Ladies and Gentleman... Joshua James Kite!

Allow me to introduce you to my younger brother Josh. Notice that I said "younger" instead of "little". Josh is a 6 foot 1 & 1/2 inch going-to-be senior at Fremont High School. Josh is on Fremont's football team, and is about as dark as you can get without being a different ethnicity! Seriously, somebody at EFY asked if he was Samoan. ha ha ha nobody has ever questioned if I was anything other than caucasion. Anyways, Josh is a hard working, farm boy who loves anything and everything to do with sports! Tall, dark, and handsome is the perfect phrase to describe him! Josh and I always have a lot of fun together. Even if I'm super grumpy, Josh can always end up making me laugh by just giving me his big, cheesy grin, or whipping out some of his silly dancing moves. I would argue that I have the best little, excuse me, YOUNGER, brother ever! Here are some pictures of some of the things we've done together this summer...

Eating pizza while tending my sweet cousin, Emma.




Meet my cute cousin, Emma!



Josh and I went and saw "Despicable Me"! Funniest. Movie. Ever. There were only five other people in the theater besides us though... I was surprised!



After the movie we were positive that we were going to die of thirst, so we had to stop off at McDonalds (thanks to their 24 hour drive thru) and get some water!



Cool shades, eh??!!



One morning Josh and I couldn't decide which cereal to eat, so we mixed them all together! Don't judge, it was actually pretty darn good!



Can you guess which bowl is mine, and which one is Josh's? ha ha



Yum!



The recipe this time is in honor of Josh. You see, Josh is a good sport about eating all of the funky treats I bake, but truthfully he'd rather just eat a good ol' chocolate chip cookie. So, if I can bake something that is basically a chocolate chip cookie in some form, he is THRILLED. So, I baked Chocolate Chip Cookie Topped Brwonies just for him. They were dang good though, so I ended up eating some as well. These brownies are SO simple to make too! All you need is your favorite brownie recipe and your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, and you're set! They were so moist and chewy and DELIGHTFUL! So, enjoy a tasty treat, compliments of Josh!




Chocolate Chip Cookie-Topped Brownies

From Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, where they are called “Chipster-Topped Brownies.”

Ingredients

Your favorite brownie recipe
Your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9×13 inch baking pan with aluminum foil or parchment. (I used cooking spray)

Whip up your favorite brownie recipe, as well as your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Spread the prepared brownie batter into your 9x13 inch pan. Drop the cookie dough by spoonfuls onto the brownie batter, then use a spatula to gently smooth out the cookie dough layer evenly over the batter.

The recipe says to bake it for 50-55 minutes, but I only baked mine for 25-30 minutes and it was done! Bake until the cookie top is deep golden brown and a sharp knife inserted into the pan comes out with only faint streaks of moist chocolate.

Makes 24 bars.

Thanks Josh, for fun times and a tasty treat!

Rach's Baby Shower!

Last Saturday we had a baby shower for my cute sister Rachel! It was so much fun to talk with our relatives we rarely see, and visit with old friends as well. Rachel got some darling things for baby Ashton, and I must say, I CAN'T WAIT!!!!! I think Rach is ready too... she's pretty uncomfortable these days. :( Well, as you can probably guess I was so excited to bake a delicious treat for the shower. I decided to go with Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles! Holy cow. These little balls of goodness are heavenly, and they were definitely a hit at the shower! Seriously, we came home with ONE. ha ha here are a few pictures of the shower...







Speaking of cute gifts that Rachel got for Ashton... Let me tell you about the gifts from Josh and I. :) We decided to make shirts for little Ashton! We made onesies, but also T-shirts for when he gets a little older! Great thinking right?

Here are mine-



Here are Josh's- he had to have something to wear to Josh's football games!!



What do ya think?! Pretty cool eh?



Don't worry, I didn't forget to give you the recipe for the yummy chocolate chip cookie dough truffles! Here it is. Enjoy!!






Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles


Yield: 48 truffles
Time: about 40 min hands on time + 2 hours to freeze before dipping
Recipe adapted from Mels Kitchen Cafe

1/2 C butter, softened
3/4 C brown sugar, packed
2 1/4 C flour
1 -14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 t vanilla
1/2 C mini chocolate chips
2 -12 oz bags semi sweet chocolate chips
1/4 C milk chocolate chips
1 T shortening, divided

1. Cream your butter and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.
2. Add the flour, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla and mix well.
3. Stir in the mini chocolate chips.

4. Shape into 1 inch balls and place on a sprayed cookie sheet. Cover with saran wrap and freeze for 1-2 hours. Trust me, you want them to be firm! It makes the dipping a lot easier.
5. In a microwave safe bowl, melt your semi sweet chocolate in the microwave. Only heat it for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating interval.
Add about 2 t of shortening to the chocolate and stir to incorporate.
6. Dip each frozen cookie dough ball into the chocolate and then place on wax paper. (I used tin foil)
7. Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave and add 1 t shortening. Stir it well and then drizzle it over the tops of the truffles.
8. Put the truffles back in the fridge to set for about 15 minutes.
Enjoy!

Refreshing Mini Cheesecakes!

Summer heat got ya down? Are you feeling the need to put on your swimming suit and take a nice, cool dip in the Brigham City pool like Kylee and I did yesterday?



Let's be honest here, it is HOT! Well, I've got the perfect, refreshingly, cool treat that will allow you to sit back and relax on a hot summer day. Ready for it? Okay... Mini Cheesecakes. Yep, you heard right! Mini Cheesecakes my friends, and you wanna know the best part about these tasty little fellas? 80 calories. Yep, you heard right again! 80 calories each! Now the original recipe called for strawberry creme instant pudding mix, but I couldn't find that on the shelves of Walmart so I used Cheesecake flavored instant pudding instead. Make sure you get a 3.4 oz box of it too because I certainly didn't, so I had to mix my Cheesecake flavored instant pudding with a few scoops of regular Vanilla instant pudding in order to have the full amount. I was not disappointed at all though, so get creative if you have to! Also, instead of cutting up fresh strawberries to put on top, I drizzled some Hershey's Carmel over it. YUM. They are SO good as plain Janes though too, so it's whatever you want. Seriously, you've got to give these little babies a try! And for 80 calories... what do you have to lose?






Mini Cheesecakes

What You Need:
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Neufchatel Cheese, softened
1 pkg. (3.4 oz.) JELL-O Strawberry Crème Flavor Instant Pudding
1 cup cold fat-free milk
2 cups thawed COOL WHIP LITE Whipped Topping
24 NILLA Wafers
1 cup sliced fresh strawberries

Make It
BEAT Neufchatel with mixer until creamy. Blend in dry pudding mix. Gradually beat in milk. Stir in COOL WHIP.
PLACE 1 wafer on bottom of each of 24 (2-inch) paper baking cups; place in muffin pan. Cover with pudding mixture.
FREEZE 1 hour. Top with berries just before serving.

Happy Summer Baking!

Have you met my sister?

Let me introduce you to my sister, Rachel. Rachel is my beautiful older sister and also my best friend. We have so many fun memories together! Barbies, dress up, late night chats, sleepovers, bike rides, lots and lots of giggles, Disney movies, Disney World adventures, helping each other get ready for dances, etc. etc. etc! So, you get the point... this gal is pretty great! Even now that she's married and has a baby on the way, she still makes time to do things with, and check up on, her silly little sister. For example, this weekend we went to see Eclipse with some of the girls in her husband's family! It was so much fun! I'm not obsessed with Twilight by any means, but I do enjoy it! (totally a Jacob fan by the way) Anyways, Rachel has been asking me for weeks to paint her toenails (she has a hard time reaching them these days), so before we went to the movie I gave her a little pedicure!



I love you Rach!

There was an old lady who lived in a shoe...

Everybody has heard that nursery rhyme right? Well it just so happens that the little old lady's shoe house is in Bear Lake! It's located right next to the Three Bears' Cottage (the one that goldilocks broke into), which is where I stayed with my family last week! It was so much fun to reunite with my cousins that I never see, play on the beach, and just relax in "bearadise"! -holla to my BFC :)









Right after we got home from Bear Lake, my family took off for a fun camping trip! It was so fun to spend a weekend in the wilderness with my immediate family. We read, slept, played one too many games of BS (sorry you never won Jord), ate like champions, and simply enjoyed each other's company.

Mike, Rach, and baby Ashton came too! Bless her heart, camping while pregnant would be tough! Lucky for her though, the bathrooms weren't too bad, and minus a few runs to the bathroom in the middle of the night, she quite enjoyed herself!



Thanks to Jordan, Amy, their Camp Chef, and Dutch Ovens, we ate more food than one could imagine! We were all so full ALL the time! Don't worry, we had plenty of room for Smores around the campfire while we played a good game of "Truth or Truth" :)



Thunder came along as well! When he wasn't being so overly protective of us (barking at anything and everything) he had a great time too! We took him down to a little pond and threw sticks into it for him to fetch for us. Josh was so proud!





Let's be honest, since Josh and I are the only non-married and non-boring ones left in the family, we were the ones who kept the party going! just kidding... kinda ;)



Now, I must say, there is something that baffles me. Everybody kept teasing me about my sunglasses. You see there is nothing to laugh about with these high quality, red, square, shade out drugs sunglasses I got a few years ago during red ribbon week... am I right? They are stylish, and come with a great message-agreed? Hmmm... That's what I thought. :)





Now, of course I have a tasty recipe to share that goes along with the spirit of camping! Trust me folks, these are GOOD. They are sort of like an indoor S'more in bar form. All you need are your basic smore ingredients and a few other baking necessities and BAM! You have yourself a S'more Sandwich Bar Cookie! In the middle of making this recipe, I realized that we were out of flour. Rats, and I didn't feel like jumping in the car and driving to Grandma Margie's to borrow some flour so I just replaced what I didn't have with oats! And, hey! It worked out beautifully! I give this recipe a two thumbs up, so try it!



S'mores Sandwich Bar Cookies
(Recipe from Hershey's website)

Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1-1/3 cups (8-oz. pkg.) HERSHEY'S Mini Milk Chocolate Bars OR 5 HERSHEY'S Milk Chocolate Bars (1.55 oz. each)
• 3 cups miniature marshmallows
Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 8-inch square baking pan.

2. Beat butter and sugar until well blended in large bowl. Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Press half of dough in prepared pan. Bake 15 minutes.

3. Sprinkle mini chocolate bars over baked layer or arrange unwrapped chocolate bars over baked layer, breaking as needed to fit. Sprinkle with marshmallows; scatter bits of remaining dough over marshmallows, forming top layer. Bake 10 to 15 minutes or just until lightly browned. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. 16 bars.