My son is already very adept with my iPhone so I’m constantly keeping my eye out for new apps that will keep him entertained.

The latest addition to my iPhone are two brand new apps from ABC for Kids featuring Bananas in Pyjamas – “Beach Fun” ($1.99 ) and ”Say Cheese” ($2.99) – released just in time for Christmas and available from the app store.

ABC 2 is already a popular channel in our house and the new Bananas in Pyjamas (with computer generated graphics) are quite entertaining so extending the experience with a game app seemed like a great idea.

My curious little boy noticed the pictures of B1 & B2 in my email and immediately said “Oooooh, I would like that one and that one” (pointing to each of the pictures of the two apps). He asked me if it was a game and if I was downloading it – he’s such a little eager beaver.

“Beach Fun”

The first app we tried was “Beach Fun”. On opening the app, there are instructions for parents, explaining the concept of the game and how that relates to the stories portrayed in the Bananas in Pyjamas television shows. Funnily though, despite my son being quite adept at some complex games I have on my phone, there were a few places where he asked me what he had to do. There are two game choices – the first game is for “teaching” children about what you do when you go to the beach – a Bananas in Pyjamas take on the 20+ year old Slip Slop Slap message. The second game gives choices of different sized sandcastles and a variety of beach items to decorate with. At the end of the decorating, the sandcastle sparkles and you can “stomp” the sandcastle by tapping it with your finger. This second game took a few tries to realise there was a finite limit to the number of decorations and you have to place all of them for the sandcastle to sparkle. With the first game, while my son is familiar with hats and sunglasses when we go to the beach, the sunscreen application provided more giggles because of the “farting” noises made by squirting copious amounts of sunscreen on B1 & B2 than specific education initially – I had to explain to him that he needed to rub the sunscreen in. After a few more plays, he’s now parroting the Bananas about needing sunscreen. Not something he’s learnt at home because we don’t use sunscreen.

While this might seem innocent and quite cute, I find it a little disconcerting that he’s picked this up so quickly. In Australia, despite our abundance of sunshine, the overuse of toxic sunscreens on children (and adults) is causing widespread Vitamin D deficiencies which has been shown to potentially lead to an increased incidence of cancers. This app would have been more appropriate had it explained spending a little time in the sun to let your skin make it’s essential Vitamin D and then covering up with a hat, shirt and sunglasses for extended periods of time in the sun.

Overall, the game is quite simple & while my son is being entertained with over-squirting sunscreen and decorating his sandcastle, I expect the novelty will wear off quickly because of the overly simplistic nature of the game.

From a parenting perspective, up to the age of 7, children are sponges – just absorbing all the information around them, they truly are learning machines. I think it’s important to think about what the long term outcome is of allowing potentially incorrect information to be fed directly to our children via seemingly innocent games.

“Say Cheese”

The second Bananas in Pyjamas app was “Say Cheese”. Again, there were the familiar instructions for parents – I really like this aspect of both apps – it lets me know what to expect from the game without necessarily needing to play it myself (because I’ve usually got a little boy jumping up and down eager to get to playing on my phone).

This app was more complex than “Beach Fun”. First you select a “picture frame” to use for your final image – a variety of templates including characters from Bananas in Pyjamas. I found the scrolling through the picture frames was a little quick and sometimes difficult to select the exact one from you wanted (it had a tendency to skip to the next frame). Then you can actually take a photo of someone (or yourself if you have an iPhone 4 or 4s) from within the app or use existing photos within your camera roll. Then, similar to the sandcastle decorating in the previous app, there are a variety of decorations to use on your photo – funny hats, glasses, B1 B2 pyjamas, characters from the show etc, and they can all be resized to fit the photo better. Once you’ve completed your decorating, you click the camera icon to take a screen shot of your finished image.

This is a great app – my son already loves taking photos of everyone using my iPhone, so this takes it a step further and gives him the ability to decorate and make the photo really fun. I haven’t shown him yet that he can then send these photos either via email or text message to friends and family – he already sends smiley emoticon text messages to family members – I’m not quite ready for him to be sending crazy pictures of us to people in my address book.

A Present for You

Now that I’ve whet your appetite for all things Bananas in Pyjamas, I’ve got one copy of “The Magic Trick” DVD (RRP $19.99) to give away to one lucky reader.

I won’t make you jump through hoops and “write in 25 words or less…” (my least favourite way to enter a competition) to enter this competition. Just three easy steps:

1. Enter your email address (at the top of the sidebar above) to receive blog updates (I don’t write everyday, so you won’t be bombarded),
2. Tweet this post (I’ve added in some groovy little social networking buttons below and to the left of this post),
3. And finally, post a comment below telling me what your child’s favourite ABC for Kids program is and why.

Disclosure: I received complimentary downloads of the Bananas in Pyjamas iPhone apps and a giveaway copy of Bananas in Pyjamas “The Magic Trick” DVD courtesy of ABC for Kids via Digital Parents. No financial payment was offered nor accepted for this post. All opinions expressed are purely my own.

Admittedly, I think that word expert gets used a little too often and it does bring up strong emotions for me too. The Oxford dictionary gives the definition of expert as: “a person who is very knowledgeable about or skilful in a particular area” originating from the Latin word expiriri meaning “to try, test, experience or prove”.

When you look at the word “expert” in that light, it perhaps lessens the emotive sting of the word and allows you to better decide whether the person you are seeking advice from is actually an expert.

In the broad sense of being a parent or more specifically a mother, any parent can be considered an expert in bringing up children because they have experienced it. In a more specific sense, no other parent can provide expert advice in the upbringing of your child, because no other person has experienced the unique combination of you and the interaction you have with your child in your environment. Another parent can only ever provide examples of what they did and what results they achieved. It’s up to you then to decide if that course of action suits you and your child for the desired outcome. Having said that, because of the uniqueness of you and your child, there is no guarantee you will get the same outcome.

Where to get parenting advice

Have you ever ventured into a bookstore and seen the overflowing shelves full of parenting books? A search for Parenting books on Amazon returns an enormous 61,815 results. And Google provides a staggering 210, 000,000 search results for the term parenting (as at Sept 20th 2011). Is it any wonder that parents are so confused about the “right” way to raise their child and that discussions on Facebook about expert status can cause emotional comments?

What I’ve noticed is that I tend to gravitate towards people whose ideas resonate with my beliefs – which effectively reinforces my beliefs. It takes something really drastic to alter my beliefs in a particular area. I imagine that this is similar for other people.

With my first child, I purchased and followed the advice given in the popular parenting books – that’s what everyone was doing and I thought that was the way I needed to do it too. I wanted to do the best for my new baby (as every parent does) and so when these “experts” advised:

• Regular invasive testing during pregnancy,
• Pain relief given during birth doesn’t affect the baby,
• Breastfeeding at 4 hourly intervals,
• Not breastfeeding your baby to sleep because it will form bad habits,
• Putting your baby to sleep in it’s own bedroom in it’s own cot,
• Controlled crying to teach your baby to self soothe,
• Vaccinating your child according to the advised schedule,

to name a few, I followed blindly and without question. My reasoning was, why would there be any need to question this advice – after all it was written in a book or it was provided by a doctor and so it must be true. Have you ever wondered how books are chosen to be featured in book stores, why one book is chosen and not another? Perhaps those with the biggest marketing budgets get prominent placement and they have the biggest marketing budgets because they adhere to the mainstream way of thinking – no rocking the boat – just my thoughts.

It wasn’t until after things started going wrong for us that I started to question the “experts” – and let me tell you, experts (particularly doctors) don’t like to be questioned.

How to determine if someone is an “expert’

An interesting question to ask of an expert is “WHY?” they are recommending things be done in a certain way. Asking “why” helps you to ascertain what their underlying reasoning and motivation is for providing that advice. When I started reading more and delving deeper, I discovered often times mainstream advice is given with the reasoning of “that’s just the way we do it”  and that there were alternate points of view to those of the mainstream experts and those alternate views often (but not always) provide a better, safer, more loving option to parenting than the socially accepted options.

With my second child I have chosen a very different path – the word to focus on there is “chosen” – I think there are a number of parents who don’t actively choose a path to follow, they just fall into it by default and accept what they are told as being the gospel truth, without doing any further research of their own. And it’s not until something goes wrong that they might question why.

My response to the conversation of Facebook was that I thought parents needed a framework to function within – not just more advice. A framework could for example consist of questions to ask, the answers to which would then allow parents to make the best decision for their family based on their individual circumstances.

One final note – there are people that have ideas that resonate with my beliefs and I like to read what they have to say and implement those ideas where suitable. I also realise that they are human and don’t know everything and that down the track they may discover more information that could alter their existing recommendations – I’m ok with that and I take full responsibility for any of the actions I choose to implement.

In reality, I think that parenting is just one giant experiment and all parents hope that their way of parenting will result in happy, healthy children. So I’m going to focus on all the things I want for my child and have faith that by focusing on what I want (rather than on what I don’t want), the best options and information will be presented to me to implement in my family.

I found a recipe for gluten free cupcakes at Elana’s Pantry, a site I’ve just discovered today. Coconut flour is very different to cook with than regular flour. It isn’t just a matter of substituting coconut in place of regular flour (like I have been for the commercial gluten free flour) so I needed a dedicated recipe.

I have made a few substitutions to the original recipe – coconut oil instead of grape seed oil, honey instead of agave and himalayan pink salt instead of celtic sea salt.

Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup raw cacao powder

1/4 teaspoon himalayan pink salt

1/2 teaspoon bi-carb soda

3 eggs

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/2 cup raw honey

Method:

1. Sift coconut flour, raw cacao powder, salt and bi-carb soda into a medium mixing bowl.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs, coconut oil and honey.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and store until completely combined (it takes a bit of stirring because at first it doesn’t look like the dry ingredients are being incorporated into the wet ingredients – they eventually come together.
4. Place cup cake papers into your cupcake pan (I used mini cupcake papers and pans).
5. Fill cup cake liners almost to the top (I found it took about 1 tablespoon of batter and rose just over the patty case)
6. Bake at 190°C for 20-22 minutes
7. Cool and ice if desired.

I can apply it to varying degrees of success in different areas of my life. And as it would turn out, the area I want change the most is the one that seems to elude me the most – very frustrating.

So this quote from Abraham was just another reminder for me:

You’re always on your way somewhere. The key is: find a way to be happy wherever you now are on your way to where you really want to be. (We’re speaking of the state of being you want.) It does not matter where you are; where you are is shifting constantly – but you must turn your attention to where you want to go. And that’s the difference between making the best of something and making the worst of something.

— Abraham

For the last month (and for the next few) I’ve been thinking of the other children in my first mothers group who are all turning 10 this year. I haven’t seen any of them for at least the last 8 years, other than a few photos here and there on Facebook.

My first baby has been gone for almost 9 years and today I had it brought full front and centre when I took my son to our Osteopath – someone we haven’t seen for over 8 years. He treated Isabella for less than 6 weeks before she died and it was a shock for him almost as much as it was for us when she left and to see him again today just brought it all flooding back.

I remember when my husband and I first started attending the bereavement groups at the Children’s hospital, it was sad even then (in the early stages of our loss) to see parents still so overwhelmed by their grief after years. We didn’t attend the bereavement group sessions for very long because I didn’t want to fall deeper into the grief and become one of those parents, still crying after so many years. And yet here I am sitting on the couch now, crying, remembering Isabella and still wanting to know why.

On a conscious, logical level, I know that so many things have changed for the better in our lives – we have our beautiful little boy who was born at home and is thriving, we live in a beautiful home only three doors down from the beach, we’ve travelled and experienced some amazing places, and yet I still don’t understand why it needed to happen this way, why my child had to die.

“Because we know that life is eternal, and we know that there is no ending to that which you are about, if one of you is killed in an earthquake or crashes your plane, or any number of other very creative ways you have found to make your exit into the Non-Physical, because we know the whole picture, we grieve not a moment for any of you. But from your more shortsighted point of view in physical, a lot of you grieve tremendously.”

- Abraham

I want to be able to see the whole picture, so I can stop grieving/have a greater understanding and get back to living my life because today, I saw from an outsiders perspective, how low I have been for the past 9 years, despite all my elaborate diversions, none of which have been as effective as I would have liked.

I think it’s time for a big shake-up in my life.

The only sane reasoning I can see for making such a decision is based on recent (last 10 years) happenings and how they have impacted the way I look at life.

A long time ago I had a little baby. When she was only 6 months old she suddenly and unexpectedly became unwell. The next 7 months of her life and her subsequent sudden and unexpected death destroyed my faith in the medical profession forever. It also permanently altered  my belief in all things mainstream. I am now skeptical about doing anything that is advocated as the “normal” way to do it. I also question when I hear such things as “but that’s how everyone does it”. Just because everyone does it a particular way, doesn’t automatically mean it’s right.

This way of thinking led to my next child being born at home with a midwife as our birth attendant rather than a doctor, no vaccinations, and a homeopath as our first port of call when somebody in the family is unwell.

My little boy, who is almost 3 is active, boisterous, strong-willed and very friendly with everyone he meets (he says hello to every person we pass when we go for walks on the beach). And my husband and I have decided that we are going to homeschool him.

We decided years ago that we liked the idea of homeschooling – after a trip to Europe – the idea of travelling and learning about the world first hand seemed so natural and fun – why be subjected to sitting in a classroom for 12 years just because that’s the way it’s “supposed” to be done.

In years gone by, children were tutored at home either by themselves or with siblings or neighbours. It seems unnatural to divide children into classes based on their age because children learn at different speeds and are drawn to different subjects.

Sitting children in a classroom for 30+ weeks a year for 12 years indoctrinates them to be the ideal candidate for a world where you go to a job Monday to Friday and think that is normal. 12 years at school, 4-6 years at University, 40 years in a job, when does that leave you with time to actually live your life and enjoy it?

That’s not the kind of life I want for my child. I want my little boy to continue to embrace life with all the enthusiasm he has shown so far.

So in keeping with my penchant for alternatives, I’m really interested in un-schooling – although I’d prefer to use a term such as “child-led learning” and I just discovered this great site about un-schooling at “Why Unschool“, written by two people who were unschooled themselves.

But if you want something really eye-opening, then here is a great video to leave you with a different perspective to schooling:

When I studied for my Master qualifications in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) some years back, I considered myself the queen of the reframe. Reframing simply means looking at a situation and seeing alternate meanings to the events, just like when you put a different frame around a painting or picture, it can give the picture a whole different look.

Now I’m trying to use that reframing on myself and a situation that has arisen - today I received a call from the group leader of a playgroup I attended with Daniel 2 days ago, telling me that two of the mums in the group (who wanted to remain anonymous) had contacted her to express their concern over my childs’ behaviour with their children.

I don’t want to be one of these parents who, when told about some misdeed of their child, proclaim it couldn’t possibly have been their child because he/she is an angel at home. I could see that Daniel was being very forceful in his behaviour with the other children, trying to grab toys back when they came up to him to grab the toys he had, I saw him hit a couple of times because toys that he was playing with were being moved, not sure if there were other things, because the parents in question on the day didn’t actually speak to me then and there. Each time he did something that I saw, I got up and moved him out of the situation, to the point where I sat on the floor with him in an attempt to divert his attention to something more productive.

I don’t like it when I see Daniel behaving that way, but short of smacking him (which I don’t like at all) I’m not quite sure how to temper this behaviour in him. There are a number of things that have happened with Daniel over the 3 years of his life that I would have liked to be different (his eczema, being picky with his eating), but they are as they are and please tell me of a parent that has a perfect child that does everything the parent wishes & I’ll go and get some coaching from them to see what I can do better.

So I see two issues in this situation:

1. As a parent, do you speak up at the time an issue is occurring?
2. How do you manage your childs’ behaviour?

Parents speaking up

I’m upset that the parents in question didn’t come and say something to me at the time the “incident” happened. To me that is a little cowardly, because I can’t do anything about it after the fact (today for instance) – a discussion with a child about their behaviour needs to happen right when it’s happened – they don’t understand about past events – they are live in the now creatures (unlike us adults).

Basically, speak now or forever hold your peace.

Children with different temperaments behave differently

My understanding is that toddlers don’t like to share and shouldn’t be forced to because it can make them feel that others needs are more important than their own. Why do we then insist that children be put into situations where they have to share and then we get upset if they don’t do it well? Sharing will be learnt naturally as a child gets older, no need to force the situation. (And show me an adult that is happy about sharing their favourite possessions).

My child is amazingly polite and conversational with adults and older children – he says please and thankyou without being prompted or forced, he says hello to people when we are out and about and asks what their name is and tells them his name and how old he is and then proceeds to have a conversation with them, telling them what he is doing at the time – I haven’t seen any other child his age behave in this way in any group we’ve attended.

There are certain traits and behaviours I want to encourage in Daniel that will serve him well in his adult years. I want him to be self sufficient, so I provide all I can for him now during his early development years so he knows he has a safe base to come back to and then he can develop that trait in his own good time. I didn’t want to force him to be self sufficient before his time (as is advocated by some parenting experts) because I think this causes behavioural issues in later years from not having a safe supportive environment in early years.

I want him to be a free thinker, look outside the box, go after what he wants, be a trailblazer and hold his boundaries. I see him do things now that as a child, I don’t know that in my upbringing I would have been allowed to do that or say that, yet as an adult it would be something to be admired or coveted. I don’t want to stifle who he is and make him feel wrong. Do children that sit meekly and quietly become those trailblazers? In all honesty I can’t answer that question. But here is a question to ask yourself, does suppression of natural toddler behaviours now cause greater behavioural issues in later years that then require people to get some sort of psychological guidance?

Perhaps my childhood experiences of being teased at school has energetically impacted on Daniel such that he is going to be the opposite and not be a victim (and then passive aggressive like I know I can be with underhanded, snarky comments – all in an effort to protect myself from being hurt). Or maybe just as adults in social situations either get along with someone or feel a strong repulsion to them right from the first meeting, maybe children are like this too and Daniel is just picking up a vibe of suppression and political correctness in the room of children and mums that sets him off.

What do I do now?

Behaviour is so complex and impacted by so many different variables and now I need to decide whether to continue to go to a group where I’m not completely welcome (either through my opinions or my child’s’ behaviour) or just withdraw and continue on our way (just like I would put a delicate ornament out of the way of a baby/toddler/child to avoid the possibility of it being broken).

What do you think?

Unlike other bloggers who seem to be able to maintain the discipline of writing articles (even multiple articles) every day, my writing seems to be much more sporadic – I prefer to write when the desire hits and something spurs me to share my opinions. Unfortunately more often than not, the inspiration passes by as I’m entertained by my little boy and his funny daily antics and the day is swallowed in what seems to be the blink of an eye.

I so much want to be the perfect mum – doesn’t every mum? I’m wondering though if this desire for (my idea of) perfection will be a lifelong pursuit, two steps forward, one step back?

In my mind, perfect looks like:

• Awake at whatever time I’m naturally awoken and feeling refreshed and ready to go after a full night’s sleep
• A healthy, happy family
• Healthy, nutritious and satisfying eating for all the family every single day
• A thirty minute walk everyday
• Playtime at the park out in the fresh air and sunshine
• Free time to hang out with my little boy and do as we please
• A two hour afternoon nap for my little boy so I can either write articles or create websites
• Daily meditation
• Strength and Interval training three times a week
• Two dedicated half days per week to work (although writing and creating websites doesn’t feel like work)
• Weekly massage
• Some quality time with my husband
• Living in my own beautiful home
• Successfully running my own business
• Everything under control and when it’s not, being able to “go with the flow”

This is my current aim point – a broad overview of what I’d like my life to be like – and on some days I can check off more boxes than others.

What I’m finding though, is that the days I try to push consciously to achieve as much as I can, I often feel great frustration regardless of how much I achieve – the “To Do’s” ticked off are never enough. Whereas on the days where I resign myself to just “going with the flow”, I feel happy and content regardless of how much or how little I have achieved in that day.

I much prefer that happy and content person than the frustrated, grumpy one (& I know my husband definitely prefers the happy content me) so perhaps it’s time to let go of what I think other people think I should be doing (yes I really do care too much about what others think of me) and do what fills me with joy and let that joy ripple out to those around me.

I’d really like to hear how you balance being a Mum and being just you – sharing of hints and tips is always greatly appreciated

I have to be honest – I’ve been struggling with my finances for years. And, it’s a little scary for me to actually share this  - what will people think of me – I like to live a life as if all is well but in reality I expected for myself to be so much further along than I am.

It’s not for lack of earnings – since we (my husband & I) moved to Melbourne almost 11 years ago, our incomings have increased but so has our debt. There have been a variety of out of the ordinary things that have contributed to that debt, but to be truthful, it’s just a reflection of an underlying pattern that needs to be eliminated for a permanent change to take place. Don’t get me wrong, we live a nice life, we’ve lived in great houses, we’ve travelled, we have nice furniture in our home and we eat at fantastic restaurants from time to time. I really just want our finances to change from spending more than we earn to spending less we earn while still enjoying a great lifestyle (and even more).

There has also been no lack of information consumed – books, seminars, blogs, from a variety of authors and “experts”. After a while all the information blurs together and starts to sound the same. I implement one plan and we seem to make headway for a while but then it all falls over and we revert to our old habits again.

Years ago I came across a book by T. Harv Eker called “Secrets of The Millionaire Mind” (I actually purchased the audio book) and I implemented some of the ideas from the book (how to divide up your income into various categories) and again, while it worked well for a little while, I think I was overly optimistic in how tight I could cut our living expenses and this eventually caused a rebound back to spending.

When you read the book (or listen to it) T. Harv does say his ideas shared in the book are a cut-down version and it’s really best to attend the “Millionaire Mind Intensive” Seminar. Unfortunately up until now, these seminars have only been held in Canada and the United States (and more recently in Hong Kong and Singapore). However, just recently I received an email to say that this seminar will be held in Melbourne and Sydney in September this year.

I’m quietly excited about attending – T. Harv promises that when you attend the seminar you will uncover your “money blueprint” and my desire is that once this is exposed, the tools throughout the course of the weekend will change that blueprint to one that will finally put my on the right path to financial success.

“It all comes down to this: if your subconscious “financial blueprint” is not ‘set’ for success, nothing you learn, nothing you know, and nothing you do will make much of a difference.”

- Harv Eker

So if your finances aren’t living up to how you want them to be, come with me to the Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar – I’m always eager to hear about other success stories

Organic Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

Last week was my little boy’s second birthday and the first time I’ve made cupcakes for him.

It goes without saying that he absolutely loved them and couldn’t get enough of them and I felt a little bad because in the rush of preparing for visitors and a birthday party, I used a packet mix.

So to feel a little less guilty about allowing my child to eat chocolate cupcakes, tonight I made another batch of cupcakes and I modified a basic buttercake recipe (that I learnt in high school) to make my own “healthy” organic version.

I’ve recently been inspired by my friend Vidi who writes a raw food blog The Raw Recipe, to add some new ingredients to my pantry. So while these cupcakes are definitely cooked, some of the ingredients are ones that have been suggested to replace some of my regular ingredients to add a bit of extra nutrition to our diet.

I’ve been using organic eggs, milk and butter for quite a few years to minimise our intake of pesticides and hormones found in regular dairy and eggs and now I’ve found a great local organic store where I’ve sourced some raw cacao products (from a great company called Loving Earth) and Organic Panela (evaporated cane juice).

The Organic Raw Cacao contains potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium and iron and has up to 4 times the amount of antioxidants of traditional cocoa powder.

The Organic Panela retains the nutrients naturally found in sugar cane that are stripped away in regular sugar products. Evaporated sugar can juice only undergoes a pressing and drying process, so the natural qualities (carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins) are retained.

Enjoy chocolate mini cupcakes in moderation

Organic Chocolate Mini Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• Mini patty cases (more than 60)
• 175g Organic Panela (Evaporated Cane Juice) ground fine in a bamix mill to resemble caster sugar
• 175g Softened Organic Butter
• 3 organic eggs
• 125 ml organic milk (raw if you’re game & can source it)
• 1 tsp natural vanilla extract
• 175g Organic Self Raising Flour
• 4 Tablespoons Raw Cacao Powder

Method:

Preheat oven to 180? (or 350? – my current oven is ancient & in Fahrenheit but bakes beautifully).

Line a mini cupcake tray with mini paper patty cases.

Beat softened butter with the sugar in a mixing bowl until pale and creamy.

Add the vanilla extract to the milk.

Sift the flour with the raw cacao powder.

Beat one egg at a time into the butter and sugar mix until well combined.

Alternate adding the milk and flour, mixing well between each addition.

Spoon the batter into the patty cases (almost to the top) and bake for 15-20 minutes or until firm.

Transfer cupcakes to a wire rack to cool. When cool decorate as desired.

My little boy doesn’t like the icing so they stay plain for him

Makes approximately 60 mini cupcakes.