Girls Weekend!

We had such a fun weekend with all girls here in Portland. It was and extravaganza of shopping, eating really great food and mostly just having fun together! Thanks Mom for making all that happen, you are great! We are all glad we have such a fun mom!

So this is Audrey and I trying on Motorcycle momma jackets. Laura found the cutest hot pink faux leather jacket all of us had ever seen. So Gabe and Maile chipped in for her birthday and bought the jacket for her!

We went and saw Wicked in Portland and it was so fun to go to that all together! The singing and music was outstanding. All of us girls learned some attention getting manuveurs from the main star Galinda, "Toss, Toss!"

Pictures courtesy of Audrey!

Oh Yum! Danish Brunsviger

Danish Caramel Cardamom Cake "Brunsviger"

When I lived in Denmark there was this amazing treat called "Brunsviger" that you can buy in the bakeries. This is a speciality of the island I lived on "Funen." I have thought about this treat several times since living there and wanted to see if I could recreate it. Danes often have this on birthdays or special occasions.

So I found some recipes online and had to do lots of metric conversions and fooling around. I made two batches, the first one was pretty good but wasn't quite like I remember then I did a second batch and changed some of the amount of ingredients and it was much better. So here is the yummy treat recipe.

For the dough:

½ cup milk, lukewarm
1 ½ Tbs yeast

1 tbsp. sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1 egg

2 cups flour

4 Tbs melted butter
1 ½ tsp cardamom- this is good but you don’t have to have it

For the topping:

2/3 cup butter-

1 cup brown sugar-use dark brown sugar, it tastes better

Preheat oven to 400.

* Dissolve the yeast in the milk. Add egg, sugar, salt, cardamom and flour, holding back a couple spoonfuls of the flour - beat well. Add the melted butter, beat again. Add more flour as necessary, kneading until you have a glossy, slightly sticky dough, sorta like the dough for cinnamon rolls. I did this in my Bosch, but it can of course be done by hand. Transfer the dough to a clean bowl and leave to rise for 1-1½ hours

*Grease your 9 X13 pan with butter. Deflate the dough and push it into the brownie pan - make sure you cover the entire pan - it will rise again, Leave to rise again, ½-1 hour.

* Make the topping: in a small saucepan melt the butter with the sugar. Let it come to the boil, then take off the heat. Dimple the now risen dough, so you'll have lots of holes to be filled with sugar. Pour the sugar-butter mixture over the dimpled dough and put everything in the oven.

*Bake for 15-20 minutes- Let is cool for 10 minutes- I didn’t and I burned my tongue on the flaming hot sugar.

Tagged and V-Day!

Tagged 4th of 4th! This is actually perfect because this was valentines day almost 2 years ago. It shows mostly how Mark and I are, pretty goofy.

I make a heart sugar cookie for him each year, with something pretty cheesy like "my hunk" on it! So this year I am looking for some ideas for the V-day cookie! Any suggestions?!?

Oh I tag Laura Morgan, Amanda, Andrea, and Laura Wheeler!

New Job

Mark got a new job today and we are so happy. This is an answer to a lot of prayers, our prayers and so many others. Mark has a very very tough commute of literally 2 blocks from our house to his new work. He will be be building new modular classrooms. We are so blessed to get this job, especially with the state of the economy and it gets him away from a difficult job he is currently in. We are so thankful for this change and know Heavenly Father's hand helped to make this happen. Can't wait for Feb 9th, his start date!

My Mom the Snow Angel

I love this picture! My Dad emailed it to us this weekend and I had to post it. It is my mom laying on the trampoline in the back yard in all her snow gid-up doing snow angels. They have tons and tons of snow as you can see. The snow is almost as tall as the trampoline.
Life is good for a Montana Mom!

O Holy Night

I just had to write about Christmas and how each Christmas I reflect when I was in Bethlehem and we went to the feilds outside of Bethlehem in late November. I walked out into the feilds and the light was much like in this picture, we sang Christmas hymns and I looked up at the sky and how I knew that the Jesus Christ was a real man that was born in that town many years ago to bring peace to the earth. The world is forever changed because of the love of our Heavenly Father and the sacrifice of his Son. Christmas is such a beautiful season because it is the season that is about love, giving and forgiveness. All of these attributes of the Prince of Peace. I love the spirit of Christmas.

ABC's of me! Tagged

ABC's About Me
A - Attached or Single: Attached- Got Hitched to Mark!
B - Best Friend: Mark, my sisters, mom, courtney, alycia. Okay I got lots of wonderful friends
C - Cake or Pie: This one is tough, because I love both, but I think pie, a good berry pie can't be beat!
D - Day of choice: Saturday, its the day Mark and I get to do fun stuff and no work!
E - Essential Item: my whisk and heat resistant spatulas, a whisk is so nice when you are cooking and baking. I think I could never have too many spatulas!
F - Favorite Color: Probably red, I love all the different shades of red, it just catches my eye!
G - Gummy Bears or Worms: Worms, worms are more fun to eat and last a little longer
H - Hometown: Kalispell, Montana
I - Indulgence(s): I got my fist pedicure this summer and I am definitly a fan, I will keep up that indulgence up!
J - January or July: I love JULY! The fourth is always so fun, and has so many good memories.
K - Kids: Not yet! But hopefully someday soon! I will crack up if all we have are girls cause Mark is really rooting hard for boys!
L - Life is incomplete without: My Family
M - Marriage Date: September 15, 2007
N - Number of Siblings: 3 sisters one brother
O - Oranges or Apples: Apples, I love the fall here with all the different kinds of apples, and I love apple crisp, my sister Gabe, is a trophy winning apple crisp maker, so I am lucky to have her!
P - Phobias or Fears: I really hate moths, they are so gross and dumb, they just fly straight into you, yuck it grosses me out!
Q - Quotes: My favorite of all time has to be when Audrey, Gabe and I were standing in my parents kitchen and Audrey starts out the conversation by saying "The other day Homer was telling me....." I know I laughed so hard with Gabe I thought we were going to pee our pants.
R - Reason to smile: Mark and I are healthy and happy and have good jobs. Oh and my really cute neice and nephews too!
S - Season: SUMMER, I really loved this summer, being married, going camping, boating and enjoying the sun!
T - Tag Five Friends: Maile, Laura, Gabrielle, Andrea, Julie
U - Unknown fact about me:I set the sit and reach record in 9th grade!It was still up there last time I looked about 3 years ago! Woohoo Me!
V - Very favorite Store: Okay I love going to Grocery outlet and finding deals. I also love going to any sort of kitchen store and dreaming about all the fun things I could make!
W - Worst habit: not putting away our clean clothes, I will do the laudry but then not want to fold it and put it away!
X - X-ray or Ultrasound: Well I am going with Ultrasound, x-rays that I have had are not fun at all, especially those dentist ones, they make you bite down and it always cuts my cheeck or gums! Ultrasounds can bring such great news, like having babies
Y - Your favorite food: I love homemade salsa, any sort of vegetables. This question is way to hard, basically I love food!
Z - Zodiac: pieces