My Blogger Reality

 

I have always wanted to blog.

To talk about my life freely.
I work from home, so the need to talk runs through my veins 1000 miles per second.
During my day I teach colors, shapes and work as a doctor kissing boo-boos so not much gets out.

So the whole blogging world fascinated me in a huge way.
 Now, I'm not the best writer and the fact that English is my second language always held me back.
But then I became a mom..

And something that I have always wanted to do for my kids was leave them a story, a story of us.

I grew up in Cuba and we don't have many pictures or videos of us growing up, so most of our memories come from stories that our parents tell us but as time passes they forget and so will we.

Insert blogging.
 Such a useful tool.
A story with pictures just for my baby to see and read.
To read about the simp adventures and the extraordinary ones too!

But then it hit me..
 When I use to look at many bloggers they always have the perfect clean house, the have the best behaved kids, the fanciest clothes and every picture is like out of a magazine, so I held back and waited to have all my peas in a line.

 

Until I read Natalie's blogging course.
That was the push I needed, even more it reminded me that my niche is my family, that I want to talk about our lifestyle, that I want to embrace the mom in me and my family.
That if want to blog, it has to be me..
That if I'm interested in having a readership, I have to be genuine and write
and
be
 Claudia.

Which means that my child is nowhere near being the best behaved kid, in fact she is a ball of sass, attitude and every once in a while a tantrum is bound to happen and that's perfectly OK!

Which means that as I write this I have a washer and a dryer full of clothes waiting to be taken out and put away that will get done soon or maybe they'll go on another ride, if you know what I mean.

Which means that our coffee table only does is purpose when we have people over, other than that it sits nicely in front of the fireplace.

Which means that I may not have the body I desire and that my hair doenst always get styled  but I'm working on it!

Which means that my house is not the tidiest home ever and that there are days that my living room looks more like it was hit by a hurricane and I'm just fine with that.So this, this right here is my blogger reality. Because I will choose to enjoy TODAY. 

So welcome to my blogger reality!
Hope you stay a while.

Tutu Tuesday!!

Happy Tuesday Gals!

Almost September are you guys ready?!

Today I'm liking up with my favorite girl Laura with her Tuesday Trendy Spin Link up with a free day.

 

Over the weekend we had our marriage Cowboy dinner and were in charge of some of the decorations so it was a busy weekend to say the least, but weekends like these are my favorite.

We also had to dress the part, so we put our boots on and got our horse out. Contrary to popular belief not all people in Texas have horse so a Honda full of hay will have to do!

 

 

For the important part, the outfit..

I found this tutu skirt at Rue 21 and paired it with a chambray shirt and brown boots!

It was a great evening and a very late night but every marriage was blessed and that's what matters.

 

 And of course a picture of the sexiest cowboy in the west!  

I will be sharing a bit more about our love for marriages in another post!

My pregnancy must have!

My pregnancy was something that I had dreamt about for my whole life. Something that many time we thought it wouldn't happen but God is good and we got the happiest news that we were expecting a sweet little girl.

Yesterday I shared about announcing our pregnancy to our friends, but today I want to share ,my 1

pregnancy must have and we will be giving one away over at Instagram! 

Are you following us? 

Like I was saying after 5 years or marriage and 3 long months of trying we were blessed with the two pink lines us women hope and pray for!

It honesty was one of the happiest times ever, but things got heavy and fast.

The cream one, rolled up to show my belly!

As a 5 foot girl, I had back problems and when the belly started to weigh a little more my back started to hurt.  I tried everything, sitting up straight and every belly band on the market, and then I remember a this post I saw on Natalie from At home with Natalie a while back and I went to target.com and bought 2 Blanqi Belly support tank. One in cream and one in black and mamas I LIVED in them my whole entire pregnancy.

It saved my life and my back.

There are two beautiful jams behind Blanqi and I'll tell you what I told Sabina when I contacted her. "You saved my life during my pregnancy"

I contacted them when I was working in @ourhopeformartin auction this last month and they donated a great deal and now, today they are giving away a Blanqi support tank a value of $72 just for a blessed mama on Instagram. So go ahead and join us tonight for a chance to win this amazing product. You won't regret it! I promise.
Sneak peek!! You get this amazingness for free!!

2 years ago.

 

Two years ago we announced that our little family was growing. I was about 10 weeks and we had no idea we were going to be adding a sweet, sweet, girl.

It flew by. I remember exactly what I felt telling our families. I remember telling Lester and even more special telling him we were expecting a girl.

A sweet girl who is our life, a crazy little girl that fills our day with love and joy.

We had told our families and when it came to sharing with our friends we knew Facebook was the way to go!

I fell so overly blessed by God with this darling. She is more than I could ever imagine. She is a busy bee, super hyper, over the top happy. She spends her days singing and praising God.

How did you announce that your were expecting?

If haven't do you have an idea of how you will do it? Would love to hear your ideas!

Happy Wednesday! It's almost Friday!

Stripes and More

Hey Guys happy Tuesday!

Today we are linking  up to one of my favorite bloggers Laura from Walking Memphis in Highheels.

Todays theme is STRIPES!!

Yes, the classic piece and something we particularly love, but since this weekend was such a rush for us there was no time for me, the mama, to do my hair with a 17 month old running around the restroom and "wanting" to play with toilet water so our first link up will be featuring the star of this blog Bella.

 

Dress is no longer available (Gymboree)  / Shoes / headband

 

Next week's theme is Free Day so I may join my little fashion diva for this one. 

This little girl has more style in one inch of her little body than me in my 5ft body!

Of course our Lambie had to make it in to the shot since she is with us everywhere we go.

I'm in love with her dress, and the fact that it has a pretty cut out in the back makes it even better in our icky summer weather.

Forgive the wet stain on her dress. We are still in the stage that is enamored by watching the milk come out of her bottle.

Also, I bought some fall essentials.

2 tanks in dark gray and dark pink and a blanket scarf.

Weekend Recap and celebrating our guy!

Well it Tuesday but.... Let's say its Monday!

We had a busy weekend and the 3.5 hours of sleep Sunday night was just the tip of the iceberg.

Don't know if it was the teething and the fact that allergens are super bad in Texas now, hence my voice being gone for more than a week, but we made it to Tuesday!

Getting back to the weekend, it was daddy's birthday and man did we have fun!

  We love this man so much and he makes our life so much better.   

 

We are super BLESSED to call him ours!

He is older and wiser and definitely the love of our lives.

   

On Saturday we ran some errands and of course we had to get coffee while we looked for daddy's gift. He ended up changing his mind about what he wanted, so we looked for something else!

 

 That night we had my in-laws over for a fun birthday dinner and for the first time ever no cake baking on my part! Husband wanted a cheesecake for COSTCO!
A first in our house! 

Sunday (his actual birth day) morning we had big plans of going to the water park and spending some time with some friends but the weather had other things in mind! It rained and rained so we went out to eat breakfast with the family and did some more shopping! Our kind of fun!!

All in all we had fun and enjoyed spending some time with our guy!

He will be having surgery this Friday so this time was amazing. I can't believe that I met him 10 years ago and he is even more handsome now!
We love you daddy and can't wait to spend more years with you!

Texas Summer

Hey Guys! happy Thursday.

Summer is almost over and I couldn't be happier. Summers in Texas are excessively hot and humid so we are OVER IT!

Can't wait for cooler weather butttt.. guess what?? In Texas summer last until December 25th. No lie I remember so many Christmas using short sleeves on Christmas eve!

  But while it last we try to enjoy it at it fullest since Bella will only be 15 months one time.

How do we do it?

Here are some tips!

1. Hang out in our swing in the AM.

2. Stay at the pool and drink lots of POWERADE. (And snow cones)

 

 

3. Splad pads all day!

 

4. Afternoon car rides (walks) 

 

5.. As always eat lots and lots of cupcakes!

 

 

6.  Use the best sunscreen. We choose this one!

We love it!

Hope this helps a little if you are in Texas or in the south!

Tomorrow is Friyay!!

Family Photo Favorites!

I'm over the moon excited about our family photo session. It was a boas to finally take some  pictures that we could cherish and enjoy for a lifetime to come.

They all didn't turn out as I expected but guys taking pictures with a kid is no joke! Props to all those mamas with multiple kids that take amazing pictures, but here are my favorites from that day!!

This one is my favorite! These two love each other so much!

This picture is me! I spend most of my days laughing and if there was ever a picture that could describe me it would totally be this one!

If you guys have any tips on taking pictures with kids I'm all ears!

Bella spent the whole morning only wanting Daddy, pulling her headbands and walking off! 

We were the show of the park!

Will post the out-takes just for fun later!

Weekend Recap

Hey Guys! Hope you all had wonderful weekend! I know we did except the part were I go super sick.

 

Bleh

We had a few plans for the weekend and are happy to report most of them actually got done. The most important being our family pictures. We finally got them done a year and a half later and I could not be happier with the results.

 

I wish we had got them done earlier but it never happened. Honestly my fault and I can be sure that next pregnancy and baby it will be done completely different.

But it got check of our list with only 3 hours of sleep from Friday to Saturday. How fun!

  I will post picture on Wednesday.

After the pictures we got a quick lunch and headed home. We had to go get the hubbys care from the mechanic and I heard this podcast all the way back! I love their story and follow them on Instagram through the whole adoption process.

Last minute we decided to have a small family dinner at the house with the in laws and after a market run we were set.

Oh and guys quick tip.. Swim diapers are only for the pool.

We had planned to go to the pool after picking up the car and decided last minute to run to the store and lets just say Bella did a nice little number in the shopping cart while we were leaving. We had a nice little track of pee all the way to the car. Oh man this first time mom thing never ends.

But got her changed and finally made our way to the pool for a whole 45 minutes because this heat is just too much to handle.

So after a few more freckles for me,two really nice tans for daddy and Bella  and two snow cones (YUM) we headed home.

Took showers and took a very long nap.

And because no dinner is done without a tasty little dessert I made a quick little run to the store again to pick up some  cookies and ice cream and made delicious little treats!

 

Even better I added a few little toppings around  them and lets just say we finish the whole pack of  cookies!

On Sunday we went to church and I was too lazy to take a picture after lunch. I feel asleep at 3:00 and didn't wake up until 9 thanks to my amazing husband and mom that took Bella.

Woke up to take some medicine, work on a blanket and went back to sleep.

So the weekend finally caught up to me and lets just say my body feels it today.

All in all it was a great weekend and as always anytime we spend time together is a WIN in my books!

Hope you all had an amazing time too!

Homemade... From a box

We love cupcakes, hence our blog name, and even more when its an easy cupcake recipe.

Homemade recipes are wonderful  but we don't always have the time to sift the flour.

So if you feel the same way keep on reading.

This recipe is so simple that I kind of feel silly posting it but is something that I get asked a lot and something that many people don't do.

 You can do it with your favorite brand of box cake mix and to me it all depends on what's on sale that day. Whether Betty or Duncan it comes out tasting amazing.

Tip: If you are making a cake with a fruit filling Duncan is the way to go in my opinion.

Forget all the steps that are MANDATORY to make a homemade cake taste and rise. Through everything in the mixer except.....

Switch the oil for butter, cold butter and add a teaspoon of vanilla and that is.

The cold butter makes the cupcake taste moist and full of deliciousness and the vanilla just kicks it over the top.

Bake it as you normally would and put it in a pretty paper liner.

I love to make Italian Merengue, but again it takes time and multiple steps and for a Wednesday afternoon its definitely too too much. So we used the regular icing but made it in to a yummy looking ganache by taking the aluminum off, completely, and putting in the microwave for 15 seconds.

The icing comes in shiny, beautiful and really yummy.

We dipped the cupcakes in the icing container. No mess, no spatula, or the little cool knife that bakers use to spread icing.

Sprinkle sprinkles . and call it a day!

And of course yo have to have a cutie pie like this one to bathe in eat the chocolate and you have a fast, delicious cupcake recipe to celebrate Friday is almost here!