Speaker 1: There's this thing that happens when you have a lot
Speaker 1: of kids, and I mean a lot. You stop marking
Speaker 1: time the way most people do. You don't think in
Speaker 1: months or seasons or even years. Really. You think in chapters.
Speaker 1: You think in milestones. You think in the space between
Speaker 1: who someone was and who they're becoming, and you watch
Speaker 1: that space shrink faster than you are ever ever ready for.
Speaker 1: I've been in this thing long enough to know that
Speaker 1: the big moments don't always announce themselves. Sometimes you see
Speaker 1: them coming from miles away, the build up, the planning,
Speaker 1: the color coded calendar on the fridge with three different
Speaker 1: people's handwriting on it, And sometimes they just arrive quiet,
Speaker 1: like they were always meant to be there. This was
Speaker 1: one that announced itself. There was a prom dress involved,
Speaker 1: and a neighbor with a gift for hair and nails,
Speaker 1: and a nephew with a camera who honestly should be
Speaker 1: charging more for his time. And there was Maddie, our Maddie,
Speaker 1: standing in our front yard in the afternoon light, wearing
Speaker 1: that smile the kind that isn't performance, isn't trying, isn't
Speaker 1: posed for the camera, just real, just her, And I'm
Speaker 1: telling you right now, before we even get into the story.
Speaker 1: I knew the second I saw her standing there that
Speaker 1: this episode was going to write itself. So let's get
Speaker 1: into it. This is We Are the Hansens, and this
Speaker 1: is Maddie's prom night. Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to
Speaker 1: We are the Hansens. I'm Maya And if you're new here,
Speaker 1: welcome to the most gloriously chaotic household on the Internet.
Speaker 1: We are a big family, a loud family, a we
Speaker 1: ran out of cereal again? How does that even happen? Family?
Speaker 1: And we love every single second of it. If you've
Speaker 1: been with us for a while, you already know the deal.
Speaker 1: This show is our family's story, unfiltered, unscripted, and unapologetically real.
Speaker 1: We talk about big moments and the small ones, the
Speaker 1: ones that make you laugh until you can't breathe, and
Speaker 1: the ones that make you sit in the quiet afterward
Speaker 1: and just feel it. Today's episode is one of those.
Speaker 1: We're talking about prom specifically, we're talking about Maddie's prom
Speaker 1: and everything that surrounded it, from the morning chaos to
Speaker 1: the final photos to the moment she walked back through
Speaker 1: the door at the end of the night. And if
Speaker 1: you stick around towards the end, I've got a little
Speaker 1: bonus for you, because summer is coming, the weather is
Speaker 1: warming up, and I've been making this one particular treat
Speaker 1: that our whole family is obsessed with. Right now, I'm
Speaker 1: going to share the recipe because I believe good things
Speaker 1: should be shared. But first, let's go back to Prom day,
Speaker 1: because this story deserves to be told properly. There is
Speaker 1: a specific kind of energy that exists in our house
Speaker 1: on a big day. It's not loud, not at first.
Speaker 1: It starts almost like a hume, this low, quiet vibration
Speaker 1: underneath everything that tells you before anyone has said a word,
Speaker 1: before you've even had your first cup of coffee, that
Speaker 1: today is not an ordinary day. You feel it when
Speaker 1: you walk down the hallway. You feel it in the
Speaker 1: way the kitchen is already half busy, before the sun
Speaker 1: is all the way up. You feel it in the
Speaker 1: way people are moving a little more carefully, a little
Speaker 1: more deliberately, like the whole house knows something important is
Speaker 1: happening and has decided to cooperate. That was Prom morning.
Speaker 1: I woke up and there was already something in the air.
Speaker 1: Now I need to paint you a picture of what
Speaker 1: a big event morning looks like in the hands and house,
Speaker 1: because I think people assume that having a lot of
Speaker 1: children means everything is chaos all the time, and yes,
Speaker 1: chaos is very much present, if there's also this beautiful, organized,
Speaker 1: somehow functional rhythm that our family has developed over the
Speaker 1: years of trial, air and the occasional total disaster. We
Speaker 1: know our roles, we know how to move around each other,
Speaker 1: we know when to help and when to stay out
Speaker 1: of the way. And on a morning like this, and
Speaker 1: on a morning like this one, when it's Maddie's day,
Speaker 1: when all the energy is pointed in one direction, that
Speaker 1: rhythm becomes something else entirely, it becomes something that actually works.
Speaker 1: Maddie was up early, which, if you know Maddie tells
Speaker 1: you everything you need to know about how much does
Speaker 1: it meant to her? This kid can sleep I say
Speaker 1: that with full love and zero judgment, because listen, the
Speaker 1: ability to sleep in is a gift and some of
Speaker 1: us no longer possess it. But that morning, she was up,
Speaker 1: she was moving, She had a list, either mental or actual,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, and she was working through it and
Speaker 1: through all of the noise that comes with a big
Speaker 1: family on a big morning, someone asking where something is,
Speaker 1: someone debating breakfast options, the general symphony of the house
Speaker 1: full of people. Maddie was steady, calm. There's a version
Speaker 1: of nervous energy that some people get before big moments
Speaker 1: that makes everything a little sharp, a little too loud,
Speaker 1: a little jagged at the edges. And then there's the
Speaker 1: other kind, the kind Maddie had that morning, the kind
Speaker 1: that says, I've been waiting for this, I'm ready, let's
Speaker 1: go see it on her face, that quiet smile, that
Speaker 1: mix of excitement and something just slightly deeper than excitement, anticipation,
Speaker 1: maybe the feeling of standing at the threshold and knowing
Speaker 1: with some part of your gut that doesn't lie to
Speaker 1: you that what on the other side is going to
Speaker 1: be good. Now I have to talk about Trinity, because
Speaker 1: any honest retelling of this prom day has to start
Speaker 1: here with our neighbor girl, Trinity, who showed up and
Speaker 1: absolutely delivered. And I don't say that casually. I mean
Speaker 1: she showed up, really showed up, the kind of showing
Speaker 1: up that goes way beyond I'll help you, the kind
Speaker 1: that says I'm here, I'm invested, and we are going
Speaker 1: to make sure this girl looks and feels like everything
Speaker 1: she deserves to feel like today. Trinity did Maddie's hair.
Speaker 1: Trinity did Maddie's nails, Trinity did Maddie's makeup, and in
Speaker 1: doing those things, she turned our space into something that
Speaker 1: felt completely different than it does on any regular day.
Speaker 1: There were tools out, there were products arranged, There was
Speaker 1: intention in the air. She came prepared, and she came
Speaker 1: with full focus. I watched it happen, and I will
Speaker 1: tell you there is something beautiful about watching two young
Speaker 1: women in a room together, working toward one goal, talking
Speaker 1: and laughing and figuring it out together. And it's not
Speaker 1: just about the hair. It's not just about the nails.
Speaker 1: It's not just about the makeup. It's about what happens
Speaker 1: in that space, the conversation, the trust, the way someone
Speaker 1: can say I've got you without ever actually saying those words.
Speaker 1: Trinity said it with every single thing she did. She
Speaker 1: paid attention to the details, the ones Maddie would notice
Speaker 1: and the ones she wouldn't tell. She looked in the
Speaker 1: mirror and realized everything was exactly right. She adjusted and
Speaker 1: refined and stepped back to take a look the way
Speaker 1: someone does when they actually care about the results, not
Speaker 1: just the task. There's a craft to it. Honestly, you
Speaker 1: don't just pick up a curling iron and make someone
Speaker 1: look incredible. There's an instinct involved, a sense of what
Speaker 1: serves that person in front of you, and Trinity had it.
Speaker 1: She was reading Maddie what would feel right, what would
Speaker 1: make her walk out of that chair feeling like the
Speaker 1: best version of herself, and Maddie trusted her completely. That trust,
Speaker 1: that willingness to sit still and let someone else handle
Speaker 1: the thing that matters. That's not nothing, especially at an
Speaker 1: age when so much of your sense of self is
Speaker 1: wrapped up in how you present yourself to the world,
Speaker 1: especially before an night as significant as this one. But
Speaker 1: Matti trusted Trinity, and Trinity earned it. By the time
Speaker 1: they were done, I could see the difference, not just
Speaker 1: in the look, although the look was genuinely incredible, but
Speaker 1: in the energy and the way Maddy was standing, in
Speaker 1: the way she was carrying herself. There's a specific kind
Speaker 1: of confidence that comes when you feel like the outside
Speaker 1: matches the inside, when the way you look reflects who
Speaker 1: you actually are on a day that actually matters. That's
Speaker 1: what Trinity gave her, and I don't think either of
Speaker 1: them fully knows how much that meant. I do, though,
Speaker 1: I saw it before we get to the pictures, and
Speaker 1: we are absolutely getting to the pictures. I want to
Speaker 1: slow down here for just a second and talk about something.
Speaker 1: This wasn't just any prompt. Mattie was going into a
Speaker 1: public school prom. And I know that some of you
Speaker 1: might read that and think, okay, so, But for our family,
Speaker 1: in the context of Maddie's life, in her path, that
Speaker 1: detail matters. It means she was stepping outside of her
Speaker 1: usual world, her usual faces, her usual environment, her usual routine.
Speaker 1: She was walking into the space that was largely unfamiliar
Speaker 1: and saying I belong here too. That takes something. It
Speaker 1: takes confidence, It takes courage, It takes the kind of
Speaker 1: openness that not every fourteen year old, seventeen year old,
Speaker 1: eighteen year old, or honestly, not even every adult has
Speaker 1: easy access to. Because when you go somewhere new, where
Speaker 1: you don't have your usual safety net of people who
Speaker 1: already know you already, like you already get your son
Speaker 1: of humor, you are presenting yourself completely cold. You're walking
Speaker 1: in as a first impression with no do overs, and
Speaker 1: Maddie walked into that with her head up. We talked
Speaker 1: about it a little beforehand, not in a worried way,
Speaker 1: more in a how are you feeling about it? Kind
Speaker 1: of way, and she was calm, genuinely not performing calm
Speaker 1: for my benefit, actually genuinely settled in herself about it.
Speaker 1: She said she was excited to meet new people. She
Speaker 1: said it was going to be fun, you know what.
Speaker 1: She was right. But I'm getting ahead of myself, all right.
Speaker 1: The pictures, oh, the pictures. Now. I want you to
Speaker 1: understand something about photographs. In our family, we are not
Speaker 1: a quick, get a photo, okay done kind of family.
Speaker 1: We don't do the quick snapshots from ten feet away
Speaker 1: that you'll look at later and think, I mean it exists. No,
Speaker 1: when we do photos, we do photos. And this day
Speaker 1: was no exception. And let me tell you, me and
Speaker 1: my nephew Johnny teamed up on this one, and let
Speaker 1: me tell you that was the right call because us
Speaker 1: two together have this way of working that just works. Me.
Speaker 1: I've been doing it long enough to know where the
Speaker 1: light is, when to move, when to tell someone to
Speaker 1: shift two inches to the left, And Johnny that kid
Speaker 1: has natural eye. Some people take pictures, Johnny ces pictures.
Speaker 1: There's a difference, and it's significant. Together, we turned our
Speaker 1: front yard in the space around our house into something
Speaker 1: that felt intentional, like every backdrop was chosen, every angle considered.
Speaker 1: We shot outside first, which was the right call, because
Speaker 1: the light that afternoon was beautiful, that warm, golden, just
Speaker 1: past midday life that makes everything look like it was
Speaker 1: meant to be photographed, the kind of light that doesn't
Speaker 1: need filters because it's already doing all the work. Maddie
Speaker 1: came out ready, and I keep coming back to that
Speaker 1: word ready because it's the only word that fits. She
Speaker 1: wasn't nervous in front of the camera. She wasn't stiff,
Speaker 1: She wasn't doing that thing where you can tell someone
Speaker 1: is thinking about how they look instead of just being
Speaker 1: where they are. She was present, She was herself. We
Speaker 1: moved her around different spots, different angles, different kinds of poses.
Speaker 1: Some that were more polished and serious, some that were
Speaker 1: just her laughing at something Johnny said, got completely off
Speaker 1: guard and completely perfect for it. Those are always my favorite,
Speaker 1: the laughing one, because no one looks bad when they're laughing.
Speaker 1: No one looks like they're trying. When they're laughing, you
Speaker 1: can't fake a laugh that reaches your eyes, and Maddie's
Speaker 1: always does. At one point, I remember stepping back and
Speaker 1: just watching Johnny work, Johnny's shooting, Maddie navigating between us,
Speaker 1: both with this easy confidence that made everything look effortless.
Speaker 1: The three of us had a rhythm, and I thought,
Speaker 1: this is stuff. This is stuff that gets put in
Speaker 1: a box and brought out twenty years from now. This
Speaker 1: is the stuff her kids are going to see someday.
Speaker 1: This is the thing that will make time feel real,
Speaker 1: both how fast it moved and how full it was.
Speaker 1: There was this moment in particular. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if Johnny got it on camera or not. Honestly, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter where. Maddy just stopped between poses. She looked
Speaker 1: out towards the road, not at anything specific, just out,
Speaker 1: and she was smiling that soft inward smile, the one
Speaker 1: that means you're happy in a way that's too full
Speaker 1: to perform. And I thought, she knows, she knows this
Speaker 1: is a moment. She knows is that right now, standing
Speaker 1: in this light, on this day, surrounded by these people,
Speaker 1: this is going to be something she'll come back to.
Speaker 1: Maybe not tonight, maybe next year, but someday she's going
Speaker 1: to be somewhere in her life and something will bring
Speaker 1: her back to this afternoon in the yard, and she
Speaker 1: is going to feel that whole weight of it. How
Speaker 1: young she was, how sure of herself, how the light
Speaker 1: hit her hair exactly right, and how nobody told her
Speaker 1: to smile like that she just did. I hope she
Speaker 1: keeps those pictures somewhere safe. I hope she looks at
Speaker 1: them on the days when things feel hard and she
Speaker 1: needs a reminder of who she is, because those pictures
Speaker 1: tell the truth. By the time we were done, we knew,
Speaker 1: we all knew without having to say it, we had
Speaker 1: something really good, Better than good action. We had the
Speaker 1: kind of pictures that do exactly what pictures are supposed
Speaker 1: to to do, freeze the right moment with the right
Speaker 1: light and the right day, so that years from now
Speaker 1: someone can look at them and feel it all over again.
Speaker 1: And then it was time. There's a specific kind of
Speaker 1: pause that happens before a kid walks out the door
Speaker 1: on a night like this. If you're a parent, you
Speaker 1: know the one I'm talking about. It's not dramatic. It
Speaker 1: doesn't come with the speech for a moment of formal recognition.
Speaker 1: It's smaller than that. It's quieter. It's just this brief,
Speaker 1: suspended second where you look at them, really look at them,
Speaker 1: and something in you catches, not in a sad way,
Speaker 1: in a full way, in a look how far we've
Speaker 1: come way. Maddie was standing by the door, ready to leave,
Speaker 1: everything done, everything in place, looking incredible, and I had
Speaker 1: that pause. I saw her as she was right then,
Speaker 1: this young woman, confident, beautiful in the way that's more
Speaker 1: than just the dress and the hair and the makeup,
Speaker 1: though all of that was genuinely perfect, Beautiful in the
Speaker 1: way that comes from being raised with love, from knowing
Speaker 1: who you are, from stepping into hard things and coming
Speaker 1: through them. Okay. I thought about the little kid version
Speaker 1: of Maddie, the loud laugh she had since she was small,
Speaker 1: the way she always moved through the world with this
Speaker 1: particular energy, big feeling, big personality, but also underneath that,
Speaker 1: something steady, something grounded. I thought about all the regular
Speaker 1: days between then and now, all the Tuesday evenings and
Speaker 1: Saturday mornings, all the dinners and arguments and car rides
Speaker 1: and quiet conversations, all the ordinary stuff that accumulates without
Speaker 1: announcement into who a person is. And then I looked
Speaker 1: at that person standing in front of me, and I thought,
Speaker 1: we are doing something right. That feeling. I can't manufacture it,
Speaker 1: I can't force it just happens in these moments, and
Speaker 1: when it does, I've learned to just let it. Don't
Speaker 1: rush past it, don't make it too big, just let
Speaker 1: it be what it is. And we headed out, and
Speaker 1: the house got a little quieter, not empty, a house
Speaker 1: like ours is never truly empty, but quieter, different quiet.
Speaker 1: And in that different quiet there was satisfaction, the kind
Speaker 1: that comes when a big day goes right, when the
Speaker 1: things that could have gone sideways didn't, when you put
Speaker 1: love and effort and people into something and it comes
Speaker 1: back around exactly what it was supposed to be. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing about waiting for a kid to come home
Speaker 1: from something big. You're not really waiting, not in the
Speaker 1: way you're sitting by the door watching the clock. Life
Speaker 1: keeps going, the rest of the household keeps moving. Other
Speaker 1: kids need things, the night moves forward, someone wants a snack,
Speaker 1: someone can't find the TV remote, the usual symphony. But
Speaker 1: there's a small part of your attention that stays put,
Speaker 1: that keeps a little window open in the back of
Speaker 1: your mind, Wondering if she's having fun, Wondering if the
Speaker 1: people were kind, Wondering if the music was good, if
Speaker 1: the venue was what she expected, if she found her
Speaker 1: footing in a room full of unfamiliar faces, Wondering if
Speaker 1: this experience is doing what you hoped it would do
Speaker 1: for her, giving her something to carry forward. I've noticed
Speaker 1: that parenting a teenager is a lot of this. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of sending someone out to an experience and
Speaker 1: trusting that you've given them what they need, not just
Speaker 1: the dress and the logistics, but the internal stuff, the resilience,
Speaker 1: the confidence, the ability to walk into a room and
Speaker 1: not need to be a perfect person in order to
Speaker 1: enjoy it. You spend years pouring into your kids, and
Speaker 1: then there are these moments where you let go of
Speaker 1: the handle, watch them balance on their own, and every
Speaker 1: time your heart is doing something complicated and wonderful simultaneously.
Speaker 1: That's what the evening felt like. We heard a little
Speaker 1: bit through that evening, the usual, a text here and there,
Speaker 1: the kind of brief check ins that tell you enough
Speaker 1: without telling you everything. Which is exactly appropriate. She was
Speaker 1: having a great time, and that was enough. It was
Speaker 1: more than enough, because that was the whole point. Not
Speaker 1: the dress, not the photos, not the hair or the nails,
Speaker 1: or the perfect light in the front yard. Those things
Speaker 1: were the frame around the real thing. The real thing
Speaker 1: was Maddie out in the world having a night. She
Speaker 1: would remember meeting new people, dancing, laughing, being young, being free,
Speaker 1: being in a gymnasium that's been transformed into something that
Speaker 1: tries very hard to be magical, and on the right night,
Speaker 1: with the right people, actually succeeds. That's what we were
Speaker 1: waiting for. And she got it. She absolutely got it.
Speaker 1: When she walked back through that door, I could see
Speaker 1: the night on her face, and I mean that in
Speaker 1: the best way possible. She still looked beautiful, but it
Speaker 1: was a different kind of beautiful now. It was a
Speaker 1: lived in beautiful, the kind that comes from having been
Speaker 1: somewhere and done something and felt things. The hair was
Speaker 1: a little different than when she left, which is exactly
Speaker 1: how it should be. Her eyes were bright. That glow,
Speaker 1: that specific post good night glow that you can't fake
Speaker 1: and you can't manufacture, was absolutely present. I asked her
Speaker 1: how it was and the way she said so good,
Speaker 1: the weight of those two words, the way they came
Speaker 1: from somewhere genuine. I didn't need that details. I mean
Speaker 1: I wanted the details, and she gave them to me.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. But the details almost didn't matter, because the
Speaker 1: feeling set everything first. She talked about the people she met,
Speaker 1: She talked about the music, She talked about the moment
Speaker 1: that made her laugh. She talked about dancing, and I
Speaker 1: love that. I love that she danced. I loved that
Speaker 1: she got on that floor and moved and didn't spend
Speaker 1: the night standing by the wall worrying about how she looked.
Speaker 1: That's the goal every time, every milestone, go in, be present, dance,
Speaker 1: come home full. She was still home safe, she was happy.
Speaker 1: She had a story to tell, and in this family,
Speaker 1: stories are everything. We sat together for a while after
Speaker 1: she got back, not in a formal way, just in
Speaker 1: the easy kind of late night talking that happens when
Speaker 1: someone comes home from something and the house is a
Speaker 1: little quieter and there's nowhere to be the kind of
Speaker 1: conversation that moves around without agenda, part de brief or
Speaker 1: just being together. Those are some of my favorite moments, honestly,
Speaker 1: the after moments, when the event is over, but the
Speaker 1: energy of it is still in the room, when everyone
Speaker 1: is a little tired and a little happy and nobody's
Speaker 1: rushing off anywhere. Those moments are easy in a way
Speaker 1: that some of the big, planned, orchestrated moments aren't. They're
Speaker 1: just real, just us and that night with Maddie home
Speaker 1: and happy and full of stories. Who is one of
Speaker 1: the good ones, one of the ones I'll hold on to.
Speaker 1: I've been doing this long enough to know that the
Speaker 1: moments you think are going to be significant don't always
Speaker 1: turn out to be, and the ones you think are
Speaker 1: just another day turn out to be the ones you
Speaker 1: remember forever. This one I knew would matter. I knew
Speaker 1: it when we were standing in the driveway and the
Speaker 1: light was exactly right. I knew it when I saw
Speaker 1: Mattie's face in those photographs, that absolute, unguarded, real expression
Speaker 1: of being happy and confident and exactly herself. I knew
Speaker 1: it when the house went quiet after she left, and
Speaker 1: I let myself feel it for just a second before
Speaker 1: moving on to whatever was next. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about something though, before we get to my recipe, because
Speaker 1: I think it's worth saying out loud. There is so
Speaker 1: much pressure in parenting to make the big moments perfect,
Speaker 1: to orchestrate everything, to control all the variables and produce
Speaker 1: a result that matches some idea of what a milestone
Speaker 1: is supposed to look like. We see it everywhere in
Speaker 1: the Pinterest boards and the Instagram stories and the highlight
Speaker 1: reels that other families post. That sometimes, if you're not careful,
Speaker 1: make you feel like your version of things isn't quite enough.
Speaker 1: And I've been there. I've been there in the comparison trap.
Speaker 1: I've felt that pulled to wonder if we're doing it right,
Speaker 1: if we're doing enough, if the milestone will land the
Speaker 1: way it's supposed to. But what I've learned, and Mattie's
Speaker 1: prom was a beautiful reminder of this, is that the
Speaker 1: best moments aren't the ones where everything went perfectly according
Speaker 1: to plan. They're the ones where the right people showed up,
Speaker 1: Where someone like Trinity said I've got you and meant it,
Speaker 1: Where someone like Johnny picked up a camera and saw
Speaker 1: the shot before anyone told him to, where the whole
Speaker 1: family moved in the same direction instinctively, without a script.
Speaker 1: Because we've been doing this together for a long time.
Speaker 1: That's the thing you can't manufacture. That's the thing you
Speaker 1: build slowly over years, through showing up and being present
Speaker 1: and choosing people who show up and are present. Right back,
Speaker 1: we have that. We've built that, and Mattie's problem was
Speaker 1: the kind of moment that just reflected it back at us.
Speaker 1: So if you're in the middle of the building, if
Speaker 1: you were in the noisy, chaotic who took my shoes?
Speaker 1: How are we out of cereal again? Face of raising
Speaker 1: your family? I want you to hear this. It adds
Speaker 1: up all of it, adds up the daily stuff, the
Speaker 1: boring stuff, the getting through Tuesday stuff. It accumulates into something,
Speaker 1: into a foundation, into a family that knows how to
Speaker 1: show up for its own. That's the thing. You're inside it,
Speaker 1: living it, surviving it day by day, and you don't
Speaker 1: always have the vantage point to see what you're creating,
Speaker 1: but it's there. It's happening every dinner, every conversation, every
Speaker 1: time you show up when you didn't feel like showing up.
Speaker 1: It goes into the foundation. And then prom day arrives
Speaker 1: and you look at your kids standing in the yard
Speaker 1: in the perfect light, with that smile, and you understand.
Speaker 1: Hold on to that on hard days because prom Day
Speaker 1: is coming and it's going to be beautiful. Okay, summer
Speaker 1: treat time. I promised, and I keep my promises. This
Speaker 1: recipe has been making them in our house for the
Speaker 1: last few weeks, and every single time I make it,
Speaker 1: it disappears within the day. I'm not exaggerating. I made
Speaker 1: a full tray on a Saturday afternoon, and by Sunday morning,
Speaker 1: I was looking at an empty dish wondering if I
Speaker 1: had imagined making them. These are strawberry lemon ice box bars.
Speaker 1: They are cool, creamy, a little tangy, a little sweet,
Speaker 1: and they require absolutely zero ofbentine, which, when summer hits
Speaker 1: for real and are part of the country, is basically
Speaker 1: a requirement for any recipe I'm willing to make. Let
Speaker 1: me walk you through it. For the crust, you're going
Speaker 1: to need two cups of golden oriole crumbs or gram
Speaker 1: cracker crumbs work just as well. Honestly, it depends on
Speaker 1: what you have. About a quarter cup of granulated sugar
Speaker 1: and six tablespoons of melted butter. That's it for the crust.
Speaker 1: For the filling, you need one block of cream cheese
Speaker 1: at full room temperature eight ounces, one and a half
Speaker 1: cups of fresh strawberries, one cup of powdered sugar, the
Speaker 1: zest of one whole lemon, three tablespoons of fresh lemon juice,
Speaker 1: one eight ounce container of cool whip or whatever whipped
Speaker 1: topping you prefer, or the top, another half a cup
Speaker 1: or so of fresh sliced strawberries for garnish, and if
Speaker 1: you want to get a little extra with it, a
Speaker 1: few thin slices of lemon. Start with your crust. Combine
Speaker 1: the cookie or gram cracker crumbs with the sugar and
Speaker 1: the melted butter. Mix it until it comes together, and
Speaker 1: press it into the bottom of a nine x thirteen dish.
Speaker 1: Make sure you get it even. I use the flat
Speaker 1: bottom of a glass to press it down and it
Speaker 1: works perfectly every time. Put the crust in the freezer
Speaker 1: while you work on the filling. You're not baking it,
Speaker 1: just chilling it a filling, and this part matters. Your
Speaker 1: cream cheese needs to be genuinely at room temperature. Don't
Speaker 1: try to rush it. Cold cream cheese will not blind
Speaker 1: correctly and you will end up with lumps in your bars.
Speaker 1: And I promise you that is not the results you want.
Speaker 1: Let it sit out for a good thirty to forty
Speaker 1: five minutes before you start. Once your cream cheese is soft,
Speaker 1: beat it until it's smooth and a little fluffy. A
Speaker 1: hand mixer works great for here, but if you're strong
Speaker 1: and patient, a wooden spoon and some commitment will also
Speaker 1: get you there. Add in your powdered sugar and mix
Speaker 1: it thoroughly. Now, take your fresh strawberries and mash them.
Speaker 1: You want them broken down, but not completely parade. Some
Speaker 1: small chunks in there are actually a good thing. They
Speaker 1: add texture and a little burst of real strawberry flavor,
Speaker 1: and those add those into the cream cheese mixture, along
Speaker 1: with the lemon's zest and the lemon juice. Mix everything
Speaker 1: together until it's fully combined, and you've got this beautiful, pink, fragrant,
Speaker 1: creamy filling. Now folding your whipped topping gentle folds, don't
Speaker 1: beat it in. You want to keep as much air
Speaker 1: in there as possible. That's what gives the bars their
Speaker 1: light texture. Take your crust out of the freezer and
Speaker 1: spread the filling evenly over it. Smooth the top as
Speaker 1: best as you can cover it and put it back
Speaker 1: into the freezer. You want at least four hours overnight
Speaker 1: is even better. When you're ready to serve it, pull
Speaker 1: it out about ten minutes before you cut it, just
Speaker 1: enough to let it soften slightly so you can get
Speaker 1: clean cuts. Top it with your fresh strawberry slices and
Speaker 1: lemon cut into bars, and serve. That's it. I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: these bars are the thing this summer. They look impressive,
Speaker 1: they taste like something you worked hard on, and the
Speaker 1: reality is they took you maybe twenty mites of actual
Speaker 1: hands on time. The hardest part is waiting for them
Speaker 1: to freeze, which in our house requires hiding them behind
Speaker 1: something in that freezer and telling no one you have
Speaker 1: been warned. All right, friends, that is our episode. Maddie's Prom,
Speaker 1: Trinity's Talent, Johnny's Eye. All right, friends, that is our episode.
Speaker 1: Maddie's Prom, Trinity's Talent, Johnny's Eye. A yard full of
Speaker 1: good light, and a family that showed up for its
Speaker 1: own and strawberry lemon ice box bars. I feel really
Speaker 1: good about that combination. If today's episode made you feel something,
Speaker 1: if you thought about your own milestones, your own kids,
Speaker 1: your own moments, of watching time move faster than you
Speaker 1: thought it would. I'd love to hear about it. Find
Speaker 1: us wherever you listen, leave a comment, send us a
Speaker 1: message on our Facebook, drop a five star review. It
Speaker 1: matters more than you know. It helps other families find us,
Speaker 1: And every time I see a new review come in,
Speaker 1: I read it, every single one. We are a real
Speaker 1: family telling real stories. No scripts about what a perfect
Speaker 1: family looks like, no performance, just us with all of
Speaker 1: our chaos and love and never enough serial reality, showing
Speaker 1: up and sharing it. And the fact that you show
Speaker 1: up to that you come back week after week and
Speaker 1: listen and care. That means the world to this whole
Speaker 1: family too. Maddie, if you're listening to this, which you
Speaker 1: might be, and you might be cringing just a little bit,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. I hope you know how proud we are.
Speaker 1: Not of the dress, not of the photos, not even
Speaker 1: of the incredible job Trinity did on your hair, though
Speaker 1: let's be honest, it was stunning. We are proud of you.
Speaker 1: The way you walked into something new with your head
Speaker 1: up and your heart open, the way you came home glowing,
Speaker 1: the way you told your stories with the brightness in
Speaker 1: your eyes. That's who you are, who you have always
Speaker 1: been becoming, and it is such a privilege every single
Speaker 1: day to watch you become more of it. To Trinity,
Speaker 1: thank you genuinely. What you gave Maddie that day was
Speaker 1: more than a great look. You gave her the kind
Speaker 1: of confidence that comes from feeling seen. That's a gift.
Speaker 1: We don't forget it. To Johnny, thank you for seeing it,
Speaker 1: for knowing where to point the camera, for capturing something real.
Speaker 1: And to this family, all of us, the whole loud,
Speaker 1: full overflowing hands and household, thank you for being exactly
Speaker 1: who you are in a world that sometimes feels like
Speaker 1: it's moving too fast and asking too much. You are
Speaker 1: my proof that it's worth it. Every single day it
Speaker 1: is worth it. Thank you for listening to We are
Speaker 1: the hands I'm maya handsen. This is our story and
Speaker 1: we can't wait to share the next one. Take care
Speaker 1: of each other out there. We'll see you so