62 hours and counting!

Yes I haven't blogged in quite a while! So lets start from Summer break! What a road trip we took! It was long, approximately 62 hours round trip, but we had a great time! I was just able to upload all of the photos and videos from out time in Canada. But we should start at the beginning!

Right after finals we MOVED! (those photos to come in a diff post) So if moving right after FINALS isn't enough stress we left for Denver after only 2 nights in our new home! It was a lot! And I still don't have EVERYTHING together in the house yet, but we are functional! We just ignore the basement mess its a work in progress!  So for the vacationing! I forgot TONS of  stuff! I was a little rushed (I know I did this to myself though) We get to the hotel in Kearney (about halfway to Denver) and I realized I left our over night bag in my bedroom. Awesome. So we bought toothbrushes and figured we'd get everything else when we got to my parents. 13 hours to Denver, check!We spent 2 nights there with my family just relaxing as you should on vacation! Then 8 hours to Utah, we stayed with my sister Karly in PG, but guess what I forgot this time? that's right the battery to my camera! I charged it the last night we were in town and I packed the cord and left the battery on the counter. Perfect, lucky me we had the camcorder with us and it takes still shots! Not highest quality but still we had something!

 So here is Mai playing at Auntie Karly's house

Bag of bracelets = perfect purse

Maia self photo

So since we were only in Utah for 36 hours we made sure we got to see family! My Uncle Mark and Aunt Anjanette came to visit us in PG! They brought my cousins Laura, Samantha and Melissa the other 3 were various other places like Florida and Youth Conference so I'll forgive them :) It was great to see them though, and it was their first time meeting Maia! Later that evening we went up to SLC. We first went to visit our sweet niece Marie, who would be 5 this year!

I wish we could be closer and able to visit more often, but we think of her lots. After our visit we went and had a BBQ with Aaron and his girl Samantha! Yes we finally met Sam!! We had some awesome food and fun and then the next morning on our way out we had breakfast with them on our way out of town.

Then we stopped by my Aunt Janet and Uncle Randy's in Bountiful. We didn't get to stay for long but it was great to stop and chat with them! We then continued 4 hours to Rexburg Idaho! We got to spend the night with Lisa in her new place (it's gorgeous!) and she gave us the BYUI tour. And we got to have us some Frontier Pies! I had never even heard of it, but it was good food and tasty pie. I have lots of friends in Rexburg but unfortunately was not able to get to see any of them this time around! Hopefully there's a next time!

BYUI gardens with Auntie Lisa!

we like waterfalls :)

From there it was only 8 hours more to Cardston, AB where we spent the next week. We stayed with Sunny and Don and got to see nearly everyone! Lots of hangin out with the kids, we also got to take some time and go to Lethbridge for some Boston Pizza! Delicious! We got some fun pictures at the Birds of Prey Sanctuary.

the kids got to hold an Owl!

Maia was a little nervous

caught him and dinner time

Hedwig!

Playin with games at Grandmas!

Jesse and lil Griffin

No trip to Canada is complete without time at Grandpas Ranch!

Maia liked the cats a lot, they liked her back.

She also loved watching the horses! She did get to ride one too!

and danced and sang on the truck bed

"where they go?"

She really wanted to go after the horses once they got put away for the night, watch and see :)

lots of fun and family in Canada!

Happy Independence Day! 

We spent the 4th in Billings, Mt in a hotel cuz we were so tired from the 8 hour trip there. The next morning we drove 7 hours more to Denver. Where we stayed a few more days before heading 13 hours back home. When we left for Iowa this time we brought my lil sis Mandy with us!! It was so great to have her here with us! We love her so much, and Maia already misses Auntie 'Di-di"

Yaya taught her all different ways to get wet; the pond

the tub

and the rain!

Road trip with Auntie Mandy!

Such a cute little girl, loves having her own suitcase! 

Well that's our summer trip I'll post about the rest later!

Breakfast is better for Dinner

Breakfast for breakfast makes me sick to my stomach about 90% of the time, thus breakfast for dinner is MUCH better! Cuz my stomach stays happy!! So the other night we had some wonderful brinner. I found Hawaiian sweet bread at the Walmart! I was so excited, you have no idea, so I scooped it up and rushed home for french toast! We sliced up the sweet bread so it was a little thicker. My family, not so, secret is to butter the bread before dipping it into the egg mixture. I find it doesn't get soggy this way, and come on its french toast, bring on the calories ;)! Eggs (one for each person cooking for) dash of milk, vanilla, cinnamon, white and brown sugar; dip each side of the bread and fry. Now for the buttermilk syrup!

As some of you know my very first date with my dear Jesse was breakfast at Maglebys Fresh in Provo, Utah; all you can eat french toast and their special syrup. I happened to score the recipe just after we got married, it holds a special little place in my heart. So here it is to share!

Buttermilk Syrup

• 1 stick butter
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1tsp vanilla

melt butter in sauce pan (the recipe does bubble up a bit so make sure you have some extra room). Once its melted add buttermilk and sugar stir until combined and boil ONE MINUTE. Remove from heat and add soda and vanilla, cool slightly and serve over french toast!

DELISH!!

If you don't have buttermilk you can use regular milk just add a tablespoon of Vinegar or lemon juice to the milk before adding it to sauce pan. This will sour it enough to work well!

I also experimented with brownies recently! I shared them with my friends and they liked them almost as much as me!! So I have heard lots of tale about black bean brownies and frankly I was just nervous to try them! But I found this super easy recipe and away we went!

EASIEST Black Bean Brownies (Only 2 points for Weight watchers too)

• 1 box brownie mix
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained thoroughly
• 1/2 cup water
• chocolate chips/ frosting as desired

See? Easy peasy! Put beans into food processor or blender (I needed to add a tiny bit of water to them to keep them blending into a paste) add to dry brownie mix and add water as needed to bring them to brownie dough/ cake batter consistency. Bake as directed on package for which size pan you use (i.e 13x9 about 24-28 minutes etc) I added chocolate chips to the top prior to baking as a 'just in case all the beans didn't get completely pureed'.

Yummy Yummy Fudgey Brownies!!

We are also getting things packed up to move down to the Candle Light Commons townhomes and Maia has been a very big helper at packing boxes.

I told her we can only bring the important things :)

LOVE LOVE LOVE this girl!!

Green White Chili

We went to a super fun birthday party today for our friend Macy. We had a Chili Cook Off! Who'd have thought you'd have chili cook off weather at the end of May, but it was perfect! Cloudy and cool but still warm enough to be hanging out at the park. And the sun even came out halfway through! It was glorious! So for this Chili Cook Off I made up a recipe! I thought it was great so I thought I would share it!
Well first off last week I made a version or the Cafe Rio tomatillo dressing, it's delicious not exactly the same but I still ate it like everyday this week, and I wanted to use it up so I would stop eating it with EVERYTHING. Cilantro does not leave one with very nice smelling breathe :) So I had this idea to use it in a chili, and thats exactly what I did:

•  About half a spaghetti jar of tomatillo dressing, 
• 1pound of chicken cubed
• Cream of Potato soup
• 1 cup of chicken broth
• 1 can of corn
• 1 4 oz can green chilies undrained
• 1 can Great Northern Beans
• 8 oz Sour Cream

Threw it all into the crockpot, except for the sour cream for 3 hours on high (probably 4-5 on low) just before we left I took about a cup of the soup out and mixed it into the sour cream then whisked it all together. So it's more of a chowder than a chili, but its got a little kick and was delicious! I only got a photo of the leftovers :)

So looks like party people liked it too!!

Also we grilled up some brats this week on the Foreman!

with yellow red orange bell peppers and onions to top them off! So tasty! 

So I have this cute kid too right?! 

Learning the sword like her daddy :)

Palmer Baseball!! We got to go to a game on thursday night! Maia did great for staying up way past her bedtime.

But she really wanted her daddy! She even tried to climb the fence. 

Alas we did not win (we are 0-3 currently) and it was freezing! (how is it almost June?!)

But we had a pretty good time!

Maia in her giraffe pants and piggy tails, on our way to a play date at the park! 

We brought a lunch and Mai pulled that yogurt and spoon out of it and would not put it down until she got to eat it. But it kept her happy to let her hold them!

I made another purse last night. This one is more of a scripture bag or something, Maid sure likes it! 

She found it and started putting things in it, like her sippy cup, her Tangled DVD case and her keys. Mommy's girl :)

G5 The Next Grilleration

We have been watching Tangled Tangled and more Tangled! My sweet little girl only wants to watch that movie ALL DAY long! As annoying as it gets to me it's still so cute that she loves it so much! We even have to watch what we say, especially if we've finally gotten her away from the TV and not wanting to watch Tangled.  for that mostly too!

Sitting on her cushion with her "tweats" (goldfish and crasins) and juice watching her favorite show in ever!

 In our attempt to be able to watch grown up shows too (come on its Stanley Cup Playoffs going on!) we were looking into other options to let her watch it, when I found this portable DVD player for a whopping $59.95 at Target! We have a big road trip coming up this summer so I'm sure it will come in handy

sitting on her cushion watching her movie :)

When they sing she wanted to get closer!

Alright so I'm a little obsessed with our newest kitchen appliance. It's a George Forman Grill!! It has changeable plates, which means I can use it for EVERYTHING! At first we planned to just use it for grilling, for example Jesse has been grilling chicken a couple times a week and taking it to school for lunch in a salad. Another great grill we've tried was Salmon fillets, med heat 7 minutes. SO EASY! Tonight we had Kabobs; I have never made them on my own before, never thought of it but I will certainly be making them more!

 For these easy peasy Kabobs I marinaded Chicken in: 

• Olive Oil (about 3/4 Cup)
• Balsamic Vinegar ( About 2 tsp)
• Black Pepper and Sea Salt
• Minced Garlic (about 1 Tbsp)
• Ground Ginger (1tsp)
• Raspberry Vinaigrette (dash or two)

I didn't measure anything just what looked about enough and covered the chicken. I marinaded them for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile I started the Rice cooker (another thing that has become a staple in our house we use it at least weekly now!) and chopped veggies. We used Red and Green Bell Peppers, and Onions (pretty much what I had on hand). Once veggies were chopped I also cut up half a pound of Smoked Sausage, cuz I wasn't really using very much chicken, and last minute decided to use frozen pineapple chunks.

Skewer in order you wish, I like so separate meat from meat so it cooks faster (I don't really know if this is faster I think I just heard it once) and Grillerate it for about 8 minutes/until meat is cooked through.

 But this thing does so much more!
I was reading through the cookbook that comes with it, looking for ideas and such. In this cookbook is a recipe for chocolate chip cookies! It's a pretty basic recipe but I was more interested in the fact that you can make cookies in a Forman Grill!!! Crazy right?! I was so excited! So I gathered my ingredients, I used my own family recipe, and got to work! I haven't made cookies very much since I've moved to Iowa, not from scratch ones anyway, because baking in humidity when I'm used to baking in dry high altitude is WAY different! So I did a little research and learned a few tricks to keep my cookies from being flat and gross! Decrease the Baking Soda a bit and refrigerate between baking batches. Helped a TON! As for the Grillinator part; our grill comes with changeable plates, one of them is called The Baking plate. So I put that in and heated the grill. Once my cookie dough was tasty enough (yes I taste my cookie dough raw eggs or not I gotta know if its good, i.e. if I remembered all the ingredients) I put 6 dollops onto the baking plate and closed the lid. It took like 10 minutes, so not necessarily faster than baking them in the oven especially considering the fact that I can only bake 6 cookies at a time max, and when they are done you have to scoop them off right away so you can start the next batch. Which can get messy cuz they are still way soft, but they came out alright!
I used both the grill AND the conventional oven in order to finish the baking, cuz I didn't want it to take all night.

these are the first 2 batches from the Forman Grill, some stayed together a bit better than others!

I just thought this might look cool

*these cookies are Maia approved*

She approved so much we had to give her a bath she was so chocolatey!

So my love of the G5 Next Grilleration continues, You can call me the Grillenator!

Thanks again Mom for the Grill!!

Spring, MRSA and a Blanket Fort

We sure travel a lot this tri!! We went back to Colorado for Easter break. Maia and I flew out from Chicago the weekend before Easter, and J drove out later that week once school had wound down for the extended weekend. Karly had the week off from school so she also came out to visit! It was great to spend time with all my siblings, may quite possibly be the last time we are all together until after Scotts mission!

By the way my little brother DID FINALLY get his call!!! He will be serving in the Sydney, Australia mission Mandarin speaking. How awesome for him, I’m so excited for him and this opportunity he has. We’ve always wanted to visit Australia, so now we think we will save up to go see him when he is ready to come home! Especially since it’s perfect timing, we will be all graduated!

So most of our time in Colorado we go to just hang out, which was nice! I had lots of extra hands to help with Maia, which was perfect because I also had pneumonia! Yes that annoying cough I’ve had for like a month that I just kept brushing off? Turns out it actually was something! Good thing my mom caught it cuz I probably wouldn’t have done anything about it for a while to be perfectly honest. Coincidentally Mandy also had pneumonia at the same time, so we were nebulizer buddies.

Being spring and all we of course celebrated Easter. Maia LOVED visiting the Easter Bunny at the mall, in fact we had to tear her away from him! She was very sad to go. She had a blast finding Easter eggs too!

Of course Easter is not all about the Bunny and the Eggs! We were able to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Brown as well as the LB’s! Well half the LB’s. We were able to take some time and reflect on the real celebration behind Easter, the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for the atonement, so that it’s ok if I am not perfect at everything all of the time. So that I can live with my family again when this life is over, and thanks to the blessings of the temple I am sealed to them forever. I have such a wonderful life and am so truly unbelievably blessed to have such wonderful family and friends, and to be taken care of in so many ways.

 

Along with spring also came a new calling! I am not the Primary Secretary! There is lots to do, but I Love it! I am so excited about it! I have never been a super organized type of person but this is my chance to gain strength in those aspects of my life. I get to keep track of nearly 100 people, their contact info, names and faces and BIRTHDAYS!! I’m good at birthdays! If I’ve met you at least twice and you’ve told me your birthday chances are likely I remember it. At least the month if nothing else! I know I am not perfect in this aspect either, but I know birthdays. I guess I just want people to know that someone remembers them on their birthday!

 

So that is super fun! We have also had some less fun moments! Beginning with a little zit on Maia’s leg.

 

I noticed it that morning, and later in the day it looked more red, so I took a photo so I could compare, mostly because I thought I was being paranoid. Then the nect day it turned into this:

Okay that must be more than irritation from her diaper…maybe she got bit by a spider or something?

then another one showed up on the other leg! I only started to panic on the inside…and call and talk to all my family that is medically trained (i.e. Dr Bob and Nurse Mom).

A little hard to see because my flash is retarded! But it is the size of a dime and began to drain puss. It was hard like she had a little marble under her skin, she started walking funny so I know it was hurting her! So to set our minds at ease we went to the Urgent Care, because of course it was a weekend that this little bugger got worse during.

(Wednesday 3 days after treatment began, still hard spot but so much improvement!)

Doc didn’t know what to say, he told us it could be MRSA but wasn’t sure so took a culture and said help it keep draining by putting warm wet washcloth on it, and gave us some antibiotics. They said we’d have the results in two days, Tuesday (which would have been my birthday which I will post about later). Come Wednesday night I still hadn’t heard from them, so right as I figure no news is good news the lab calls me and basically says they forgot to call me Tuesday morning, by the way she’s positive for MRSA, so just make sure she takes all the antibiotics we gave you and call your doctor if it gets worse. That was it…so do yourselves a favor and don’t Google image search MRSA..it’s terrifying! I’ve done it multiple times now. My mom is MRSA positive, which is probably where Maia got it from in the first place, and when she first got it I wanted to know what it was and it scared the crap out of me. I have now learned once you get MRSA you always have it, kinda like the cold sore virus, so we just gotta keep our eyes open and hope she doesn’t get it again for a while!

 

To make this post even longer lets end on a more fun note! Maia and J love to play hide and seek! It’s adorable. And her favorite places to hide are under the kitchen table and in our bedroom closet. Because she likes to hide in the kitchen we thought it would be fun to make her a blanket fort!

she enjoyed it

She may be wearing a tutu but she’s her daddy’s girl and loves to have her sword in hand, especially when guarding her toys in her fort!

Special way to get into the fort, you gotta walk in backwards!

and then stop and smile for mommy taking photos!

 

We are so excited that Spring is here, and look forward to more adventures outside whenever the weather decides to cooperate!

Sunday Dinner

Sunday dinner I usually try to do something awesome! And today I made a roast and potatoes and indeed it was awesome, and SUPER easy! What would I do without my Crock Pot?! I’ll tell you I’d cook a little less  

Anyway carrots, potatoes, celery and onion chopped in large pieces in bottom of croc pot place roast on top, cover with powdered onion soup mix add 2 cups of water cook on high for 4-5 hours or low 6-7 hours. It was lovely. As we were finishing up J said “know what would be awesome to end with?…Cherry Pie” I will never turn down cherry pie! However I didn’t have enough filling to throw a quick pie together so rather than break the Sabbath and go buy one I got creative.

A few months ago I bought this silicone tart pan at Tuesday Morning; mostly because it was $4 but also because I wanted to try and make tarts. I put it away and never got around to them until today! I had some frozen pre made pie crust (a true staple I know) and one can of pie filling. So I cut out circles of the pie crust to line the tart cups and filled with pie filling baked at 375 for 20-25 minutes. But I still had a second pie crust and it had thawed so I couldn’t let it go to waste, so I proceeded to make mini pies.

 

I only had filling enough for 3 more little treats and I didn’t get a perfect seal around the edges; but nonetheless I am proud of these cute little pies! And yes I WILL be making them again in the future! Preferably when we have some friends over or something it’s a lot of temptation to have mini pies lying around because they’re so small. It’s like pie vitamins, don’t wanna stop eating them! Maybe I’ll throw a baby shower for one of my many pregnant friends and make little pies, I bet I could make them even minier!

Don’t you wish you came over for dinner tonight!

but as Pies go, that’s pretty small!

In other news around our house Maia has a new game she likes to play. Well it’s not new per say but she plays in a new way; Hide and Seek. She now likes to put a blanket over her head and wait until you ‘can’t see her’ then she will peek out and giggle. It’s darling. Tonight we were playing this game:

what does this remind you of?

Correct Answer? “E.T. Phone Home”

She’s a silly baby and we love her more and more everyday.