SOCIAL MEDIA

Oatmeal Brownie Milky Way Bars

6.28.2011
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These perhaps may be the most beautiful, amazingly rich, tasty bars I have ever tasted in my life!  I saw the recipe here and thought that I just had to give it a try for myself...melting Milky Way candy bars in a bar? Too intriguing of an idea to pass up.  These bars are delicious and the hardest part about making them is opening up all the individually wrapped caramel candies!  Easy peasy!

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Enjoy!

(I'm copying the recipe here since I can't seem to link to the individual post itself on iambaker.net.  I know I'll be wanting to make this in the future!).

Oatmeal Milky Way Brownie Bars
2 cups Old Fashioned Oats
2 cups Flour
1 cup packed Light Brown Sugar
2 1/2 sticks room temp. Butter
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt (I used Kosher)
2 cups boxed Brownie Mix
1/3 cup Canola Oil
1 egg
1 bag (11 oz.) Kraft Caramel Bits
1/2 cup Heavy Cream
2 Milky Way Bars 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium sauce pan, place two Milky Way bars, entire bag of caramels, and half cup of heavy cream.  Let simmer over medium to medium low heat until fully melted.  Remove from heat and let cool approximately ten minutes.
In a large bowl combine oats, flour, baking soda, salt, brown sugar, and butter.  Either use a fork to incorporate or just use hands to combine.  Its ok if there are some chunks of butter, you are looking for no chunk bigger then a pea though.
Add in two cups of brownie mix, egg, and oil.  Stir until just combined.
Using a prepared 9x13 baking dish, spread half of the oat mixture into dish and press firmly to flatten.
Pour the melted Milky Way over the oat mixture.  Make sure to get all the way to the corners.
Top with remaining oat mixture.
Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

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fairy garden princess birthday party

6.26.2011
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We had to reschedule once due to rain but thankfully yesterday was a beautiful day for a fair princess garden party.  We had so much fun and while it was a bit of work, it was totally worth it to see the smiles on Zoey and her friends faces.

Here are the fun details...I picked up a cool handmade banner from an Etsy shop and I love that I'll be able to re-use it for other things since it has chalkboard painted fabric.  Brilliant!

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This was the table for the favors which consisted of pink bubble wands, fairy princess comb crowns, fairy wings, some sparkles for the girls faces and some fairy dust spray (glitter body spray).  The goodie bags were actually pink fabric bags that I picked up at the dollar store and I filled them with a butterfly bracelet that you decorate with puffy stickers, a friendship necklace, a little rake and garden shovel, and a butterfly notebook.

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Here was our craft table to decorate wooden letters for each of the girls.  I adhered sparkly pink paper to the wooden letters and let the girls decorate them with sparkly flower stickers and butterflies.

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This was our planting station where the girls planted a pink flower in a mason jar to take home.  I spray painted the shovels pink.  :)  I also made little planter sticks with the first letter of each girls name  so everyone would know which one was theirs.

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Here was our little candy station.  The yellow bags were 25 cents and I decorated them with doilies I had picked up at the dollar store.  I happened to have the pink chipboard letters in my scrapbook stash.

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Zoey invited just five little girls to her party this year.  When her guests started to arrive we gave them their wings, crowns and put sparkles on their faces as well as dusted them with fairy dust.  They all blew up some balloons which seemed to help break the ice a bit and get everyone warmed up for the party.

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Our first project was planting our flowers in the mason jars.  Super cute to see all the little girls busy planting.

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Next we decorated our wooden letters.  I had found the letters at a department store and it was a last minute idea...I'm glad I picked them up because it was a fun and easy project.

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We had a fun game next...this was by far the hit of the party.  I found it online and it's called the cocoon game.  We talked about the process of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly and then had the girls create cocoons of their own by wrapping up their friends.  It was hilarious to watch and every single one of them wanted a turn at it.  It was fun for the ones getting wrapped up as well as for the ones wrapping.

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There was so much giggling during this game...it was great!

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After our game it was time for our fairy luncheon...making fizzy bubbles with the strawberry soda was a wee bit mesmerizing for some and actually led to a wardrobe mishap later, but you'll have that!

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Then it was time to open gifts...

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Cupcakes were up next...along with a dress change for Zoey because there was the incident of strawberry soda ending up in her lap.

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After cupcakes we had a game of Fairy, Fairy, Princess (also known as Duck, Duck, Goose).

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And then a bit of "shopping" at the candy bar...

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and playing with their bubble wands.

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Then I put on some teeny bop music for some dancing.

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After this it was free-time to do whatever you chose...some girls played with sidewalk chalk.

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Or played in the tee-pee.

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After things wore down a bit I read them the book Fairy Houses and then they built some fairy houses of their own in the yard.

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I had the idea to put up a pink sheet (found one at the thrift shop for 75 cents) to create a little photo booth.  I wish I would have put a bit more thought into where I had set it up as the sun was shining on some of the girls and not on others so the photos weren't the best...but this one was a favorite.

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And this one makes me smile.

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All in all it was a splendid way to spend your birthday with a few special friends.  Hearing Zoey proclaim that it was "the BEST day ever!" did my heart good as well.

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Happy Birthday Zoey!  I love you so much!

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