A "New" Recipe

So I am not really a new recipe "tryer" when cooking. However in the baking department I am 2 ways, either I make good ol' Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies or I make something totally new that I have never made before. I love to try new recipes. I have sometimes repeated them, although not often, I usually get too excited about something else and am off to the next best thing. Or I quickly realize that I have NO patience to repeat the experience- hello Cake Balls, what a mess of a process!!

Anyway I don't think I have ever accidentally made the same recipe twice without realizing it, until now which means thank heaven for Pintrest because that opened up a whole new world of recipe finding, all with pretty little pictures!
About a year ago I made these and followed her botched recipe because they looked simply irresistible and I was trying a new healthier baking technique inspired by the blog writer herself!

About a week ago I was looking for a granola bar recipe and remembered that a friend had stated on facebook that she was trying one a few weeks ago and promised to let us all know how they were. So I looked back and there was the recipe she used and all the helpful comments from friends on how to successfully make chewy granola bars (these promised no corn syrup).
So, I tried it too! And they were wonderful! I didn't have any coconut oil on hand but I had butter so I thought I would try that and they tasted amazing. Not anything you should eat the whole pan of (like I remember doing when I made them the last time following the botched recipe).
Here is the recipe that I used however I made it again and changed it a bit because 300+ calories for a granola bar was frightening me when that was about a fourth of the calories I am eating right now and they were sooo gooey that I had myself convinced that there was some wiggle room with these.

Chewy Granola Bars (adapted from Heavenly Homemakers)

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil or butter
1 3/4 cups of oats
1 1/4 cup of "extras" - which I used 1/2 cup toasted almonds, 1/2 cup coconut & toasted sesame seeds, flax seed, wheat germ enough to fill the 1/4 measuring cup :o)

Melt PB Honey and Butter
remove from heat and add oats and "extras" (if using choc chips wait until mixture has cooled or you end up with the "botched recipe" from above).

I found that now with the extra cup of dry ingredients you can put it in a 9x13 and it makes 15 nice sized servings and brings the calories down to around 200.

cover the dish with plastic wrap and press the mixture firmly with your hand to pack it all together. I have never had issues with them sticking to the pan at all. I cut them into the serving size and keep them in the fridge for a week now and they stay nicely.

I am going to have to take a break from making them again though because it is becoming too tempting to eat more than one a day!

Sorry I don't have any pictures to tantalize you with. :o(

Today

I have no idea what time Annie woke up this morning, she is supposed to stay in her room until her clock comes on but I think she has been getting up so ridiculously early that she just doesn't have the patience. When I woke up at 7 she had turned off her noise maker turned on all of her lights, all the bathroom lights, used the bathroom, taken her wet pull up off, put it in the diaper pail and was headed back to her room in a tangle of her footy jamies. I untangled her and put her back to bed after turning her lights off telling her it was still dark outside so she couldn't get up yet... hehehe yeah right. That lasted about 15 min. So then I told her that she needed to be quiet and not turn all the lights in the house on if she needed to use the potty and then go back to bed next time.... of course later in the day when she was throwing a fit for the 100000th time I yelled at her and told her I was going to take all of her lights and lock her in her room so that she was forced to not get up so early and therefore need a nap by 10am! ok, ok maybe I wasn't that harsh, but I did mention something about sleeping a little more. It didn't help that her daddy let her stay up until 10 watching baseball! He wont get away with that one again!

So here we are, up before sunrise making oatmeal with raisins for my 85 year old daughter :o)
Speaking of Jamies, how funny are these, I did realize a problem last night though, she still fits in a 2t but her feet are jammed inside those things! Her poor 3 year old feet are just too big for them :o(
So we head off to pick up some produce and she falls asleep in the car, when we get back home she wanted to know why we didn't get produce and wouldn't believe me that she slept through the whole thing. So when we get home, although riding to the tune of only one child babling was nice, I still wanted/needed some mommy time to, you know, blog & excercise. So I sent her to her room for some quiet play time and she took an apple with her. She called me up to her room and handed me this

That girl really enjoys her apples!

We also tried to recreate the fall decor we saw on display at the Livingston household but Annie was a little too young/tired/crabby/rotten to help with the leaves, so she colored the letters for me then we strung them up. We first put the letters on backwards and I had to take them off and redo them. All the while Mia was stepping on, and pulling on, and tearing up paper, and stealing my scissors every.time.I.put.them.down! So needless to say this project ended in spankings and tears and frustrations and a 10:30 lunch!

But its still pretty cute! I got tired of trying to figure out where we could hang it without my husband having a fit and chose the kitchen wall... I might be in trouble but Ill blame it on my mom, I can remember my dad not being completely happy with things she let us do all the time, although he just went with it after she would convince him that it was all for fun.
Love you Daddy ;o)

Lately

Things have been the usual stuff around here lately. We have been enjoying the extended summer, overdressing in the morning and then sweating our tails off by afternoon! The girls are so much fun lately. Mia has been saying a lot of "words" lately. She may have been saying them for a while now but I am just picking up on them.
I think she calls Annie "is" as in Sis without the S, the verdict is still out on that one.
She says daadaa for dog
Ahh Die is all done, which I find amusing.
shishy, shishy is fishy fishy
She says Bite & signs for "more" I would love someone to tell me who taught her that because I certainly did not.
We call socks sockie lockies because Elly Beth did and whenever we get near her sock drawer she sounds like a chicken clucking as her tongue sticks in and out over and over trying to say it.
Kris tried to teach her "nose and eye" however failed because she points to her nose and says "eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye" and then points to her ear and does the same, she rarely gets it right :o)
She can say her cousins "Bryce and Maggie"
Baa baa is a cup of milk and if its milk she wants you better not hand her a cup of water!
Today I asked her if she was singing and she ran out into the middle of the room, started turning in circles saying "ashys, ashys, ashys" Cute!
I wish I could describe to you how adorable it is when she says "awww baby" have you ever seen this movie? It is one of my all time favorites from when I was a kid and bless my lucky stars she says Baby just like those adorable little boys! "Ahhh Baaby"

Annie says crazy new words and phrases so fast I can't keep track of them all, you will just have to take my word for it.
Today I was teaching her "half & whole" using a pizza, later she ripped a sticker in half and I said "look Annie this is half, what is it when we put it back together?" she replies "A Pizza!"
She likes to exclaim "what in the world" and takes great effort when she does.
She enjoys going for a Country Drive (I am teaching her well) however saying the word is a bit of a challenge and I love to hear her labor over getting out "Conchie Drive".
I think she has officially decided that her sister is something lower than a plebe. She has zero regard for her feelings both physical & emotional and I have caught her doing really mean things to her! Today she was walking through the room carrying her little chair and completely mowed her sister over as if she wasn't a human being standing in the middle of the room, with plenty of room to go around her! Well this may be the beginning of a lifelong relationship but buddy while I am around things are going to get a little bit nicer!

I can't remember if I mentioned the demise of the original "fishy fishy" however he was quickly replaced with 4 more at a whopping 14cents a piece. Well Joe flushed the first 2 without Annie knowing, however I got rid of the 3rd one to kick it and unbeknownst to me she was behind me in the bathroom as I tossed the poor little guy in. She yelled "wait, don't flush him in the toilet!" as he went round and round, only the little guy didn't go down with the water, he stayed swirling around the bowl as it filled back up. And Annie watched him the whole time going "whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa..." I felt really bad having to re-flush him. However now Annie tells everyone that we flushed our fishy fishy down the "tolet" and laughs obnoxiously! We have seriously scarred her!

On to a lighter and much more fun note, Annie and I made these pumpkins today and I thought they turned out quite cute! I saw them on pinterest however the pin wasn't even for them it was about the candles next to them, I liked these much better than the candles!
And yes, that is a picture of my grandpas dog Lacy in the background, he sent it to annie in the mail because he thought she would like to have it. How cute is he? I am not surprised though, that his favorite great grandchild would be the offspring of his favorite grandchild.

Family Adventure Day

Last week when my wonderful husband said "do you want to take the girls to a pumpkin patch next Tuesday?" I thought I was going to wet myself with excitement! Um, Yes, I did think that sounded like the best idea ever. I was sooo happy that the weather was nice today! We chose to go to McGlasson Farm for our pumpkins so that we could get apples as well. The 2 pumpkins we chose were almost 50 pounds total! We weren't prepared to pay for that much pumpkin but, oh well. The girls had fun and we all came home with pumpkins and apples which are currently in the crock pot on step one of making apple butter! mmmmmm. Right now my house just smells like overripe apples, but hopefully when I get up in the morning it will smell like wonderful autumn cinnamon & such.








We ended our "adventure day" (which, by the way, on the way there Annie accurately guessed that we were going to a farm to get a pumpkin for her :o) by taking a ride on the Anderson ferry and stopping for ice cream.

Weekend

Friday morning I hitched up the wagon... ok maybe I didn't but i did drive my husbands big manly truck. Kelly, the girls and I went to Indiana to bring home the beef. Dad usually makes the trip by himself, however because Kelly and I were buying a side this year for the first time, we got to go with him to help him haul the load.
We spent the day playing with Grandpa & taking the traditional gator trip to the creek (about a mile from his house), which smelled like wonderful fall leaves and walnuts and dirt. The girls threw rocks and ate rocks and had a wonderful time :o)
By the evening Uncle Joe was finally able to get in the field and so Kelly harvested beans for a few hours with him while the girls and I played with Grandpa "Meal" & Aunt Lan.

The next morning after an Uncle Joe special of farm fresh eggs and bacon for breakfast we headed to the packing house. It was a friendly morning of arranging little white packages of frozen meat in coolers to be brought home to 9 waiting families. Dad thought it would be cheaper (and probably lighter) if we had brought home 2 truck loads of contraband :o)

I never managed to get my camera out while we were there, however Annie did and here is the result.

I can't look at this picture without laughing hysterically! maybe it would be funnier if you knew the man.

The One With the 3 year old

This day started off by a naked almost 3 year old bursting into my bathroom and jumping into the shower with me. :o) I love this little kid who at 11:something will officially turn 3 years old. Is it sad that I can't remember what time she was born?
The day only got better in her opinion.

We started off the morning by stopping at Buskin for a doughnut with sprinkles. There in the case was a lone glazed doughnut with pink icing and purple sprinkles among a maze of plain old glazed boringness. Of course she declared to the lady at the counter that it was her birthday and she pulled a shiny quarter out of her change purse (she wouldn't let her daddy pay) and proceeded to slide it across the counter as if she had been paying people all her life. The kind woman picked up that little girls quarter and declared it "just enough" and then pulled 2 buskin smiley face cookies from the case and added them to her bag as well! (dude, Im going to let the cute blond little bargain shopper pay for things more often!)



With many thanks we left the store on to our next destination Frisch's Big Boy where in route she declared that there was a "hole in her doughnut" as she proceeded to suck the icing off the doughnut in the truck :o) She even shared some with her sister (the part with the icing already off of course) The two tiny little girls managed to eat their weight and mine in Frisch's breakfast & salad bar (where by the way they now have chicken tenders on their salad bar, what!?!) It was literally making me sick watching the three of them consume breakfast & lunch at the same time! Blah! I stuck with my scrambled eggs and toast!



We headed off after a complimentary lolli pop to the "bank store" because Annie declared that she was going to put her $5 birthday money from Grandpa Neal in the bank. Little did she know that in 3 years we had yet to open her a savings account so that was the next task. They now both have savings accounts. Of course we also left there with another lolli pop and headed to her favorite hang out the pet store. We informed her that today, after a years worth of many, many trips to the pet store with her daddy she was finally allowed to take home a pet...goldfish :o)
She happily picked out a fish (with a whopping 14 day guarantee).



"Fishy fishy" now resides in her room and in 2 days she has yet to pull the dresser down on herself trying to see the fish in its bowl. We will see if that continues :o) I also feel like each day that fish stays alive is like its a death defying act. With a 14 day guarantee I feel like it is destined to just keel in minutes within bringing it home.

She received many phone calls with people wishing her a happy birthday and when asked how old she was she proceeded to show them 3 fingers through the phone. She even took the phone upstairs to her room to show Grammy her fish :o)

Needless to say with all the sugar she had before noon we couldn't get her to wind down for a nap until after 3! We wrapped the day up doing some school work which she was too tired for and a walk to the park in which we got rained on. I was super ready for bed time when 7:00 came around and when tucking her in I asked her what her favorite part of the day was to which she replied "school".

The next morning when we were getting breakfast ready Mia declared "Happy Birthday" :o) it was the cutest thing! It kinda came out "Hap Bahbay" and i have been making her say it all day long because its so cute!

Airshow

Annie and I went to the airshow in Waynesville OH a couple of weekends ago with my Daddy and Kris, John & JP. The weather was over 100 degrees and so Mom had no desire to go sit in the heat. She kindly offered to keep Amelia & Hope, then Dora declared that she hated air shows and Anella was all too happy to be left behind to have tea parties with Grammy. I just knew Annie would love it although I had never been to one before myself.
It was amazing! These crazy pilots would fly 10 feet above the ground, upside down, straight up, swirl, twirl, cut the engine & fall out of the sky in an instant! There were parachuting men and wing walking stunt women and it was all free, including dinner! That is my favorite kind of entertainment! It was fun to watch 2 cousins interact with each other with out the siblings around to pick fights and annoy. They chased, explored, played, had tractor rides, their faces painted, got glow sticks and sno cones and were so wound up on the way home we couldn't get them to quiet down for over 50 miles! Dad had the wonderful idea to recite nursery rhymes to get them to settle down. When they finished reciting every one they knew my dad threw an ancient tongue twister into the mix to impress them to which Annie replied "Papa, that is not en-ga-lish" :o)
I can't wait to go back again next year and will start praying now for cooler weather. Although there was always a breeze blowing (as is typical in the part of the country with no hills) and Dad brought the shade of umbrellas that made it a very delightful afternoon!