Happy Birthday!!!!

Just want to wish a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sister Michelle. :) I am truly grateful to have her in my life, and even more that we live close enough to see each other every so often. (Sometimes feels like not enough ;) I look up to her, now, and always more than she probably knows. I am glad we are friends, and I hope she has a FABULOUS birthday!

BYU Mint Brownies--YUM!!!!

MAKES ONE 9-BY-13 PAN OF BROWNIES.

PREP AND COOK: 90 min. COOL: 1 hr.

Brownies

1 c. margarine

1/2 c. cocoa

2 Tbsp. honey

4 eggs2 c. sugar

1 3/4 c. flour

1/2 Tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. chopped walnuts (I am not a walnut fan, so I did not include these!)

MINT ICING

5 Tbsp. margarine

dash of salt

3 Tbsp. milk

1 Tbsp. light corn syrup

2 1/3 c. powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. mint extract

1-2 drops green food coloring

CHOCOLATE PAN FROSTING

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup milk

4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1. Melt margarine and mix in cocoa. Allow to cool. Add honey, eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. Add nuts. Pour batter into a greased 9-by-13 baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Cool.

2. Prepare mint icing: Soften margarine. Add salt, corn syrup, and powdered sugar. Beat until smooth and fluffy. (Mine did not get "fluffy" until I added the milk, so don't stress that part)Add mint extract and food coloring. Mix. Add milk gradually until the consistency is a little thinner than cake frosting.

3. Spread mint icing over brownies. Place brownies in the freezer for a short time to stiffen the icing. Remove from the freezer and carefully add a layer of chocolate icing.

4. Prepare chocolate frosting: Melt butter in a medium saucepan over low heat, 2-3 minutes. Stir in cocoa powder and milk. Bring to a boil, stirring, and then remove from heat. Stir in powdered sugar until frosting is thickened and smooth. Pour and spread warm frosting on top of the layer of mint frosting. Let them cool before cutting.

They don't look super pretty or anything, especially with my limited camera skills, but MAN they are good!!! If you have a better chocolate frosting recipe, go with that. I jsut found this one on someone else's blog with the brownies recipe, as the BYU website just said use your fav, or buy the canned frosting. I think you could melt down chocolate chips and spead them over it too--for that Andes Mint look. Hope you like it!

Still here

Boy what a slacker I am!! I cannot believe how fast time has FLOWN by. How is it already 2010?? How do I have just over 8 weeks left until this little one is due? WOW is all I can say. The Holidays were great for us, we had a lot of fun spending time with our little family, as well as our extended families. Tyler made the sweetest comment as we were driving to Mike's parents on Christmas Day--he said, "The thing I love most about this time of year is how much time we get to spend with our families!" Who could say it better? And coming from a 6 year old boy who just got loaded up with presents, it was extra big. Now for a massive unloading of pictures from the last what, almost 2 months?! In no particular order of course--since blogger is no longer my friend!

Bailey Jean in her Chirstmas dress. Getting a new dress on Christmas and Easter is one of my favorite memories. Fun to be able to share it with my daughter now. :)

Tyler in his new Christmas duds. We could not get him to pose seriously for anything--guess it just lets his personality shine thru!

We (I should say I pushed for it) were crazy enough to stand in line for over an hour to see Santa at the Fashion Place Mall. A bunch of people on KSL said he was the best Santa--NOT worth the wait in my opinion. It was funny to see Tyler have a Christmas Story moment though when Santa asked what he wanted for Christmas. He had repeated the same thing every other time someone asked--but this time, it was "I want, I've always wanted..." I chimed in--a Transformer?! "Ya--a Transformer." Goofy kid!

Mike ever so patiently waiting in line. I finally had to sit down for a few minutes, as my lovely feet have started turning into marshmellows, like they did with Tyler.

Here is Bailey in her pretty Christmas dress from Grandma "Idaho"

Mike cut out a bunch of ornaments for our tree, and we caved and let the kids help paint them. Even Kyle--which was a HUGE leap! They all loved it though, and the clean up wasn't too bad. I needed to recover my chairs anyway. ;)

Right before Thanksgiving, Bailey decided to give herself a haircut. I was out running some errands--so I blame Mike completely! ;) Funniest part about it is that Tyler saw her hair on the floor, and thought she'd cut HIS hair, so he cut a huge chunk out of the back of her hair--to even the score. Lucky for us, Alisha (who cuts our hair) loves us, and got us in the next day to fix it. Now she is sporting a spunky little bob, which I actually love. But we had a serious discussion about just WHO is allowed to cut our hair.

Had to throw this one in here! An awesome lady in my ward threw a New Moon party for the premiere, and I talked my sister in law Andrea and my neighbor Kira into going with me. It was a LOT of fun--especially since I was already a huge Jacob Fan. :D

Randomly thrown in here is a shot of this delcious pumpkin cake I made! SOOOO good. So not in anyone's diet, but yummy just the same. If only I was married to a man that actually enjoyed sweets like I do, I'd have eaten less of this than I did. But again, YUMM-O!

Tyler's school had a "Dad's and doughnuts" day, where kids got to bring their dads, and a book and have chocolate milk and doughnuts before school. So much fun!

This should have been at the top, to go in order, but whatever! During Super Saturday (while Mike also had Youth Conference) the kids were in Childrens Class, and had a BLAST! They made all sorts of Thanksgiving crafts--including these outfits.

One last ode to Fall.

SOOO, Mike has been gone all week, and the leaves in the front yard needed some serious attention. Uggh. That's the part of fall I don't look forward too. Except to watch my kids play in them. So this morning I went out to finish up, in anticipation of stormy weather, and not wanting yucky wet leaves everywhere. Bailey and Kyle play really well together--when they want to. It was fun to watch them try and be helpers. Bailey is only in a couple of these because she was all business about getting all of the leaves raked up.

What a stinkin' cutie!

Cheese Ball! (that is one of our favorite things Kyle says)

"Here is a pretty leaf mom!"

Kyle doesn't get that he should jump in the leaves, he just loves the sound and feel as he runs through them.

My two hams. (And turkeys sometimes too!)

Icing on the cake!

Let me start off by saying I had the best day. Well, at least the late afternoon, and evening. I went to the temple, despite all of those nagging thoughts like "I am so tired, I will just fall asleep." and "I don't feel so good." I went much earlier than usual, I got into the 5 o'clock session--and it ended up being nearly empty. Ok, not that bad, but the smallest session I have ever been in. AND I am happy to report I didn't even nod off once! That is the first time in a long time for me. Not that I am not glad to be there, and intent on staying awake, but the peace, and the quiet, and the lights dimmed seems to get me everytime. :) A sweet lady a couple of seats away had a seizure--how horrible is that? Seemed like it was a regular thing for her though, and she was just fine after a few minutes. I just love the spiritual high I leave the temple with. Makes me feel like I can keep on keeping on.

Then I get home, get the kiddos in bed, and check my email. I have been reading this blog http://kaceyscouponcorner.blogspot.com/ that I found from my friend Brandi's blog. It is this awesome lady who posts deals and all sorts of couponing ways to save money. Last week I checked in on it, and saw she was doing a giveaway for this cute table that I posted a photo of, and I entered. I entered totally NOT expecting to win--I don't think I have won anything like that since high school maybe. Well, I WON!!! Hooray, I am so excited. She lives in Colorado, so hopefully she is ok with shipping it to me here in Utah. If not, well, maybe we'll have to take a drive to visit our old friends in Grand Junction. :) Either way--I am so stoked that I actually won something. And better yet that it is a totally awesome prize. I can just see my little ragamuffins chowing down at it next spring. Moral of the story...good days do come along after all. :D

Halloween!

Love blogger and the picture order! Oh well, here is my much anticipated Halloween post. I know Y'all have been dying to see my cute family in our Halloween digs. :)

Could I be any bigger?! Holy cow, and I still have 4 months left. This is definitely my LAST kid--I don't think I can buy clothes to fit a HOUSE!! :P

Tyler is such an amazing helper. Sometimes he is a little TOO much in Kyle's "personal space," but he is so sweet! Here we are starting off to the "trunk or treat" in Mike's parents neighborhood.

This is Tyler at the end of the Halloween Parade at school. They let the parents pile into the gym to see the little kids--so fun!


I was able to go help with the Halloween party for Tyler's class. It was fun, and CRAZY!!! I don't know how his teacher does that everyday. Takes a special kind of person--and they deserve saint hood!!

This should be with the one at the end, but at our ward party they had a doughnut on a string thing, and the young men convinced Mike, the Bishop and his wife, and another guy in the ward to compete against each other. It was funny! they were way too close together, but it was fun to watch. This is Mike WINNING! That's my guy. :)

And Optimus Prime showed up at our house. I was suprised he fit in the door. And he turns out to be much nice than I thought he'd be.

Here is my not so smily BYU Cheerleader. She said this is her happy smile--whatever! When people would ask her for a cheer, she would barely whisper it--goof ball.

And here is my sweet mini-Optimus. He loved being the same thing as Tyler, and even kept the mask on most of the time--much to my suprise.

Here is Mike going up against the Bishop. Looks a little like they might be going in for a KISS if you ask me. HA!

I fall for FALL!!!

I really do love this time of year. Not too hot, not too cold (until today that is) Fun to have warm soup, and enjoy the last bits of warm days and sunshine before the winter hits. (dun, dun, dun) I also love how excited my kids are about all of the different happenings. Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas coming before we know it. SO grateful that Christmas came a little early, and brought us a new camera to document it all! Last night we carved pumpkins--which I love, but gets a little wary when the kids aren't quite old enough to do all the hard work. But we had fun, and love our pumpkin family out on the porch.

(Tried getting one without the flash to show it lit up. Still working on my photography skills!)

I told Tyler he really had to get his hands in the pumpkin to get all of the "guts" out--he wasn't too keen on the idea.

Tyler hard at work designing the perfect "Scary" pumpkin. He ended up going with one of the patterns Annie brought over--lot's of work for one great daddy!

Kyle wanted to hack right in to his pumpkin--good thing he only had one of those kid knives from Ikea. What a ham!

Grandma "Idaho" sent a package for Bailey and Kyle for Halloween. Bailey didn't take this butterfly costume off for 2 days! Thanx Grandma!

Tyler got this cool light up shirt. Or should I say SCARY?? Everything with him this year needs to be spooky. "Our decorations need to be spookier mom!" And he keeps asking why some people don't have their Halloween decorations up yet--"it's almost Halloween!"

Awww--don't we need a dog?! How cute is my little family, plus one four legged friend? We doggie-sat for Michelle for a few days while they were out of town. Dottie was so sweet to have around, and I actually find myself missing her now that we took her home yesterday. The kids loved her! They wanted to go out and play with her, first thing in the morning, no matter how cold it was out there. Someday. :)