someone's got a crush

So recently we remembered that we had a blockbuster card. And that lots of times redbox does not have the greatest of movies. Well, we found out that blockbuster has $1 movies as well for one night, and a much better selection. Booyah.
And then we quickly remembered why we didn't like going to blockbuster.
You see, there's this guy there that likes to follow me around.
He loves to tell me all the possible sales and deals they have going on at that time.
And then he continues to follow us, put movies away and asks if we need help finding anything.
And then he is at the cash register when we are ready to check out; where he continues to somehow find more deals to tell me about. And then he tells me:
"Have I ever told you you look like Kate Bosworth?"
"Uhh, yeah I have gotten that before..." Didn't want to burst his bubble that he actually has told me that before.


I wish I could see the resemblance. I think its the big (I prefer high) cheekbones. That has got to be it...

Well we finally lose him at the door and as I walk out, I turn to Kevin and say:
"I think someone's got a little crush..."
"Yeah, your definitely not going their alone. ever." Husband did not like it one bit.

recipe: parmesan cheese knots

Easy and delicious! And I love rhodes dough because it rises so well. Me and rising have a love, no, hate relationship.

Parmesan Cheese Knots

12 Rhodes Texas™ Rolls, thawed but still cold
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 cup butter, melted

Roll each roll into a 9-inch rope. Tie in a knot. In a bowl, combine cheese, parsley and garlic salt. Dip each knot in melted butter and then in cheese mixture. Place in a sprayed 12 cup muffin tin. Cover with sprayed plastic wrap and let rise until double in size. Remove wrap and bake at 350°F 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

sundays with ellie

On Sundays we like to take Ellie so A) her parents can go to church and enjoy all their meetings and B) so we have an excuse not to go to church.
Oh I am kidding, we go.
Luckily our meetings are set up nicely so we go to church at 9, they go at 1.



We decided today would be a good day for Baby Marathon. We fed her plenty of carbs and prepped her for what lay ahead. We took her down to the little wetland park we have in our neighborhood and showed her her race track.
And off she went!
She walked all by herself for the longest time. We were quite impressed. We wanted to see how long she could do it and she made it all the way back to the parking lot. This was where the wall was hit. She just stopped and gave a grunt of "Up!"
She was done. She didn't necessarily finish strong, but we will take it.
Us Browers like to train our little ones young. She will be running Baby Marathons in no time.

Untitled from Mal Brower on Vimeo.

She loved the ducks at the park and would make duck noises (or so we assumed) as they swam by.


We also enjoyed the duck's famous sport of Synchronized Duck-butting.
This little group of duck-butters was quite good.

a day of wedding

Ok. I just burnt my thumb waaayyy bad making frozen pizza for Kevin. Holy hannah. And I only said shoot. Can I get an amen!?!

Anyways.

My cousin Trista got married to her one and only on saturday. This was the first time I got to meet this Patrick Van Hoosen of hers. Good thing I like him.

My family is funny, especially my dad. My favorite part of the day was after the beautiful ceremony as me and my family were walking out on the temple grounds. I was saying that I liked this Patrick guy and my dad turns to me and goes:

"Who's Patrick?"

Yeah.

Well I am glad we got things all figured out before we went to the reception.

The reception was at the beautiful Loggia garden at Thanksgiving Point. It was a bit scary driving there with rain pouring down and thunder crashing, but they really lucked out and the rain stopped just in time. They really are meant for each other! C'mon, we all know we think that.











"Baby you have chicken in your teeth. Let me get that."
Yep they are married now.


Such a cute couple! Oh yeah, you too Kailey and Deely.



My cousin's boy Bentley. Check out that red hair!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Van Hoosen! I know you will have a happy life together!

i now want some fried chicken

I demanded the husband take Friday off of work so he could get some much needed Mal time in. And he did. I didn't think it would be that easy. But I guess when you plan a fun day, husbands just cant resist.

I started it off with a good breakfast of sausage and eggs for him, protein shake for me.

We then went and saw an 11:30 am showing of The Help.
Wow is this a crazy time to see a movie. You get a whole different crowd. Kevin was such a great husband for going with me: he was the only guy in the theater (I bribed him into going with me by our next activity of the day).

We both enjoyed this movie. I recommend it to everyone. It made me think of fried chicken all day. I might just have to make me some of that southern goodness soon. real soon.
Oh yeah I did try to read the book about a year ago. But I could not for the life of me get over the thick southern drawl used. It was 20x worse in the book than the movie. I got headaches reading it, so I gave up. I'm horrible I know.

So onto the next activity: Kennecott Copper Mine. You might think Kevin came up with this one, but in all honesty, I did. Kevin was quite impressed. I read in National Geographic that you could see it from space. Bull-crap I replied. I needed to see it to believe it (I had never been). So to see it we went.

This place is huge! I still don't know if I truly believe you can see it from space ( I mean c'mon...space? I must think space is a lot farther than it really is, or so Kevin tells me), but it truly is grand. What really made me giggle was how big the dump trucks were. Kevin was like those are huge!!! Look at those!!! I didn't believe him and didn't understand how big they were until I saw the little midgets walking around them. I for some reason thought this was hilarious and got the giggles and tears in the eyes. Oh the things that make me laugh.

We learned that these dump trucks are the size of two story houses.
They can carry up to 320 tons of mined rock.
And they get 1/3 mile per gallon.
They go through 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel a day (for the whole mining operation). Phewf.
We both just sat and watched these go back and forth for quite some time.

We also learned how exactly the copper and other elements are mined.
Fascinating.
I really recommend visiting. It was a great learning experience.
And your husband will love you forever because he is so happy. Watching Kevin there was like watching a kid in a toy store. He could not get enough and I loved it.







I mean look how small those guys are!!! Midgets I tell you. They hire only midgets here.





Kevin wanted to take a picture through the huge bino's. Great picture huh?


$25,000 per tire. per year. crazy.

struuuberry jam

I made strawberry (freezer) jam.
It was so darn easy. Why have I not done this before?
Homemade jam makes store bought jam taste like fart. ok not that bad, but you get the idea.
It makes any peanut butter and jelly 10x better.
And don't even get me started on how good it is on homemade bread right out of the oven.
Up next: peach jam.

kevins cheesecake

For Kevin's birthday this year I gave him two options for his cake:

1) Costco All-American Chocolate Cake
-or-
2) anything else.

I hoped this would spark his mind in remembrance of how good the Costco chocolate cake was.
But lo and behold, he wanted a cheesecake.
So I had my mom make it.
Because who knows how mine would have turned out.




And little miss Hadley is still afraid of birthday candles.

my mammut boy

This is the husbands latest ad for Mammut:

Go husband!!! I'm so proud :)

ciao bella

I am not a huge italian food fan. Pasta is too much for me most of the time.
I can handle cheese-filled ravioli and alfredo sauce but other than that, no thank you.
Spaghetti, forget about it (but I will eat the meatballs).

Well tonight I wanted to make something with pesto and something with shrimp. The only recipe I could find was a creamy pesto shrimp on linguine. And for some weird reason, it sounded good. Pasta sounded good. I must be pregnant. Hah totally kidding. Sorry Mom.
So I went for it. But I changed the recipe up a bit to take out the large amounts of unneeded fats.

Creamy Pesto Shrimp

Shrimp
linguine pasta
1 cup half and half
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1 1/2 Tb olive oil
salt + pepper to taste
pesto* (add as much as you want, I just kept adding until I was happy)

Cook your noodles for 8-10 minutes. Drain.

In a skillet, cook the half and half, olive oil and salt + pepper for 6-8 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the parmesan cheese and pesto. Add the shrimp and cook for 5 minutes or until pink. Cook until your sauce is at your desired consistency.

Pour sauce over noodles and enjoy! Delicious!

*I just used the pesto from Costco. I tried making my own but failed miserably. I think it was cheaper just buying the Costco version.

Adapted from this recipe.