MOST AMAZING PEANUT BUTTER BARS!!!!

So I got this recipe from someone after I had tried her bars and thought they were the best peanut butter bars ever!!! I made them last night and took them to work and they were gone within 2 hours I would say. I have some now and it's taking everything I have to not eat them. I figured since I enjoyed them so much that it would be good to share the recipe with everyone that wants them. So enjoy. I'd love to hear feedback on who likes them and what you thought.

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar mix together
1/2 cup brown sugar


1 egg
1/3 cup peanut butter add next in order
1/2 tsp vanilla


1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda add last
1 cup rolled oats


Bake @ 375 for 12-15 min (I cooked mine about 11 min and that was about perfect...just depends on your stove)

Top w/1 cup chocolate chips right after you take out of oven. Wait a few minutes until chocolate melts and spreads. Let chocolate set.

Mix 1 cup powder sugar, 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1 can sweetened condensed milk. Add frosting when chocolate has set. Enjoy and try to not eat all of them yourself!!!

Help this Wonderful Family

As I mentioned about a week ago that a wonderful guy, Naki Maile, passed away 2 weeks ago and left behind his wife and 6 beautiful girls. They are such a cute little family and have always been so friendly to us and just such an example. Abby, his wife, is such an amazing strength and I just can't even imagine what she's going through. They have set up a site to make donations and if you'd like to read about the family go to their blog at http://sixmailechix.blogspot.com/. On my blog you can click on Naki's girls and it will take you to the site that you can donate. Just read their blog and you will instantly fall in love with the family. They are simply amazing!!!!

I was reminded yesterday of how uncertain life is and how long we will be here with our friends and our families. We don't know when our time will come to return to Heavenly Father and I hope that when I do return that He will be proud and that I lived a good life.

A wonderful man from our ward died early yesterday morning and left behind his amazing wife and 6 beautiful little girls. We only knew him for a short while but him and his family are a great example to me of a loving family. My prayers and thoughts are with them and I pray that they feel the Savior's love.

Life is a gift and it makes me want to be a better person so that when it's my time to go I am prepared and I can say that I touched people's lives and did the things I was suppose to do.

Pumpkin experiment

Robbie's grandma and uncle gave us some pumpkins and so I decided to try to get the pumpkin from those instead of having to go to the store to buy it and Charmain told me to cut it in half and put it in the microwave for a few minutes and then scrape it out and then puree it. I was nervous as to how it was going to turn out but I was so excited it actually worked!!! I have like 3 more pumpkins left that I'm going to use I think for things such as pumpkin rolls, pumpkin cookies and pumpkin bread. Yum!!! I hope it tastes good!!!

Possible Addiction???

So recently our upstairs neighbors moved and so we lost our internet connection (don't worry we weren't stealing the internet from them...we payed) and so since last Sunday we haven't had the internet. So I've had to think of things to entertain myself with. The first thing I did was play games on my computer that I got a free trial for but once I played them like 4 times I couldn't play anymore...so I had to find something else to do.

I have a routine every morning and this is completely throwing me off. I set my alarm clock for 5:00, 6:00, 6:45 and then finally 7:00 and then I wake up. I've been doing this since high school and I don't know why. Robbie's said that he's got used to it and just blocks it out. I couldn't do it on my mission for fear that my companions wouldn't be very fond of me (so one day I hope that I get a thank you from all of them!!!!). Anyways, back to my morning routine: I take a shower, turn on my computer, check my email, check facebook and then check my blog while at the same time I am putting on my makeup. Then I do my hair, get my breakfast ready, get snacks for work and then leave. So I've been thrown off my game.

Any suggestions of what to do????? I've baked a little bit more, I vacuumed up all of Cassie's disgusting hair (which will probably all be back today), watched Wife Swap thinking how Robbie would react to me leaving for 2 weeks and having to deal with someone much different than me.

I know that I'm addicted to the internet, I'm readily admitting that. So it's about time I get my internet back. So Robbie needs to hurry home so he can talk to the upstairs neighbors and get internet back on.....Robbie hurry home soon!!!!!!!!!

Bear Lake Trip

Cierra, Celena, Jen, Mom

Ella

Jen, Celena, Aleksia, Jamie, Ella, Cierra

Jamie, Ella, Cierra

Cooper

So this past weekend was our annual Bear Lake trip. I think this was one of the funnest trips. All 6 kids came with their families (except Robbie didn't go). So there was mom, dad, Heidi, Sean, Cierra, Celena, Heather, Rob, Aleksia, Cooper, Ella, Jeff, Suzi, Gentry, Tallen, me, Jen, Eliot, and A.J. and then Suzi's sister and mom came. We would play volleyball, baseball, play at the beach. It was cool because the first night Cierra, Celena and I layed out and watched for shooting stars. We saw about 50-60 of them. It was so awesome. I love bear lake and the memories it creates!!!

Hummingbird nest

The hummingbird sitting on her/his eggs.

The tiny, tiny nest

2 eggs in the nest

So the other day Robbie told me that there was a nest right outside our door and I didn't notice it until last night. It's a hummingbird and it's amazing to see how tiny the eggs are. I read something today that said that 3 hummingbirds when they're born still won't weigh as much as a dime. That's crazy. We're excited to see how tiny they are and how long they'll stay around!!!!

Update on Bob

I just thought that I would update everyone on how my father-in-law is doing! He had surgery on Thursday and then they kept him in the Neuro ICU until Monday and he had drains in his head until Sunday to get rid of all the excess blood. He had a turbin on his head to help hold the drains in and those got removed on Sunday and he just wore a cap. He showed us his head of where they went in and they pretty much opened him up from both sides. One side they vacuumed everything out and on the other side they did "burrows" which they drilled holes in his head to help drain the blood out. He'll have some pretty nasty scars but his hair should cover them. He looked really good without any hair.
On Monday they moved him to a regular room and he was in great spirits. He was joking around just like his normal self. You could definitely tell he felt a lot better by the way he looked and acted.
He got released from the hospital today and can't go back to work for 4-6 weeks (after the doctor oks it) and he can't bend over for a few weeks, can't lift anything heavy. I think the hardest part for him is going to be not doing anything. He is a go getter and doesn't like to just sit around so we'll see how he does.
It was good to be there to help get Katy and Tyler where they needed to go and just to hang out with the family. We had a great time and came back very late Tuesday night. Everyone at the hospital called Bob the "miracle man" because usually when someone that has head problems like he did usually takes longer to heal or have permanant problem. He faired really well and came out great. So we hope that he continues to heal and he doesn't have to go back to the hospital again for this!!

An Unexpected Trip to Texas

So we haven't really been doing much of anything lately and that's why I haven't posted but on Tuesday we got the news that Robbie's dad, Bob, was being taken to the hospital in Fort Worth because they had found 2 hematomas (bruising) on his brain and later that night they had found bleeding on his brain as well. It was hard for us being so far away to know if we needed to drop what we were doing and just drive straight to Texas (we had looked up flights and to leave that same day was like $1300 and it was cheaper to drive). We just were anxious to be in Texas with the family. They were planning on coming to Utah this weekend and so we had pretty much cleared our schedule so we could hang out with them. On Wednesday we had heard that they were going to do a craniotomy (I believe that's what it's called) where they go in and drill holes in his skull to be able to vacuum out the blood and look to make sure everything was ok. So Robbie called me from work saying you need to come home now so that we can get ready to fly to Texas. His sister's mother-in-law works at American Airlines so she put us on her buddy passes and we were able to fly for very cheap and we left this morning at 6:00 a.m. and got to Texas at 9:30. We had to dress in business casual in case the only seats left were first class and that's all they could put us on (I know major setback right? Flying first class? Who would ever want to do that?) So we got our seats and sure enough we were put in first class. It was amazing. It was so nice because Robbie and I both are so tall and so we had a lot of leg room, way comfortable chairs, we got breakfast, and we could've had unlimited drinks. They really treated us first class. So Robbie leaned over to me and was like, "I don't know how we'll be able to go back to coach again!!"
So we got here this morning and Bob's surgery was suppose to be scheduled at 7:30 this morning and Robbie was a little sad about that because he had wanted to see him before he went into surgery (It's been a year since we've seen his family...way too long) but when we landed he got a text saying the surgery was postponed and they ended up doing it at 1 p.m. so we were able to see him before he went in which I think helped a lot. The surgery lasted a total of 1 hour but they also did an hour of prep. So the doctor came out and told us he did two "burrows" which is like drilling 2 holes in his skull to release the pressure in his brain and then also a cradiology to get everything out. And as he put it, "He now had duel exhaust coming out of his head." It was good that he could make light of everything so we weren't so stressed.
We went to see him and he was still really groggy and couldn't answer everything correctly but a nurse told us that was common after brain surgery. So as of right now he's doing well which we are so grateful for.
He is such an amazing man and would do anything for anyone so it's good for people to be able to serve him now. We love him tons and we're glad to see him but it would've been better under better circumstances but we're glad that everything is ok. So we will probably stay in Texas until about Tuesday or Wednesday so that we can help out however we can to make it easier for Bob and Patty.
It was nice to see people from my old job and they all asked me where the goodies are. So I guess if I have time that's what I'll be doing is baking! Which I don't mind one bit!!!

Recent Happenings

Great grandma Hauzer talking to Robbie's mom

Robbie, Jamie and grandma Hauzer

So yesterday was Robbie's great grandma's birthday celebration. The last time we had seen her was on our wedding day almost 3 years ago. It was great to see her again and for me to meet a lot of Robbie's family I had never met.

Phrase my grandpa said to my grandma right before he left us.

Grandpa's headstone

Before Robbie's grandma's party we decided that we would stop by my grandpa's grave to see the headstone that was recently put on. My uncle, Brett, was the one who designed it and i think it turned out amazing. The lake on there is Lake Powell because my grandparents went there every year and loved it. That's pretty much where I was raised. I miss my grandpa tons and can't believe it's almost been a year since he's passed away.

Relay For Life

Everyone I'm doing a RELAY FOR LIFE with work and we'd really like to raise at least $200 so please go to our homepage and donate so that we can fight against cancer! The relay takes place June 5th at the Lone Peak Elementary school in Pleasant grove. We would love to get whatever donations we can get! So please go to http://main.acsevents.org/goto/lehimedicalclinic

Thanks everyone!!!

Memorial Day

So Robbie and I got talking tonight about what we were going to do on Memorial day and I started talking about how we'd go to Payson to put flowers on my grandpa's family and then we'd go to other graves and put flowers on them. Robbie said he had never heard of that and he didn't understand why people put flowers on people's graves anyway. So I need help and get people's opinions/thoughts on why you put flowers on graves? I guess I just do it because I have always done it growing up and I just like to. But Robbie wouldn't accept that as an answer. So please tell me why you do or don't put flowers on graves and what you think Memorial Day is for.

HELP!!!

So we've attempted twice to make bread in our bread maker and we can't seem to get it right. It seems to not raise enough and so it's very heavy and just tastes weird so we need any helpful advice anyone wants to give us!!! We want to perfect it soon because we love bread! (One really good thing to do on toast--this is a grandma secret so don't tell anyone that I told you--you make toast and butter it and then get a package of jello and pour some of the dry mixture onto the toast and enjoy. Any flavor works and it's delicious. We would go to my grandparents and eat that all the time and it's like a yummy treat! I know it sounds gross but it's really actually good and I think my family still does it all the time.

New Cake Blog

So I just made a new blog that will be for all of my baking/decorating pics so they are all together. I'll get pics uploaded as soon as I can! I forgot to put the new site name sorry. jamiescreativecreations.blogspot.com

My Newest Creation!

So I had a request from Katrina at work for a camo bikini cake and this is what I cam up with. I think it turned out pretty cute. I know that the upper part is a bit out of proportion but I found some cake pans that would've helped greatly after I had already baked it. So oh well. I think I'd use a different color for the skin. The color I used was "peachy cream" but I don't think it really turned out too peachy. It was too orange--so the next request I have for a cake like this I will know.
Earlier this week I got a request to make 72 cookies for a bridal shower and I think they turned out cute. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics but the mother of the bride said that they tasted wonderful. I love to decorate cookies-even if I have to make 9 batches of sugar cookie dough! If any of you need cookies, cakes, cupcakes, or anything baked let me know!!!!