18 months

Today my sweet Brody turns 18 months old. What better way to celebrate than to take Brooke and Brody to their well child/baby check-ups. Brooke for her 5 year check-up and Bo for his 18 month check-up. Both left in tears. Brooke quietly crying to herself admiring the sticker she picked out as a reward and sucking on a lollipop from mama's diaper bag while Bo screamed all the way out to the car. Yes it was quite the scene and yes people were staring.
I survived and treated everyone to lunch.
I took some pictures today of my big 18 month old Brody boy as I walked into his room to wake him from his afternoon nap. He was already awake and ready for his afternoon cup of milk and snack. I love his sweet smile and the expressive faces he makes...just like his big sister did at that age.

Smore's Bars Recipe

I started Monday out with a list of things to get done, Tuesday morning I realized I had pretty much accomplished everything on my list except the one item I was not looking forward to doing...cleaning out the garage, breaking down boxes, fitting two cans of smelly garbage into one can, and make a run to the Goodwill. So after lunch I put my baby boy down for his regular 2 and 1/2 hour nap and I set out to tackle the garage. Two and 1/2 hours later I pull into the sparkling clean garage returning from the Goodwill drop-off, I stink and the baby boy is awake and ready for his afternoon snack and milk. (For those of you freaking out thinking I left him home alone I didn't. Bryan works from home and knew I made a quick trip out with Brooke) So the rest of the afternoon played out as follows, settle Brooke and Brody with their afternoon snacks, wash dishes that don't go into the dishwasher, prep dinner, cook dinner, cook Brooke and Brody their dinner, eat, clean up kitchen from dinner, add in a few dirty diaper changes and Brooke and Bo meltdowns, make a quick trip to my most favorite store of all Wal-mart (yes I was being sarcastic there) come home and Bryan states "I thought you were going to make that dessert you talked about making at Wal-mart." I reply with the usual it's getting close to baths and bedtime...should I...do you want me to make something??? I could sense that Bryan was craving something yummy for dessert so why not? I caved, after all I deserved something yummy too for my adventures in garage cleaning. So I made Smore's Bars. I came across this recipe while surfing recipes online and it was delish and super easy. Funny story, as the bars were baking and I was cleaning the kitchen, Bryan was upstairs playing with Brooke and Bo. Amid the screams and running and giggling Brooke rushes into the kitchen and askes "Mommy what are you making?"
I reply "Smore's Bars."
She states "Oh. Smmmores Bars....that's what Heaven smells like!"
Here is the recipe for what Heaven smells like according to my 5 year old. Enjoy!

Smore's Bars

Ingredients
7 graham crackers finely crushed (I did it in a gallon sizes Ziploc bag but you can also use a food processor)
1 stick of butter
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of brown sugar
1/3 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 to 1 3/4 cups of marshmallow creme fluff (I just eyeballed it making sure to cover atop the chocolate evenly)
1 1/3 cups of flour
4 DARK chocolate regular sized Hershey bars or use two king sized ones

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Grease and 8 inch square pan with globs of butter

Mix together with an electric mixer butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. In a different bowl mix together flour, finely crushed graham crackers, salt and baking powder. Slowly add wet and dry ingredients together until a dough forms. Place 1/2 of the dough onto the greased pan and form an even layer with your hands. Place the chocolate on top of that first layer evenly. Next spread the marshmallow creme evenly on top of the chocolate. Lastly place the remaining dough atop the marshmallow creme to create a final even layer.
Bake for 30 minutes (I baked mine for 35/37 minutes)
Wait until it's completly cool to cut into bars. I was anxious but still really enjoyed mine all warm and gooey, a scoop of vanilla ice-cream served with it would have been perfection.
Enjoy!

Getting Settled and Valentines Day

Life has been crazy ever since we left Utah to visit family and play over the holiday season. What exactly happened is a whole other blog post that probably will never happen because I seriously don't want to re-live it. What is important now is that we are more than excited to be here n Arizona enjoying our first home. They say that an individual is lucky to find a home that is about 85 percent perfect or 85
percent of what they hoped for, well I feel like I've won the lottery because our house, to me, is 100 percent perfect. I have been absolutely enjoying the work of settling our little family in our house. It's been a ton of work but its been so fun at the same time. We bought a new couch, entertainment unit and dining room table all of which we are anxiously awaiting to arrive which wont be for another 5 to 6 weeks, total bummer but more than worth the wait. I can't wait to post pictures.
So now that most of the work is done I can get back to blogging more frequently. I woke up this morning to a beautiful bouquet of roses and breakfast from my sweet valentine Bryan. I'm such a lucky girl! Enjoy the pics above and Happy Valentine's Day! xoxoxo