
•  The Cake (made from this recipe): I got the Dulce de Leches open and they looked good, so I mixed up the frosting and started assembling the cake. The first layer looked so pretty on the plate, I was sure this was going to be gorgeous!
  
  And this is where things went south. The frosting wasn’t stiff at all, but I figured maybe it’d set up in the fridge. It sort of did, but not much and still oozed out the sides into puddles on the plate.
  
  But maybe that was normal? I scooped and smoothed and scooped and smoothed and realized I was fighting a losing battle.
  
  Maybe the ganache was the key here. So I got that made up, poured it in a circle on top and carefully let it run down the sides and tried to smooth it and more of the frosting oozed out and it all mixed together and just looked awful. Of course it was at this point that there was a knock on the door. I got to answer it looking like this:
  
  
  But it was a sweet neighbor bringing over fresh tomatoes and a bell pepper from their garden, so I didn't mind too much.
  
  But now back to the cake, because I know the picture is what you're waiting for. It looked like a melted ice cream cake.
  
  It didn’t turn out at all. I put it in the freezer to stop the oozing, but it wasn’t salvageable at that point as far as looks go. It tasted good. The cherries weren’t as flavorful as I would have liked, I’ll have to try a different kind next time…if there is a next time. This cake was super time consuming and hard, and it took a lot of kitchen space and made a mess
  
  
  
  
  
But now I want to figure the dang thing out!




•  The Hens (made from this recipe):  I thought I had it all timed out well and then I realized that I had to cook the rice for 45 minutes and I only had 30 in my plan for it. Too late. I think I put the rice in the mixture a little undercooked, but I was running out of time. With the birds sitting in the fridge for 18ish hours uncovered (as the recipe instructed) I was sure that they’d cook up all dried out and nasty…but I was following directions. I got the rice made, the hens stuffed, and then tied them up and put the pan in the oven with not a single minute to spare in the schedule to have them done by 5:30. Then it was glazing them every 10 minutes. That gave me time though to clean up the house and get ready in those 10 minutes. Jackie and the kids came over right around 5:30, just as all the food finished. I was worried that I’d be late on my end and they’d be waiting on me, but it worked out great. Andrew came a little later (he had to make a late service call). I was nervous about the food, especially the game hens. Our only other experience with Cornish hens was really bland and dry. These were amazing! Tender, juicy, and good flavor! I loved them.
  
  I served the rest of the black beans from the day before, along with the rice from the hens. 
• The Cherry Bombs (made from this recipe):  These were okay. They tasted good, but they weren’t worth the effort of making the ice cubes. They melted so fast I might as well have just poured the grenadine straight in. I even went to the trouble of making frog shaped ice cubes for the boys, and that was a bust with how quick they melted. It was slushy ice, not a good solid cube. Maybe it needed more time? They were in there for 8 hours. I totally forgot to even pull out the maraschino cherries for them. Oh well.
• The only major flop was the cake. It still tasted good, but not amazingly so to be worth all that effort.
•  My outfit. I had an outfit in mind, inspired by a pin, but once I put it on I felt stupid and fluffy. This is a rough stage in pregnancy. Nothing fits right. I just feel unattractive. The only pair of pants I had clean that were niceish were way tight and I felt like I was squeezing out. The shirt I wanted looked goofy. It just didn’t work. What I ended up in passed, but I felt like I looked funny all evening, which is dumb because we were just around family. I was just putting the finishing touches on when they came, so I didn't get a photo. 
• Now we’re at the aftermath. The food all looks pretty on the plate, but man there’s a good mess to clean up, and I even did most of the dishes while the hens were cooking. It was fun to cook everything and have them over to eat though!
• I did get in all my water today!