Facebook Updates (Cuz It’s SO Much Easier Than Writing a Real Post ;)

3/23-My husband is currently taking apart ANOTHER laptop. I don’t even know how many operating systems he’s taken apart since we’ve been married just to fiddle with the insides. I am definitely married to a geek.

3/29-It never ceases to amaze me that as soon as my children are having a meltdown in public, I always end up running into someone I know. Why can’t I see them when my children are acting like angels?

3/30-Steven and I were TRYING to watch a movie so we told the girls no swimming. So they went into their room, put on their own swim diapers, swimsuits, floaties and slippers. Felicity even brought me the “scumscream.”

4/14-Seporah quote, “How ‘bout chocolate milk! Chocolate milk is SO good!”

4/20-Dude, Seporah actually pooped in the potty! Could we be almost done with this whole potty training the first child?

4/25-Felicity quote “Teacher help ‘licity color on a paper.” That’s a 7 word sentence, she’s 2 1/2. Wowsers. AND she pees in the potty consistently.

4/26-Bit of Advice: Do NOT accidentally wash a pull up with the rest of your children’s clothes, the results are really, really gross.

5/2-So…when your 4 year old dumps the sacrament bread on the floor, do you put it back into the tray or what?

5/6-I told my husband this week had our anniversary, Mother’s Day and Nurse’s Day in it. His response, “May is Zombie Awareness Month.”

How to find things that are “gone” from the internet

Maybe a month ago I made Märia some peanut butter cookies that she actually liked. She is notorious for her dislike of peanut butter cookies, and I have always loved them, but have done without them for years because she just doesn’t like them. Well I said forget that, and found a recipe for some cookies that she actually loved.

Here I am a month later and I wanted to make them again, and POOF! the internet deity decided that he didn’t like them, and made them go away from the internet. So I just pulled up the old content from Google Cache, and am reposting it here, so it isn’t lost.

This is again, not my recipe. It was originally found here:

http://cooklikemad.com/tag/double-peanut-butter-cookie/

But that page is down, so I googled that page, and next to the link that came up was a link to the Google Cache, which means that Google saved the page on their own servers, incase it went down.

So here is the recipe:

I have searched high and low for a long time to find this peanut butter cookie recipe. It results in moist cookies full of intense peanut butter flavor with a soft, nearly chewy texture. These aren’t your typical forked cross-hatch peanut butter cookies in two ways: they are baked as cookie balls rather than as squashed discs and they have an extra healthy dose of peanut butter in the center, doled out after they finish their stint in the oven. These are not tame, nor low-cal, but I find one truly does satisfy me, so I promise, they’re safe to keep on your counter. Since the peanut butter “ganache” sets up so nicely in the center, these cookies would be perfect for a bake-sale, since they won’t get smushed on the jostled ride to school. Additionally, you can make them small and drizzle them with the peanut butter ganache instead and serve them to guests after dinner as an elegant cookie with their coffee.

One final note, and then on to the recipe. These are even better eaten straight from the freezer. Oh, to die for! The texture turns very dense and chewy and the filling (or drizzle) becomes even firmer, so when you sink your teeth in you think you’re biting into a chewy, peanutty truffle. Enough said! Enjoy : )

Double the Fun Peanut Butter Cookies

Makes 30 cookies.

For cookie dough:

1 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar (make sure you pack it in the measuring cup)

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup sugar, for rolling dough balls in

For filling:

1 1/4 cups peanut butter chips

1/2 cup heavy cream (if you’re drizzling, you’ll need extra cream to thin this mixture out to your liking)

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp powdered sugar

Method

1. Line 2 small or 1 large baking sheets with parchment or silicone pan liners, or lightly grease them. Combine ingredients for the filling in a small, microwave safe bowl and microwave on high for 45 seconds to melt the chips. Stir until smooth and set aside on the counter. If your kitchen is very warm, or you’re making this in the summer, you can place the mixture in the fridge.

2. Mix flour, salt and baking soda in a small bowl with a whisk to combine. Cream butter and sugars until light yellow and doubled in volume, then fully incorporate peanut butter. Beat in the egg and vanilla until just combined, then slowly stir in the flour mixture. Refrigerate dough in the mixing bowl for 30 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Place 1 cup sugar in a small bowl. Remove dough from the fridge and take approximately 1 tablespoon of the cooled mixture and roll it into a ball in your hands, roll in sugar, and place on the baking sheet. Continue with the rest of the dough, making sure you leave 1 inch on either side of your dough balls on the cookie sheet to allow them to spread. Bake for 8 minutes exactly.

4. Immediately when the cookies are done, take the back end of your spatula or another rounded, thin object (the back of a butter knife would be fine in a pinch), and make an indent in the center of each cookie, about 1/2 inch to 1 inch wide. let cookies cool on parchment, off the hot baking sheets, for 20 minutes. Spoon 1 tsp of filling in each cookie’s indent, using two spoons to make this process easier. Cool on the counter, in the fridge, or in the freezer, depending on how chewy you want your cookies. The colder the environment, the chewier they’ll be. Enjoy!

-M : )

Random From the Past Couple of Days

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The girls have been painting like crazy lately.

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This is what happens when you put cold water on a hot stoneware. Do not try this at home as they cost too much for experimentation. Don’t worry though we have another pizza stoneware.

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Cute couple.

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Can you tell she’s mine?

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See I told you he hid from the camera when I take pictures. This is him peaking to see if I’m done.

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Being a fussy monkey, whining about something or another. She IS two incase you forgot.

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I bought 7 tops and 13 skorts at Walmart for $27. Tell me that’s not the deal of the decade. The skorts were only $1, so I bought a bunch in multiple sizes for Seporah to grow into.

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The girls in their new swimsuits. Last year’s had gotten a little small. Seporah picked hers out. She liked the flower, Felicity didn’t care much as long as she got one. Her’s says Sunshine.

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Seporah being a good big sister.

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Steven receiving an award for being the best chemistry student in all of University of Hawaii West Oahu. His history instructor laughed when he found out, “It’s always nice to see our History majors dominate other fields as well.”

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Us all dressed up for the banquet with the award.

All That is Necessary For Evil toTriumph is For Good Men to Do Nothing

From “Bee Movie”
Giraffe – You’re not another lawyer too, are you?
Mooseblood the Mosquito – I was already a bloodsucking parasite. All I needed was a briefcase.

Steven and I have been married 8 years. In those 8 years I have heard Steven say he wanted to be about a million different things. So 2 years ago when he said he wanted to become a lawyer, I paid as much attention to it as when he said he wanted to be a teacher, or a chaplain, or a computer tech guy, or a satellite tech guy. In fact he could have said I want to become a garbage man and it would have have had the same affect, “Of course, honey whatever you want to do I’ll support it.” All the while thinking like THAT’S ever gonna happen. In all fairness, I’ve also said I want to become a number of different things and Steven’s also had the exact same response. I think it’s only natural for people in their 20s to want to do all sorts of wild things. The difference for us being we have a mortgage and children and responsibilities (when did that happen?!) that come first.

Anyways, back to the lawyer thing. His decision came in the middle of the nasty stupid trial (that we never really talked about on the website for very real fear of retribution). I’m still kinda pissed about the whole situation. My husband gets wrongly accused of a crime and wastes 15 months of his life defending himself (and the guilty culprit gets away with 30K in his pocket, yeah for our present judicial and military systems). What kind of crap is that? It was only natural that he say, hey I could do this, help other people in this situation. When he kept on saying it well after the trial was over, well I got angry. You can’t do that, lawyers are awful nasty greedy people, especially criminal defense lawyers. What honest, good person would want to become a criminal defense lawyer?

A few months ago I started reading Jodi Picoult in an almost religious frenzy. I would devour one book right after another. The majority of them having do with someone being accused of murder (or something equally as awful) and the trial that ensues. The story being told through the accused, the prosecutors, the criminal defendants, the families, and the friends. They’re investigations into the human persons, how not everything is so black and white, but a whole lot of gray sometimes.

My fear of what could happen to my husband was very clearly spelt out in the the second chapter of the book Plain Truth. Essentially a defense attorney who initially had every intention of being a good righteous lawyer, after a few years of practice succumbed to the evils of the world and got a child molester off. Although it was the biggest triumph as a defense attorney, it was also the elements of her own nightmares. “I came out and ran the water to wash my hands. I hiked up the silk sleeves of my suit jacket and began to scrub, working lather between my fingers, into my nails. At a tap on my shoulder I turned to see the bathroom attendant handing me a linen towel. Her eyes were hard and dark as chestnuts. ‘Honey,’ she said, ‘some stains ain’t never gonna come clean.’ ”

In another book though Change of Heart, is the reason why he wants to become a lawyer (BTW, ~spoiler alert~ I’m completely going to destroy the book’s ending for anyone who wants to read, so skip the rest of this paragraph if you want to). A death row inmate who was charged for committing a very nasty murder and is really and truly innocent. In the end, he is hung without anyone knowing or suspecting the truth due to a decision his initial lawyer made.

So that’s the reason he wants to become a lawyer. If heaven forbid, that ever happens again, that someone I know and love gets accused of a crime they didn’t commit, I’d much, much, much prefer a good, honest man defending me instead of a greedy nasty one.

My Brother Josh

My baby brother is currently serving an LDS mission, he’s currently been out 7 months. I’ve spoken a few times about him. He’s really, really cool. Imagine me, but a boy and minus all the impatient, unforgiving and annoying parts and you’ve got Josh. He’s honestly one of the best people I know, someone who’s good through and through.

LDS missions are a little different than most other religious missions. We send out 19 year old boys for 2 years to preach the gospel. They don’t normally go home during that time and spend all day and all night serving. (I’m SURE you’ve seen them, white shirts, ties, name tags, riding bikes) Anyways if you have the time missionaries LOVE mail and he could really use a random letter or two. Doesn’t have to be a long or eloquent, just “hey how’s life, I went to work today and fed the dog, hope life’s good” ya know stuff like that.

Elder Joshua Albright
MTC Mailbox #80
2005 N 900 E
Provo UT 84604-1793

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There we are about a bazillion years ago (actually only 15).

I’m 11 years old, Jeremy’s 8 years old and Josh is 4 years old.

Aren’t we adorable?

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All grown up

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Being silly, this is how I remember him most. Silly and good natured.

Side note, as I was putting up these pictures Felicity looked at them and said “Uncle Josh.” I was like, yeah! she knows who Uncle Josh is! We show pictures and talk about him all the time, but never sure if the connection is there. Especially since Seporah and Felicity have a friend Joshua and they tend to call him Uncle Joshua. LOL

Seporah’s ouchie

So on Friday Seporah was doing her normal thing where she runs around and dances and such. Toddler energy, we have to learn tap that and then we won’t have to worry about “dirty” energies. But this isn’t a political post. =)

So Seporah was spinning around and around and around and she tripped her self up, took like 4 steps backward, trying to keep her balance and fell on her bottom. I was sitting on the couch, and Märia was just in the other room, but came running when Seporah started screaming like someone killed her. I mean, she was screaming and crying like she was really hurt. I didn’t see her land on anything but the floor, but perhaps she landed on a wooden block, there were enough of them on the floor.

In any case, she had a bruise on her bottom the next day that I would never have sent her to school with. If I hadn’t seen her fall and scream myself, I might have thought that Märia finally lost it when her and beat the snot out of her, and I wouldn’t blame Märia for thinking that about me if she hadn’t been in the house and so close. Seriously, this was a bruise like you just don’t see, ever. Especially on a kid. But it was way better the next day and almost gone now. =) But really, bad bad bad bruise!

Been working more on that tablet project

I actually sold it to a guy in California, but he didn’t like it and made a case with ebay and ebay told him to ship it back to me and made me give them back the money. Ugh. He didn’t like that it had electrical tape holding it together, so this time I am making a custom case out of sheet aluminum instead of taping together parts of the original black plastic case.

I haven’t gotten very far yet, maybe 1/3 way through, but I will show a video of what I have done so far. Basically I have the “bottom” of the case with epoxied on stands to screw the motherboard into, and the top of the case, the bezel, all cut out. I have put it together on the floor without any of the original case parts just to make sure everything still works.