Some Visual Updates and the BEST Blondie Brownie Recipe EVER!

FIRST ANNUAL GOBBLER 5K (MALCARNE FAMILY PLUS SMITHS)

Post Gobbler Football game (Thanksgiving 2013) with nephews

Piper and Great-Grandmother Rasmussen

The Thanksgiving Crew--My parents, John's parents and grandmother, my brother John and Family, My sisters Anne and Doreen and their Families and my niece and her husband, Kyra and Patrick, and her brother Zach. I think it was 27 total. Total blast!

The Feast

Henry and cousin Shaun

Finn and both is Grandpas making the Thanksgiving puzzle (they worked on this for four hours!).

Black Friday (or rather Gray Thursday) shopping with cousins--10pm Thanksgiving night

Annual Tree Decorating Party . . .

Celia Getting ready for school . . . whose under that table?

Christmas 2013

Henry (with pig tails) and Phoebe skating . . .

Newest Addition to our family--the Eternal Flame outdoor gas fireplace

Santa Came!

The utter exhaustion of opening presents!

Holiday Ice Skating (yep, that's Henry in that mask)

Happy New Years 2014!!

Selfies with the littles

Cross Country Skiing with Cousins in Herriman State Park in Idaho

Most beautiful talented ladies in my life--YW Board for the Highland 34th ward

Beautiful Sisters--our 15th Annual Malcarne Sister's Reunion in Stuart Florida

Me and my Mama

Hanging out for five hours with my sister Anne in the Atlanta Airport in the Storm of 2014 waiting to go to Florida . . . best five hours ever!

That's just a few . . .

Now . . .

Blondies

I go this recipe from the BEST DESSERT recipe book ever (from Anthropology--yeah, who knew a clothes shop would have a great recipe book . . . well, it IS Anthro . . . ). It's worth buying just for the pictures and the whole idea of beautiful, simple desserts that MELT you. It's called The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert Cookbook

These are to die for . . . so I'd double it :)

Blondies with White Chocolate and Macadamias (though I omit the nuts thanks to my allergic kids)

Ingredients:

Melted butter and flour for the pan

8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature

3/4 c packed dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp Vanilla

1 c flour (all purpose)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c. macadamia nuts

1/2 c. coarsely chopped white chocolate (or white chocolate chips)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.

Butter 8 by 8 inch pan.

Line bottom of pan with parchment paper (you don't have to do this, but it makes clean up and serving so much easier) leaving 2 inches around the edges. Butter and flour the parchment paper.

In a small skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Cook for 2 minutes, or until the butter is golden with little bits of brown spots.

Immediately remove from heat and transfer to a bowl.

Wisk in the brown sugar.

Wisk in the egg and vanilla

Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt. Fold in nuts and white chocolate chips.

Pour into pan.

Bake for 18-25 minutes--or until a tooth pick inserted in the middle, comes out with little crumbs clinging to it.

Let cool for about 10 minutes and then pull out with the parchment and cut and serve . . . I promise, if you bring this anywhere, they'll be gone in minutes. Heaven!

oh how things change

It's amazing how having a big old stressers changes everything. Things you thought were super important seem so silly and things I took for granted seem so precious and important. I feel like I've been blind, and now I see. I was listening to one of my friends talk about weight loss and how to get her extra five pounds off and how often she things about it. I looked down at my belly and thought, I can't remember the last time I even thought about my body or my wrinkles or my sagging places. With a whole new set of much more pressing worries, physical appearance has gone out the window. Not completely, of course; I still want to be look my best, but my best has changed. My best is smiling. My best is a good day where I can easily smile and laugh. My best is a daily prayer of gratitude that we've gone another day healthy and well. Today, that changed. Finn's been complaining of a pain in his leg since May and for about a week, he walke...

Green Bananas

What I miss the very mostest about being young is that ability to forget everything but the very moment you are in. If you are tired, you sleep. If you are hungry, you eat. If you want to read, you pick up a book and read. If you want to watch a movie/show/tv, you sit your little butt down and watch. If you're a mama, you have to think about nine thousand things before you do anything. If you are tired, you stay tired because you just don't have time to sleep. If you are hungry, you'd better go grocery shopping and get cooking because no one is really going to eat if you don't. If you want to read . . . well, you always want to read, but the laundry, cleaning, weeding, talking, caring, fixing, loving must happen before that happens. If you want to watch a movie, well, you can try, but really, you probably will just fall asleep. And be so happy for that sleep because you know, if you're me and you only watch tv with your whole family surrounding y...

The Best Kind of Tired

My often daily life . . . (John is two feet away—I can’t do all of them by myself) Last week, every single time I sat down, I almost instantly fell asleep. I kept telling John, I have the sleeping disease. What is going on? Am I getting old? Is it the covid after effects? What on earth? He didn’t have any answers for me because he was doing the same thing. We didn’t really do anything for seven days straights. And our kids joined us in the sleepy, do nothing, lazy slug bug state. It wasn’t until this morning as I was looking over the pictures of the summer that I realized why. . . We literally haven’t stopped ALL summer long—one awesome amazing trip/visit/fun after the other. It’s like we are making up for last years “staycations.” Holy hannah have we ever made up for it. Just about did ourselves in playing and hugging and kissing and caring for babies. Highlights of the summer (in no particular order): Cousin sleepove...

The Phoenix: Epicuriousmothering Rising

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