I Made it Monday

This week I bring you one of my most requested deserts Strawberry Pretzel Jello .

I know- it sounds weird. But I love it. It is a regional dish. In this area it isn't a party unless there are 14 varieties of Jello (Ok, that may be a slight exaggeration....)

There are 3 layers to this Jello.

First layer:

1 1/2 cups crushed pretzels
4 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
3/4 cup butter, melted

Mix them all together and press into the bottom of a 9x13 pan. (pardon the lack of a photo)

Bake it in the oven for 10 minutes on 350. Let cool for at least a half hour before adding the next layer.

Middle layer:
1 cup white sugar
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

Beat the cream cheese and sugar till smooth and fluffy. Fold in the cool whip.
A tip I have learned over time is to spread this over the crust and make sure that it is all the way to the edge of the pan, so you can not see any of the pretzel. Once you have the middle layer spread on the crust, put it in the fridge for about a half hour.

This is what it will look like:



After the middle layer is set, get ready for the final layer.

Ingredients:
1 (6 ounce) package strawberry flavored gelatin
2 cups boiling water
1 (16 ounce) package frozen strawberries


What I do is put the water on to boil. While it is cooking I cut up the strawberries. I prefer to use the whole frozen berries in a bag over the store brand that comes in a box.
Once the water boils, stir in the Jello until it dissolves. Then stir in the berries. Now this is important, work fast. If you let the Jello sit, it will start to set! You must get it in the pan, on the top of the other 2 layers. Once you pour it on, you may need to spread the berries out so they are even.

It will look like this:

You will stick it back in the fridge for at least an hour. I usually make this ahead of time, so it usually sits overnight.

Now, cut a piece off and enjoy!

*note* I also make this with rasberries, but I don't like rasberries, so I chose to share the strawberry!

First Haircut

L got his first haircut. You can see how long his hair was in these first pics.

He was really upset about being held down, but Mr Rocks did a good job! L was NOT happy about it!

After he got a bath, he was much happier!

Now he looks like a boy, and not a baby :(. I think the haircut helped him realize that he is a big boy, because he FINALLY decided to really start walking- at 13 1/2 months! All these milestones in a few days of each other really make a Mama sad!

Graduation

We had two graduations in the Rocks house!

G graduated from preschool.


Her graduation was really cute. All the kids sang a few songs and danced. The highlight of the show was that they said their prayers in Spanish! I don't know what it is, but little kids talking in another language sounds so cute!

A graduated from Kindergarten. This is a picture of a picture frame that they got as a gift from the homeroom moms. I thought that it was really cute! Of course I think the boy in the picture is the cutest Kindergarten graduate!

I am so proud of both my graduates!

Elephants Swim!

I love elephants! They are my favorite animal to see at the zoo.
When we went to the zoo last week, I was surprised to learn that elephants swim!




Here you can see that elephant was completely under except his trunk sticking out!

Elephant went from completely under to getting out-

The swimming elephant was one of the coolest things I have ever seen at the zoo!

The Best Mothers Day Gift

A brought a note home from school yesterday:

Dear Mr and Mrs Rocks,

I just wanted to let you both to know how wonderful A's behavior has been. He has been my model student for the past couple of months, and you should be very proud of him. Keep up whatever your doing at home!

Miss Kindergarden Teacher.

Wow. What an awesome thing!

I Made it Monday

A few years ago, my oldest friend in the world reminded me of these awesome bars we used to get in elementary school. On the school menu, they called them Hollywood Squares. No idea of why they were called that, but they were so awesome!

Off I went to All Recipes to search by ingredient. I came up with this- Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars. After I made them and everyone loved them, I honestly got tired of saying the long name. Now, we call them Tanya Rocks Bars.

The ingredients:


1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups peanut butter
2 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips



First, melt the butter. Then mix it with all the other ingredients except the chocolate chips. It will look like this:

Press the mixture into a 9x13 pan. Then melt the chocolate chips.

Pour the melted chocolate over the peanut butter mixture.

Cool the bars in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Enjoy!

These are super yummy and super easy!

Rocks does a Gabba Party

About a year ago I stumbled upon Yo Gabba Gabba. I saw about a minute of it and said NEVER again!

Well we all know how that goes......

I gradually started to like Gabba. I figured since we are Rocks, and the "leader" is DJ Lance Rock, that maybe we have something in common.

Then K declared that she wanted a Gabba birthday party. Great. Only problem, there is NOTHING out there for a Gabba party! Luckily for me, I found a great site - Gabba Friends that had a bunch of party ideas .

Now, I do rock at a lot of things, but sewing is NOT one of them. So I asked for help from my wonderful Mother in Law. I handed her a picture and told her they were made from felt. She ended up with these:




Aren't they so cute? The kids LOVED them! Since they were all different shapes and sizes, I wasn't able to put the same stuff in each, but it all worked out.

Now, you can't have a party with out hats. We looked for some material that would work for the hats, but we didn't have much luck. On our way home we decided to make a quick stop at Dollar Tree. In the toy section there were orange cowboy style hats. JACKPOT! All that we needed to do was cut off the brim. I cut a star burst shape from white foam and cut out yellow stars. I then added some glitter glue to jazz them up a bit.

Here is the birthday girl in her DJ Lance hat:

It was 90 degrees here the day of her party, so the kids didn't keep them on too long!

I also found this idea on Gabba Friends:

What is it is a printout that is available on Nick Jr glued to a box of animal crackers! I used them for centerpieces and tied balloons to the handle.

They also did not have any cake kits available at the bakery that we use for Yo Gabba Gabba. My sister works at the store and gave a picture to the bakery lady and she came up with this:

I think that it turned out pretty awesome!

Lucky for us, everyone had a great time, especially the birthday girl!