A good laugh

So our 5 year old is terrified of Mascots.  Whether it is a mascot dressed head to toe in a costume or a mascot with a "real face,"  (like a Disney Princess) she is terrified.  She will ask me to call ahead to Chick-Fil-A and ask if the Cow is there and if he is, she would like me to ask if he could leave and go out for awhile so she can come eat there.  Last year while we where at Disney, we had reservations to have Breakfast with The Princesses.  Well, she took one look at them and she screamed and cried so hard she turned purple and went running out of the restaurant and never came back in to eat.  So this year in anticipation of our annual trip to Disney, she asked if we were eating with the Princesses.  I told her no because I know she is scared of them.  A few hours later, she came to me and asked, "Mommy, I really want to eat with The Princesses, but I am so scared of them.  Do you think you could dress up as a mascot and we could practice having a tea party and then maybe I won't be so scared?"  I said, "Oh Ella, I am not sure mommy can find a costume to dress up in before we leave for our trip."  She said, yes you can, all you have to do is ask Daddy to bring one of our mascot costumes home from his baseball teams and you can dress up as Slugger or Tommy and we can practice having a tea party...and then I won't be so scared.  I was speechless....can you just see me sitting there dressed as Slugger sipping tea?  Not sure what Slugger or Tommy look like?....check out http://www.wilsontobs.com/ or http://www.hitoms.com/ so see Slugger and Tommy.

The Irish girl that I am, I love St. Patrick's Day.  I really love all holidays to be honest, but I am Irish and I do love St. Patrick's Day.  Having 3 girls, however, there is always some pink somewhere to be found...even for a holiday that is dedicated to being Green!  So, my girls and I created these Preppy Leprechaun Cupcakes.  Made with a brownie cupcake, we topped them with pink icing and some cute little Leprechaun decorations from Meri Meri that my mom sent to us.  I have this thing against red food coloring because once upon a time I told the Dr. that the Benadryl that he clearly said would cause drowsiness in my 2 year old caused my child to be more energetic than a bouncy ball.  When I brought this to his attention, he told me that sometimes the red dye in medicines has that effect on children so I needed to only buy grape flavor medicine from now on.  I have no idea if there is any truth to that, but I do know that I only buy dye free, completely colorless medicine to this day...7 years later.  So when it comes to baking, I steer clear of red dye because I have decided that anything with red dye causes craziness in children.  So, to make our icing pink, we pureed strawberries and then put the puree thru a seive.  We then added the now seedless smooth strawberry puree to our icing and whala....The Preppy Leprechaun Cupcakes are ready for St. Patrick's Day!  My poor husband who is a complete baseball guy just sort of shakes his head as once again, even on a day when he might have a chance to exchange his pink desserts for something green, we serve him some Pink!