Oreo Cheesecake Bars

For all of my friends that were asking for this recipe here it is! I am kind of obsessed with these! They are so delicious and I even made them with gluten free oreos and greek yogurt cream cheese! Who even knew that was a thing!? :) For anybody that knows me you know I'm a sucker for a little dessert, but if I can make it a little healthier I'm all for it :)

Oreo Cheesecake Bars

Makes 25

Crust

18 Oreos, crushed into crumbs

(I used gluten free Joe-Joe's from

Trader Joes)

2 tbsp. sugar

5 tbsp. butter, melted

Cheesecake Filling

12 oz cream cheese, softened (I tried the Greek yogurt cream cheese and it worked great!)

½ cup sugar

1 tbsp. flour

1 egg, plus 1 yolk

½ cup sour cream

1 tsp. vanilla

12 Oreos, broken into pieces

Chocolate Ganache

½ cup heavy whipping cream

2 tbsp. butter

¾ cup semi sweet chocolate chips

⅛ cup powdered sugar

6 Oreos, broken into pieces

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. To make the crust, mix cookie crumbs and sugar together in a medium bowl. Add melted butter and stir until completely combined.

3. Using the bottom of a glass or measuring cup, firmly press mixture into the bottom of an 8″x8″ baking dish. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from oven and let cool.

4. To make the cheesecake filling, add sugar, cream cheese and flour to a large bowl. Using a mixer on medium-high speed, cream mixture until combined.

5. Turn mixer to low and add egg and yolk, mixing until combined. Add sour cream and vanilla and mix until combined.

6. Stir in broken cookies and pour batter on prepared crust. Bake for 35-40 minutes, then remove and let cool completely.

7. To make ganache, add cream and butter to a saucepan and heat on stove, removing just before boiling.

8. Place chocolate in a large heat-proof bowl and immediately pour cream over it. Let sit for a minute and then stir until completely combined.

9. Add powdered sugar and beat with a wire whisk until smooth. Pour over cooled cheesecake and top with remaining cookie pieces. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

10. Cut into bars and serve.

Recipe courtesy of Bakerella :)

Halloween Party

 So...last week was pretty fun and exciting. Here in the apartment we were all pretty busy, which made things a little crazy trying to get everything ready for our Halloween Party. We all have pretty different schedules, but we found times to get things done. During the week I also got to spend some quality time with these cute boys! Saryn gave Helaman the idea of blowing the pool and letting the boys swim in their kitchen. Helaman of course loved the idea and got right to work. They boys LOVED every second of it! 

Also, this last week was the first basketball game, the cougar tip off. I will most likely be working the majority of the basketball games so I'm pretty excited! Also Bex and I went to the SYTYCD concert! It was so great! Hard to compare it to last year because last year was PHENOMENAL, but they still did a great job!

I started off my Halloween festivities on Friday with Halloween Zumba and Gold's. So many people dressed up and it was so fun! There was like an extra boost of energy and Kass had so many fun Halloween songs. I reused my troll costume, but my belly jewel had a hard time staying on while I was dancing :)

Friday night we went to Bryson's play off football game at Judge Memorial High School (isn't that view amazing!?). They did a great job and totally wasted Judge so they get to play in the quarterfinals tomorrow! (unfortunately I have to work so I won't be able to attend)

I started off Saturday morning with Halloween Zumba at the studio and of course had to switch up my outfit. So this time I was Exercise Barbie :) We had a blast and everybody looked so great!

 This is me with Emily, Laura (their mom) and Kass. LOVE THEM!

After Zumba I immediately went home to start preparing for our Halloween Party. We swept out the parking garage, set up tables, hung up black plastic, spray painted on it, set up desserts, got the music ready, etc. We were pretty stoke about the party. My family was in town so they were very kind to help us transport and set up a few things. A few hours before the party started I had this fear that nobody was going to come, but then I realized that even if nobody came we could still have a good time dancing by ourselves :) haha the party ended up being a huge success. We don't have an exact count, but the parking garage was pretty full and were guessing there was about 300-400 people throughout the night. By the end we didn't even know a lot of the people that were there :) They had heard from friends about an awesome party at condo row so they came over! It was such a blast! Star did a great job with the playlist and Adam's stereo and speakers were perfect! 

 In case you were curious as to what we dressed up as :) taco bell sauces!

 aren't my parents the cutest!?

 be looking forward to this on our Christmas card!

 The food table

 family photo :) 

 so I made this sweet cake and I really wanted it to be a centerpiece on the food table at the party, but time got away from me and I didn't have time to finish before the party started. So now I have this cake sitting in my apt with nowhere to take it to :P

Also random side note, work has been great! I get paid to do project like this (picture below) and I love it! I am helping a lot with weddings, which has been really fun and a lot busier. 

 This a fun picture of my dessert buffet for our Taste of Christmas event we had this week. The whole setup was amazing and it made me way too excited for Christmas! Especially since it was only November 1st :P All well....Each of the event coordinators was in charge of a different buffet line and I got put in charge of the dessert one (they apparently know how much I love sugar....) haha everything turned out really nice and the guests enjoyed it.

I hope you enjoyed the brief update, until next time..... :)

HUGE NEWS!

Okay it's maybe not HUGE NEWS for anybody else, but I have been waiting a long time for this day to come. About a week and a half ago I bought the new iphone4s. Now, those of you who know me, know that I have been waiting a long time for this. :) After saving lots of pennies I was finally able to purchase one and I LOVE IT!

I figured you were dying to see pictures ;)

In other news.....

Life has been busy, but fun. For Homecoming Week we decided to participate in Hike and Light the Y. It is a lot of fun and Helaman, Maija, and the boys even joined us! :) 

"Boom, Badoom, Boom, Boom, Badoom, Boom, he got that Super Bass"

We're on a flag football team and we're pretty hardcore.

We took a trip to Cedar City a couple weeks ago with some friends and had a blast there. I love being home and hanging out with the fam. We were lucky to catch the end of Bryson's football game on Friday night, except he didn't really play much after we got there cause they were beating the other team by quite a few points. Saturday morning we had a little Zumba session in the back yard and then left for Red Cliffs to do some hiking. We had a lot of fun down there and the weather was perfect! Of course we finished off our night with some karaoke and Just Dance.

Apple picking at the Whittier's Saturday morning

 quick stop for an ANTM shot...Jas even joined in later :) 

 getting really excited to slide down the FREEZING cold water slide :)

 Just Dance

 matching iphones

Other than the trip to Cedar I've just been enjoying this incredible fall weather. Filling my time with Zumba, reading books, work and more work :) I'm enjoying my job though and we have been pretty busy, especially with football games. Here are a few pics to document 

 Taryn's Birthday dinner

 the boys at Helaman's game (aren't they the cutest!?)

 this fun waterfall braid I've been doing on my hair lately...I'm kind of obsessed 

 beautiful fall colors! I can't even believe how colorful everything is this year. 

 a minor spill at work....this was the 2nd one of the night. I cleaned up the first one with my hands so I left this one for the clean up crew :) 

 fun centerpiece for my event the other day.

 with the Sorensen's on the field :) love them! 

All in all nothing too exciting, but enjoying life. We are throwing an epic Halloween party this weekend so look forward to an update on that :)