April 24, 2008

Chocolate Chunk Espresso Cookies

This has got to be one of the best cookie recipes I've come across...the texture is perfect as is the taste....yum!

3/4 cup butter
2 Tbsp. instant coffee granules
2 cups plus 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1 pkg. chocolate chips or chunks
1 cup walnut halves, toasted, optional (I didn't include them)

Combine butter and coffee granules in a small saucepan or skillet. Cook over medium-low heat
until butter melts and coffee granules dissolves, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, and cool to room temperature (don't let butter resolidify).

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

Combine butter mixture, sugars, egg, and egg yolk in a large bowl. Beat at medium speed with and electric mixture until blended. Gradually add flour mixture, beating at low speed just until blended. Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.

Drob by heaping tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake at 325* for 12-14 minutes. Cool cookies slightly on baking sheets. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Oh man, these are so good. Hope you like them, too.

April 23, 2008

A Meme

What I was doing 10 years ago:

I was finishing up my junior year of college, living in the yellow Prospect house in Fort Collins, CO with my 5 other roommates, dating Jason. That was such a fun year!!!!

5 snacks I enjoy:

1. Cookies
2. Cheese & Crackers
3. Apples & Peanut Butter
4. Minneolas!
5. Ice Cream

5 Jobs I've had:

Gib's Bagels - A bagel shop in Ft. Collins where I worked for the summer when I stayed at school for a class. It was a boring job, really early hours and not great pay, but I got to bike to work and see some really beautiful sunrises, and take home yummy bagels.

Fraiser Meadows Manor in Boulder, CO - A server in the dining hall at this assisted living facility...I really liked this job...once again, early hours, but I worked with some really fun people and I loved all the old people, especially this one guy who was so nice to me even when I spilled coffee in his lap.

The Teen Parenting Center at my old high school - basically day care, didn't like this job all that much. I worked there for just a couple months after I graduated college and before we got married.

Receptionist at First Presbyterian Church, Boulder - I liked this job. I started a couple days after we got back from our honeymoon, and it was 4 days a week, which was great.

Admin for the Pastoral Care/Counseling ministry at First Pres...I worked with some AWESOME people here and that's what made the job so good.

And of course, now, a mom....which is what I've always wanted to be. :-) My mom said that when I was in Kindergarten I said that when I grew up I either wanted to be a babysitter or a mom. I never enjoyed babysitting all that much, but I sure do love being a mom, although it's harder than anything I've ever done, it's by far the most wonderful and rewarding.

5 Habits:

1. I pick my cuticles really bad, especially when I'm stressed or when it's really dry.
2. Pulling my hair back into a pony tail....I think I'm ready for a hair cut.
3. I almost always have chapstick with me.
4. Play piano on my fingers constantly, or twiddle my feet when I'm sitting in a chair.
5. Thoroughly clean the counters after dinner.

5 places I have lived:

1. Boulder, CO
2. Fort Collins, CO
3. Louisville, CO
4. Longmont, CO
5. Scotts Valley, CA








April 20, 2008

Yogurt Marinated Chicken

This is a recipe I got off the back of our yogurt container and it was SO good! I'm definitely making it again some day, so I thought I'd share it with you. It's really easy and tasty. We served it with baked potato fries and steamed broccoli, but it would also go well sliced atop a salad, it has a really fresh taste from the lemon in it.

1 cup plain yogurt (the recipe was on the back of a Brown Cow Cream Top yogurt container, but we used the Trader Joe's version of the Cream Top....I'm sure any version of lowfat plain yogurt would work, too...we just like the creamy stuff!)

1/4 cup Olive Oil

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 Tbsp rosemary

1 Tbsp thyme

1 Tbsp salt

1 Tbsp pepper

4 chicken breasts (skinless, boneless)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, add chicken and marinate for at least 2 hours then grill.

Enjoy!!!

April 13, 2008

The Spring Shoulder Bag


I found a link to this blog a while ago, and as I read along, it seemed easy to follow the directions, so I tried it, and I'm super happy with how it turned out. It was really easy and only took me one Saturday afternoon to make it. The inside has a pocket that matches the outer fabric, which is so helpful for holding the smaller things that get lost in the bottom of a bag.

April 9, 2008

Have you?

Have you had your Minneola today? They are my newfound favorite fruit! I love oranges, but I'm quite particular about them. These have proven to be perfect every time I have bought them (about 8 so far). Ultra juicy, sweet, sour, perfect texture, easy to peel, no seeds, etc. And did you know that they are 1/2 tangerine - 1/2 grapefruit? I didn't even know that till I just went to look for a picture of one to post here! Look for them the next time you're grocery shopping...you (hopefully!) won't be disappointed.

April 6, 2008

Maybe this week?

Remember this post? I can't actually even believe it's been 2 months....how could we have waited that long to actually have something done about it? I would have never waited that long to have our washing machine repaired!!! But sometimes patience or procrastination or things not working out like you initially thought it should, actually works for the better! In this case it did. Since after calling the repair man that I found in the yellow pages 3 times(!!) without any callback (even tho they said they'd page him right away), we decided to try Sears. So we set up a time for them to come out, of course it would be another week out, but at least it was on the calendar. A good start. It would cost us $73 to come out just to look at it, but they had offered this product protection plan thing where we could pay $204.99 before the service call and that would cover the $73 service call and parts and labor up to $500 (without us having to pay any more than the $204.99 deal). And if the estimate exceeded $500 they would give us a $500 Sears store credit to pick out any dishwasher we wanted. Gee....that sounded pretty good, since we figured it would probably cost more in parts and labor than $131.99 (204.99-73), so we went with it (thank you Lord for your leading!). The man was supposed to come, but then got sick, so he couldn't come that day and only could come a week later, while we were in CO, so we had to set it up for a week after that! So, finally 2 months later, we got someone to come out and (hallelujah!) he declared our dishwasher "uneconomical to repair" - meaning it would cost more than the $500 to fix it!!!! So we were issued a $500 store credit and Friday night we went out to pick out our brand new $499 dishwasher. We didn't even have to pay tax on it, or delivery/installation, or haul-away of our old one. Wow......it was a sweet deal to have gotten a new dishwasher for 2/5 the retail price of it, and we have a year-warranty on this new one included in that initial $204.99 deal. Now hopefully it will actually get delivered this week. It is definitely a luxury I don't take for granted. Sorry for all the math and numbers, I just got excited that this worked in our favor!

April 4, 2008

Colorado Trip

The kids and I spent last week in CO with my brother while my parents went on vacation. We had such a great time. It's always so fun to see friends and family and this time we even got to have SNOW!!
If you (my friends/fam in the Boulder area) are up for a really good cup of Chai, my friend John took us to a coffee shop called The Cup down on E. Pearl St. and it was truly the best Chai ever. Make sure you order it extra hot and it's the one that starts with a B...there are 2 kinds :-) Thanks again John!
I wished I could have had time to see everyone, that's always the hardest part of coming home is not being able to do it all.
So here are just a few pics from a few of the things we got to do.
Carson just loves sweet Emma


Emma, Livi, Carson, Addie

We had quite an adventure around the lake. It was super windy and the kids all ended up wet, but they had a good time. And the view of the snow-covered back range in the distance was awesome.
They just grabbed each other's hands and walked along the path. Angie and I were scrambling for our cameras, it was too cute.

Carson's latest favorite thing is to cut up paper to make different costumes. This one was a dinosaur (which he's really into lately). He made the whole thing (back, tail, and claws also included) and thanks to John's fabulous taping job, it stayed on his shirt all week. The cutest was when he was wearing it in the car and he fell asleep with the whole get-up on...it was hilarious.
This was the first morning of snow, which quickly melted, but was super fun while it lasted.

Livi enjoying her vacation treat of Fruit Loops for breakfast.

We got to spend most of the day with Grandma and Bumpa when they returned from their trip before we had to leave to go home, and that was also the second time it snowed. This time it was enough to make a snowman and a small igloo. Notice the boots - borrowed from Grandma - they worked quite well, although it was freaky looking at his feet thinking that before long they really will be that big, and at that point, he'll probably also be taller than me. Wow.

What a cute snowman!! Gradie the dog kept coming up and taking off his carrot nose to try to eat it.

Carson got this big dinosaur while we were there, so it was his carry-on on the plane. Dinosaur even got a Denver Police sticker from the officer at security.

Carson got to meet the pilot and actually sit in his seat with his hand on some throttle thing. He was SUPER excited....what a great way to end a good trip, the kids did incredible on the plane, I was so thankful.