Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

This past weekend I bought a little cookbook from the checkstand at Stater Brothers from Taste of Home called Cake Mix Treats...all of the recipes start from boxed mixes and that sounded yummy and fun to try!!

So I decided to try my first recipe from it on Saturday and picked an easy one that Karyl could help with...here's what we chose:

CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER CAKE

The best part about it other than how yummy and easy it was?? It looked EXACTLY like the picture in the book, which is the picture above!!

Here is the recipe....the kids LOVED this one but a word of warning - because it is so moist it crumbles easily and doesn't lend itself to eating with little hands, so utensils are required and crumbs will need to be swept up afterwards!!

Ingredients

•2 cups miniature marshmallows

•1 package (18-1/4 ounces) chocolate cake mix

•1-1/4 cups water

•3/4 cup peanut butter

•1/3 cup canola oil

•3 eggs

•1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

•Sprinkle marshmallows into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking pan. In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, water, peanut butter, oil and eggs; beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat on medium for 2 minutes or until smooth. Pour over marshmallows; sprinkle with chocolate chips.

•Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Yield: 12-15 servings.

See - super easy and ready in no time.

EASE OF PREPARATION: 5!!!

OVERALL TASTE: 4

     I loved that I could taste the subtle peanut butter flavor and that the marshmallows made it super moist, but it was almost too stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth moist - so make sure you have a glass of milk nearby because this dessert will leave you asking the age old question "Got Milk??"

Give it a try and let me know what you think of it!! I am going to try and get back to at least one recipe a week on here...Pinterest has given me some amazing inspiration and I am finally at a place where I feel like I have a few extra minutes a day where I can get on here and post. Working full time from home with 3 kids is definitely much more time consuming that with just 2 kids - but just as worth it!!

A great Dr. Suess FREE printable workbook!!

I know, I haven't been posting on here in a while but the winter season hit us hard with colds and car troubles and just about everything you could imagine. We are all finally healthy, two of our three cars are running again, and I am once again scrounging around the Internet for great and amazing FREE things to print out and/or save for homeschooling!

Recently the world celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday, so there has been lots and lots of Seuss buzz around the homeschooling crowd and today I found an AWESOME free printable Dr. Seuss workbook that is geared towards Kindergarten and First Graders (and it is true to its grade recommendation - I looked it over and Karyl could do the whole thing on her own!).

A huge thanks to Education.com for all their amazing and FREE worksheets and fun books! I am constantly using things from their website for Karyl and if you haven't checked them out before go take a look!!

Here is your link for the Seuss Magic - My Very Own Dr. Seuss Activity Book

That link will take you directly to the PDF file for the 20-page activity book. You can print it from there or save it to your computer for later. A tip - We got a huge external hard drive years ago before we had a mortgage, 3 kids and a minivan and I love that every time I find something amazing like this in a PDF file I can save it and just transfer it to the external drive to use later. I am all for all the free curriculum I can find!!

Hope you enjoy the Dr. Seuss workbook and please come back - hopefully I will be back to sharing things more regularly on here now that things have calmed down!!

What a big girl

We got to the Learning Center early this morning so Karyl got to play on a swing...such a big girl!

Oh the deliciousness...

I love decorating cupcakes....can I do this for a living?

Preschool Activity Bags

One of the reasons I created this blog was to have a central place that I could keep track of all the amazing websites I find with activities and lessons for the kids and crafts for me. Lately I have found SO many amazing resources, but haven't had lots of time to link them on here...well, that stops today!! To make things simple for me and to make sure I don't miss saving an important resource, if I find a great blog or website I am going to make sure and put it on here, even if it is just a quick note with a link. I can always go back and elaborate, but at least I will have a reference point for it!!

So, for today, here is a link for some great preschool activity bags on a blog that I love for MANY reasons.

The blog is Walking by the Way and you can click HERE to go directly to the page with the preschool activity bags.

Almost good-bye

Wow, I can't believe it's almost over!! I apologize for the lack of posts...When I signed up for this contest I totally forgot that we were heading out on the open road the last weekend of the contest!! We went on an RV trip to Joshua Tree National Forest and of course, there was no internet access. We had a great time climbing at Jumbo Rocks and playing baseball with the kids and just enjoying the family time. I tried to watch what I ate but of course indulged in a few S'mores and other campfire goodies!!

This contest has really been an eye opener and has given me the motivation I needed to get started losing all this weight. I may have only lost an average of 1 pound a week, but that's still more than I was losing before, and that's all that matters!! I now have good exercise equipment that I really like, a healthy relationship with food and an exercise routine that will keep the pounds dropping long after this competition is over.

I want to thank everyone who has stayed with us through this journey and supported us - we needed your motivation to really get through this and feel like it was worth it!! Please make sure to check up with us on our personal blogs and please feel free to leave me your blog address or email it to me so I can follow your blogs and keep in contact!! I love that I've made so many new friends!!

I will be here for the mini-contest next season and can't wait to see how everyone's final weigh-in goes...I was pleasantly surprised with mine and sad that I couldn't have gotten into this groove 6 weeks ago!!

Way to go everyone!!!

My email: socalcutie82@hotmail.com
http://lifeafterdiapers.blogspot.com/

The dreaded weight loss plateau

So, I thought people only hit that dreaded plateau after they've lost lots of weight and were more in a normal range, but apparently that isn't so!! I've been exercising every day and watching what I eat - and before, this would have resulted in at least a 3 pound weight loss for the week. But, not this week...the most frustrating part?? I am losing SIZE - yep, that's an easy one to see - but barely any weight!! Normally this would be great because size is all I really care about, but when you're in a WEIGHT LOSS competition it really doesn't help unless it shows up on the scale.

So, for those wondering "Gee, she has barely lost any weight" it's not from lack of trying...This last week was amazing, exercising every day for at least 45 minutes...and I LOVED it!! I was eating great and have visibly lost weight, but barely anything on the scale. The only thing I can think of is that it has to do with the fact that I'm gaining muscle from the weights and cycling, so that's tripping up the weight issue?!?!

It's just so irritating because you work so hard and then you barely get anything on the scale to make you feel like it was all worth it. I'm not going to stop exercising every day with my new equipment, and I'm still going to keep up my new healthy eating habits, but I just had to share this because when everybody sees the weigh-ins they are going to see that I have barely lost anything, and I want to at least give you a reason why! I seem to remember that this happened the first week I did Zumba too, I was burning TONS of calories but nothing showed up on the scale, but then the next week it started showing...since this is the first week I have exercised every day, and it was way more than I ever did before, I'm hoping that this is the same thing...

So, hopefully next week it will all come together and the fruits of my hard labor will be known!!

Hope you all had a great week!!