when i was pregnant with penelope one of my weaknesses were peanut butter bars. not just any peanut butter bars, only the ones they sold at the pier 49 (pizza shop in UT) that i worked down the street from. i tried not  not to overdo it on the deliciousness, but they were seriously good. i ran across this recipe and it seemed like it might be the ticket. it was! i made them up this weekend and the leftovers have been down right dangerous to have about. these are SO good you won't want to eat anything else for a week straight. here's the recipe:

peanut butter bars

this recipe is adapted from french knots (i decided to make a couple of changes of my own), found here.

Ingredients

• • 3/4 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 3/4 cup peanut butter (crunchy or creamy)
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 3/4 cup flour
  • 2 cups oats

• for frosting

  • 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/3 cup softened butter
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 3 tablespoons Hershey's cocoa

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you're welcome!

 we've been learning about mixing colors. penelope painted these lovely pictures the other day using blue and yellow to make green.  today we turned it into a st. patrick's day decoration.

for a few years i've wanted to try a harlequin pattern afghan and i'm finally doing it! this is proof that dreams can really come true.

i am making this throw for our front room. i have been working on it a little at a time and at this pace it probably won't be done until 2013, but maybe i will surprise myself. i am using red hart soft yarn. i usually steer clear of red hart brand, but i've really started to like some of their colors and they are very affordable. we will see how this throw stands the test of time.

in other news:

isla is now pulling herself to standing and is sometimes crawling in a normal stance...go baby go!

i made this recipe for sunday dinner (we love rumbi's and can't get it here) with this and it was SO delicious. i may share pictures of this success later.

i am rereading a tale of two cities. it is slow going, but i really liked it the first time around. here's to hoping that my high-school self wasn't more patient than my current self.

"mom, i have six fingers and nineteen toes!" someone come and teach p to count. ha ha. she is actually a really good counter, so she must be like her mom by doing some creative counting.

bryan gave me a dehydrator a while ago. i haven't used it much, but i am hoping to rectify that.

bryan went on a campout with the scouts in our ward. i sent a bunch of bananas with them to eat with their breakfast and everyone of those bananas returned to me, hmmm. anyway, we had an excess of bananas in the house and i was thinking of all the banana bread i would have to make to use all of them when i remembered my dehydrator. bryan, penelope and i cut the bananas, dipped them in lemon water and loaded up the dryer. it was a fun family activity. they drying was supposed to take 8-10hrs, but our dryer is a champ and took 20...




now we have gobs of banana chips. yum. i am storing in them in these small glad containers, they are a good size to take around with us in my purse.

i've got a few summer dresses in the works for the girlies. these little numbers are the result of some experimentation with a pillowcase dress pattern. they are far from perfect. i think they looked pretty cute for church. i will work on this one more, because it's a good pattern to use up some of my extra fabric. i am also planning some play dresses and a couple more jumpers like the one in these pictures.

i love dr. seuss and today is his birthday! dr. seuss is so inspiring! i love reading his books to my girls and i am amazed at the important lessons he taught in his simple stories. my favorites are the sneeches and oh the places you'll go (this last one does make me cry, because i'm a baby). what's you're favorite dr. seuss book/quote.