Lemon Lush Bars-RECIPE

This is one of my absolute most favorite summer desserts to make for BBQ's and get-togethers when the sun is out and the heat index is up.  It is a nice and light lemon-y dessert.  So dang good.  If you must know, I just happened to make one this past weekend for a BBQ we had with our awesome neighbors...yum to the tenth power!  

Lemon is just soo refreshing when it's hot outside, no?  And the best part about these bars is that you only need your oven on for a few short minutes just to bake the crust so no need to sweat yourself out of you kitchen, woot!  Wanna make some too...I thought so!

Lemon Lush Bars

1 package of Pecan Shortbread Cookies

3 tbsp butter, melted

1 bar light cream cheese, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1 container frozen whipped topping, thawed

1 can lemon pie filling

Place 1 row of pecan shortbread cookies in a large ziploc bag, seal bag, and crush cookies with a rolling pin.  Add the melted butter to the bag and mix well.  Press the cookie mixture into a greased 8 x 8 inch baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until golden brown.  Let the crust cool.  In a medium bowl mix together the softened cream cheese, 1 cup of powdered sugar and 1 cup of thawed whipped topping.  Pour this over the cooled crust and spread around evenly.  Then spread the lemon pie filling over top.  Lastly, spread the remaining thawed whipped topping over top.  Refrigerate until ready to eat...ENJOY!

If you want an easy summer dessert, this is your man...or woman...okay, dessert!

Mmm, pecan shortbread cookies...all you need is one row from the package.  So, that means you can make another Lemon Lush dessert as soon as this one disappears and you won't even have to share it  :-)

Crush one row of cookies up in a ziploc bag, add in 3 tablespoons of melted butter, and mix well.  Press into a greased 8x8 inch baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.

While the crust cools, mix together the cream cheese, 1 cup of powdered sugar, and one cup of thawed frozen whipped topping.

Spread it all over your cooled crust.

Next, crack open that can of lemon pie filling...ugh, this stuff is so freakin' good, I could eat it straight our of the can!

Spread the pie filling over top the cream cheese mixture layer and then spread the remaining thawed whipped topping over that layer.  Layers, layers, layers!

And there you go...so easy...and perfect for the summer heat!

And the clean up isn't half bad either.  Just scrape the bowls and containers clean all the while making mini spoonfuls of lemon lush bars just for you  :-)

Oh yeah, see what I'm talking about!  

Happy summer dessert-ing!  

XOXO,

Clorox Clean Up Guest Post by Meg Duerksen PLUS a Whole Lot of Visa Gift Cards Giveaway

This is a guest post written by meg duerksen from whatever.

when Clorox^Æ asked me to write about making messes with my kids and cleaning them up
i said, "YES! we are GREAT at making messes and coincidentally . . . CloroxClean-Up^Æ is my favorite cleaning product!"

they directed me to the Clorox Clean-Up Recipes for Fun--Where Mess Doesn't Matter!
have you been there?
it is FULL of ideas for crafts or cooking or even science experiments to get messy with kids!

i make crafts with my kids quite often and i LOVE to see them get really into their project no matter how messy it gets!
at the Recipe for Fun site i found an idea for using collage and color together to make a color wheel!
we got busy on the mess making.

i got out our stack of old magazines and began ripping out anything that was mostly one color.
we made a big pile of magazine pictures.
i cut a large circle from a piece of poster board and drew lines diving the circle into six equal sections.
i wrote the names of the colors in rainbow order on the wheel to know where to put each scrap.
then we started gluing down our pictures.



i came across rubber cement at the grocery store and wondered if my girls had ever used it.
i knew i had never purchased it, so i got some.
my daughter was very curious!
"WHAT is this?!" she asked in a doubtful tone.
then i showed her how it had a brush INSIDE, and she was excited to use it.



we also used a paint brush dipped in the glue bottle so we could all work at the same time.
it's just like painting but you paint with glue.





layering and layering . . . picture after picture . . . overlapping until there are no white spaces at all.





we almost always make our crafts at this table.
i painted it white almost 10 years ago.
my kids use everything on it!
and it always comes back to white with Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner.



i was out of town recently, and when i came home i noticed my 10 year old had organized this coca-cola crate
with our art supplies by color!
how cute is that?! i love it! we like to do lots of things around here in rainbow order.









it was coming along quite nicely at this point.
there was glue all over our hands and the table!

they finished their color wheel collage but the mess still remained.

well...every Recipe For Fun needs a Recipe For Clean.
Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner combines a cleaner and the disinfecting power of Clorox Bleach letting you spray away messy play. It removes tough stains as well as the germs you canít see, leaving your home sparkling clean and ready for the next recipe.

usually after craft time my kids quickly scatter leaving the mess for me to clean up.
but today my youngest surprised me by helping out!
she loves to use spray bottles and paper towels.



when she saw the marker and glue wipe right off she said, "this is going great!"


with my daughter's help, a trash bag & Clorox Clean-Up Cleaner, the room was cleaner than when we started!

find the perfect activity for you and your kids to live it up, mess it up and then clean it up at Clorox Clean-Up Recipes for Fun ñ Where Mess Doesnít Matter!

do you like getting messy and creative with your kids?

tell me about it in the comments and be entered to win one of ten $100 Visa gift cards!

Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post*

c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post*

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

Entries from all participating blogs will be pooled for winner selection; only two entries per household. This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

*Entrant is receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for the tweet/blog post.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 5/30/2012-6/24/2012.

Clorox^Æ and Clean-Up^Æ are registered trademarks of The Clorox Company.


XOXO,

Plum Organics Yogurt and Puff Parfait-RECIPE plus Giveaway!

Not too long ago, Plum Organics, maker of delicious and easy-to-eat baby/toddler foods asked me to contribute a recipe to their Little Foodie Cookbox.  Totally kool and the gang. 

We give Plum Organics a huge thumbs up in our house.  Squeezy pouches filled with tasty blended fruits and veggies and totally delish and good-for-you ingredients snacky puffs makes this momma one happy camper when it comes to feeding the leeetle ones around here. 

I thought what better recipe to share than one for a Yogurt and Puff Parfait combining their awesome yogurt pouches with  layers of fresh and sweet fruit.  Especially now with all that delicious summer fruit coming into season.  Click here to see the recipe!

What's even cooler though is that Plum Organics is giving a way a goodie box to ONE of you!  Chock full of lots of neat stuff like...

Their awesomely delicious organic fruit snacks....

A variety of pouches filled with yummy fruit and veggie blends just perfect for little hands...

And lots of coupons, coupons, coupons galore!  

Want to win it?!

1.  Just leave me a comment telling me anything...seriously....anything!

Want a few more chances to win?

Okay...

2.  Like Plum Organics of Facebook, HERE
3.  Like Smashed Peas and Carrots on Facebook, HERE

I'll choose a winner on Saturday, June 2, 2012 

Good Luck!

PS.  I was sent products to create my recipe but all opinions are truly 100% my very own!  :-)

 XOXO,

Graduating, Painting, and the Belly.

On Wednesday, these two sweet little goobers had their last day of preschool.  Boy, did this year go by fast.  So fast in fact that now I have a super big boy Kindergartner on my hands.  A for reals Preschool Graduate...say it ain't so.  Next year Noah gets to take the bus AND go to school 5 days a week...strange, exciting, and sad all at the same time.  

We took the kids out for a celebratory lunch of their choice to mark the end of the school year.

And then had a painting party to seal the deal...summer has officially begun!

Rainbows were painted...and ROYGBIV has been memorized by heart...well done, preschool, well done!

Thank goodness for the makers of Crayola washable paints.  This momma is utterly and completely in love with them. 100%. In. Love.

In other news, how about a belly shot?

"Hello feet", you seem so far away these days.

{35 weeks}

Somewhere in that belly of mine is a little babe swimming around in some pretty warm water.  Seems so surreal those kicks and hiccups and flips and somersaults.  

So is this a boy belly or a girl belly?  

Usually by now I have a sense of what gender is inside but this time around I have to say that I'm still pretty undecided.  Maybe it's those three other little ones I have running my ragged, no time to think about it.  Hmmm.  I've been 3 for 3 up until now....can I go for number four.

I think we have narrowed our names list down to a reasonable number, but I suppose it depends on what you think a reasonable number is. 

Thanks for stopping by today :-)

XOXO,

3-D Heart Shadow Box Wedding Gift-TUTORIAL

A few years ago, back when they were all the rage, I made a 3-D butterfly shadow box out of scrapbook paper although I don't think I ever blogged about it (?) I think it's safe to say it was probably right when I started blogging...so it goes, right?  Not everything can make the blog!  So a few months ago, while surfing on Pinterest late one night, it struck me when I saw a similar 3-D butterfly collage but made all in white so definitely more suited for an anniversary or wedding but I never pinned it, whaaaat!?!  I loved the idea of it, so pretty and elegant, and thought something like that would be the perfect "heartfelt"(get it!?) gift to commemorate the wedding of my friend, Jenny, and her husband Eric.

I love the idea of personalized "special days" gifts that share dates that are important to a couple (like the date you met, first date, the day you married, had a child, etc) that I had to make them one for the wedding...it had to be done.  I made this shadow box using a heart punch, scrapbook paper in their wedding colors, orange and hot pink, and a sweet saying printed over and over again to look like a cut up poem.  

3-D Heart Shadow Box

Shadow box, any size will do (I used an 11"x14")

photo mat to fit inside

scrapbook paper

heart punch

hot glue gun and glue sticks

glue dot runner (optional)

I bought a white shadow box, you can find them at Joann's or Michaels in all sorts of sizes, and a white photo mat cut to fit an 8"x10" photograph.

You will also need a heart punch, hot glue gun, and a glue dot tape runner.

I bought a few sheets of 8 1/2 x 11" scrapbook paper in their wedding colors, orange and hot pink, that I printed their names on as well as their wedding date and punched out with the heart punch.  I also bought a few sheets of cream colored paper to print off the repeated sweet saying I chose for them, "He asked, and she said Yes." so that it looked like a poem from an old book.  I bought one sheet of white scrapbook paper to go behind the mat as a background since the shadow box had a black velvet material for the background and then just used the glue dot tape to keep it in place although hot glue would probably work just as well.  

Once everything was punched out, I laid the hearts out inside the mat to see how I wanted them to be oriented.  

Then I just bent the cream colored heart in half, lightly, and hot glued them down to the white scrapbook paper that I glued down as the background.  I left the orange and pink hearts flat just to show a bit of varying dimension.  

Hot glue the mat down to the backboard of the shadow box and put it back together.  Such an elegant and personalized gift, don't ya think!

With the leftover hearts I even made a coordinating wedding card for the couple...a sneak peek at the gift if you will!  

Thanks for stopping by today!

XOXO,