As Long Ago Promised......

My recipe for my homemade granola bars! The original idea was from Rachel Ray, but I've tweaked the recipe and everyone loves them. I am constantly getting requests for the recipe and so I'm now finally posting! If you have questions, ask! And ENJOY!!!

Alicia's Homemade Granola Bars

2 Cups rolled oats
1 Cup Honey Nut Chex
1 Cup Rice Chex
1 Cup Corn Chex
1 Cup dried fruit bits (I use a 7 fruit blend from Sam's Club)
1/2 Cup white chocolate chips

Add the above ingredients to a large bowl and mix up. Then in a sauce pan over medium-high heat add the following:

1 stick butter/margarine
1/3 cup Honey (if you spray your measuring cup with pam first then the honey comes right out)
1 Cup brown sugar

Stir mixture and continue cooking until it starts bubbling. Then continue stirring and cooking for about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and pour over mixture in large bowl. Stir to completely cover mixture. Spread into a 9 x 13 greased pan and gently push down into pan. Put pan into fridge to cool until set. Cut into squares and enjoy! Store in air tight container.

I always have little pieces that have fallen off into the container. I save them and have them for breakfast with some milk, like granola.

August?!

It's August already!? It feels like summer just started and yet on the other hand I am really ready for the boys to go back to school. The days of sleeping in will come to an end and we will have to get back on a routine. No more staying up late and watching cartoons till noon. I'll be glad for the boys to get back to seeing friends, without having them come to our house. I have a hard time planning play dates with my fibro and never knowing when a good/bad day will come. No more trying to decide what to have for lunch! School lunch makes my life easier!! The boys are excited for their new teachers and to be 3rd and 4th graders! It will be a little weird for Kaleb and I not be going back to school as well, but will be ooohhh soooo nice!!! And maybe with the boys back in school I'll get my turn on the desktop computer that has all the pictures on it and I can blog about all the fun things we did this summer!!!

Waaaay Toooooo Looooonnnngggggg!

Sorry it has been soooo long since I last posted about my fibromyalgia study. I am still plugging along and some days are still better than others. We had graduation and a cello concert and family came and we rearranged our little apartment and lots of other stuff that has kept me from posting. Things have slowed down a little bit since we got graduation over with.

Last Thursday the Dr took x-rays with my weights on to determine what needed to be changed and to monitor the progress. Unfortunately he couldn't show me the x-rays because it is for a medical study and showing the patients the x-rays could positively/negatively affect the study through pschological lines. But I will get to see all of my x-rays as soon as the study is over in the first week of July. So my progress is going good. Of course I do not have the perfect curviture in my spine yet, but there is a change. The Dr said that if you started with ligament damage and a negative curve that it would take longer to achieve the desired results and I am so lucky that I have 2 torn ligaments and a negative curve. With the progress that I made I do get to change my weights! I no longer have to wear 8 pounds of weight around my waist, but I do have 1 extra pound on the right side of my head. So I lost 7 pounds of weights, which makes my bag a lot easier to carry!!

So I'll just keep plugging along, doing my exercises. I'm tired and I do still hurt, but it is different pain. And really whose body wouldn't hurt if they were trying to change the position it has been in for years! The study will end the beginning of July, but the Dr has said that he will continue to treat us if we are not at the point he wants us to be at, for free. Also, he has contacts with a Dr that can cure food sensitivities and the treatment is covered under most insurances with chiropractic coverage....so if Kaleb gets the contract position with benefits I will be visting this Dr very soon! Wish us luck! We could really use some good health insurance!

Crazy Hair Day

Last week was a CRAZY week and right in the middle of it all the boys had Crazy Hair Day at school. So I gelled and sprayed and tadaaaa........

It's Almost Time!!!

Graduation is only 3 weeks away!! We are sooooooooo super excited to be done!!! (Really I am already done and my diploma is hanging on the way in a super cool frame that my in-laws gave me, but I haven't done the whole walking thing yet.) So we decided to order announcements that had both of our names on there, since we get to walk together. And we decided to have a Graduation Lunch. And of course we needed to take a picture to include with that and our awesome upstairs photographer neighbor even agreed to take some one evening for us.
The only problem is that the weather has been so up and down that we couldn't really schedule a day. So one day it was kinda warm and not cloudy, so as soon as Kaleb got home from work I made him, yes I made him, shower and change so we could go take pictures. One of the electives in Cub Scouts is photography, so I thought Maxwell could try taking some pictures and he did pretty good for his first photo shoot. With digital pics we could take them and look and teach him how to make them better and always just erase the ones that didn't work. And if all else failed we could use the little tripod and the timer.


In front of Old Main...an okay picture but we were squinting a little and I don't really like the open door in the background.


A fun spot to take pictures, but the lighting just wasn't right and neither were the looks on our faces!!!

Jensen wanted a picture with Mommy! The sun was just right in my eyes, hence the wonderful look on my face.

This is Old Main, a famous old building on the USU campus. At night the A's on the top are lit with white lights. Then when the Aggies win a game they turn on blue lights!

This was a pretty good picture, just the sun was in our eyes and made it hard to get good facial expressions!!

Tradition on campus is that you aren't a "True Aggie" until you've kissed another "true aggie" on top of the A on the night of a full-moon. However, since we were already married when we started going to USU we decided we really didn't want to kiss some stranger on top of the A. So we decided this worked for us and we are "True Aggies". We've put enough time and money into this that I think we get to decide that!

However, the boys are both at the age that they said "EWWWWW!" when we kissed!

Since we were all there we tried a family picture on the A. I think we will go back another day when the light is a little better and it is a little warmer and see if we can't get a better picture.

The winning picture! We ended up using the tripod and the camera. The boys got tired of taking pictures and it was getting cold.

Sorry if you didn't get an announcement in the mail, being poor college students we could only afford so many. Here is a scanned in one. If you are in the area that day we would love for you to come to the lunch!!! (Let me know and I will send you the info, cause I didn't want to post it all on our blog.)

Baby Animal Days

Every year we have wanted to go to Baby Animal Days at the American West Heritage Center. Every year it seems to be yucky weather on those days, but this year is wasn't too bad and the boys were on spring break so we went. We bought a family pass, good for a year, so we can go all summer. Our next trip is planned for this Saturday and the boys want to ride the ponnies and the train. Hopefully the weather will be good!

We started out at the billy goats.


Then we saw a calf and some piglets.

Went on a treasure hunt where they had to read the signs and then answer questions about the history of Cache Valley.


Another calf and a lamb. All of the volunteers either had on a black shirt or were dressed in pioneer time clothing.

A bunny and then we went to stand in line to see the baby bears.

The bear cubs were from Yellowstone Bear World and had been born in January. There were three cubs and three workers from Bear World. We didn't get to touch the cubs, but we were pretty close and it was still pretty cool to see them.


Jensen was telling me where he wanted to go next and when I turned back around to find Maxwell I saw him holding a baby lamb. So Jensen hurried in to the pen also.


Then Maxwell handed the lamb to Jensen and I really wasn't sure he would be able to hold it.

But he did and it's almost as big as him!


As we were leaving the boys saw the old farming equipment and insisted on having pictures taken up on them.


Maxwell enjoyed it so much that he wanted to volunteer there!

Hopefully the trees will start to get some leaves really soon. We are all ready for spring here!

Fibromyalgia Study - week 17 & 18

Yes, I missed last week. It was the boys spring break and we tried to do as much as I could. We also went to Salt Lake on Saturday and Sunday so I didn't get a post up. But I am just plugging along. I do my exercises and I get very tired, but I just keep going. I have noticed the hump at the top of my back is getting smaller, YEAH!! Now I'll post some funner stuff, pictures from the boys spring break!