Cupcakes: Eat at your own risk!

This is just a small snapshot of life in our house these days.  A 2.5 year old with an attitude makes for many interesting moments!  (and by the way, I have NO clue where she gets that sassiness...) 

In my previous post, I mentioned the "end of CWE celebration party" we are having at my house tomorrow night.  Turner is very excited and has been talking all week about her "Camp War Eagle friends" coming to see her at her house.  We did all the grocery shopping this morning and thankfully Turner was very patient, but during the process I talked to her about preparing food, what the menu would be, how we had to buy this and that for the party, etc.  I also mentioned that I needed her help tonight in starting some of the appetizers.  

So, tonight we arrived home from tumbling and I was talking to my mom on the phone.  Turner kept saying, "Mommy, you needed to get the colors in that box down - we need to make stuff for the party." I was not focused intently on what she was saying, but she just kept getting louder and louder.  Finally, I had to tell her I didn't know what she was talking about and asked her to show me the colors she wanted.  I about died laughing when she walked me straight to the pantry and pointed directly at the little 4-pack box of food coloring bottles we used this weekend to make rainbow pudding pops.  She thought they were colors! (Crayons for those of you who don't call crayons colors...another story for another post.)

I got them down and put them on the counter, only to find her trying to pull them out one by one within about 10 seconds.  I explained that we didn't need them for anything we were making for the party and she totally lost it.  I mean, crying, screaming, pitching a fit...I sent her to her room to cool off and when she returned she immediately went straight back for the food coloring.  She even told me not to touch it - insisting that we needed cupcakes for the party tomorrow night.  I tried another angle, reminding her that we needed to eat our dinner first and then we'd get started on party food....another crying fit, screaming "But we NEED to make the cupcakes for the party!!!!"  Forget the Food Network reality show, we were having "Cupcake Wars" live and in color, right there in my kitchen.  

So what did we do?  We made cupcakes. :)  The only icing I had in the house was chocolate, so there was going to be no dying that with food coloring.  I remembered a recipe for a rainbow cake, so I figured I'd just try to divide the batter and dye it, layering it in the cups for a rainbow cupcake.  Turner of course helped me through this process...first I turned around from grabbing eggs to see her with both hands digging in the bowl of cake mix like it was her personal sandbox.  Not really sure if we had washed her hands after tumbling or not...  

We finally got all the ingredients mixed together and one bowl dyed blue (despite a little hand trying to steal licks here and there...are you proud Pop???) ...when I turned slightly to grab another spoon and turned back around to find Turner licking a nice sized portion of batter off the blue spoon.  After we finished mixing the colors, I handed her a beater which she promptly licked clean then dropped on the floor.  The whole time she's dipping out the spoons and helping herself to a cake batter treat - making a hilarious mess on her face. Ok...I know this next move is completely idiotic...but I told her to sit still (with a blue cake batter beard) so I could run get my camera.  Y'all, I am not kidding I didn't even get OUT OF SIGHT before she was digging more cake batter out of the bowl.  I rounded the corner to this face...notice the red icing...she switched bowls in there somewhere. (Sorry for the poor quality - I was trying to be secretive, then I realized my presence had no effect on her behavior at this point.)

And this is what she was doing by the time I made it around the kitchen corner.

Finally, we got the batter layered in the cups and set to baking.  They actually turned out really cute and I did convince her that we'd ice them tomorrow for the sake of freshness.  Not sure why "freshness" matters to me, since the cake mix was sifted well with questionably clean hands, and almost every ounce of batter was stirred with a well-licked spoon. 

CWE staff be advised - you better start thinking of your excuses now if you are too chicken to try one of Turner's cupcakes.  :)  You wouldn't want to hurt her feelings now, would you?