No Bake Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Yummies!

So one thing that I hate about the holidays is all the goodies. You heard me right. I am not a sweets person. (Or a sweet person, but that's another issue...) I enjoy baking from time to time and taking people treats. And don't get me wrong, it's fun to get treats from friends as well. However, I must be honest and say that many of our holiday treats end up in the trash. I don't let my kids have 3 cookies a day and they don't really tempt me. So they sit on my counter for days, sometimes up to a week, before they get stale or moldy and I throw them away. I took a bunch to work last week and my coworkers helped me polish off a good deal of chocolaty goodness. Just the other day, I half filled my trash with old stuff and put a few items in small containers for my kids. The containers are still full on my counter. I much prefer the chips and dip, cheese and crackers, biscuits and gravy, bread and rolls parts of the holiday season. :) With that being said, Christmas night after my family all went home, I had the munchies and guess what, I wanted something sweet. NEVER happens to me! Justin was laughing cause we didn't have anything I wanted. The cookies in the containers were sugar cookies and peanut butter cookies. I wanted chocolate candy. So unless I resorted to eating the dry brownie mix from the box like my sister does, (seriously, it's weird. Her hubby hides the brownie mixes from her) I needed a fix. Instead, Justin made me a sandwich and I went to bed. But the craving hit me again last night. I didn't want to bake and kids were in bed so I couldn't run to the dollar store and grab a bag of Dove Dark Chocolate (best ever). So I pulled out my cookbooks and got on Pinterest looking for a No Bake recipe that sounded good. Problem is, I didn't want peanut butter and most no bakes call for peanut butter. (I'm not big on peanut butter deserts. I know, I'm weird like that.) I did find a few that were mostly oats and chocolate chips, perfect! That's what I wanted. But they all had some other weird ingredient that I didn't have. Like some health food something I never heard of. Or wheat germ or oat bran, which I like, but don't have any at the moment. So after an hour of pondering and looking, I decided to make up my own. They turned out great and I had 4 or 5 before bed. Then Justin admitted he had like 6 when he got home and wanted to know what I put in them cause they were "perfect". :)

No Bake Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Yummies!
1/4 c. milk
1/2 stick of butter
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. quick oats
1/2 c. chocolate chips

Bring milk, butter and sugar to a boil and boil about 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Add oats and mix well. If you don't want your chocolate chips to melt, you need to wait for your oat mixture to cool before adding them. I put mine in the fridge for a little while, but I was impatient and was fine with the melted chocolate. :) Drop by spoon fulls onto wax paper, or other non-stick surface. Cool, and enjoy!
I actually enjoyed a few before cooling, who doesn't like cookie dough?! And there's no eggs so you can eat all you want! I considered just eating it warm with a spoon, but I would have eaten the whole thing. At least with the balls, I can eat a few and put the rest away for later. :)
This makes a small batch. Good for me since I didn't want to end up throwing half of them away later. It made about 28 small balls. The smallest cookie scoop I have, I think it's a little smaller than a tablespoon. So there ya go! Super easy, no bake oatmeal chocolate chip with every day ingredients. This may be a new favorite in my house...

12 Days of Christmas

So I wanted to make this post a long time ago and thought about it many times. I decided to wait for a few reasons. First, it's Christmas and busy and although I am still thinking about my blog and want to keep it going, there are more important things. I didn't want to stress myself out any more than necessary. Second, I did this project as a Secret Santa, 12 Days of Christmas thing. I'm fairly positive that no one who reads this blog will communicate with the receiver, but just in case, I figured I wait until it was all done. Although, I never did reveal myself, so if anyone you know says anything about getting these ornaments, just smile and nod. :)

 As I was thinking of something to do for my 12 Days project, I wanted it to be something along the lines of a Christ centered Christmas. There are plenty of things that take us away from it, so I wanted something simple to remind this person of the true reason for the season. I originally got this idea from a Pinterest post that led me here http://rmhouseofnoise.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-reason-for-season-part-2.html. I liked the idea and figured it was fairly easy and in-expensive. I got red glass ornaments from Big Lots and the Dollar Tree. I used different sizes. Next, I got out my scriptures and got online and found about 200 different names for Christ and picked my favorites. Then, I borrowed my sister's Cricut and acquired some vinyl and presto! It took me awhile to get the pressure and cutting depth just right so the vinyl transferred easily to the ornament. I was going to try different fonts and stuff, but decided to keep it simple. Plus, Justin said he liked it the way it was, so I trusted him. I'm sure this input was his way of keeping me from getting out of hand. :)

 After I finished making the ornaments, I starting thinking I needed something else. I got the idea to add scriptures with the various Christ names. I used a variety of references from the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and even the Pearl of Great Price. I printed them on little cards and placed the ornament with the corresponding scripture reference in a little gift bag and left a different one on their doorstep each day.

I had fun putting this together. It was nice to get out my scripture and use the Topical Guide and Index to find scriptures I liked for the different names of Christ. I don't think I've used these tools in awhile. With electronic scriptures in our technology age, it was fun to get back to basics. :) I had a few ornaments left over so I made a bunch of Jesus Christ ornaments and gave them to some of my family members.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and took some time to remember the reason for this beautiful holiday. I am thankful for Jesus Christ and his sacrifice that allows me to better myself and work towards my eternal goal to be with my family forever. Merry Christmas!