Scarlett O’Hara Pecan Bars
I baked two things earlier this week but nothing I felt was good enough to share, sorry. So I am bringing you a few things I made for my brother-in-law’s 40th we celebrated in June and a couple things I made my dad for his birthday yesterday. Not my recipes but some pretty pics and some things to share. First up, my sister and brother-in-law have my firstborn and have kept her almost a week, galavanting up and down the state of California (with two days in Nevada to visit my brother) and I am deep in the throes of missing her but she doesn’t get home till late tomorrow. My husband is worse off than I am, with her siblings barely noticing. I completely trust them but they haven’t posted many pictures and yesterday we didn’t get any. My husband asked me three times yesterday, “Any new pictures of Angela?”
Making Pecan Bars…
Especially for my oldest, this summer has been the greatest for us as a family so far. We couldn’t do much in June because of all the prep work for the girls’ recital (they haven’t gone back to dance once yet, it has been a nice break for all of us). I fit in a trip to Knott’s before recital week because I knew we would be stuck not doing anything for awhile. Then we went camping and the week after my husband had jury duty. It lasted about a week and a half. We didn’t do anything then because well, it was the first time my husband had a 9-5 type schedule since, well, ever. It was nice to have him home during the evenings plus there was always the chance he might come home early. Once that was all over, we made it a point to do something with the kids on his days off. We went to the mountains (to play in the streams), the beach, Knott’s Berry Farm, and planning a return trip to both the mountains and the beach for their last two weeks off (yes, two weeks!). By ourselves, the kids and I went to a few movies and Soak City and had a few lawn sprinkler and kiddie pool days.
Birthday Desserts and my first frosting rose!
My husband thinks they are doing too much. It doesn’t help that the girls are already planning to spend the night at my aunt’s house next week. I feel like we need to make up for last summer where we kept saying we were going to do stuff and we just let the summer slip by (to be fair, last summer was the summer of girls down the street coming over EVERY day). Luckily for me, I already have my girls ready for school in the clothes department. That is what I did while the 9 year old was gone. She is not a shopper. I do have to make a doctor’s appointment for Bob so we can have him start preschool in the fall, Angela needs some new glasses, both girls need haircuts and other than that we are all set. Despite the fact that we have been operating on limited funds over the summer (thanks again Sally cat!) it has been a really great summer with lots of good times with the kiddos.
Zucchini Squares
Finally, some GeekyLinks from Comic Con. Mostly, if you wanna see some cool panels check out GeekNation. They have videos from quite a few panels at Comic Con, including Fringe, Buffy, Doctor Who, Walking Dead and more. Lots of new trailers also came out that week, like this one, but for the life of me I cannot find the few pieces of footage that were shown for Pacific Rim, which I heard looked fantastic! On a sadder note, Sally Rides’s passing this last week really hit my heart. I was the little girl that wanted to be an astronaut. That wanted to go on Double Dare just to win it all and go to Space Camp. I worshiped the movie SpaceCamp. I was angry at the little kids that said they didn’t want to be astronauts after the Challenger tragedy. I just figured that was a risk I was willing to take to get into outer space. I grew into the woman that watched Contact and just wished Matthew McConaughey would just get off Jody Foster’s back and stop trying to deter her from going on that mission. The woman that totally geeked out the first time she went to a NASA JPL open house. It wasn’t only because Sally Ride was a female but more because she was just a girl from California like me. She could do it, so I could do it. My life went a different way and other interests took precedence but she was always someone I admired.
Making Zucchini Squares…
Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream via Joy the Baker – LOVE it!
Chocolate Cupcakes with Marshmallow Buttercream – Cupcakes via My Baking Addiction (a really good chocolate cupcake, more of a round top than the flat ones I usually get), Frosting is my own unperfected recipe (still a smidge too sweet)
Cheesecake Cupcakes – idea via My Baking Addiction but I omitted the cookie dough filling and just used a random recipe. I need to perfect this one too.
Scarlett O’Hara Pecan Bars via grouprecipes.com – Daddy loved them and I loved the crust so much I want to try it with something else.
Zucchini Squares via Brown Eyed Baker – One of my absolute favorite zucchini recipes!
* NerdyBaker * 