March 20th, 2012

Trent was still out of town and it was the night for shopping at my consignment sale.  I get to shop on the first night since I volunteer and it’s worth it.  Especially now that the girls are getting older, the clothes in sizes 5T and 6 aren’t as plentiful and you gotta get in there and grab the good stuff.  I had never shopped with both girls before and was nervous they would get bored or worse, beg for me to buy more toys than I was planning.  Thankfully they were fantastic and I was able to get my shopping in and we headed back home for dinner and they wanted to play with their new toys.

Trent and I aren’t huge fans of watermelon, so I rarely buy it since it would go bad with just Sydney and Lauren eating it.  I found a Bambino Watermelon at the store this week and it worked out perfect, Sydney ate most of it in one sitting.  Our watermelon girl!

“New” toys!!

My basket of purchases.  There was also a bag of clothes too.  Check spring consignment sale craziness off the list! 

March 19th, 2012

First day of Spring break and we had big plans.  Trent was out of town for a couple days, so it was just me and the girls to explore St Louis.  It really was the best spring break ever, we had great weather and great adventures.

On Monday the plan was to have a picnic on Art Hill, then go to the Art Museum.  However the Art Museum is closed on Monday, so we went on a walk in Forest Park.

We ended up at the Boat House and the girls had ice cream while watching the ducks.

And lots of flower picking on the way back to the car.

Next up was Manicures and Pedicures at Sweet and Sassy.  This was their bubble bath soap for their pedicures, the girls got to pick their “flavor".”

We then window shopped around the mall and decided to have dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.  We were ladies of leisure!

Fantastic day out and about!

March 4th, 2012

So I gave up sweets for Lent.  Some days it’s easy, some days it’s not so easy.  I decided on Sundays I’m going to eat some sort of sweet treat I would rarely allow myself to make or eat.  And with absolutely no guilt.  Trent and I were at a trivia night with friends and one of the girls in our group brought homemade snicker bars for everyone.  They were insanely delicious.  She said she got the recipe from Pinterest and I promptly looked up the recipe the next morning.  There were many, many variations.  Some had butterscotch in them which for some reason my stomach is not a fan, so I ditched those.  Others called for 2 sticks of butter which I thought unnecessary when I’m already combining chocolate, peanut butter, nuts, and a caramel.  I combined a couple recipes into one and the results were delicious. 

This is the second layer, probably the most fun one to make and watch harden.  Making candy bars is fun stuff!  It does have many steps and layers, but the results are worth it.

First layer of chocolate melted with peanut butter with the nougat 2nd layer.

End result with the 3rd layer of caramel and 4th layer of chocolate melted with peanut butter.

I had a family of happy taste testers.

Here’s the recipe:

1st layer:

Combine 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips with 1/2 cup peanut butter. Melt together (I used a double broiler). Spread in a greased 9 x 12 pan and let cool.

2nd layer:

Combine 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of milk, and 1/4 cup of butter. Boil 5 minutes, then add 1/4 cup of peanut butter, 1 1/2 cups of marshmallow cream, and 1 1/2 cups of chopped dry roasted peanuts. Let cool.

3rd layer:

Melt together 40 kraft caramels and 4 tbsp of heavy cream (I used fat free half and half and it was fine)

4th layer is the same as 1st layer.  Let cool and cut into squares.