Old Fashioned Maple Harvest Oatmeal

This recipe is something that I came up with last fall when the mornings were chilly and I thought we needed a little comfort food for breakfast...We love it and I hope you do too.

2 C Water
1 1/2 C Milk
1 Tsp Salt
2 C Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
1/4 C Dried Cranberries
1/4 C Pecans
1/4 C Walnuts
1 Tbsp Cinnamon
1/4 C Maple Syrup
1/4 C Brown Sugar

Combine water and milk and salt in large sauce pan bring just to boil stir in oats and cook for 3 min. then reduce heat to medium and add cranberries,pecans,walnuts and cinnamon and cook another 3 minutes stirring occasionally. Divide oatmeal into 4 bowls and top each with maple syrup and brown sugar. Yummy breakfast for a chilly Fall morning.

Two days ago the girls and I spent the day trying to weed and thin out the garden...or in other words we blazed a trail thru the jungle that used to be our garden...Em took all of these pics... 

Morning Glories and Purple Cone Flowers... 

The look of "where do we begin"...the weeds have taken over and it barely resembles a garden... 

Glads... 

Taken by my child... Em has graduated from the "Kruze Photograghy Class" this course is taught by my guy...who is forever striving for the best possible "Ass shot"...and that would be my big butt in the direct center of this pic...  

Over worked preteen...

So here is a conversation I had this morning with Em...
"Mom can I have a poptart?"
"Sure"
"Well I want it toasted..."
"So toast it."
"Well the toaster is in the drawer...its not on the counter..."
"So get it out"
"Well a person shouldn't have to work just to eat a poptart...can you get it?"
"Grounded!!"

Sandhills at sundown... 

Sunset over the field and woods behind our house... 

Sunset behind the Norway Pines in our backyard... 

Thought for the Day...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but rather by the number of moments that take our breath away...

(Author Unknown)

Sar... 

Em... 

Shiny Happy People...

Two days ago some really good friends of mine came for a surprize visit. (Thank God I had just finished running thru the house like a mad woman trying to clean everything) Anyway they were on a little road trip that brought them close to the old dirt road so they decided to drop in...I was happy to see them!! Very friendly people easy to talk to and they both have this wonderful smile that perpetually lights up their faces and every corner of every room they choose to walk into! They also have an 18 month old daughter that has their shiny happy people gene!! She even smiles while in the extreme center of a major temper tantrum it is truly astonishing to see !! You would not know it to look at them but they have gone thru some very rough times in the past two years...shortly after they found out they were about to become parents they also found out that Jon had cancer. So during a time that should have been exciting and wonderful they had to endure cancer treatment and uncertainty . Its amazing how some people can go thru something so black and still have the energy to smile and go on as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening to them. Its scary to see how cancer is touching so many people that I know, why do bad things have to happen to good people. Is it a test of faith? A fluke? Just fate? All that I do know is that it is amazing to see how at the very height of fear people can just reach deep inside themselves and grab the strength to keep on shining....

Just before the garden gate... 

Hold strong little vine... 

Thought for the Day...

May your walls know joy, May every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility...

(MaryAnne Radmacher~Hersey)

My Noise Makers...

Its sad that summer is almost over and school is starting soon. I love fall as a season I love the cooler days that let you wear sweaters that have been packed away all summer and I love the color change of the leaves and the pumpkins and apple pie and the golden fields of dry corn stalks but I always start to feel really wistful when the nights get colder and the days shorter, I always feel like there is more that I should have done...should have taken the girls to the beach more...should have spent more time in the garden...should have planned more family things. I usually stop feeling this way right around the time the first bunch of leaves start to change... funny how a small thing like the sun shining through orange and red and yellow can completely turn your mood around .I think the woods even smell different in the fall, when I walk through the woods behind our house in the spring everything smells damp and there is such a strong scent of soil and earth... it smells new. In the fall the woods smell warm and dry and fresh. Maybe I'm strange ...but that would be the way my senses take it in. Yesterday me and my girls spent the day doing something that we have to do every fall...school shopping...I have very mixed feelings about this particular fall event. For the most part I look forward to it and even enjoy watching them pick out their new backpacks and folders and lunch boxes but deep down I feel a little sad at the thought of them starting school and leaving the house every morning and not returning until the day is almost completely over. I know that this is probably not something that most parents are feeling right now in fact most parents are probably counting down the days... minutes and seconds until the big yellow bringer of silence parks at the end of their driveway and picks up the screaming...fighting noise makers and hauls them off to school. And I would be a big fat nasty liar if I didn't admit that there are days when I wish I could just stuff my two in the truck and drag their little butts off to the the class room...like "I" care that the teacher needs a summer vacation!! There "are" days that they are fighting and screaming and driving me completely insane with the "I'm bored"and "there's nothing to do". But there are also the days that we just spend all day together and its perfect and fun and there is constant noise and chatter in the house and life is great. Silence is golden but chatter is fleeting and I would rather have a million days of my home filled with giggles and screaming and chattering... there will come a day not so far away when the walls of this house will not echo their voices.. the girls will have their own lives...until that day I think I will cherish the "Noise".....

The perfect summer day...screaming...giggling....Cherry Koolaid...popcicles...and Sar takin control of the sprinkler and torturing her big sister and her best friend...  

Sar inflicting "Chinese Water Torture" on Em and Court...  

Break from Flight... 

Dragonfly sunning himself on our screen... 

Recently during a road trip we accidently found a little Amish community...I love anything and everything Amish...especially their children I could just squeeze those cute little Amish cheeks under those cute little Amish bonnets and hats they are possitively the most adorable munchkins...which is why I was trying to take a picture of a buggy full of Amish cuties when we were driving past them...their Amish father was not amused and I think he may had even been "angry"!! In my quest for the perfect picture...I managed to anger a man that belongs to a community of people that are virtually unangry~able...HMMM...not one of my better ideas..and besides I didn't even get a good shot!!  

Amish farm peeking out from the woods...or maybe I was peeking in... 

Can you tell I'm obsessed with the Amish thing?  

Amish hay stacks..Love em' they are just plain gorgeous!! 

I absolutely love how the Amish work their fields..its more like art then work..(I'm pretty sure they would not agree) 

Amish farm...love those barns... 

Em huggin' Houdini(he has recently decided Piper's ear looks like a great big juicy carrot so we had to separate them...naughty boy!!)... 

Bun's on the run....this is Piper in his little walking vest the Bun's love to run around the yard with the girls runnin' behind them tryin' to keep up...Piper and Houdini have ton's of fun takin' the "girls for a walk"....When your walkin' Flemish Giants the Giants are in charge!!  

Houdini... Fat guy in a little coat...(anyone that "gets" this reference is my kinda person!!)