Smells like home

One of the best recollections I have as a kid growing up in Texas was walking into the house after school to the great aroma of cookies, warm from the oven. My mom is/ was a great cook and I have wonderful memories of her in the kitchen loving us with her display of baked goods for dessert, roasted meats for Sunday supper and huge country breakfasts that would make Ma Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie feel like a slackard . (A lot of people think that loving your family with food promotes childhood obesity. But I can tell you that none of my brothers and sisters were obese or even pudgy during childhood. We were all long and lanky, well, except for Margaret. She was short and lanky.....sorry Margy! I love you! Any subsequent chubbiness on my part, was adult onset and was completely due to subsequent increase in the afore mentioned cookies, brownies, pie.... ) Now here I am, 20 years later, carrying on the tradition of loving my kids with good food, too.

Our weather is chilly, rainy and a bit dreary. And today starts spring break! A whole week of nothing to do but sleep and eat and play and eat and watch movies and eat and maybe visit Grandma and eat......

So I'm whipping up a double batch of "the world's best brownies" other wise known as "Lunch Box Brownies" that I blogged about almost two years ago (to the day.....or I guess I should say to the month since I'm a month and seven days off).

I have made these brownies many times. They are a family favorite and they are almost always gone with in minutes from the oven. I often have to hide them from the kids.

I can hear my sweet middle son now:

Luke- "I love you Mom" (walking up, giving me a big hug while looking around for the source of the good smell behind my back).

"Have I told you how much I love you?"

"Do I smell brownies?"

And so it goes until I give up the hiding place or he scouts them out himself.

Brownies. It definitely smells like home here tonight.