Happy Anniversary!

Josh and I are celebrating 4 years of marriage today. What a wonderful blessing we have in each other.

Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. 

Your people will be my people and your God my God. 

Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.

(from Ruth 1:16, 17)

I love you, Joshua! I am so excited for what is in store for our family!

favorite brownie recipe

My favorite brownies right now...

I am not a food photographer...

This recipe doesn't take any longer to mix up than a box of premixed brownies and I think it is so much tastier. I use half whole wheat flour and half white flour and I really like the texture that results. This last batch I added some chocolate chips before I baked them and they were great! I think they would also be good with a rich chocolate buttercream frosting. Because you can never have too much chocolate in my book. I mix them by hand too, no mixer is necessary and would probably be too much.

Here's the recipe:

Annie's Brownies
1 cup melted butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup white flour
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Whisk together melted butter and cocoa powder. Add in sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt. Stir well and then add flours on top. Stir in flours and try not to over mix. Pour batter in a prepared* 9x13 pan  and top with chocolate chips if desired. Bake for 25-28 minutes.
*butter your pan by wiping the pan with the butter wrapper or line with parchment paper

ENJOY!

baby got a new pair of shoes

A few weeks ago we noticed it was getting increasingly harder to get Avalyn's shoes on her feet when we were getting ready to leave. We started searching for shoes and soon found out how expensive even tiny shoes can be! We happened to receive a coupon in the mail for Kohl's and thought we would go see what they had. We found these sneakers (60% off!) and Avalyn loves them. She puts them on and says she can run and jump. Seriously though, what is cuter than little kid legs in sneakers!

 

Getting ready to test them out at the zoo. And her funny face...

chickens

Did you know we have chickens? We currently have 11 chickens. They will be laying eggs in just a few months. It is has been a [mostly] fun process to watch them grow up and see their personalities emerge. We have held off on assigning any names because we may end up having to see them on our dinner plate eventually and that would just be weird. However there is one bird that has earned a name...we call her Big Mama. She is a real peach to deal with.

Big Mama and her Leghorn self.

I'll share more in the future about our chickens and some of the things we have learned since having them.

 

Show Us Your Life - Baby Shower Ideas

Today I am linking up with Kelly's Korner Blog for Show Us Your Life - Baby Shower Ideas.

When I was pregnant with Avalyn my sister and a good friend threw me a shower that was pretty big. Most of my friends, family that lived close and even a surprise friend from out of town were there. I also had a smaller shower at work thrown by some of my close coworkers. We had each person write out a prayer/note to Avalyn and also asked people to bring their favorite children's book so we were able to get a great start on our kid's library!
I did not have any showers for Harper because we already had way more girl stuff than we would ever need and I would feel so bad about asking for more stuff when we already had so much!
Some of my favorite things from both showers I had are shown in the pictures here...

My mom made this baby wreath, it had prefold diapers, onesies, hair bows, travel size baby care supplies, and teething toys all attached to a wreath with ribbons and flowers. Such a sweet idea!

Cake balls, made by my sister. Need I say more?

Part of the spread, LOVED the tulips!

My great friend, Sarah surprised me by coming from Chicago!

I had pictures taken with everyone who attended the shower and hung them in Avalyn's room. This is my mom, me, and my mom-in-law.

My work shower, they made me sit in this fancy chair and eat in front of everybody!

This was a great idea, a friend from work made this smaller scrapbook with pages all set and all I needed to do was put a 4x6 in each page.

Opening gifts at work, it was great because a few departments went together and bought us some of the remaining things on our baby registry that were a little pricey.