Thought Provoking Thursday

What do you think is one of the greatest works of art, of all time?

My Answer: Salvador Dali’s, Hallucinogenic Toreador. For one of our first dates my husband took me to the Salvador Dali museum in Tampa. I was absolutely blown away. I still don’t understand how a persons mind could think the way his did (well obviously he was a little mad), but he painted so many images, inside of other images. His work is so brilliant. Look at it awhile, how many things can you see?

Your turn! Leave your answer in the comments, or do TPT on your blog, use my question or one of your own, you can find the button in my sidebar. Thanks!

Summertime Lemon Cupcakes

I created these darlings for 4th of July, but I am calling them a Summertime cupcake, because it sounds right to me. These are amazing. I took a recipe from Martha’s Cupcake book, for the cake part and added lemon whipped cream cheese frosting, its much lighter than a traditional cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients for the cupcake:

- 3 cups all purpose flour

- 1 tbsp. baking powder

- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp

- 2 cups sugar

- 4 large eggs

- finely grated zest of 3 lemons (about 3 tbsp.) plus 2 tbsp. lemon juice

- 1 tsp. vanilla extract

- 1 cup buttermilk

Directions:

1.Preheat oven to 325 f. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

2. With an electric mixer on medium high speed, cream butter and sugar till pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time. Beat in zest and vanilla. Add flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk and lemon juice.

3. Fill liner 3/4 cup full. Bake, rotate half way through, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.

Ingredients for the frosting:

- 1 80z pkg. cream cheese

- 1 cup white sugar

- 1/8 tsp salt

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 3/4 tsp lemon extract

- 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

Directions:

1. With electric mixer beat whipping cream until stiff peaks form, set aside.

2. Combine cream cheese, sugar, salt, vanilla, lemon extract, beat until smooth. Fold in whipped cream.

3. Pipe onto cupcakes, and garnish if you like. Store in the fridge, because of the cream cheese in the frosting. These are great straight from the fridge.

Our uneventful 4th of July

Our 4th of July was probably one of the most uneventful ones in years, but it was perfect that way. Our lives have been a little too eventful lately. We stayed at home, for the most part, and loved every minute of it.

In the morning I took Rowan over to a friend of mine’s house. She had rented a bounce house, and giant water slide for her 4th party. We came over before it got crazy. All Ro wanted to do was hang out in the pool at the bottom of the slide….go figure.

Then Daddy and the boys constructed a train track setup, one of the boy’s latest obsessions.

We smiled, cuddled, and giggled.

There were even some tears.

Ezra and Daddy colored some pictures.

Rowan ran around like a maniac at dusk, the air thick with anticipation, and mosquitoes. My hubby barbequed an amazing meal. We ate, drank, and were merry. Ezra slept.

It was a beautiful night, as it got darker we lit sparklers, and my husband chased Rowan around with them..which is hysterical if you are 4.  When it got dark we woke up Ezra. We then lit off more exciting fireworks.

As you can see I am really excited about my sparkler….fireworks terrify me, they were illegal in Minnesota (where I am from) until after I moved (when I was 23) , I have to think there was a reason they were illegal for so many years.

After our little fireworks display we loaded Ezra up in the stroller and then we went for a walk with the boys around the neighborhood. I live in a middle working class neighborhood, the people don’t have a lot of money, but damn do they throw some money down on fireworks every year.

So after the spectacular neighborhood show we came home, and Dad made kettle corn, and then off to bed for the boys and me! It was such a perfect day, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

You can find an update about Ezra here.