Cookie dough brownies

Do you want to be famous? 

Do you want to bring a huge smile to the face of any normal sweet-eating human being? 

Then try this recipe I adapted from Blossoming Joy and Brown Eyed Baker. It's pretty awesome. :) The cookie dough has no eggs in it, so there's no guilt when you lick the bowl. Or the mixer attachments. 

                                             

                                          

COOKIE DOUGH BROWNIES

Brownie Layer

1/2c softened butter

1c semisweet chocolate chips

1c sugar

3 eggs

1tsp vanilla

1 1/4c all purpose flour

1/4tsp baking soda

Melt the chocolate chips. Cream the butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla, then stir in melted chocolate. Combine flour and baking soda and add to the mixture. Use a 13x9x2 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 16-22min. 

Cookie Dough Layer

1/2 softened butter

1/2c brown sugar

1/2c white sugar

3tbsp milk

1tsp vanilla

1c flour

1c semisweet chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugars. Beat in  milk and vanilla. Add flour. Stir in chocolate chips. Use hands to spread batter over the top of the cooled brownies. 

Tips and tricks: 

• If you happen to accidentally melt the chocolate chips you meant to save for the cookie dough layer, DON'T WORRY. Mix the chocolate into the rest of the cookie dough ingredients and everything will still taste awesome. :)
• If you're going for neatness, I'd suggest cooling the brownie layer completely before spreading the cookie dough on it, then chilling the pan again. That way, the bars will be easy to cut neatly into squares with a knife. 

More Gabriel fishy-ness

A pair o' Francos

We've got ourselves a crawfish-eatin' toddler, folks

Having more fun than all the rest of us put together

Hanging out with Mimi

Sitting with Papa

Don't buy me a house plant...

I never thought I of all people would get into lawn care.

Heck, I've mowed the backyard once. In my life. (After that, Michael said he'd just take care of it. My talents are better used corralling the children, I suppose. To say it tactfully. :)

And you know, I just realized that my house has no house plants in it because I've successfully killed every single plant that has had the misfortune to be left to my care. 

But here I am now, jogging around the neighborhood with the kids on my runs and finding myself thinking things like, Those people have got to tell their lawn guys to raise the blade on the mowers! or The way they juxtaposed Dusty Miller, coleus and red yucca looks awesome in that bed! or Somebody just needs to go buy those people an edger.

Go figure. 

Since we started CrossCutt, I've actually really struggled with desiring to be able to focus totally on my home and raising my children (and also writing!), but at the same time seeing the real need that I become more and more involved with helping Michael run and grow our business. 

One prayer I've prayed for a while now is that the desires of God's heart for my life and our business would become the great desires of my heart as well. And I really have been enjoying learning the business side of the business lately. Still, lawn care isn't my heart. But maybe it doesn't have to be. 

When it comes down to it, the Lord is my heart. And His will for my life is my heart. He knows what I can do and what He can do through me. He will provide me just enough time and energy to be the woman my family needs me to be. While helping to run a lawn care company on the side. Right now at least. :)

The unexpected blessing of me working with my husband in a business capacity is that we are more of a team than we have ever been before in some ways. We just need and love each other in new and unexpected ways. 

Sometimes when Michael comes in from working all day at the office, then cutting grass with the crew until dark, and he trudges into the house smelling like grass and sweat and mulch and sunscreen, it takes my breath away how much I love this brave, hardworking, golden-hearted man. 

And when he sits down to eat dinner at 9 o'clock, and the kids are in bed, and I've made sure the house is clean, the laundry is mostly done and he has a big bowl of red beans and rice in front of him (his favorite), what instead unfailingly wins me that 1000-watt Michael Franco smile is the fact that I called around this afternoon until I got the best prices on Tonto crape myrtles for the landscaping job he has on Saturday. 

Go figure.:)

In our season of life right now, I guess part of being Michael's "helpmate" means I'm also his business partner. Which is hard sometimes. Really hard. But we both grew up with parents who ran small businesses together, so we had at least some idea of how challenging working together might be sometimes. 

Maybe it's time for me to get another house plant. I'm still no master gardener, but running a baby lawn care company with my husband has taught me a few things. I'll think I will try to find a plant from this list though. I'm still a beginner. :)

Fishy, happy Franklets

Gabriel is o-fish-ally a little fish! He LOVES being in the water. I have a feeling we will be visiting the neighborhood pool a lot this summer. At least, I hope so. Last summer, he wasn't very keen on the pool. Which was fine with me, since I was hugely pregnant and it was a gargantuan effort of love to pack us both up in the heat to get to the pool! 

Her Royal Happiness, Faith Lucia

Delighting in your children

I make it a point to gush about my kids. To everyone.

It's not hard to gush about my kids. It just...comes out of me. They're delightful children. So cute. They're gorgeous actually. And they have sweet smiles and good hearts and kind eyes. And some seriously cute feet. I'm absolutely in love with them.

They can both scream like banshees when they're mad though. Faith sounds more like a hoarse baby dinosaur, actually.

And they are messy beyond humor or description sometimes. And mind-numbingly irrational and persistent. And when they eat beans, their diapers smell worse than a sewer.

But everyone knows that. Everyone knows that it can be hard, unglamorous, and draining to be a parent. We need to talk about that part of parenting sometimes. To compare notes and make sure our kids are probably normal. To make sure that we are normal.

What I think we parents need even more, though, is to lift one another up to be able to delight in our children more often. I think we do this by hugging and kissing on our children in public. By praising them, playing hide and seek with them at the park, or letting them show us a caterpillar they found on a tree trunk.

We don't have to be fake or brag. Some days, we may not be able to muster up the energy to gush about our kids. Or shower for that matter. That's normal. At least it is for me. Some days, I am so incredibly grateful to have people in my life I can talk to about the tougher parts of parenthood.

Last year, Michael and I had four different members of our family and friends live with us for several weeks or months each. I remember thinking and praying that, after living with us, they would all still have a positive view of marriage and having children! I think that at least none of them were turned off to parenthood by living with us. Or so they say. :)

Families are such a witness. Pope John Paul II, in his great apostolic exhortation, Familiarus consortio, said that, "As the family goes, so goes the world."

I think we are all called to make sure we give witness to the joys of parenthood. Our society needs that desperately these days for so many reasons!

Giving without poetry

"A wife is her husband's richest treasure, a helpmate, a steadying column." -Sirach 36:24

"A gracious wife delights her husband, her thoughtfulness puts flesh on his bones; a gift from the Lord is her governed speech, and her firm virtue is of surpassing worth. Choicest of blessings is a modest wife, priceless her chaste person. Like the sun rising in the Lord's heavens, the beauty of a virtuous wife is the radiance of her home. Like the light which shines above the holy lampstand, are her beauty of face and graceful figure. Golden columns on silver bases are her shapely limbs and steady feet." -Sirach 26:13-18

I want to be a treasure to my husband.

And truth be told, one of the greatest desires of my heart is that he treasure me. 

After all, "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her." (My favorite line from Notting Hill, of course!:)


But in the end, if the Lord calls me to Heaven tomorrow, I want to stand before Him and be able to say that I didn't wait to feel like my husband treasured me before I acted like a treasure.

I think a lot of women struggle sometimes with the need to feel loved and treasured by their husbands. Feeling that connection is so important to us women. But the fact is that no marriage--and no husband--can make us feel treasured and appreciated 100 percent of the time. Truth be told, sometimes our husbands do need to work on expressing love and appreciation to us. But I think we are called to learn how to give of ourselves in marriage without requiring thank yous, applause or poetry in return.

I am married to a good man. I think a lot of us are married to good men. And we certainly have a good and incredibly generous God, a God we can never out-give. Between the love of my life and the Lord of Life, I feel like I can't go wrong in reminding myself daily to "not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time you will reap a harvest." (Galatians 6:9).


While I'm definitely not perfect, I'm going to keep striving to be a blessing to Michael every day. To be kind to him. To make myself reign in my emotions as best I can. To support him. To inspire him to goodness. Even when we disagree. Even when he's in the wrong. Especially when I'm in the wrong.

"...love one another with mutual affection; [outdo] one another in showing honor" -Romans 12:10

"When life is most demanding and you give cheerfully in spite of that...that is love at its best." -Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta 

 

God's mercy and the Poky Little Puppy

Gabriel is my own poky little puppy.

I'm talking about the head-in-the-clouds, procrastinating, slow-moving, can't-walk-in-a-straight-line-distracted kind of poky.

It's been hugely exasperating to me lately. I've really had to pray for patience! In fact, I've kept this gem of a verse up on my kitchen chalkboard for a week or so now: "A patient man is better than a warrior, and he who rules his temper, than he who takes a city." -Proverbs 16:32

This verse is so affirming to me in my vocation. A young mom like myself needs patience in abundance in the most ordinary of tasks she must complete with young children in tow. Even getting out of the van and into the house is a challenge every single time, since I can't physically carry Gabriel in now (I have to carry Faith, the diaper bag, etc.) and I have to steer his poky little self through my front door.

On a side note: I kind of wish I could press a button and have my front door slide open for me, like my wonderful Honda Odyssey, instead of what I currently have to do, which is prop open the heavy glass outer door which doesn't stay open by itself anymore and fish out my keys to manually unlock the heavy inner door that sticks to the door frame a little and requires about half my body weight of force to open.

Anyway, as much as I want to whine and complain about my daily struggles with patience with my poky little Gabriel, God has been reminding me this week that I'm one of His particularly poky kids. He sure puts up with some goofiness where I'm concerned!

So many mornings I drag my feet to just get out of bed to say a short morning offering (not to mention my lofty ambitions to fold a load of laundry, make Michael's lunch, and throw together a hot breakfast for my family!). And later in the day, how many times do I procrastinate about saying a 5-minute chaplet, when I often spend more time getting dressed, throwing some makeup on and doing my hair for the day than I do in my morning offering and prayer?

I do try to "pray without ceasing" during the day, and I often offer up prayers for family and friends as I move through the day, but as for keeping a daily structured prayer and/or spiritual reading "date" with the Lord...well, l'd say that God is a patient God indeed with me.:)

Divine Mercy Sunday was this past Sunday. I was asked to give a talk to the middle school youth group at our church on Sunday night, and ever since my talk, God has been gently reminding me to practice what I preached!

One thing I told the kids on Sunday was that God asks us to be merciful to others as He is merciful to us. Which has got me thinking this week about how God is merciful to me, me who am still such a child in my faith in many ways. Of course, I know that God wants me to come to "him like a little child"-- but not a poky little puppy. :)

http://www.divinemercysunday.com/

These aren't my kids.

These aren't my kids. 

I mean--they are. But they aren't. 

They're God's kids, and they're on loan. He's given me the task of raising them, of helping them to grow in grace and stature into the man and woman He created them to be. 

I am honored and intimidated at the same time. I really don't want to disappoint Him. 

After all, He decided to give my little angels THE cutest baby feet on the block, for which I'll be forever grateful from the bottom of my heart.:)

What a handsome little guy. I want him to be strong and brave, humble and honest, gentle and kind, thoughtful, joyful, prayerful and peaceful. 

Faith has smiled at every single person she has ever laid eyes on. Since she could smile. What must it be like to see something to smile about in every person you ever meet? 

Of course, I often want to ask whose kids these are when one or both of them pitches a huge fit every time we head out the front door to go somewhere. Or arrive home. It happens pretty much without fail. And don't my neighbors know it. God sure knows how to keep this Handmaid humble! All He does is send me out on everyday errands with two-in-tow and He starts pouring out the graces...

Peace in the seasonal

So often these days, I remind myself that something I am going through is just a season. That trials or suffering in my life won't last forever. I've had to remember that putting a dream or desire or plan of mine on hold for a while doesn't mean I'll never get to do it.

I think there's a kind of peace in realizing that we are always experiencing little seasons in our lives.

God knew what He was doing by creating the seasons. What a striking reminder for our spiritual lives that we are always growing and changing, that "this too shall pass," and that--as children of God--our trials and suffering will never last forever. 

Our wise and merciful Lord knows we won't grow if we are never challenged. 

I am so blessed in a thousand ways. Many people I know deal and have dealt with much, much more suffering than I may ever be given. Only God knows His reasons for that. I am expanding my ideas about suffering these days, though. I wonder if the suffering God permits His children can sometimes take the form of having to accept that, for a time, you or something in your life is simply less than you wish it was. Some in your mothering. Or in a friendship. In your marriage. In how you manage your home. In how you feed your family. In your professional life. In your blogging. :)

I'm going through another season of change and busy-ness in my life right now. I wanted to share a few simple things that have helped me lately.

First, I've been making a conscious effort to be grateful. For example, I realized recently that my family has been incredibly healthy for many months now. No constant colds. No illness of any kind this spring. I am so thankful for God's mercy in that blessing! 

I have also been making a conscious effort to be more disciplined in how I manage my time. I'm NOT perfect about this and have rather epic fails on something pretty much every day! But I've made a few great strides with things like getting up on time, meal planning, cleaning the house, laundry, going to daily mass a couple of times a week, planning activities for the kids, going to confession, going on Mommy's Night Out each week (or at least every other week), and even getting back to a little spiritual reading and prayer each day. 

(In all seriousness, please now re-read the "daily epic fails" portion of the above paragraph.:)

Finally, I have been trying to remember to be more intentional about my time. Whatever I'm doing, I try to turn off the Mommy the Multi-Tasker! part of my brain and focus on one thing at a time. 

When I'm bathing the kids, I'm bathing the kids. Not yelling across the hallway to Michael in the next room asking if he emailed that client about the estimate question they sent an hour ago. I'm making them smile and giggle just a few more times before the day is done. Tickling their feet. Kissing that soft little spot on their neck under their ear.

 And when I'm folding clothes, I'm folding clothes. Maybe even folding them neatly and smoothing out the wrinkles of the t-shirt sleeves. Maybe even saying a prayer for the person whose boxers or little polo shirt or bib I'm folding.:) 

And when I'm talking to my husband while he eats dinner at 9 o'clock at night after a long day of work, I ask him about himself. At some point, I let him know that I want to talk to him about him. How is that sore shoulder feeling? How is that action item at work going? How can I help you right now? 

So that's where I am. Er...where I've been. :)

Falling off the face of the earth was a little stressful this past month. But I'm back. ish.

If you made it through my long post today--and through my long absence these past few weeks--God bless you! I'm so thankful for my faithful readers and for this part of my life! Peace and Easter joy be with you. :)

Early harvest

Just went outside and found my tomatoes entombed in the trunk of Gabriel's old Radio Flyer bike.

With some dirt from the tomato pot.

Time for fried green tomatoes?