Since Father's Day is this weekend, I have decided to post a recipe that is THE recipe to my husband's heart. He just loves this yummy dessert.

A little background on this dessert...

My good friend Karen, whom I have known for 15+ years, used to make this dessert all the time... especially when Phil and I started dating. Karen would always pull off the best bbq's, complete with all her yummy recipes - including this one. She knew the way to men's hearts were through their stomachs. She was always such an incredible cook and hostess back when our singles group was in full swing. I remember when Phil asked me out for a first date I seriously wondered why he asked me when all I would bring to the bbq were baked beans that I picked up at the grocery store deli, while Karen pulled out the big guns with her cooking.

It has been years since we had this dessert so I decided to try it again for my family's Memorial Day get-together. It was a hit. If you're having a large family gathering, make this... you'll be glad you did!

Oreo Cookie Ice Cream Dessert

30 Oreo Cookies
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/2 gallon Coffee Ice Cream (or any flavor), softened
(I love Mocha Almond Fudge)
1 large jar Hot Fudge Topping
1 Carton (16 oz.) Cool Whip

Crush cookies; do not remove cream. Reserve another 4 crushed cookies for the top. Mix rest with butter. Pat in 9x13" pan. Cover and freeze for 20 minutes. Spread ice cream on top. Cover and freeze 20 minutes. Spread fudge topping over ice cream. Cover and freeze 20 minutes. Spread cool whip on top; sprinkle with reserved cookie crumbs. Cover. Freeze overnight. Cut into small squares to serve.

This is a RICH dessert and so chocolatey and cold for a wonderful summer day!

Enjoy!

Labels: friends, recipe

This post is for my friend, Christina. She doesn't really know about my blog, but she is one of my closest friends - my next door neighbor.

We have known each other since the first day they moved in- just right after she gave birth to her second son - Payton. He is now 5 years old - and will be 6 in June. Her first son - Blake - is Perry's best friend and is also 8 years old. Their dad, Brian, is Perry's baseball coach and he spends so much of his spare time coaching the kids individually, as well as together as a team. He believes in their talent as a team and makes baseball season so enjoyable for the kids. Christina and Brian are like family to us and I rely on her as much as I hope that she relies on me.

She gave birth to her third son - Austin - 2 years ago. Austin is a handsome blue-eyed boy who looks just like his brothers. When Austin was around 6 months old, he was taken to our children's hospital and diagnosed with CDG - Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation. It is a very rare disease and most kids with this disease are not even diagnosed properly. They have therapists working with them on a weekly basis and Austin hits milestones. They are Austin's milestones in only Austin's time, but they are important strides for this little boy.

We were outside watching the kids ride their bikes this past weekend and just getting caught up from our week. It's finally spring here and we were enjoying it! She brought out some bubbles to blow for Austin. He loves bubbles and will open his mouth wide - as if he wants the bubbles to just float right in. It was very cute - and another milestone - because Austin hates to open his mouth. He is fed through a feeding tube and doesn't know how to handle liquids and solids at this time. But he was loving the bubbles near his mouth. Then Perry and Blake and Payton all start in on the bubble madness and it was so much fun for Austin. They got out a bubble machine, a puppy that blows bubbles and bubble wands that were the length of their arm. So many things that blow bubbles that I had not personally seen because I believed that since Perry was 8 years old, he was way past bubbles. But these 8 year old boys were having a grand time with the bubble machines and making Austin laugh.

And then out of his mouth Perry exclaims... "this is one of my best days ever!"

I just found this essay on a blog recently and I sent this to her. It is very well written and it just so reminds me of what they go through.

Every. single. day.

If you have some time, please send some prayers up for Christina and her family. She is going through her own milestones right now, and I so hope and pray for her that she will find out the many wonderful insights and beauty that is Holland, even though she planned on going to Italy...
And that I will be a comfort and strength to her whenever she needs me.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...... When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go.

Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy.

But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things... about Holland.

- by Emily Perl Kingsley

Perry had also seen the beauty in Holland that day... and yes, buddy... it was one of my best days too.

Labels: friends

Today is about my friend Rachael. I have known her for what seems like a lifetime, but really maybe only several years. She was a senior in the youth group at the church we attended as I was dating Phil. We did not know each other at all, but I knew her mother and sister as her older sister and I were closer in age.

Fast forward a few years, and I am sitting in the nursery, rocking a baby while her mother caught up with all of the workers in the nursery. Her mother asks me where I work and then proceeds to beg me (and I do emphasize beg) to help Rachael find a job at the ad agency where I clock in a few days a week. She has just graduated from college with a degree in marketing and “she just has to get a job. I can’t have her living with me forever.”

Her mom is the lovely lady to the left in the picture above - Rachael is the young one on the right.

I explain to her mother that I don't have that much popularity prestige at work, but I’ll do my best.

Lucky for Rach, a job opened up just in time – and she would be perfect for it. I tell the two department heads about her and that she goes to church with me. Guys, it’s time to straighten your ways because I think you need to hire her. And they did. And yes, I did want her to work for them to appease her mother, but I'll admit it... I was also in it for the money. The $250 referral fee they pay employees here is a nice chunk of change.

Lucky for me that referral brought a friendship with it also.

It’s been a couple years since Rachael and I have worked together at the agency… she’s gone on to bigger and brighter pastures, but she has remained such a good friend to me. I was honored to help in the preparations of her wedding, as well as coordinate all the necessary details for the rehearsal and the wedding day. We scrapbook together, go to chick flicks on occasion, and compare HOTY's. Hers is winning right now... he is sending her to Florida for her birthday. But the year’s still young, girl!

She turns the big 3-0 today!

Happy Birthday Friend – enjoy your day and may all your years be as happy as the past 29!
Rachael and friends at her surprise 30th birthday party.

A Friend Is Like A Good Bra...
Hard to Find
Supportive
Comfortable
Always Lifts You Up
Never Lets You Down or Leaves You Hanging
And Is Always Close To Your Heart!

Labels: friends