Yummy Summer Dessert

Banana Split Cake

Prep Time:
15 min

Total Time:
5 hr 15 min

Makes:
24 servings, one piece each

1-1/2 cups HONEY MAID Graham Cracker Crumbs

1 cup sugar, divided

1/3 cup butter, melted

2 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened

1 can (20 oz.) crushed pineapple, drained

6 medium bananas, divided

2 cups cold milk

2 pkg. (4-serving size each) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling

2 cups thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, divided

1 cup PLANTERS Chopped Pecans

MIX crumbs, 1/4 cup of the sugar and the butter; press firmly onto bottom of 13x9-inch pan. Freeze 10 min.

BEAT cream cheese and remaining 3/4 cup sugar with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Spread carefully over crust; top with pineapple. Slice 4 of the bananas; arrange over pineapple.

POUR milk into medium bowl. Add dry pudding mixes. Beat with wire whisk 2 min. or until well blended. Gently stir in 1 cup of the whipped topping; spread over banana layer in pan. Top with remaining 1 cup whipped topping; sprinkle with pecans. Refrigerate 5 hours. Slice remaining 2 bananas just before serving; arrange over dessert. Store any leftover dessert in refrigerator.

Party in Utah

Warren and I made a weekend trip to Utah to give Taylor some quality time with his bar prep books. While we were there, our good Iowa buddies - the STREETS!- treated us to some sweet Ogden hospitality. I forgot just how much I missed those guys. Glad we're somewhat close to drop in every now and again.

Outside Red Robin - thanks free birthday burger

Ogden Children's Museum

I see firefighting in Ben and Warren's future.

After a great time with Sunny and Ben, W and I headed to Provo to hang out with Laura!! She scored free John Mayer tickets on the radio (lucky!) so we came to hang out and go to the show together.

Can't go to Utah County and NOT go to Tucanos. Yum...

The dog Laura rescued - Daisy. Warren loves her.

I'm not sure why this face is so funny, but it is. He loved Laura's vintage toys circa 1980's.

We stayed with Laura's parents in Salem and it was awesome! They were so good to us, we almost didn't want to leave! We had blackberries and raspberries from their garden for breakfast, Warren got to play with Daisy and (3!) kitties, meet some horses down the road and run around in their sweet backyard. Good times were had by all.

The concert!! We dumped Warren off on Emily and had a fun time at the show. I couldn't have had a better date! (Thanks for watching him, Em!)

Doesn't she just LOOK like so much fun?? We had a blast screaming like 15 year old girls and making fun of the freaky white ladies who dance like drugged up strippers. (You can find them at any concert you go to...why is that??)

Sick Baby

1 - Number of sick little boys we have in the house
2 - Number of times I changed his sheets yesterday
3 - Number of barfs before I called Tay to come home from studying
4 - Number of baths W had
5 - Number of times I soaked/scrubbed his toy cars after he puked in the bucket holding them
6 - Number of loads of laundry done yesterday
7 - Number of towels we used
8 - Combined hours Tay and I slept last night in our bed
9 - Total number of times my baby threw up

But he's feeling better today. No more barfing. Lots of TV watching. White bread, juice and water. We're happy he's coming out of it. It was so sad to watch my little man feel so terrible. Thank heavens for Priesthood blessings and a 24 hour bug.

Things Sunny teaches Warren

Little Ben found some fun toys in the bathroom cupboard this morning, and Warren thought they were pretty cool, too.

Lookin good!

Getting a decent picture is far too difficult these days. We took these when we got home from church and he wasn't working with me at all. But he looked SO cute!Thanks for the new tie, Grandma! It's just what this outfit needed.

I'm kinda funny

I entered this newspaper contest where you have to write the caption of a cartoon. Well, I didn't win, but I did get an "honorable mention" with my name in the paper yesterday. So this basically proves I'm kinda funny. And now everyone in Denver knows. With some practice, maybe one day I'll win. (I'm such a lofty dreamer)

http://www.denverpost.com/cartooncontest/ci_9565958

We "Hike"

Or walk, to be more accurate. We found a very kid-friendly trail that leads up to some cool castle ruins. It was fun to be up in the mountains where it's quiet and smells good. We saw some other kids,lots of dogs, and about 14 million pine cones and rocks. Warren was in heaven. It was a perfect day to go up, too - I'm guessing it was mid-70s up there (at 9500 feet). And great views of downtown. It's nice that we can "get away" in 20 minutes or so. Go Denver!

Can you see the rocks he's holding?

W has lots of dirt on his little hands from the rocks.

Of course he doesn't look at the camera for the only picture I'm in.

Denver!

My Boy

Corn on the Cob...an instant favorite!

Relaxing after dinner - Hey! No feet on the dinner table!

So handsome!

America's Birthday

The 4th of July was good to us this year. We kicked it off with a neighborhood "parade" that consisted of a fire truck coming, the kids getting to play on it, then it turned on it's sirens and all the kids followed it around the block. Then we went to a neighbor's for a pancake breakfast. So fun. Our neighborhood is seriously awesome. After we took a family nap, we went furniture shopping (and we went back on Saturday and make some sweet purchases!) then to Castle Rock for a BBQ. Our gracious friends, the Ware's, had us over and we got to catch up with some college friends. Very cool. We went to watch fireworks and were all disappointed that there was no "grand finale". Turns out that one exploded too close to the ground and ended up burning 3 acres or something. So they stopped the show. Guess that was finale enough. But W liked what he saw and kept shushing me every time I'd say "wow" or "oooh". Funny kid.