And, if there's one thing my mama taught me, (here's mama above, admonishing me as I type this) it's to include everyone. Not always an easy lesson for me, but I think I got it. Sorry Mama.
So, here we go... Here's Jack. He's my pa. He's the best dad ever. EVER. Got it?
Here's a little after dinner conversation. Looks like Erwin must've been saying something interesting. Or funny, or just making strange sounds, never can tell from a photo.
The aftermath.
Here's my oldest sister, Susan and her husband, Randy. They just moved back to SLC after a long absence. They havn't lived in SLC for over 18 years. Which mean they moved away when they were just three. (Wink, wink...)
This is their oldest daughter, Cassidy. She's 17. WHAT? 17? No, no, no...she was just born, I swear. My sister loves the share the fact that I'm closer in age to her daughter than her. Not by a whole lot, but it's true. 
Here's Parker, he's Susan's second child. He's 13 and a pretty darn good kid. 
Here's Preston, he's Susan's youngest, and I always have to remind myself that he's only 9 because he looks like he's 15. Hmmm, that sounds familliar.
Here's Eric. Or Erwin. He's my brother. He's been through a lot in life, so I'm happy to see him smile. He always has something witty to say and never misses a beat.
Here's Coleman. I think he likes to just be called "Cole" now. I'm just the aunt who will always call him "Coleman Dude" because that's what we called him when he was just a little dude. He's 12, almost 13 and he's a great kid. Apparently loves Caesar salad. 
Max, Maxinator. He's Eric's middle kiddo. We celebrated his 9th birthday at this particular Sunday dinner. He cleaned up pretty nicely. 
Andrew, Eric's youngest. Mubby Jubby. He says funny things that have become tag lines in our family. A couple of years ago at Christmas he was given the task to blow out all the candles. Angie told him how many there were to blow out and his immediate response was "yeah wight." Then he told me that his has a "wap-top." He's funny.
Here's Angie. She's my sister, she's the middle kid. That's her husband Brian. They're pretty funny. You may remember seeing these two before.
Ben (a little blury, in the distance). He's Angie's oldest. He's the most mature 12 year boy I know. Although, for the record, I really don't know a whole lota 12 year old boys. Ok...movin' on.
Emily is Angie's middle kid. She's great. She takes care of Anthony everytime dinner rolls around, so I can eat. Thanks Em. 
Here's Eliza Jane. She's sassy. She's Angies youngest and sassiest. Sassy, sassy sassy. In a good way. She LOVES Wonder-baby and wants to hold him and carry him like a widdle tiny baby. Problem is that Wonder-baby is one. He walks, (and by walks, I mean RUNS) climbs, and doesn't really like being cottled like a baby. Also, he probably weighs pretty close to he same amount as Eliza.{Insert picture of Josh, Jill, Dominic & Everett. I falsely stated they would be moving back to Utah soon...not the case. They've decided to go stay in Portland for now. Darn. They weren't in town for this Sunday dinner... hey, guys... I need some picures of you, k?}
Here's Bug-Man, he's sexy, eh? Well, I think he is. On the left, we have Zach. He was a missionary in LV, and spent many-a-evening at our house teaching. Can't say enough good about the kid. Let's just say he has "it." 
Wonder-Baby. I love when he squats like this to play.
Coleman and Ben, conspiring something good, I'm sure.So that's a typical Sunday dinner at home. It's a little LOUDER than you might imagine, but I'm not gonna lie, we're loud people. Stop by sometime, you're always welcome! The more the merrier. Sorry again, Mama, I just invited who-knows-how-many people over for dinner (let's be honest, maybe 2 people read this and one of them is my mama. Hi Mama. Mom? Are you there? Mom? Gosh, not even her? Bummer.) but I'm just making sure I include everyone.
Cream that with one cup sugar and one cup brown sugar.
Then, photograph your vanilla and eggs. 
Ok, now add 2t. vanilla and 2 eggs. Then wipe the egg goo off your hands to photo your eggs and vanilla in the butter/sugars mixture.
In your favorite yellow Williams-Sonoma melamine mixing bowl combine two and a half cups of flour, and 1t. baking soda and 3/4 cups of cocoa. The cocoa will undoubtedly make a big fat cocoa-y mess EVERYWHERE, and if you have small ceramic tile countertops, it will undoubtedly stick in your light colored grout making your kitchen look like you've never cleaned it. ever. And, this may not turn out very well if you don't have this delightful aformentioned bowl. Sorry.
Slowly add the flour mix to the butter/sugar mix and inhale deeply, because you will be inhaling cocoa flavored air. Odd.
Mix well. Pause to photograph your one year old pulling every dish cloth and wash rag and napkin you own out of your baby accessible drawers.
Locate the bag of Rolo's that a certain Bug-Man may or may not have sampled.
Unwrap 'em. ( I recommend refridgerating until use if you live ON the sun like we do.)
It may help to refridgerate the dough while you unwrap the Rolo's... makes it a little easier to work with.
Scoop some dough.
Squash a Rolo into it.
Roll the dough so it completely covers the Rolo. Get a bowl of sugar. I once experimented with powdered sugar, didn't work. Must be regular ol' sugar.
Roll that dough ball around in the sugar. Arrange on a cookie sheet, and bake at 375 for about 10 minutes, give or take one or two until the tops start to crack.
Yust like zees. Mmmmm. 
I usually leave them on the cookie sheet for a minute or two or five after they come out of the oven, but I got a little anxious today and scooped them up and put them on my new Pampered Chef stackable cooling rack (cool rack eh?) and I ended up with carmel covered countertops. (Don't think for one second I didn't scrape up every last little morsel of countertop carmel and eat it.)
Let cool for a bit and enjoy! They're great warm, or the next day or two, but don't last much longer than 2 days. Best to keep them in an airtight container. 
Or not.
Whatever. You decide. The previous two photos were taken continuously in that order. I love the look on Angie's face in the second photo. What, huh, what are you talking about, I didn't do anything...
Then I asked these two lovebirds to give me a little smile. 
I do have to say for the record, 
I adore 
that one little thing
I like to call
And the pink "muffin top" candy coating. Never thought of the underlying meaning of the muffin topping causing greif to my actual "muffin top." Hmmm. 
And, the lovely bikini-clad baking assistant, Pamela. Everyone should have a bikini-clad assistant, weather for baking or not. Actually, Puh-mella (pronounced the way that Borat talks about Pamela Anderson) and Marc had just come from the lake, hence the beach attire. 
We thought we had this one down pretty good. Make cake ball, shape ball into cookie cutter to form scalloped, cupcake-like bottom, dip in chocolate, stick in bottom of cupcake, in fridge to set, pull out, dip top part in pink candy-coating, sprinkles & m&m on top, and, and, and, crap, where the heck to put 'em now to let the top part set... We got creative-fast. Collander, we'll put them in the holes of that. Nope, the sidesways leaning caused chocolate to run to the side. Bakerelle recommends a block of styrofoam, but I missed that little detail while at Michael's (and I loathe Michael's, so I wasn't about to make a run). 
SO, I grabbed a Gymboree box, poked holes in it and thought that was the PERFECT solution, but since the inside was hollow, they tipped so easily, and ran into each other and smudged and the world almost came to a screeching halt. THEN...
The genius bikini-clad baking assistant said, "What about a baking rack?" So we placed a baking rack on two Cherrios boxes and now we're gonna patent it and make millions. Not really, but it was the perfect solution to our problem and the cake pops were more delicious because of it! Hello my pretties...
