Yummiest cookie bars EVER!

I have reconnected with an old friend on Facebook.  She lives in Hawaii now, so I don't get to see her.  BUT.... we send recipes back and forth.  She is a health nut like me only she is way healthier than me.

Her blog is Essentially Free.  And her name is Free, which I love.  This is the latest recipe, which by the way are divine, scrumptious, I can't stop eating them!

Coconut Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Bars

1 1/4 C butter (to make them healthier use Coconut oil)

I used 1 C coconut oil

2 C sugar ( I used 1 C honey)

1/2 t salt

2 t vanilla

2 eggs

Mix above together and then add:

2 C whole wheat pastry flour

4 C oats

1 1/2 t baking soda

2 C chocolate chips

1 C coconut

If it seems to thick, add a splash of milk

it should be difficult to spread out, I used my fingers to spread it out.

Put in greased 12 x 17 pan for bars

Bake @ 375 for 15 min.

I only had an 11 x 16 pan, so I added 5 min to the baking time.

I couldn't wait till they cooled.

And I burnt myself on the melted chocolate chips.

The girls were all giggly watching me.

I have not let Sophie have one, I know technically coconut is a seed, but anything with the word nut makes me hesitant to give her.  Although I did rub coconut oil on her skin to see if a hive developed.  Which it did not. 

And if you want to get real technical, peanuts are really legumes.  Which explains why she got hives when she ate split pea soup one day.  So really nuts should be ok.  But I am just not willing to risk another episode of anaphylactic shock which could kill her quickly this time.  PHEW

Let me know if you try these bars and what you think of them!!

My Photo Walls

So I ended up hanging the pictures today.  And here is how it turned out.

This is the side with my vintage pictures.

And here is the kids/family side.

I took some close-ups for you.  Description of photo is below picture.

This is my mom!  Wasn't she cute?  I am not sure if my parents were married at this time.  Lovin' that top.  My dad raced motorcycles, they were at a race.

This is my husband's grandma's sister.  I don't even know her name.

My parent's wedding picture.

My dad on Santa's lap.

Hubby on Santa's lap.

The first "nice" picture I got of my children.  Nic was 2 and Josh was 5.  They are 16 & 19 now.

This is Sophie at 18 months.  Nancy Gowins  took this photo.

These pictures make me cry.  Top one is my dad with his first two grandchildren.  Josh is on the left and his cousin Ryan is on the right.  Bottom picture is when the boys were 16 with my dad. They are even bigger now!

Another Nancy Gowins photo.  My girls all in their tutus, vintage of course!  Lauren was 12, Sophie was 1 and Portia was 6.

Sophie is 3 months here.  Another Nancy Gowins photo.

When the cousins came out, jumpin' in the pool!

Josh was 6, Nic was 3 and Lauren was 1.

We had this done right when we moved out to Oregon.  It will be 8 years in August.

Portia was 8 months, Lauren was 6, Nic was 8 and Josh was 11.

I hope these didn't bore you, I had fun remembering these photos.  I love to see pictures of people I know, or am aquainted with, from before I knew them.  I think it is fascinating to see their past and then see where they are now!

Have a great weekend!

Before and After photos

Well I only got the hallway and 1/2 bath painted.  I am kicking myself, wondering why I painted the 1/2 bath limesickle, when it in NO WAY AT ALL goes with the floor, cabinets or counter???

Why didn't I do bavarian cream in there?  Well the reason I bought paint at all was because we had mold in the ceiling of that bathroom and just had it repaired.  So there was that big white patch.  So I really just needed to repaint the bathroom.  But it turned into painting the majority of the house.

Okay see the white patch on the ceiling?  Sorry, toilets never look pretty in a picture.

And here's the after... I really think I will repaint, someday, I am so sick of painting right now!

Before hallway, with Lauren taping for me..

By flowers

So long floral

After hallway, what a difference huh?

I had the walls filled with pictures, but I'm not sure how may I will put back up.  Well probably most of them, but I want all of them to be in black frames.

They were family pictures, a couple of my dad on Santa's lap when he was little, my parents on their wedding day.  My kids, you know....

This is the family room leading into the hallway, they are the same colors even though the front walls look

darker.

And here is my messy kitchen, I want to paint the same limesickle as the rest.  There are not many walls, but it is still not fun.  Lots of trim work and squeezing up above the cabinets by the fridge.  Why did we not extend those to the ceiling???

Lauren's room and my room will have to wait.  There is only so much painting I can do at one time. 

Now I have to clean my bathroom.

I am painting

painting

painting

painting

I am painting the hallway , over my flowers.  I loved my flowers but it has been that awful gold background for 7 years.  (see photo under "home" label and post)

Next I'm painting the 1/2 bath

After that I'm painting Lauren's room

Then I am painting the kitchen

And last I would like to paint my bedroom

I love to watch Real Housewives of New York, and on there Ramona keeps talking about renewing herself. 

She got a new haircut

She's renewing her vows

I think she's not as wierd as last season, but maybe not....

She says everythings new in my life!

I want that, I want a fresh start.  We don't have to keep living in the past do we?  It's better not to.

I have some health issues that have been nagging at me for years, and I finally went to a specialist today!

I feel good that I am hopefully going to get some answers, another fresh start.

I've been going out doing event's all by myself, something I've always been afraid to do, fresh start.

We've lived on the farm for 7 years, the longest I've ever lived in one house during my married life.

I think 7 years with the same decor means it is time for change.

After all I am not the same person I was when I moved here. 

Actually I've had every room in the house many different colors, but this will be the first time I will have a majority of the house one color and it is......................

limesickle by Benjamin Moore.

My family room and dining room are already that color and I love it.  So I'm just bringing it all around.

I would like to do Bavarian Cream in my bedroom, it looked so CREAMY and yummy, like heavy cream or 1/2 and 1/2.

Lauren picked sea foam for her room.

I'll post pictures when were all done!

Sheep are Sheared

There's our little black sheep after he was sheared.  He is sooooooooo cute!

And here's the little white one, you know the girls name all the cows and sheep and goats, but I just don't remember the names anymore.  I used to know every one.  The sheep started out as Scratch and Sniff, and then changed to Jamal and Jemima, and now I think they have new names again!

The very first cow we had was named Julio, a black and white cow that reminded my hubby of the horse he had when he was young.  His dad lived on a ranch in Hawaii for a little while.

That was a sad day when Julio went on a field trip and came back in the freezer.  

 And then we got Big Bertha, she was the biggest, meanest cow on earth!  She would jump any fence, no matter how high, if she knew she was getting an injection!  And she was MEAN!   And ORNRY! 

Finally hubby said I gotta get rid of her, she's dangerous.  So he took her to the auction.  After she sold, he talked to the cattle rancher who bought her.  The rancher said, you know why I bought her?  Hubby said no, why?  And rancher said, cuz I looked in her eyes and knew she was the nicest animal.... Funny huh?  that is true!  I cracked up when hubby told me that!

Sophie helped daddy out on the farm this morning.

This is what came off the sheep.  The sheep shearer said it is worthless, cuz it's so dirty.  Yes I did think maybe I should learn how to spin yarn.

One of the cows.  Who knows her name probably Mocha, or Latte, I tend to name them after coffees.

These are old street sweepers.  When the city gets rid of them, you can buy them for cheap.  And the cows love to scratch on them.  It saves you alot of fence repair.

Happy Thursday!

ACK! teenagers

Lord, help me!  These teenagers are going to kill me!

A little glimpse of my farm

You may not think "vintage farm house" when you see the front of my house.....but there it is!  I guess it would be called a "ranch" style house?  Built in 1972.  If you look to the right of the picture, you see the chimney on the roof.  That chimey used to be outside, we added on to the house when found out we were expecting our 5th child.

Portia said take a picture of us in the tree mom!!

This little area is by my garage and driveway to the left of the house.  Just yesterday it was knee high with weeds.  The peony and irish moss and vine were there buried in weeds.  Portia helped me clean it up and we planted some flowers today.

The old green metal bucket had no bottom,so we filled it with dirt and put a flower in.

Lilac is blooming!

I never get tired of this view.  The sheep are grazing and you can see our Christmas trees.  They don't look very big , but some are over 10ft. tall.

We emptied the wagon dirt from two years ago.  I didn't buy any flowers last year, the budget was pretty tight.  So the wagon should look good this year.

Portia and I planted some steppables.  Steppables are my all time favorite thing to buy!  Also some allysum.  I put the river rock path in when I was 8 months pregnant with Sophie.  I plopped my butt down on the ground and dug a place for each rock.

I planted 6 sweet peas along my old metal fences.  I envision them twirling all along my pasture fence, but we'll see.

This is my favorite bird house, I bought it for $20 at a garden art garage sale a couple years ago.

Today I found this little white rake at a thrift shop for only $3.95!

This bird house also came from the garden art garage sale.

So hubby finally put the birdhouses back out, screwed them to the fence.  I put a protective coat on  them, so they could stay out in the rain this winter, as my hubby and sons HATE taking them down and putting them out again.  This fence is to the right of my house towards the road. 

I had a couple bike riders stop a couple years ago and ask if they could take pictures of the bird houses.  He wanted some design ideas for building them.  Funny huh?

Later in the summer I'll take some more pictures and show you how the flowers are growing.

Lasagna is in the oven and I'm off to make hot fudge cake for dessert!

Lollibags

Daughter Lollibag

Momma Lollibag

Staying Focused.....or not...or maybe yes

There's a random photo for ya...

I am feeling random, I was just organizing my pantry, I was doing the top shelf, standing on a bar stool.  I turned to get down and hit my head on the door frame not once,

or twice

but THREE times.  Now I have a headache.  And more piles of STUFF. 

I am feeling very confused today, the sun is out, and I want to be outside, but I have to much to do inside.

I went out running errands yesterday and forgot to bring my bags for goodwill.  Also went to the "expensive" grocery store for fruit for juicing, bought a gallon of milk too.  Milk fell off the bottom of the cart on the way to the car.

A nice young man....I feel to young to say, a nice young man... but a nice young man said... You dropped your milk.  I stared at the milk in his hand watching milk spurt out of the whole it aquired when it fell...

I said, uuh, it has a hole...in a whiny sort of way and just looked at him.  IDIOT.  I guess I was thinking that nice young man was my 19 yr old nice young man and would run back in and exchange it for me. 

I tossed it out, it wasn't their fault I dropped the milk and I didn't feel right asking them to exchange it.  And I was so angry that had happened, I was not going to get the girls unbuckled and back into the store.  See I was going to bring it home and salvage it , but then it was leaking all over my car, so I went back up and threw it out, with a trail of milk behind me.  Just in case you thought I left my girls in the car while I shopped, no I brought them in.

Why am I talking about that?  My boys rooms are stinky and messy and their bathroom is dirty.  My dining room is a sewing tornado land.  The play room is a cluttered mess.  My beds not made.. Every room is a disaster that needs to be picked up and cleaned.  Plus I went to put some letters in the mail this morning, drove right by goodwill, and I had forgot to bring the goodwill bags again!!

 I want to sit down and read.  But I can't read because I have little girl lollies to make for the show I'm doing in Portland in two weeks.

How do you stay on top of it all? 

Please tell me!

Oh and P.S.  my hubby says eating my healthy cookies are like eating turkey bacon instead of the real thing, and just to make sure I got it, this morning he said I should just cut circles out of computer printer paper and throw them in the cookie jar, they would taste the same.

Guess what hubby is getting for dinner?

NOTHING with healthy cookies for dessert.