Peanut Butter Cookies!

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 tbsp milk
1 tbsp vanilla
1 egg
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda


1. Heat oven to 375 degrees

2. Combine peanut butter, shortening, brown sugar, milk, and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed until well blended. Add egg. Beat just until blended.

3. Combine flour, salt, and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix just until blended.

4. Make Tbsp size balls and roll them in sugar. Then set on cookie sheet and press with fork to make criss-cross pattern.

5. Bake at 375 for 7 to 8 minutes.


6. Remove from oven and cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes. Remove cookies to cooling rack. Pour 8 oz of milk into a glass and insert cookies into mouth. Chew and smile. Yum!

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.


It's been ages since I made these, so I thought I'd make them for my class today!

New Plants and Dead Bugs

I told you about my problem with bugs in my plants back in A Post Here, and I think I've finally found the cure...for reals this time.

I was wandering around in the Owen Library at school, looking at all their cool plants. I was trying to figure out what this one plant was, when I noticed a yellow tag sticking out of it. "Cool," I thought, "That must have the plant name on it." So I grabbed the tag, and to my horror it stuck to my hand! And on the other side of it there was a ton of little flies and bugs also stuck to it! Yuck! It was really a disgusting experience.

But then I realized that those yellow tags were just what I needed! I found out from the librarian that you can buy them at Tri-State. (I looked at every other store first so I wouldn't have to drive to Moscow, and nobody else had it.)


I stuck the fly flags in my plants and within a week there was no sign of flies in the house! Well, there were signs...they were all stuck to my yellow flags! It does look pretty gross when the whole flag is covered in tiny flies, but it's better than having them fly around in my face or find them drowned in some water in the sink. I changed out some of the flags that had a lot of flies, and now I just have flags around to make sure the flies are really gone.

You can kind of stick them in the plant where it doesn't show as much too. It's just that yellow flag on the side...but don't let the leaves of the plant touch it. I was trying to un-stick a leaf and it just tore off the plant. (This plant is Pothos, or Epipremnum pinnatum. There's another vine I put with it but I don't know what that's called.)


And I'm sure it's a big surprise, but I got a couple new plants, again. The plant in the front of the pot is Swedish Ivy, or Plectranthus verticillatus. I don't know what the other two are, but they look nice too.


I also got that cool grassy plant on the left (with stripes). I like the look of it.


Getting back to the plants and bugs part, there was a tragic loss of my favorite plant (China Doll, also called Radermachera sinica) when I re-potted the plants. I think I was too rough with it when giving it a shower and it didn't survive the transplant. Also, when I tried putting soap in the plants I lost another plant because I put too much soap. Those stupid bugs just wouldn't die! But then the plant did...

So the moral of the story is, don't put soap in your plants and don't spend an entire Saturday re-potting all your plants and washing the pots when you can just stick some yellow flags in them to solve all your problems.

Thanks Dad!

Greg made a blog post about his Christmas present from Dad. You can see it on Greg's Blog!

My Aunt found this one

(Haha, I like how they show him rolling his eyes for about 20 seconds. Hahahah!)

Maybe they show this at the schools to counter balance all those books about "Who's in a family."

Red Bell Pepper Soup

Perfect for Valentine's Day--it's a lovely red soup!

2 Red bell peppers
1 cup diced onion
some butter
4 cloves fresh garlic, minced
1/2 tsp pepper, white if available
1 fresh lime, juiced
2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup flour
4 cups canned milk
Cilantro or thyme, chopped finely

Microwave red bell peppers on high for 2 minutes. Cut into pieces and puree in blender. In a saucepan, saute onions in some butter until tender. Add garlic, pepper, lime juice, and sugar. Heat and stir for one minute. Add red pepper puree and remove from heat. In a separate saucepan melt 1/4 cup butter. Add flour and stir until well blended. Add milk, stirring constantly until mixture reaches a boil. Continue cooking for about two more minutes. Add pepper mixture and blend. Serve hot. Garnish with chopped cilantro or thyme.

Everybody loves the Muppets...

...and everybody loves Bohemian Rhapsody, so here you go!



And, this is for Wendy and Summer and Mom and Dad, because y'all didn't know what this video was when Greg and I made our own version. I just wanted to show you that we weren't just making it up. =)

I just think my cupcakes are cute

These were for the girls again for a Sunday lesson. I set them out in the room and shut the door at the beginning of church, so two hours later when we came to have our lesson it smelled really good like chocolate in our classroom!