holidays

holidays

Posted by Brit

It's been a great season so far.  Here's a picture wrap-up of the last couple of weeks.  These are mostly fam pictures, but I did get to spend a great amount of time with Ashley and several other friends while they were home for the holidays.  It had been a long time since many of us had been all in the same room together.  The roads were a bit too icy here on New Year's Eve... so rather than driving to Wichita for a Carrie Nation and Calamity Cubes show I hung at home with Brandon.  We had an awesome time though.  I got great phone calls and texts from my friends Ashley and Tia.  Good night.

Went to Denver.

Horse Picture for Tia taken on Colorado Highway 94 East.  Nothing out there but old ranches and a beaten land.

 

Hosted a birthday poker.

Saw my favorites, Carrie Nation and the Speakeasy for the End of The World Party.  "We survived."

Hosted a Christmas morning breakfast.  The fam minus mom.  (Sorry mom the pics of you turned out blurry, or we were talking during them.)

I got little man to take a picture... he's great at it!

Grandma gets Ron a lap top for Christmas!

Aunt Kathy gets Bailey's.  Little did she know the conversation would get political... and she would need it!

Mom gets a perfect Christmas treat.

Glass blown by my cousin TJ.

 

Siblings.

Cozy

Cozy

Posted by Brit

We just got our first snow this week. I don't care for it at all. Cold, dreary. Our home, though, is cozy. It's the little things.

Toasted Coconut Heath Bar Cookies

Toasted Coconut Heath Bar Cookies

Posted by Brit

So... I pretty much only post recipes on here so I can reference when I want to make to them again.  I do hope some of you try them.  I'm not the best blogger so I'm not sure if I really "sell" them or photograph them well.

Well here goes the latest recipe:

Toasted Coconut Heath Bar Cookies

• 1 cup softened butter
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups golden brown sugar (packed)
• 2 tsps vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
• 8 ozs Heath Bar pieces (You can crush up the candy bars or buy 1 bag Heath bits from the baking sections)
• 1 1/4 cups shredded coconut (Toast 1/2 a cup and leave the other 3/4 cup plain)

Set oven to 350 degrees.  Spread 1/2 cup of the coconut on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for 5 minutes and check once a minute after than until mostly golden brown.  You will have a few pieces that are still white and a few on the edges that a little past golden brown.

Increase oven temperature to 375.

Cream butter and brown sugar.  Mix in eggs and vanilla extract.  In a separate bowl mix together flour, baking soda and salt.  Slowly combine the two then add both the toasted and untoasted coconut and the Heath bits.  Remove mixture from mixer (or stop using the hand mixer) at this point and mix in the oatmeal by hand.  The dough will be a bit hard to mix at this point.  I actually used my hands and almost kneaded it like bread.

Put parchment paper on your cookie sheet and make rounded tablespoon sized mounds about 1 1/2 inches apart.  Bake for 7 - 10 minutes until golden and leave on cookie sheet for about 1 minute after baking and then move to cooling rack.  If you over cook them (like I did my first batch) skip the whole leave them on the sheet for a minute thing.  Do pick up the parchment paper and just move them all over at once.

Should make about 4 dozen give or take.

Adapted from here. 

So life is currently good and busy.  Work is hectic this time of year with different auditors and regulators in the bank!  

I got to spend this weekend with Tia and get to spend some time next weekend with Ashley.

 

Baby Blue

Baby Blue

Posted by Brit

Tia shared this with me last night.