I'm still alive!

It has been awhile since I got on here and posted anything.  Sorry.  But it hasn't been out of laziness.  Here are a few things that have happened in the past couple weeks:

1. BlendTec! - Several months ago my daughter climbed up on the counter and knocked down a blender full of smoothie.  Sadly, our blender did not survive the incident.  So my husband and I set our sights on getting a super nice blender because smoothies are a (nearly) every day meal for us.  We received a Costco rebate check and held on to it until they were having a BlendTec roadshow and picked it up. We LOVE it!

2. Granola! - One of my favorite snacks is the Chunky Strawberry Topper from Jamba Juice.  This is an amazing concoction of strawberries, banana, peanut butter, yogurt, soy milk, and granola whipped up in a blender.  (Blender?  Did you say blender??  We HAVE one of those now!)  I also had all those ingredients except for soy milk and granola.  I was fine without soy milk, but I had to have the granola.  So I tried making some...

I modified it a bit by adding peanut butter to the mixture.  It must have been magic granola because it disappeared so fast.  <---Oh, sheesh, I'm so funny.  I ended up making more the next day and bagging it as thank you's for the kids' class day teachers.  (The bags were made by sewing wax paper inside brown butcher paper and sealing with hot glue and a button).

3. Visitors! - We've also had fun spending time with my Aunt and cousin (visiting from Oklahoma), my twin sister and her family (visiting from the Bay Area), and my sister-in-law and her husband (visiting from Virginia) all within a two week period!  It was crazy hectic but so much fun.  When my sister visits with her two girls, our house is filled with children ages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.  I'll let you imagine the chaos.  But chaos is fertile ground for memory-making and we had fun!

4. Garlic Knots! - I also had the chance to try out a few new recipes this past week.  One of my favorites were garlic knots...

They're essentially pizza dough, tied into knots (yes, literally), and coated with garlic, o.o., parmesan cheese, and parsley.  Mmmm-mmm.

So there you have it:  a summary of my most recent past.  =)    Now, what have YOU been up to?