Strawberry Pretzel Dessert

This is a yummy dessert that I love in the summer. Here's the recipe:

Combine 1 1/2 cup preztel crumbs, 1 1/2 sticks butter (melted), and 3 T sugar. Press in the bottom of an 10"x13" glass pan and back at 350 for 10 minutes.

In a bowl combine 1 8oz package cream cheese (softened) and 3/4 cup powdered sugar. Fold in 8oz Cool Whip. Spread over cooled crust. Place in refrigerator.

Boil 1 1/2 cups water, and dissolve an 8oz pack of strawberry Jello in it. Add a quart of frozen strawberries. Stir and remove from heat. Let it cool a bit and begin to slightly thicken. Pour over the cream cheese layer, the let cool in the fridge for 2 hours.

Additional tips: So I am going to be real with you and let you know that this never turns out right for me. First of all, I don't have a food processor, so I have to crush the pretzels by hand. I put them in a baggie and smash away with a food mallett. My pretzels are never "fine" enough for my liking. I realize that you can probably buy a box of pretzel crumbs, but I've never looked.

You really want to let the middle layer cool before you pour the strawberry mixture on. I never have patience for this step (probably because I'm exausted from beating the pretzels to pieces), but the Jello will run through the cream cheese and saturate the pretzel mixture.

Hope you enjoy!

New Tubes

We learned a couple of weeks ago that Preston's ear tubes were clogged and no longer functioning. He had fluid in his ears, so the ENT wanted to replace them. We took him this morning, and the surgery went well. But boy was he mad when they woke him from the anesthesia! He cried the whole way home, so I layed him down for a nap. When I went to check on him, I found him asleep on his floor. He's been great the rest of the day.

7, 4, 4, 3, 2, 2

No, those are not the numbers from a fortune cookie. Or lottery numbers either. Those are the ages of the 6 kids I had the pleasue of keeping on Sunday by myself. About 5 minutes into the play time, I learned that one little girl flushed Maddie's swim suit bottoms down the toilet. An hour or so later, the swim bottoms turned up, so I'm no longer sure what actually got flushed. The final consensus from the kids was stickers. Our plumbing appears to be working just fine, so I guess we will never know! It's probably for the best.

Our playdate was a happy last minute surprise. Sunday morning, we were getting ready for church, but some friends had a medical concern, and we happily offered to watch their kids. Then Marty and Matt went to help Marty's mom and step-dad, so I had Matt's girls join the fun.

I set up play stations all over our driveway and yard. We had a pool, a sand table, bubbles, chalk, and more. I managed to keep everyone outside for about 2 hours, then they started getting tired. We came in to cool off and watch a movie. We had a great time!

I walked into the kitchen and found this:

Heather's Birthday

I had a great time celebrating Heather's birthday with the girls. We really need to do it more often!

A fun 4th

We had our annual street party to celebrate the 4th. We block off both ends of the street, all the neighbors wheel their grill out, and the kids run and play. We had some pool time in between grilling and eating. I was so happy to have my parents and niece Hailey here with us. At the end of the night, everyone piles on our back porch for the fireworks! Enrique and Phil put on quite a show right in our backyard while everyone enjoyed Marty's homemade strawberry, keylime, or banana cream pies!