Try This! Thursday - Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies

When I was a kid, my Mom had this great idea for my brother and I to cook supper one night a week for the entire family. I would cook supper on a Monday night...and my brother would cook supper on a Wednesday night. The arrangement didn't last too long, because I'm assuming it was more trouble to have two kids making a mess in the kitchen, than if she would have just cooked herself. Anyway, we had to make a main dish, side dish, and dessert. I picked No Bake Cookies as my dessert one night, and I've been making them ever since! I don't know why my No Bake Cookies are different from everyone else's, but evidently they are. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I don't measure out my peanut butter (I love peanut butter), and most of the time I leave out the vanilla extract (I hate the way it smells). Either way, they are super easy to make. You have got to Try This!

Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies


Ingredients:
- 2 cups sugar
- 4 tablespoons cocoa
- 1 stick butter
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 3 cups oatmeal
- Waxed paper

Directions:
- In a heavy saucepan bring to a boil, the sugar, cocoa, butter and milk.
- Let boil for 1 minute then add peanut butter, vanilla and oatmeal.
- On a sheet of waxed paper, drop mixture by the teaspoonfuls, until cooled and hardened.


Okay, so on a completely different note...Ian from The Daily Dose of Reality is featuring me on his blog today! That's right, he found me...ME...interesting enough to interview and dedicate an entire post to! Ian is a super cool dude, whom I have grown to be friends with over the last couple of weeks, and his blog is as super cool as he is! So make sure you head on over to The Daily Dose of Reality and check him out ( and don't forget to read my interview).

Oh, and if you are here via Ian...welcome to my blog! I hope you'll take a look around and follow me if you like what you see (I unintentionally rhymed that sentence). My blog isn't all recipes like you see here today. Some of my most recent posts include pictures of my 2 year old in a toddler meltdown, letters to and from my brother who is currently at Marine Boot Camp, and completely random rants that include a dream I had where I was beating someone in the face with a soup can! I am all about variety, and you will definitely find that here!

*If you haven't submitted your questions to me for my Blogaversary, DON'T FORGET to do so!! You have less than a week to get those questions into me! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, or you are new to my blog...click here to find out how you can help me celebrate my Blogaversary!!*

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Wordless Wednesday: A Temper Tantrum in Pictures

Just in case you were feeling bad about how misbehaved your toddler or child has been as of late, I thought I'd post a few pictures of Bree in an all out, flat on the floor, legs kicking, arms swinging, screaming temper tantrum. These are nearly an every day occurrence these days...so, I decided to make the best of it and snap a few pictures in the process of trying to avoid going berserk!


*If you haven't submitted your questions to me for my Blogaversary, DON'T FORGET to do so!! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, or you are new to my blog...click here to find out how you can help me celebrate my Blogaversary!!*

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Random Tuesday Thoughts: Strong Coffee & Soup Can Beatings

Seriously, it's only Tuesday? UGH! It's time for Random Tuesday Thoughts, and as I said before...I refuse to use the little ugly purple button that everyone else uses. It just doesn't go with my color scheme :) Don't hate.

Happy Groundhog's Day!!
Um, who decided to let a stupid little Groundhog decide how many more weeks of Winter we will have? Why hasn't anyone thought about shooting that little vermin yet? (totally kidding)

I made the coffee a little strong this morning. You know how you try to use the last bit of coffee grounds, but you just can't muster out enough at the bottom of the canister to make a pot of coffee? So then, you have to open up another bag coffee. By the time you get it open, you have already forgotten how many scoops you have already put into the coffee pot. So you just add 2 more BIG scoops, and pray for the best. Well, my best this morning was a pot of EXTRA! STRONG! COFFEE!

I have decided that today is going to be a lazy day for me. I got all of my house work done yesterday, and I just have a wee bit of laundry to do today. I allowed myself to sleep in until 10 this morning. That was nice. Hey, it's a rainy day out...what else am I supposed to do?

So, do you remember back in August when I was the photographer for this girl's wedding, and I really didn't want to do it, but she practically begged me to and so I said I would. I put my entire vacation back like 12 hours for this girl's stupid wedding. Anyway, when she got the pictures back in September, she wanted all of her money back because she said the pictures were not "professional". Whatever. Anyway, that was a big thing. Last night, out of the blue, I dreamed I beat her in the face with a soup can. Wow. Good times.

Am I the only one who chases that last bit of cereal around the bowl for what seems like hours until I finally capture it in my spoon?

I love my Clarks Wallabees! The comfort is ah-mazing!

Oh, and I've gotten a couple of awards over the course of the last couple of weeks! I've been kind of slack at posting these. I don't have a good excuse or anything though. Sorry.

The first one I got was from the very funny Ian over at The Daily Dose of Reality. He gave me the Chuck Norris Stamp of Approval! How honored I am that Chuck Norris digs my blog [insert Chuck Norris joke here].
Ian gave me permission to write my own rules for this one, so if you think this award is super cool and you'd love to see it on your blog...go ahead and take it! Give your blog the Chuck Norris Stamp of Approval! Thank you Ian!

The second award that I got came from Lisa Marie, from The Domestication of a Party Girl. Her blog is all new to me, and I absolutely love it! Anyway, she gave me the Kick Ass Blogger award!
I'm glad that I "kick ass" at one thing in my life! Thank you so much Lisa Marie, for this award! I'm changing the rules on this award, just because I can :) I picked 5 bloggers to pass this award on to, because I think they seriously kick ass! (Note to Bloggers who got picked: You can make your own rules up with this award too.)

1. Katherine from Another Day, Another Moment
2. Salt from Salt Says
3. Amanda from Serenity Now - A Mommy's Solution to Staying Sane
4. Shell from Things I Can't Say
5. Kiera from Imperfect Daisies

And on one last note, I love getting comments from you all! But I love responding to them even more! Lately though, a few of you have commented, and I haven't been able to respond back because there is not an email address for me to respond to. It just says "noreply-comment@blogger.com". Please oh please fix this!! I would love so much to be able to respond to each and every one of you that comments! For Blogger people, just click Show My Email Address box under your profile settings. I do have a few Word Press users who I am not able to reply back to either because of this situation, so if you're on Word Press and you comment to my blog, but don't hear anything back from me...please, please get this situation checked out! You all have such wonderful comments, and I feel like I'm neglecting you if I can't comment back! Plus, I have so much to say!

*If you haven't submitted your questions to me for my Blogaversary, DON'T FORGET to do so!! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, or you are new to my blog...click here to find out how you can help me celebrate my Blogaversary!!*

I got my first letter from my brother!!

If you are new to my blog, let me fill you in. My brother left for Marine Boot Camp on January 10th. I have sent him several letters, two of which you can read here and here. To read about how I felt about my brother's departure click here, and click here to read about the day he left.

I did! I got my first letter from my brother, and I was so excited! The letter made me both laugh and cry. I laughed, because I could hear his sense of humor in the words (and because I was just so darn excited to get a letter), and I cried because it really means something when your brother says he loves you. It's not that I ever doubted the fact that he loved me, it's just nice to see it in writing. Anyway, without further ado...here is the letter....

Dear Sister,
This letter will not be neat at all because I have to write fast and this pen sucks. But anyways I'm glad I finally get to hear from you. I miss you and Bree...and Paul a lil' bit. This crap sucks, well not really. I just miss home a lot. [some text exempt] Speaking of Bree being sick, I'm sick also. I have no voice and a bad sinus infection. Times are hard, but I'm pressing on. I gotta cut this short cuz I gotta write Sam and the Parents back. Write me back. It's amazing how letters help a person out. I love you Sister, tell Bree I love her and tell Paul to quit playing my Xbox.

Bye, I love you.

Sincerely,
Your Bro Urt

*If you haven't submitted your questions to me for my Blogaversary, DON'T FORGET to do so!! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, or you are new to my blog...click here to find out how you can help me celebrate my Blogaversary!!*

Our Icy Weekend...

On a whim Saturday morning, we decided we were going to test the roads and head to my Parent's house. It was absolutely not fair at all for everyone else to have gotten 4 to 5 inches of snow, and all we had was some snowman snot (see previous post). So we all got bundled up (because it was like 20 degrees outside), hopped in the car and headed 30 minutes down the road to my Parent's house. As we drove, we watched our roads go from having absolutely nothing on them, to 3 feet of snow on the side of the road. It is amazing how much a little distance can make, and how strange weather is. We managed to get to my Parent's neighborhood without sliding off the road or having any major problems, but the road that goes down in front of my Parent's house turned out to be the real problem.

As we turned onto their road, I immediately knew that this was going to be an issue. The entire road was just one big sheet of ice, and it was downhill, and we were going to have to make a semi-sharp left hand turn into their driveway when clearly...the ice was going to slide us any which way it wanted to. We crept down the hill in my little 2 door Honda Civic. The anti-lock brakes started making this horrible sound, the back end came around on us, and I started screaming. Of course, Paul thinks this is fun...so he's laughing. I'm not. All I could think is that we would end up in the neighbor's living room or something somehow. I'm not sure how Paul did it, but we got into the driveway, safe & sound, without any sign of any struggle whatsoever.

Once settled in at my Parent's house, we gobbled down some lunch and then took Bree outside to play. Now, the snow was caked in the middle of some major ice. We couldn't build a snowman or anything like that, but we did pull out Bree's little kiddie swimming pool and go sledding.

Note to reader: In the South, we don't find it necessary to have real sleds, because it never does this. So we just use things like garbage can lids and swimming pools to sled with.

Anyway, here are some pictures from our day in the snow ice:


We ended up spending the night with my Parents that night, because the roads iced back up pretty quickly. It was fun. I gained 5 pounds eating home made chocolate & peanut butter cookies, drinking hot chocolate, and eating a nice warm meal of roast & potatoes. When we got up the next morning, the ice began melting quickly. The sun was out and the temperature got up to 42 degrees, 20 degrees higher than the day before. I was quick to go out and take some pictures before it all melted away. Bree and I went exploring in the back yard:

Anyway, we're supposed to get more of this snow and ice tomorrow and then again for the weekend. I'm not betting on anything just yet.

In other news, I still haven't gotten a letter from my Brother. It's starting to piss me off now, because his girlfriend got one Thursday, but neither my Parents or I have received one. Looks like he could do a little bit better than that. Another guy in his platoon, and who my brother recruited to go with him, has been writing letters every day to his family. So...what's up lil' bro? Where's my letter?!

How was your weekend? Did you get snow and ice?

*If you haven't submitted your questions to me for my Blogaversary, DON'T FORGET to do so!! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, or you are new to my blog...click here to find out how you can help me celebrate my Blogaversary!!*