4th of July pix

On Wednesday night, one of the churches in our little town had a Freedom Celebration that we went to. It's always one of our favorite things to do to celebrate Independence Day. They give out free hotdogs, popcorn, pop and icecream and put on a fantastic fireworks show. They also have a great band on stage singing terrific old and new Christian music along with jupiter jumps and free pony rides for the kids. What fun! This year we talked our friends Dan & Rene into coming and I think they enjoyed it as much as we did!Me and the kids. Brooklyn can never resist putting bunny ears behind Grant's head!My sweetie pie and me!My two little trouble makers (i.e. the loves of my life!) My bestest buddy Rene and me!Fallon(the little girl I babysit) and Brooklyn.

On Thursday night, we went to Grant's baseball team party to celebrate the end of the season (and the beginning of Fall Ball). Here is a pic of his whole team having burgers at the park.And one of my pretty girl swinging in the tire swing!On the "actual" 4th, we built a bonfire and roasted hotdogs and made S'mores. We did set off our little $9.99 family pack of fireworks and then we put up our tent in the back yard and slept in it (until 2:35 am when we all decided to go inside to our beds!)

This is a picture of the most amazing cookie I've ever made. It was such a perfect recipe that I typed it up and took a picture so I could share it with you all. See below for the recipe!

Jen’s BEST cookie EVER

(oatmeal walnut chocolate chunk)

Ingredients:

1 cup white flour

¾ cup wheat flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 ¼ c. packed brown sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened (not margarine)

¼ c. white granulated sugar

¼ c. Sugar in the Raw

2 eggs

2 Tbsp. milk

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 ½ c. oats

2 squares off of Chocolate Almond Bark, coarsely chopped

1 c. coarsely chopped walnuts (or pecans)

M&M’s for color (optional)

Directions:

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.

Beat butter and all 3 sugars in large mixing bowl until creamy. Beat in eggs, milk and vanilla. Gradually add in flour mixture one spoonful at a time. Stir in oats, chocolate chunks and most of the nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. Stick the last few nuts (and M&M’s if using them) on the tops of the cookies.

Bake in a preheated 375* oven for 11 or 12 minutes. (Remove from the oven as soon as you start to see browning around the bottom edges). Let stand for a couple of minutes on cookie sheet, then move to wire racks to cool completely. Wash off cookie sheet before using for the next batch.

Makes about 4 dozen, depending on the size of each cookie.

Excess information that you probably don’t need but here it is anyway:

~I preferred the cookies from my Pampered Chef stone rather than the metal cookie sheet.

~I used a food chopper (that I normally use to chop nuts or onions, peppers, etc.) to chop up the almond bark. I suppose you could use chocolate chips just as well…but I didn’t have any. (Some pieces were tiny little chips and some were large-ish chunks.) This turned out SO good, that I will just do it like this from now on.

~You don’t HAVE to use any wheat flour—you could do it all with white flour. I just try to make it a teensy bit healthier by doing it this way.

~You don’t HAVE to use the “Sugar in the Raw” either…you can use just brown sugar and white sugar if you want. I just like the “Sugar in the Raw” to give it an extra little crispy crunch.

~I actually used one bag of regular M&M’s (for the kids) and one back of Peanut M&M’s (for the adults).