Yummy Power Bars!!!

Hello gang!

Sorry I haven't been on here now for TWO whole months. I cannot believe how much has happened since I last wrote! We celebrated our sixth anniversary and our birthdays with a great long weekend getaway to Ro_cky Mou_ntain Nat_ional Pa_rk and did lots of hiking and enjoying God's creation. It was amazing! Then we had a big birthday party for both kids and that was a lot of fun. And now, June is all over! Wowsers. I will try to post some pics sometime, but in the meantime, I'm getting ready to go sai_ling with my sweet man and some friends. It should be a good time!

SO, I'll leave you with this...the neatest recipe that I've used in a long time! My friend KN from MO_PS put this recipe in our coo_kbo_ok that we put out a few years ago, and it is AMAZING!!!

Ultimate Power Bar

Ingredients:

3.5 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
3/4 cup raisins
2/3 cup raw sunflower seeds (I had salted ones because my store didn't have raw)
1/2 cup toasted sesame seeds (I didn't have sesame, so I added more sunflower)
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup oat bran
3 tablespoons flax seeds (you need to grind them up in order to get the benefit of the oils inside...and you can use flax seed meal/purchased ground flax seeds if you don't have the whole seeds - that's what I used and it worked really well)
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt (or you could omit this if you have salted sunflower seeds)
1 cup shredded coconut (optional...but SO delish)
1.5 cups peanut butter (I used Ski_ppy natural smooth)
1 cup honey (I used a local honey)
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup dark chocolate chips (or semi-sweet)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In large bowl, combine first ten ingredients (through coconut). Stir in peanut butter, honey & melted butter. Press firmly into foil-lined or sprayed 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
3. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven & sprinkle chocolate chips over bars. Return to oven until chocolate is softened (about 2-4 minutes). Spread chocolate evenly over bars. (mine didn't spread very well for some reason, fyi...but still tasted delish). Cool on rack then cut into bars. Refrigerate until firm (about 2 hours) then remove from pan and wrap bars individually and store in refrigerator or freezer for a healthy energy-packed snack. (I used plastic wrap for the individual bars and then placed them into quart-sized freezer zipper bags.

ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!