Sleepless in Austin

What do you do when you wake up at 2:52 in the morning and cannot get back to bed at all? Well at first, you just lay there and try to clear your mind, which of course, floods it with tons of unnecessary stuff. Then, you turn on the tv (even though you know they say not to do that). You learn all about replacing weatherstripping on your doors. Then you start thinking about food because you've been up for over an hour. Cinnamon buns, to be exact. Low fat cinnamon buns that are in a new magazine you recently got. You toss and turn and try to go back to sleep, but you can't shake the idea of making these gooey treats right now.

Which is how I came to be in the kitchen at about 4:00 yesterday morning with a bunch of ingredients laid out before me. A little over two hours later I had them, all warm and iced and ready for J and B when they woke up. At which point I promptly went back to sleep until 9:30.

I have to say that these were pretty yummy considering they only had 4 tablespoons of butter in them. Supposedly they are only 280 calories and 3 grams of fat in each bun, so if you want the recipe, let me know. It's a bit long, but I'll get it out if anyone wants it. The only thing I would change next time is to maybe add some orange extract to the icing instead of vanilla for a different taste.

Yes, I was pathetically awake enough to even take pictures!

We've spent part of the weekend doing housework and part of it playing. This is the first weekend in over a month that B and I have had a "normal" weekend (normal being one where we don't have guests or he is not traveling). We headed down to a farmer's market in hopes of some peaches (I got some great ones last week), but we were too late due to my "sleeping in". The trip wasn't a total wash, though. J got to play in a fountain and had his first random hookup with a girl. A French girl. Don't worry, she was also two, but I wish I had video of this. First she batted her eyes at him and started squealing when she saw him. Then she came over and gave him a hug, which was immediately followed by a kiss. This made J blush and made the girl so excited that she took off her bathing suit! B and I were dying, as was the girl's mother and grandmother. Her grandmother told her she was behaving just like a true French girl. Ahh.... love moves fast when you're two. And then she was gone.


This afternoon we went to something called Parade of Homes. I don't know if anyone has ever done this, but I'd never heard of it before. A new home development (high priced homes that you can only dream of ever living in) opens up for a few weekends after the homes are built to raise money for charity and to allow the public to view these incredible homes. This development overlooked one of the lakes, so the views were terrific. For the most part, I walked into all of these homes and gawked at how ridiculous they were. Children's media rooms with microwave ovens and mini refrigerators, separate washer and dryers in the master bedrooms. There was even one master bathroom that had a hookup so you could work on the internet while you took a bath and sat in front of a large screen tv. If you ask me, some things just shouldn't be done in a bath. I could also think of lots of things I'd rather do with 3-4 million instead of buy one of these places, but it was a different way to spend the afternoon.


Well, I'm off to bed in hopes of a good night's sleep. Hope everyone has a good Memorial Day. Here's a pic of our patriotic kiddo examining the flag that was put up in our yard.