Chocolate Peanut Butter Dessert

I mentioned a while back about adding some Do-It-Yourself (DIY) projects on the blog and look forward to sharing some of those with you. I also want to include some of the recipes I am making or have made in the past.


Here is a dessert I made while Justin and Tia were visiting.


Since it was over 100 degrees most of the week I wanted something that was cool and didn't include heat (microwave, stove or oven!). 


I knew the recipe book I got from Grandma Kathy for Christmas would be perfect.


Simple Desserts Made Special with Cool Whip


Chocolate Peanut Butter Desserts


2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons peanut butter
1 cup thawed Cool Whip
2 cups cold milk
1 package (4-serving size) Jello-O Chocolate Flavor Instant Pudding and Pie Filling

All the goodies I used for this recipe.

Four Ingredients! Perfect!

Mix 2 tablespoons milk and peanut butter in small bowl. 

Stir in whipped topping. 

Pour 2 cups milk into large bowl. Add pudding mix. Beat with wire whisk 2 minutes.

Spoon pudding and whipped topping mixture alternately.

I used Pampered Chef bowls because they had lids!

Refrigerate one hour or until ready to serve.

Garnish with additional whipped topping. 

Delicious!

It was chocolatey and peanut buttery.. perfect! 

Tragedy Strikes...

For the last few days I have shown you the pictures I took of our new place and moving in.


But now I must tell you some sad news...


The next (almost) week of our lives went undocumented because I lost my camera!!


It was found in Ben's family car, the one we took to IKEA. So I have no pictures to show you of our apartment, for now!


I got my camera back the day before some very special guests arrived at our apartment for the weekend!


Come back tomorrow to how Ben, myself and our guests spent our first weekend in our new apartment. 

Moving/Unpacking - Day 2

Ben worked Saturday. I spent the morning working on applications and hanging out with Ben's family dog. We left him alone too much the day before so I made sure to hang out and play with him. 


Then after lunch I headed over to our apartment to tackle the mess that hid inside. 


I started in the kitchen because I knew I wanted to finish that first. It would take the longest amount of time and involved quite a bit of organization. 

That didn't last long..


My ADD tendencies kicked in and I wandered to the bathroom where I made some progress.

I even worked a bit in the living room, well at least cleared off the couch! 

Ben got home from work around 3:30pm and we decided to take a trip to Detroit (well Canton, MI) to go to IKEA. Ben and I LOVE IKEA! It is a home furnishings store that offers modern, good quality and fairly cheap items. We left around 5:30pm after stopping to visit the dog and getting some dinner. 

We drove almost three hours to IKEA, spent two hours shopping, stopped at McDonald's for an ice cream cone, drove three hours back to GR, brought up all our goodies to our apartment then went back to Ben's parent's where we did dishes and cleaned up... we didn't go to bed til around 1am!

It was a crazy but fun day!

At IKEA we got..

* bed frame

* mattress

* wooden slats (plays the role of a the box spring mattress)

* entertainment center

* two storage boxes for the entertainment center

* two bamboo plants (one was a gift)

* vase for the bamboo plant (a gift)

* two flexible cutting boards (a gift)

* two rugs

And maybe something else I forgot.... but those are the big things!

For the last year we have had the typical newlywed apartment filled with hand me downs. We still have that but now we finally have some new furniture and that makes this apartment really feel like ours! 

Find out tomorrow about the tragedy that struck at our new home...  

Our New Apartment - First View!

We got the keys to our new apartment on Thursday, July 14th and moved in July 15th. I spent the morning at a doctor's appointment and then headed to the apartment. I brought up one load and then took some pictures. 


Enjoy!


We shall start the tour at our front door....

Welcome to our humble home!

This is the living room!

Towards the front of the house, looking left from the front door..

Looking slightly right from the front door, still the living room.

As you move towards the front of the house you see a door which leads to...

An awkward 1/2 bedroom, closet, storage room.... or as my brother likes to refer to it as, "Justin's Room".

At the front door and looking to the right you see the kitchen and part of the dining room.

As we enter the middle of the apartment. 

Our dining room.

Dining room and a little glimpse of the living room. 

Standing at the back of the dining room, looking into the kitchen. 

We LOVE the little window/counter/cabinet combination!

It is a great place for serving up food!

Now we are entering the kitchen through the door you see here.

The right side of the kitchen.

It is huge! Probably bigger than my last three apartment kitchens combined!

The left side of the kitchen!

Continuing the same side.

A BIG FRIDGE!!!! And only a few years old too!

A BIG OVEN/STOVE! I can use BIG cookie sheets now and bake more than six cookies at a time.

The right side again. 

View of the little window from inside the kitchen.

Taking a mini pit-stop back in the dining room to show you the big closet!

 Now unto the back half of our apartment. 

This is what you see standing where the kitchen and dining room meet up.

The door furthest to the left is the bathroom, then our bedroom in the middle, then the office on the back right.

In the hallway is two doors on the right side, opposite the bathroom.

Behind the first door is a pantry/storage closet.

Behind the second door is a super creepy emergency exit.

Now our bathroom! It is bigger than our last ones two but kinda a strange shape.

I love all the extra storage space!! 

This old medicine cabinet hides behind the door. Yeah, more storage!

Heading towards the back of the bathroom.

The shower is next to the toilet. 

 Now off to the office!

Looking in from the hallway. To the left is a closet.

The right side of the room, that door leads to the attic.

Closet door.

Mini closet with a door that leads to Narnia!!

(Well actually I half opened it and the strange attic smell freaked us out and Ben told me to shut it!)

To Narnia!

Heading up to the attic... another creepy stairwell!

Here we go!

And apparently I didn't get a picture at the top...

it is creepy...

Now heading to our bedroom.

This room is slightly bigger than the office and has more open wall space.

To the left of the room. 

We were excited to see when we moved in our landlord added some curtains!

We will change them out at some point, but they work great!

To the right of the room.

And our closet!! (Ben let me take over most of this one!)

Another deep closet. Not the best set up but we made it work!

And thus concludes the tour of our new place!

After taking pictures I began carrying up our stuff, cleaning the apartment and unpacking a bit. I did this while Ben was at work. Ben came home in the early afternoon and then the two of us brought up as much as possible! It was very hot on the day we moved so we had to take quite a few water breaks! 

Stay tuned for a look of the craziness that occurred after a day of moving in our stuff, then for a tragic tale involving a missing electronic, a recap from a weekend with our first visitors, and an updated look at our apartment as the week continues!

I am working very hard to catch up on life so keep tuning in!