Cinco de Mayo...

Cinco de Mayo is one of only two holidays that my husband willingly celebrates. The other is Opening Day (of baseball season; we had a cool party this year with bar food and obvs baseball-watching). The rest I need to practically force him to participate in, with the possible exception of Christmas, but just the decorating part (he likes lights).

However, this year we've got a ton of stuff going on. Like my cousin's first Holy Communion that we were supposed to be going to. But my husband had to take a day of work on the farm so he wasn't going to be able to make it. Then yesterday, out of nowhere, Stenni came down with a 102 degree fever (while we were out shopping for said cousin's present! So guess who is getting a $20 in a card?). The poor little creature is miserable and all she wants to do is cuddle, which is alright by me. So we are staying home to cuddle. And maybe do some holiday prep.

But Cinco de Mayo has a special place in my heart too. It was the first time I ever had heartburn. Seriously. When I was pregnant with Stenni, about 5 months along, we went out to eat at a local Mexican restaurant for Cinco de Mayo. Having never gotten past 5 months of pregnancy before, I had NO IDEA that you weren't supposed to eat spicy foods the further along you were. I had literally no clue what was going on when, one spicy enchilada and a ton of pico de gallo later, I was sure that I was having a heart attack. After I got home, calmed down and consulted the interwebs, I realized that I was not going to die, took some antacids, drank some milk and went to bed. Ah, the memories.

But in pre-pregnancy days, we used to have some massive and amazing Cinco de Mayo parties complete with pinatas and sombreros and margaritas and Mexican beers and always mojitos even though they are Cuban. But these days I can't touch a mojito (or a margarita, or even Mexican beer for that matter), so I'm going to settle for some carne asada tacos and a tres leches cake. Baking generally keeps my little one occupied no matter how she feels, so I'm hoping between cuddles we can do it up before hubs comes home, and possibly even throw a poncho on the wall or something for good measure and a little ambiance. I'll be making The Pioneer Woman's Tres Leches Cake, but substituting some lite coconut milk for the evaporated milk (makes it a little more tropical-tasting I think) and maybe throwing in a splash of coconut rum for good measure. And I'm skipping the cherries cuz I don't have them and I also don't want to stain my hands red for a week. If you've never tried Tres Leches Cake, DO IT NOW. I promise you won't regret it, as long as you have a sweet tooth. Otherwise I really can't say. At the Bravo near us (a big Hispanic supermarket), they have a quatro leches cake. Can you handle 4 milks? Because I would be on my way to pick one up right now if not for the sicky baby.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everybody!