Oatmeal Breakfast Bars

Ingredients

1.5 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup chopped walnuts [or any nuts you like]

1/2 cup dried fruit (any you like – raisins, cranberries, apples)

1/4 cup seeds (any you like – sunflower, pumpkin, flax)

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp kosher salt

1.25 cups skim milk

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

Method:Preheat oven to 350*

Mix dry ingredients.

Mix wet ingredients.

Pour wet into dry. Stir to combine.

Pour into a 9×9 baking dish either coated in cooking spray or lined with parchment.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Cut into 9 squares.

Makes 9 servings .

Each bar is appx. 170 calories, 3 grams fiber and 5 grams protein. [Cut into 12 squares reduces calories to about 125 calories per square]

While delicious, the only sweetness in these comes from the dried fruit. Add in 1/4 – 1/2 cup brown sugar if you like.

The variations are endless: cranberries, coconut, all kinds of dried fruit, nuts, etc.

We Love Our Missionaries #2

The Elders were at our house again this past week for dinner. After teaching a discussion to a friend of ours, the missionaries vanished. Then we found them in the kitchen. No they weren't eating our food. They were doing the dishes. How awesome is that.

I woke up one morning with the image of eating breakfast as a small child in my head. I'm not sure if I dremt about it that night or if the smell of my own breakfast being made downstairs simply awakened it. The image wasnt quite clear, but by the end of that day, I managed to pull my "Four Year Old Lizzy" files out from the deepest corner of my mind. I remembered eating oatmeal with mini eggs inside that turned into Dinasaurs.

Over the course of several months, I willingly offered to go with my mom to buy the groceries. I would search the store shelves, determined to find my dinasure oatmeal. (I went on many grocery trips this past year.)

Have you ever heard the saying "You find what you're looking for when you stop looking for it"? Well, that's exactly what happened to me. I was picking up some milk form Albertson's and right as I turned around my eye caught a long lost friend. My Dino Eggs Oatmeal!!!

I baught a box for myself. ;)

Girl's Camp 2010

It was ridiculously HOTT at camp this year. Me and my gals are cooling off in the stream.

On one of the days we learned how to do "food art".

I got pretty bored of making flowers out of carrots.... so I made a sculpture of ME in a canoe.

The youth leaders had a special night without our girls.

Tree Hugger.... gotta love nature!!!

Waiting for the bus.

Nerd, and proud of it!

I was standing on a bench behind the stage at camp. I got really excited to sing a song, so I ran and jumped off the bench. But was the landing pretty? I think not. I fell into a pile of logs. I began laughing and crying at the same time. I was behind a divider, so the crowd of campers couldn't see what was happening to me. As I lay dying on the ground, the camp nurses ran to my rescue.

All that's left now is a great big scar and a dramatic horror story. The pain was worth it.... good times.

Picnic at Hagg Lake

My family had a picnic at Hagg Lake with the wonderful Preece family today. The weather was so nice and the lake was gorgeous. I love how Oregon is infested with green trees.

After cooking hot dogs on the grill, Jen spotted four dear up in the field across the street. J* wanted to see if his Frisbee skills were good enough to hit a dear. I bet him the last cupcake if he could do it.

Throw #one...miss, but close. Throw #two...miss. After the second throw, the dear ran off....with the Frisbee. Looks like the Preece family is going to be buying a new Frisbee soon.

I had a great time at the lake with some of my best friends. I cant wait to do it again.

(Gotta get my Zen time in.)

Portland Rescue Mission

This year I joined my school's Interact Club. For those of you who don't know, this club is basically a service club. One of the events that I just recently went to was the Portland Rescue Mission. Katie and I were the only ones there, but we had a blast.

(Sorry about the picture quality. The lighting was terrible, and I didn't bring my regular camera.)

All of the tubes that you see behind Katie are full of donated clothing, that has been sorted by volunteers, such as Interact Club members.

The guy in the back is my dad. He came to help out. The boxes you see are full of gently used or new shoes. Nike donates their sample shoes to the Portland Rescue Mission too, so there are some quality shoes.

Katie has a thing for cows lately. As we were sorting the shoes into boxes, she found a cow slipper. You don't even know how excited she was.

This is how the donations start out. In that pile there are shoes, shirts, pants, scarves, etc. Then volunteers sort everything into male/female, shorts/jeans, dress shoe/athletic shoe... Because of the amount of donations that PRM receives, they only take the best of the best. We are told to keep only the things that we would actually wear ourselves. The rest of the clothing is shared with other homeless organizations in Portland.

There is a massive amount of food that has been donated my Winco. They donate anything that has been sliced with a box knife. Therefore, PRM has crates full of good food where only one of the hundred packages is cut open.

There are poster boards with homeless people on them around the entire warehouse. The first time I volunteered at PRM, I would turn the corner and jump when I saw a fake person. But now that it was my second time, i got to see Katie jump.

Just a little fun with the barrels.

This guy works at the PRM warehouse. My mind is at a blank and I forgot his name, but he's a pretty fun guy.

"Fall For You"

Once again, LHS Leadership puts together a great dance. Ever since last Homecoming's success, I was determined to never miss a dance after that. Up until 30 minutes before the dance, I had planned on not going. Not because I didn't want to, but because I wasn't too excited about the price. I mean, seriously... 15 bucks for a school dance. I wasn't about to be robbed. After my friends reminded me about how much fun I had at the last dance, I still wouldn't budge. However, I couldn't let my friends go to the dance without taking some pictures. So I offered up my services for the night.

It was 10 minutes before I was about to drive over for pictures, and I think I might as well see if Sarah has any dresses that I can use, just in case I have to go for Yearbook. So I find a dress and I eventually decide to attend the dance...and I got Sarah to come too, BONUS!

Before going to the dance, a group of my friends and I went to Chang's Mongolian Grill. One word yum. It turned out to be a great night, and I thank Sarah for having so many dresses in her closet for me to choose from.

Fun with Friends

A small group of my friends all had their birthdays around the same time, so they planned to have a birthday party during lunch. Thanks to KaitlynO. we would have a delicious ice cream cake to eat. The day before we planned out all of the details. One minor detail was who would be assigned to bring the lighter. I took the assignment.

The next morning I put the lighter in my pocket and went off the school. I arrived and was hanging out in the library when news was brought to my attention.

In the middle of the library, next to a teacher I openly say "Hey Katie, I brought the lighter for the candles..." Katie hushes me with wide eyes and says "Lizzy be quiet. If security sees you with that you're in trouble." It turns out the school rules are that no students are to have lighters on campus. (That explained why everyone stood around silent when deciding who would bring the lighter.) But what is a birthday cake without candles...burning candles.

Once again I thought the rules didn't apply to me. I mean, I'm The Lizzy Fotheringham. Shouldn't that count for something? Despite my thought process, I decide it would be best if I put the lighter deep in my backpack for the rest of the day.

The little party we had during lunch turned out great...and the cake was amazing.

I thought it would be a good idea to take a picture with Katie holding the lighter, because if a fire just happened to start I would have some evidence proving I was innocent ;)

That weekend we stayed up pretty late and, as you can see, when Sarah gets tired she ties scarves around my head to make a turban...It was cold so I had no exception to the added warmth.

We also had to set up the tree. Yes, I said "setup"...fake tree. The year we had a beetle come out of our tree was the year we stopped cutting down out own Christmas trees.

I went caroling with some friends. I'm not much of a singer so I feel sorry for the people I sang to.

Thanksgiving

This year's Thanksgiving was a special one. If I was to describe it with a quote I would say "There is always a first for everything."

I had the opportunity to make the turkey this year....yeah, I'm still surprised my parents trusted me to do it. I was excited up until my dad informed me that I had to pull out the "extras" from the turkeys back side...if you know what I mean.

Bath Time!!!

The turkey was definitely made with love ;)

Spencer and Sarah decided to make a movie for Thanksgiving. Whenever Spencer has a camera and it's a holiday we tend to make movies....some of which have made it on to Facebook. (My first day of High School Freshman year I had teachers saying "Hey your the one in Spencer's movie." Not fun!)

Here's Spencer showing Sarah how to look mad.

I will always remember this Thanksgiving. Not because it was so fun or because for the first time I had no homework over break. But because my dad had our family host a dinner at a homeless shelter. At first I was a little nervous, I had never done this kind of thing before and I didn't know what to expect. The dinner turned out great. The amazing thing about the whole experience was that if the family hadn't told me that they were homeless, I would not have been able to tell that they were. It was truly an eye opening moment for me. Just because someone is homeless it doesn't mean they are worthless. If you think about it, Jesus was born homeless yet he has made the biggest and greatest impact on our lives.

When it came time to cut the turkey I insisted to do it myself. Yeah, that didn't turn out so good. I cut one piece and was frustrated with the difficulty of the seemingly easy task. I gladly passed the task over to my dad.

This year was great!