Oh do you know the muffin man...

...or muffin lady?.... Mike just LOVES muffins and I have been on a quest for a LONG time to find some very BEST muffin recipes. Chocolate is one of our (Mike's) favorite ingredients... so this recipe is his very MOST favorite muffin recipe and he would probably eat them every day. It takes a little time and several ingredients, but is well worth it!

Double Chocolate Muffins

These are Brownie-like muffins
Ingredients:
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup real butter, softened
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 (12-ounce) bag semisweet chocolate chips
Additional semisweet chocolate chips, for topping muffins (optional)

Instructions:Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line 18 standard muffin cups with muffin or cupcake liners. In a microwave-safe bowl, melt chocolate in the microwave on medium-high heat for 25 second intervals, stirring in between, until smooth. Set aside. In a large bowl of an electric mixer, cream sugar and butter. Beat in eggs, then add sour cream and milk. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Pour flour mixture into butter mixture and stir together by hand. Stir in melted chocolate, then chocolate chips. Fill each muffin cup about three-quarters of the way full with batter, and if desired sprinkle some chocolate chips over top of batter. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer muffins to wire rack to cool completely. Muffins are best eaten fresh, but they freeze well too.

Turn up your volume!!!!

Notice the music?!?...I was thinking... I know I know... that's dangerous... But I was thinking... this BLOG needs some music... LOTS of other blogs have nice music .... so I did it... I figured out how to add music to my BLOG... for your listening pleasure, of course! Just wanting to keep my BLOG up to date and trendy. But no wimpy, sappy songs for this BLOG.. (well the Joanna song kind of is, but hey .. how many people have their name made into a song!) Hope you enjoy some fun perky music and I hope to add more sometime... So what's next for this BLOG?!?....... ........ Hmmmmmmm....... I have absolutely no idea... we'll just have to wait and see!

Happy Anniversary again!!!!

Another anniversary?!?.... Oh yes.... and quite an important life changing event at that!!! September 23... It was THREE years ago today that Mike and I met at a singles activity out in the desert! Wow ... how time flies and what a great three years. It was destiny and the rest is happily ever after! Happy anniversary to my best friend and eternal buddy Mike. LOVE YA MORE!!!

I didn't know I could be a puctuation mark!?.,:'";!...

You Are a Comma

You are open minded and extremely optimistic. You enjoy almost all facets of life. You can find the good in almost anything. You keep yourself busy with tons of friends, activities, and interests. You find it hard to turn down an opportunity, even if you are pressed for time. Your friends find you fascinating, charming, and easy to talk to. (But with so many competing interests, you friends do feel like you hardly have time for them.) You excel in: Inspiring people You get along best with: The Question Mark

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Ending the week...

Wow... It seems like I've been celebratng my birthday all week! It's a LOT of years to celebrate, so I guess it takes more than one day! I started celebrating it last weekend at the cabin with the whole fam, then I went to lunch with Teresa and Ty and a quick little shopping tour in downtown Mesa. Ya have to check out Bella Fine and the little shops around it. Oh and ya have to eat at Sweetcakes. It's a cute little sandwich shop. Then I went to dinner with Kristin, Jaron, Krislin, Jadon, Mason and Braxon at Serrano's. Always yum there. And of course they took a silly picture of me that I'm SURE will probably show up on a BLOG somewhere! And if you're wondering where Mike was during all this partying... he was having a grand time in Ohio at a fiberglass factory! So... Mike and I took Friday off and did whatever I wanted to do ... so we went to downtown Glendale ate lunch and went to a bunch of antique shops til we were tired of that. Then we went to Cerreta's Candy factory and HAD to buy some chocolate candy. Then went went to the Biltmore fashion Park to see how the rich people shop and THEN we ate dinner at Steamers Seafood there. Way nice, way yum and way pricey... but hey... it's my birthday week! Thanks to everyone who wished me Happy birthday and for the fun and not to mention the presents! Now on to Saturday and the reality of cleaning and catching up on laundry. Ahhhhhh such is the good life!!!

Sweetcakes

Antiques... This is at the Apple Tree

Cerreta's Chocolate

Biltmore shops

Steamers

Back from the great cabin adventure!

We are back and recuperated from our great family cabin adventure! This past weekend we were all able to get together at the Gunnells cabin (Thank you Gunnells) and have some family time before Brandon leaves. We had lots of yummy food, went crawdad hunting, had a picnic, played frisbee golf, did a little quad riding, watched movies, played games, played Phase 10 til 2 in the morning... (yep... I actually stayed up that late, but I don't think I knew exactly what I was doing after midnight), had a really good FHE on Sunday which included the Silly Family Body Parts game, to see how good we can recognize each other and the rest was missionary themed, of course, Krislin did a great talk and game about Brandon, we talked some more and watched a video and concluded with one of Brandons favorite meals... a baked potato bar! AND before we left the birthday buddys (me and Braxon) celebrated with cake and ice cream and presents! The only bad part was the weekend went by too fast and we had to come home. It is always a fun and funny time with the fam! Check out the slideshow!

September birthdays!

It's another month of birthdays!! The 18th for me and Braxon... the 21st for Aimee... and we always remember little angel Jason on the 19th.

ME
Braxon
Aimee

Ward campout

Friday and Saturday me Mike and Brandon went to the ward campout. We went to a new place called Mabbs Ranch. We were the first ones there ... so we thought... is anyone else coming?!? But about an hour later later lots of people started coming and we had 26 families... which is a LOT of prople! It turned out to be a really fun camp. Brandon got the assignment to be the camp guide to help people find camping spots. Of course he didn't mind at all... he got to ride Brother Mabbs quad. Our ward has a tradition of having The Amazing Race on Saturday morning. It is a great well thought out and well planned game and is quite involved. It's family against family and is timed. Mike and I did stations, (we did the race last year and almost didn't survive... The two of us and 4 teenagers... Trent carried me on his back the last stretch... so Mike and I decided we would retire this year especially since the course was bigger and higher!) and so we adopted Brandon out to the Lee family. They ended up getting 3rd place! Great trip... As always... there was good food and a good time for all!

Brandon helping Bishop find a camping spot

Mike helping at breakfast

A cute fuzzy critter

Brandon at one of the Amazing Race Stations

Labor Day weekend...

Last weekend we had a great time at the Gunnell cabin! It was me Mike, Brandon, Steve Teresa and Ty.
It was cool...

Teresa and Steve made us lots of yummy food...

It rained so we watched movies and played lots of games

We stayed up WAY past my bedtime

did a little shooting, did a little quad riding

played frisbee golf

and MOST of all... relaxed!

Thanks Steve and Teresa and Ty for inviting us!