A post in which I brag about how funny my "kids" are

Ok, not my kids.  I don't have kids.  In this case I mean a couple of my cousins.

I spent almost an entire week in Connecticut before/during/after Gramma's funeral, and it was great.  All my aunts and uncles are awesome, and holidays are always so busy and mean lots of people around, so it was really nice to have an extended chance to hang out with them (even if instigated by a shitty occasion).  I haven't spent that much time there since I was a kid.  I had lots of time to just hang out and chat and catch up with my youngest aunt (who's really more like an older sister than an aunt), play with my young cousins (youngest aunt's children), go running with my uncle, and play cards with Grandpa (who keeps referring to Boyfriend as my "young man" haha).

My aunt's three girls are 12 (C), 10 (G), and almost 7 (M).  The oldest has a thing for cupcakes, but with three kids and a full time job, my aunt doesn't exactly have much time to bake with her, so I helped her make cupcakes from scratch (with three kids, mix is the standard!) using some of the goodies I got her for her birthday.

[Side story - I'll try not to make this a habit... At Christmas, all the nieces' and nephews' names are thrown into a pool, and each aunt or uncle draws two and gets a gift for just those two kids.  Well, there are 5 aunts/uncles, and currently 13 grandchildren.  The baby isn't in the pool yet...and to make the numbers work out, I got booted from the pool a few years ago, and told that I was going to buy for one of my "nieces or nephews" - i.e. cousins.  Nice deal, huh?  Anyways, when I discovered C's cupcake thing last fall, I claimed her for Christmas.  No worries, the  drawing is totally fixed every year. :P  Anyways, I had a blast assembling a cupcake/cooking/baking themed gift for her - a ton of fun cupcake liners and sprinkles, her own set of piping tips, I made her an apron (she was just on the border between being too big for the kids' sizes and growing into the adult aprons), and gave her a plastic index card box and a set of index cards to have her own recipe file.  Hilarious, but the recipe file has been by far the most popular item in that collection.  She even took it to school to show her friends.  Well the niece/nephew exchange never got set up for Christmas, with my uncle dying in early December (yeah, it's been a shitty several months), so we decided to just hold on to the gift for C to open for her birthday in February.]

We made s'mores cupcakes, adapted from recipes from Ming Makes Cupcakes.  We used the chocolate cupcake and marshmallow frosting from Recipe #8, and adapted the frosting to be vanilla marshmallow instead of mint.  The frosted cupcakes were then dipped in crushed graham cracker and topped with chocolate chips.  They weren't the fanciest cupcake I've ever made, but they were certainly tasty, and everybody enjoyed them.  Cake and frosting made from scratch are always better than from store-bought mixes.  It was fun teaching C how to measure flour (spoon into the measuring cup, then level with a knife - DON'T scoop!), and having her essentially make them herself.  She was suuuuper excited about it all.

The next day, my aunt and cousins drove me down to the train station so I could head back to PA to spend a week with Boyfriend, and I had the following conversation with the youngest girl, M, who's not quite 7.  All three girls have been getting ready for the international fair at school the next night, and M is talking about her part in this.

M: My class has Mexico.

Me: M, do you know where I live?

M: Ummmmmm.  No.

Me: I live in Arizona.  Like you live in Connecticut, I live in Arizona.  Do you know what's next door to Arizona?

C: Mexico!

Me: Yep, Mexico is next to Arizona.  I live only an hour and a half from Mexico.

M: We've been learning about all the animals that live in Mexico.  Lizards, and this weird rabbit kinda thing.

Me: Did you learn about javelinas?

M: What?

Me: Javelinas.  They're like pigs, but hairy.  But they're not actually related to pigs. 

M: Oh, weird. 

M: I have to draw a picture of something Mexican [for the international fair].  I'm going to draw a taco.

Me: [hysterical laughter] 

M: I'm even going to draw it with cheese.  Lettuce, tomato, and cheese.

On the way back home from dropping me off at the train station, they all had this funny conversation that my aunt emailed to me when she got home.  Yes, they all call me Annie.  So does J.

M: Can we go visit Annie?  If we did, then we could go to Mexico.  That would be great to go to Mexico.

Aunt: Well, Annie hasn't even been to Mexico.  It's not very safe near her.  Plus, Annie won't be there too much longer.  Soon she is going to be finished with school and she is going to get a job.

M: Oh, probably in a bakery.

Aunt: [in her head...wow...5 years for a phd and a bakery position...at least all that chemistry would help with the proper rising knowledge!]

C: I hope she gets a job closer to us.

Aunt: She is hoping to get one in PA or NJ so she can be closer to us and Boyfriend.

C: But I thought you said NJ is awful! 

Aunt: Oops!! ;-)

Yesssss!  Little M has me getting a job in a bakery based on ONE cupcake whose making I merely supervised!  Because I live so far away, I really don't get to cook for them very often at all.  But score!  I totally laughed out loud when I read that conversation on my train ride back to PA (Amtrak has free wifi!!). :)

I didn't take any photos of the cupcakes, but here are some javelina photos to make up for it.