Our time with Sean and Wallis is coming to an end. <insert not-so-quiet sniffles here>

Can we puuuhleeease go back to June and do it all again?!  I want one more Herm’s. One more pool therapy session. One more Sunday of laundry and Sister Wives. One more Jimmy John’s. One…okay, two, maaaaybe three…more Rancheritos runs.

Guys, I’m going to chain myself to your car on Saturday night in protest. You’ve been warned. Actually, I’m just going to call our friend Brian to boot your car. …. Too soon to joke about that?

Since Sean’s parents are in town visiting, we managed to throw together one final Fab Four hurrah last weekend after the Les Mis performance.

The show didn’t get out until almost 11pm, so we agreed it would best be a slumber party. Let me let you in on a little secret: A slumber party in your mid-30s looks and feels a lot different than one in your teens or early 20s. Despite managing to stay up pretty dang late, there might have been copious amounts of Tums consumed and ‘we’re-too-old-for-this-$*&@’s muttered.

I wanted to make a few special treats for both that night and the next morning, so much like my daily life, I’ll start with dessert first!

Does anyone else hide their Girl Scout cookies in the freezer? I swear I get this tendency from my mom, who would bury sweet treats in the depths of the frozen abyss so A) she’d actually get to eat a few herself and B) make them last longer than a few hours. Newsflash: We were always on to you!

Joe and I stock up hard every spring on our Girl Scout cookies, which is easy to do when your favorite little and guest blogger is also the cutest Daisy in the world.

How can you say ‘no’ to this face? You can’t. You won’t. Which is why she raked in hundreds of dollars in cookies this year.

God, I love her.

Joe prefers to dig in right when we get the cookies, but I try to prolong the shelf life of those once-a-year beauties as much as I can, which leads to boxes of Tagalongs and Thin Mints hidden away in the freezer. Perfect for a rainy day.

…or a delicious recipe.

I’ve never even thought of baking with my Girl Scout bounty until I ran across this recipe on Pinterest. It was calling my name. It was beckoning my stash.

Tagalongs = Peanut Butter Patties, depending on which part of the country you live in.

So I gladly sacrificed my last box of Tagalongs for the peanut-butter-loving friends who spent a summer by my side…who filled my days with endless wonder. #sorrynotsorry #LesMisAddict #IDreamedaDream

The original recipe calls for a few cookies shy of the entire box. How. convenient.

My favorite part, hands-down, was the layer of peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk. I want to pour it on everything now. Think it’d be too much for my Cheerios?

The bars will look pretty gooey right out of the oven and that’s all fine and dandy. You’ll want to let them cool completely before slicing or removing from the pan so they can seal and form that perfect hand-held, no-mess bar.

It doesn’t get much easier than this, folks. So, unless you also stockpile to avoid a Girl Scout Cookie Armageddon, save this recipe for your next haul and be sure to buy twice as many Tagalongs than normal!

And if you want to make them now, you could easily substitute chopped Nutter Butters, Oreos or Peanut Butter Oreos, or even salted peanuts and peanut butter chips. Go cray-cray, as Lily would say. (Breakfast treat coming up soon…)

(Psst! – there’s a Thin Mint version, too!)

Tagalong Cookie Cake Bars

Adapted slightly from Kevin & Amanda

1 box yellow cake mix
1 stick butter, softened
1 egg
1 cup chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet)
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 box of Girl Scout Tagalong (Peanut Butter Patties) cookies, coarsely chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×13 inch baking dish generously with nonstick cooking spray or line bottom of dish with parchment paper and spray the paper and sides.

Place cake mix, butter and egg into a large bowl, mix until dough forms. (I used a hand-held mixer to initially whip up the butter, then moved to mixing with a spatula and my hands.) Spread globs of dough in bottom of prepared baking dish and use your fingers to press into one layer. It doesn’t have to be perfect or pretty. Just make it as even as possible.

Sprinkle top with chocolate chips.

Stir sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter until well combined and pour over dough and chocolate chips. Top with chopped cookies.

Bake uncovered for 23-25 minutes. Let cool completely before slicing or serving.