Apple Cider Bars

Here is what happens when your first photo attempts are blurry and you make a yummy new snack. All that ends up being left is an itty bitty little bite left for a photo op.

I love apple cider.Which is odd because I hate straight apple juice. Must be all those mulling spices. I am a spicy kind of gal.  The 100 percent stuff is my favorite. But in a pinch I will drink the powdered mix stuff. While you might be able to use the powdered apple cider mix for this recipe if you can have the real stuff go for it. However this is a food storage blog and this recipe would be a great addition to your food storage recipe arsenal.

So how could I resist trying the recipe found on the bakck of the Litehouse Apple Cider. Like I said these bars got gobbled -- for breakfast, for snack, for dessert. I was a little afraid of the Cheerios on the ingredient list but they add a really tasty crunch. I also substituted 1 chopped apple for the dried apple chips because I have a box full of apples waiting to be used. However, I love that I can pull apple chips out of my pantry to make this recipe even when apples are not in season.

The end result: These bars have a mildly spicy tang reminiscent of a warm cup of cider.

The Recipe
1 1/4 Cups sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup softened butter
4 Cups Cheerios (I used Honey Nut Cheerios)
1 Cup Apple Cider
1/2 cup chopped dried apples or 1 cup diced apple
1 egg
1 cup oats
1/2 tsp salt
1 Cup raisins
1 TB vanilla
1 1/2 Cups flour

Heat oven to 350 degrees farenheit. Boil 1 Cup cideer and apples in saucepan until liquid is reduced to 1/4 cup.

mix sugar, butter, peanut butter, cider, vanilla and egg in a large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients except for Cheerios.

Gently stir in cereal.

Pour into ungreased  9x13 pan and Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool and cut into bars.

Lessons from Kids

Sometimes I rock the house as a mom. I really put every effort to be there for my kids. Sometimes I also feel like the giving in this mom child relationship is a little one sided. But every once in  awhile I am reminded of what my kids give me. My children have taught me and given me gifts beyond price, beyond the value of a little extra help around the house.

During my postpartum depression they literally saved my life. They were the reason I woke up everyday. During a severe illness and surgery they saved my life again as they gave me the will to get better and be their mother again. Over the past year they have literally saved and strengthened my testimony in the gospel. As I faced (and frankly continue to face on some days) a spiritual 30 something crisis, my children's faith and spiritual needs have driven me to strengthen myself - to rediscover my faith and my testimony -- to search out a relationship with Christ.

Just this week and again today I was strongly reminded that 1. Sometimes I do not rock the house as a mom (my children have also taught me humility on more than one occasion.) Sometimes I blow out it at the moment they are at their best. And there is a strong lesson in this as well.

2. The holy ghost is a real and wonderful gift that must not be ignored.
Occurence #1 I dropped 12 year-old Isaac off at a 3 hour party at the SUU pool. He ran in and I took off. I never even thought to check and see if everything was still a go for the party. I headed off with my girls to Wal-Mart to buy 3 birthday presents for all the parties we had this weekend. I spent an hour in Wal-Mart (at least) As soon as I got in the car. I had this strong thought come to me. What if the party was not at the pool what if Isaac is stranded there. I had forgotten my cell phone and knew he could not call me.
I brushed (with some effort) this thought away and chalked it up to paranoia. If there was really a problem he had money he could go swim anyways or he could do some of the other fun stuff they have at the SUU gym. He could call his Dad. Everything was fine. I decided to finish my errands. 45 minutes later. I decided to check on Isaac anyway. I went into the gym and pool and soon discovered that no one was swimming that night. There was a giant swim meet. Isaac and the party were no where to be found. I started to panic. Where was Isaac. I walked around the corner and found Isaac playing raquetball by himself in one of the courts. His party had never shown up and they had been unable to contact us to tell us plans had changed.  He was pretty upset. He had tried to call me and then he informed that he had said a prayer asking that I would know he needed me to come get him.

Isaac's prayer was answered. The Holy Ghost clearly gave me an impression of the scenario that might be occuring. I flat out ignored it at least for a while. I was devastated. I promised my son never to ignore a prompting to come to his aid again.

Secondly, today in church we talked about the Holy Ghost. Suddenly it came to me that everytime my little 5 year old Lia begs us to remember scripture study each night (we always forget and sometimes we decide not to do it anyway) she is asking for the experience of having the Holy Ghost testify the truth to her. She doesn't have that constant companionship yet and she must feel the peace and truth of the gospel as we read scriptures to her. I realized that in not being more consistent as a parent with this simple family task that she so truly wants in her life I was denying her the opportunity to feel and learn to understand the presence of the holy ghost testifying to her. At that moment I again felt terrible. But I also felt as if now I will be more consistent in getting our family scripture study done.

Sometimes lessons are painful to our pride. But they are always good when they come from our children.

I love Fall

I really do love fall. Too bad it has to be followed up by that icky season Winter. There are so many fun family traditions for us this time of year.

I also love Halloween (well not the horror side of it). I come from a family that has very ambivalent feelings about Halloween. My mother hates it, my dad doesn't love it and my sisters go along with it but they don't get super excited about making costumes and jackolanterns and making tacky halloween themed treats. I don't care what they say they don't get giddy about putting bats and skeleton rings on their daughter's witch tutu. I am the Halloween freak in my family.

Tom and I went to our adult party this year dressed as Calvin and Hobbes

Rebecca was a witch. And I got all crafty and made that tutu myself. Excuse me while I give myself a pat on the back. Craftiness like that only happens once a year.

Lia decided to be a blue haired rapunzel. We are a little twisted around here.

Isaac's costume is my favorite because it was FREE. He made it himself. Here he is with the pack of kids he ran around with that night.

A shot of our jack-o-lanterns.

Yep Halloween is fun. But our playing in the leaf tradition is even more fun. It is an hour of sheer abondonment. Every year I take my kids to the park with all the giant trees and we cavort in the leaves.
This year for the first time even Tom decided to come and while he sat back and watched the fun he also couldn't resist getting in on the leaf fight.

 

 

The life we lead

It would be a massive understatement to say that I have been busy. The past month feels more like 3 months worth of stuff. Sometimes I honestly believe that a day has more than 24 hours. We squeeze so much into every day.

In the past month we have said goodbye to summer, we have welcomed Fall with a trip to the pumpkin patch, a trip to see my brothers and my sister Nicole in Salt Lake for the weekend. (A much needed trip, I was so homesick for my family. I had not seen them in over a year), time at the Iron County Fair, soccer, a big birthday bash and a night out to see Tarzan. And of course there have been massive hours at school and at work and so much more.

My most recent anxious moments have centered around Becca.
My dear sweet Becca turned nine and then within a week it came to my attention that I would need to pull her out of the Charter school all my children attend. It is a really long and angst filled story but suffice it to say that I decided that the Charter School was no longer the best choice for her. We are back to trying out Fiddlers starting next Tuesday. And my anxiety is ridiculous. I never thought I would choose to go back to Fiddlers. But here we are and I pray that I have made the right decision. Her brother and sister are remaining at the Charter school for the year. They seem to be progressing and doing well there.

Here is a few photos of us over the past month.

Pumpkin patch. We came home with 140 pounds worth of pumpkins. We are greedy about pumpkins.

We went with a few friends.

My niece Alexa. I got three new nieces this year. Here is one of them. Too bad she just moved to New Zealand. I held her as much as possible.

Bret, Jess and Cody. Now happily settled in New Zealand.

Jake is a little tired out after a few too many horse rides at the sibling reunion in Salt Lake My brother is such a good sport.

That's what you get for sticking your tongue out at me Nicole.

Oh look, she is cute. And so is her hubby and her youngest child Cami (my other new niece).

 A beautiful drive up Cottonwood Canyon

Becca and I see Tarzan at Tuacahn.

Becca turns 9 with some ghoulish treats and fun friends. Oh the day of baking that preceded her party was intense.

A witch and a really happy dead guy.

Forgot this one. Becca got to meet some of the cast of Tarzan. This is Kala.

And finally we watched lots of soccer and Tom and I are relieved it is over.

100 percent plus a little more

Some days are harder than others. Today was one of those days. It had its glorious moments like when Isaac won a new electric guitar from the drawing at the Orthodontists office or when I had lunch with my tween aged boy at one of my favorite places to eat (Pastry Pub) or when Isaac saw his uncle driving down the road and held up his newly acquired guitar to show his guitar loving uncle as we drove past. Then there was the moment at the end of a long exhausting day when Mom is plum tuckered out and Isaac starts throwing up non stop. Awesome.

There was the moment when Rebecca just played some good soccer that was great to watch and then there was the moment later when her sister fell backward in her chair after I had told her to stop jumping up and down on it. The great part was how I just let her sit there for a moment and someone else got up to help her up. I was so frustrated that she had fallen exactly as I said she would that I had an "I don't feel sorry for you moment."

There was the great moment with the bazillion eight year old achievement day girls and the exhausting glad it is over moment as I took half the brood home.

There was the brilliance of an aha moment in Alive! Utah marketing planning with my Dad and then the realization of the work that would incur.

There was dinner and breakfast and soccer and gas stations and 5 trips to the school today. I am pooped and I am praying no one is throwing up in the morning.

Cookbook giveaway on my food blog

I am cross promoting myself. I have this cool cookbook to giveaway. I recieved one from the company to review and one to giveaway. It is awesome for all those food storage buffs. It is a make your own mix cookbook and has everything from biscuit mix to onion soup mix. Then it gives you tons of recipes to use with each mix. I am so excited to use mine. Go enter the giveaway at http://pantryeats.blogspot.com/. I will ship it to the winner.

And while you are at it go visit Alive! Utah. Our September issue is up and it is amazing if I do say so myself. If you are not a facebook fan or a registered member I hope you sign up too.

We are also having an amazing, and I mean amazing giveaway, for the working gal or guy in Cedar City on our Deal Diva column.

Back to School

They are back in school and my days are both quiter and more crazy. The crazy starts at about 3 p.m and finishes itself out around 7 p.m. Everyday. Basically, I tell everyone don't ask me to do anything in these hours -- because I am booked solid. But the kids are are all happy to be back at school and heaven help me I am happy to have them back in school too.

Becca starts 4th grade.

Isaac starts 7th grade

Lia starts Kindergarten.

See all those collared shirts - that is the dress code at the kids' school and I hate it but I think we managed to find outfits that don't look like ugly uniforms.