Oatmeal Spice Granola

So I love granola. Plain and simple. It's such a tasty food and I love to mix it in my yogurt. So when I was playing around with the perfect recipe for granola, I of course had to tweak it to make it my own. And I just love the end result which tastes like an oatmeal cookie. It's perfect over some organic french vanilla yogurt or even ice cream! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.


Oatmeal Spice Granola

2 cups steel cut oats (or rolled oats, NOT quick ones!)
1 cup rice cereal (like rice krispies)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp sea salt
3 Tbsp and 1 tsp oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup raisins

Set your oven to 325 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, toss the oats and rice cereal with the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt.

In another bowl, mix the brown sugar, honey, vanilla, and oil together until combined. Pour over the oat and rice cereal mixture. Spread out on parchment and bake 10 minutes. Mix and add almonds. Bake another 15 minutes, mixing every 5 minutes. Allow to cool. Mix in raisins. ENJOY!!!

I Heart Faces

So I know... I've been a bad blogger.I am promising to do better from now on....starting with this lovely post of my darling niece for a photo contest on I Heart Faces blog (www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com).


This weeks challenge was all about "Excited" and I knew this pic I just took of her all dressed up for her very first Halloween was just perfect for it. She's so stinkin cute that I just had to share!

Jinkies Batman! It's been FOREVA!!!

Ok, well I know I've been neglecting my blog just to keep afloat with my life lately, but I am pleased to announce that my life seems to be much smoother. No more busy schedules, soccer games, college courses, family issues, etc.

So I took some time to sit back and scrap once again. I made this cute acyrlic album and had such a blast with it! I can't wait to jump back into scrapping!

Create your Own Album

.... and it's not a scrappy album. This one is crazy cool!!! I found it on Emilie Ahern's blog and had to give it a try. :)






Follow these instructions:

1 - BAND NAME Go to "wikipedia." Hit “random article”or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - ALBUM TITLE Go to "Random quotations"or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - COVER ART Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar software to put it all together.

Tryin' Out!

So it's been awhile. I've been kinda quiet on the scrappy scene lately...but I've been keeping myself busy for sure! And I finally decided to come out of my scrappy hidey hole and give a DT call a try. I'm not holding my breath on having a chance, but it felt good to get out there and just try out.

Here's a little sneaky peeky of one of my creations for the call. :)

Rediscovering my Scrappy Mojo

It's been a long hard road for me to rediscover my scrappy mojo as of late. First, I had a taste of just how mean the scrapping industry can be. It made me not even want to walk into my scrapping area and took away the love of scrapping that I have had since I discovered it a few years back. I forced myself to try to get past it, but it never seemed to work.

Then I lost my sister in law. Before the cancer, she was a stamping addict. She sold me all of her stamps, inks and such when she lost use of her arm. After her death, it made it even harder to get into the groove.

But I knew I had to push past it. For her. So today I created my first page in honor of Jana. Even though I'm not a huge stamp fan, I used her stamps in several places on this page. And check out that paper from The Paper Element. It's part of their newest line, Blue Flannel. :)

It felt good. :)

Long Time No Blog.............

OK... I left you all with the hopes and wishes that things would calm. The direct opposite happened.

We lost our sister in law to cancer last week. It's left me so sad. She was a wonderful person... so determined and full of life. I am going to miss her so very much. So this is why I've been a bit MIA for a bit... I needed a break to sit back and regroup.

But life goes on. So I am determined to plug past this and get things smoothed out. I started Christmas shopping and getting back into the groove of life.

Emily's band concert was on Wednesday evening and she did a great job. She even had a trio with her two great buddies Mackenzie and Sarah. Here's a peek of her playing Jingle Bells.

And today brought us the first real snowfall of the season! Everything is under a thick blanket of white! Emily played most of the afternoon outside with the neighbor boys. She even tried snowboarding down the hill by the barn! She came in for dinner cold, wet and exhausted. Joshua got too cold too quickly and decided a cozy spot by the fire was much more to his liking.

Joshie lost another tooth yesterday. He thinks this toothfairy thing is pretty cool!

I finished Breaking Dawn in the Twilight series. Much better than the last 2 in my humble opinion. I've still not been to see the movie... I know I am going to be disappointed so I've decided to hold out for it to hit Redbox.

I've been playing around with the camera trying to get better at using it. Here's a shot of the tree in a dark room... not too bad! :)

And that's about it!!! :) Going to go shovel some snow!