Yummy recipe

I found this in the Holiday08/winter09 Food and Family magazine from Kraft Foods. I made it yesterday and it is DELICIOUS!!!

Chocolate-peanut butter mallow bars
1 pkg devils food cake mix
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
2/3 cu cold milk, divided
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 7 oz jar marshmallow creme
1/2 cup salted peanuts (I didn't add this)
6 squares semi sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I just used morsels)

Heat oven to 350. Mix dry cake mix, butter, and 1/3 cup milk until blended, press 2/3 onto bottom of 13 x 9 pan. bake 12-14 min or until almost set, cool 3 min
Mix peanut butter and remaining milk, spread onto crust. top with spoonfuls of marshmallow creme and remaing cake mixtrue. sprinkle with nuts and chocolate, press gently into cake mixture (I just used an ice cream scoop to put all of these on top)
Bake 18 min or just until center is set. cool before cutting into bars. However, it tasted AWESOME while still warm.
I hope you all enjoy it as much as we have...we can't stop nibbling at it!

Saturday Fun

Saturday morning we got up and went to the Heard Musuem here in McKinney. We had such a good time last time we decided to get a family membership. Now we can go whenever we want! We looked at all of the great things inside and then headed out to hike a trail. We also took a look at some of the animals from around the world and walked through the butterfly garden. Mary had a great time and she said walking the trail was her favorite part. Once we got home Lainey came over for a few minutes to play with Mary. Then lunch and nap time! We made a family trip to the grocery store and then grilled chicken breasts for supper. Mary and Amy played in the backyard. Then daddy got Mary with the water hose. She loved it!

Past 2 weekends

On the weekend of May 16 we went to the Heard Museum here in McKinney. It was teacher appreciation day. I got in FREE with 3 guests! We enjoyed a light breakfast and an animal show. Mary got to see and touch a skink (lizard) and a snake! We also took a quick look around at the other exhibits. Unfortunatly it was raining so we didn't get to go on the nature trails.




Then we were off to her end of year school carnival. She had fun playing games and seeing her friends.



Then this past weekend Granny came Saturday morning and left Monday morning. On Saturday morning we walked to the new park near our house. William went went to the Byron Nelson Golf Tournament. We ate lunch at home and then nap time. After a trip to the grocery store Granny went to Chuck E Cheese for the first time. The food was bad and it was loud, but Mary sure did have a good time!

More Relay Pics

Mother's Day Weekend

We had a great weekend! On Sunday Amy turned 10 months old, Aunt Na-Na turned 30 years old, and it was Mother's Day!!
Amy can say Hi, Bye-Bye, Ma-Ma, and Da-Da. She is attempting to crawl up on all 4s, but still prefers to "army crawl." She is enjoying bite size pieces of food.

Update on Amy

As many of you remember when Amy was born she was in the hospital for 8 days with jaundice. The neonatologist wanted us to see a hematologist at 6 months for further blood testing to see if there is a blood disorder. At her 6 month visit her pediatrician gave us the referral and contact number to Children's Medical hematology department. I contacted them with the information and they said their doctor would call her doctor to discuss. After discussing her case, they decided just to do blood work through the pediatrician's office. If there were any abnormalities, then we would go to Children's. So I went to Labcorp to have Amy's blood drawn in March. They had a difficult time getting her to give her blood. They were finally able to collect enough after sticking her 3 times. Then the next week we got a call from the doctor's office, that we needed to go back to labcorp because the blood had clotted and they were unable to run the necessary tests from it. So we went back to have it drawn again. This time they had no problem getting it, and we were in and out within 5 minutes. At her 9 month visit they pricked her finger to check her iron. It was low, so he recommended that I give her some iron supplements. We did that for 2 weeks and went back to have it checked again. When I went in for the appointment, they had everything out to do a full blood test. I questioned it since they should have only needed to prick her finger. Well, the blood labcorp took the 2nd time also clotted!!! You would think they would know how to do that since they do that all day long, but apparently not!!! So, they went ahead and did the full blood test at the doctors office. Her iron count was actually lower this time than before. So he put her on a stronger dose of iron. Another part of the test also came back abnormal. Her reticulocyte count was very high. The normal range is 0.0-3.0 and hers was 7.7. A reticulocyte count is a blood test that measures how fast red blood cells called reticulocytes are made by the bone marrow and released into the blood. Reticulocytes are in the blood for about 2 days before developing into mature red blood cells. Normally, about 1% to 2% of the red blood cells in the blood are reticulocytes. The reticulocyte count rises when there is a lot of blood loss or in certain diseases in which red blood cells are destroyed prematurely. Since this was out of our pediatricians expertise he was really unable to answer any questions about possible diagnosis and treatments. So he said he would call Children's to give them the results and for another referral. Children's called me today to set up an appointment. We will go on the morning of Monday, June 8. We pray that everything will come back normal!

Mary 4 year old pictures

Well, we were a little busy since Mary had turned 4. We finally made it into Sears to get her picture taken. They turned out really cute!