Hellooooo Dolly!

So, I've realized that the last few posts have been a little disconcerting, what with the poisonous shrubs, peanut allergies and emergency room concussions. What this blog needs is something to brighten everybody's day and I've got just the thing.

This bar cookie that stands before you is known, at least in my circles, as a Hello Dolly and it is spectacularly delicious. Here's the backstory:

Back in the summer of 1998, I worked in the kitchen of the most awesome LDS girls' camp in the world: Oakcrest. We cooked 3 meals a day for approximately 400 girls, five days a week for 12 weeks that summer. Every meal was made from scratch. Fresh bread was made for every meal.

That summer was a defining summer for me. One I'll never ever forget. It was a lot of hard work, heavy lifting, some drama, a whole lotta fun and taught me about who I truly was: a daughter of God.

Another thing I came back with was a whole bunch of awesome recipes that had been pared down as much as they could, to sizes that would feed a family, and sometimes a whole party, rather than a whole gaggle of girls. The Hello Dolly is one of those recipes.

Many years have passed since that summer and I've moved many times. I only recently found my arsenal of Oakcrest deliciousness and I want to share my favorite with you.

I was lucky because I found the recipe right before I volunteered to bring a dessert to my friend's baby shower and, apparently, they were a huge hit. (I got stuck in rush hour traffic trying to get into San Francisco and back in time for the shower and had to miss it. Booo!!!)

So, without further ado, I present to you the recipe for Hello Dollies (which I've modified only slightly to suit my needs, but the taste and ingredients are all the same.):

Hello Dolly

2 c. graham cracker crumbs (approx. 1.5 packages if you're going to crush them yourself)

1/2 c. (1 stick) butter, melted

1/2 bag sweet coconut, flaked or shredded

1/2 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips 

1 can sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated!)

Preheat oven to 325*. Spray a jelly roll pan lightly with cooking spray. Combine the graham crackers crumbs and the butter till moist and spread into the pan to form the crust. It will be a thin layer, just make sure it's even and it covers the whole bottom of the pan. Sprinkle coconut evenly over the crust, then sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over the coconut. Punch two holes on opposite sides of the top of the condensed milk and drizzle evenly over the cookies. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool and cut into bars with a greased pizza cutter. Try not to eat the whole pan in one sitting.

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Think of these as a homemade but much yummier version of the Girl Scout Samoas (my personal favorite). The chocolate chips somehow manage to stay a bit melty for a while. The sweetened condensed milk caramelizes in the oven to a consistency similar to dulce de leche. Then, when you pair that with the savory taste of the butter in the crust... (insert Homer Simpson gurgle here)!

Enjoy these super easy cookies as much as my family does. These don't last more than a few hours after they come out of the oven in my home.

How Not to Spend Your Tuesday

Waiting.

Waiting in the ER.

Waiting in the ER for hours.

I think we were there for a total of six hours.

Let's start at the very beginning, because that's a very good place to start.

The morning started out like any other. Asher waking up at the crack of dawn, wanting breakfast and play time. Akiko waking up and sliding down her slide to start her glorious day. And finally, Moses stumbling out of bed with his hair sticking out in every direction possible.

Joseph was getting ready to leave for work and we stopped what we were doing so we could have family prayer. After the prayer, the kids attacked Joseph before he could leave for work.

This is how most of our mornings start. It's wonderful.

Well, the kids didn't want to let Joseph go, so he stood up with them still dangling on him, where he would walk a few feet to the couch and drop them off there. Unfortunately, Moses let go a little too soon and fell to the [carpeted] floor where he hit his head pretty hard.

Moses was pretty inconsolable for quite a while. He calmed down after a long while, but would start crying again if you did so much as look at him. This went on for, I think, an hour.

Once Joseph got him to stay calm for a bit, he took him into the kitchen to see if he wanted any breakfast. That's where Moses threw up the first time.

More crying.

I called the doctor to consult with the nurse. We ended up playing phone tag. Moses threw up a second time. Then he fell right asleep.

Finally got a hold of the nurse. She asked me to bring him in to urgent care, rather than wait for an appointment with his regular doctor.

Loaded Moses into the car. Akiko, who was extremely worried about Moses at this point, came along. Asher had gone down for his morning nap, so Joseph was forced to skip his train to work.

Got into see the urgent care doctor in record time. While she was checking Moses out, who was slurring his speech so bad even I couldn't understand him, he threw up a third time. She called the ambulance because she felt he needed a CAT scan.

I called Joseph to let him know what was going on because I was going to have to ride in the ambulance with Moses. Luckily, our clinic is only about a 20 minute walk from our place, so it would be easy for Joseph to pick up the car.

The paramedics showed up, again, in record time, and checked Moses out and we loaded into the back of the ambulance.

On our way to the hospital, which was just around the corner, the paramedic received instructions to go to a different hospital further away in San Jose, because, apparently it's a better hospital and they wanted to monitor Moses there. I learned later that the hospital we were sent to and Stanford's hospital are the two best in the area. So, I called Joseph and let him know the change of plans.

Moses threw up a fourth time in the ambulance, though, I really think that one was more related to motion sickness than the concussion.

By the time we got to the hospital, Moses was looking and acting a whole lot better than he had been at home. The doctors told me that since he's doing so much better, they just wanted to keep him there for a couple hours to monitor him and it would be unlikely that he would need the CAT scan. They only do that as a last resort for kids Moses' age.

That's when the waiting began. It was also a little past lunchtime at that point.

Moses cheered up a little bit with the toys and stickers the trauma doctors gave him.

Joseph showed up with Asher after a bit, so I took Akiko and Asher to the cafeteria, where lunch was just about to close up, so the pickins were slim. They also only accepted cash, so I was only able to get a paltry meal to feed my whole family with the $7 cash I had on me.

So, the ER is a rather depressing place, I've decided. And it smells like rubbing alcohol, sweat and clotted blood. Ew!

Asher was going stir crazy because he wanted to get into everything, so we couldn't put him down (nor did we want to) and Akiko loudly complained about every five to ten minutes about how bored she was.

Moses wasn't allowed to eat anything, in the unlikely event that the doctors needed to do any procedures on him, so he was starving. He hadn't eaten anything since dinner the night before.

So, we waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Joseph took the other kids to bring the car closer to where we actually were and to get some snacks for the starving children. I stayed with Moses while he dozed off again.

Remind me to tell you the story of Moses holding my hand when I was in labor with Asher.

After a long, long while, a nurse came in to check on Moses. Since he seemed better, she said we could probably get out of there soon. She left the room and Moses threw up for the fifth time. Sigh!

I tracked down the nurse and told her about it. She told the doctor. He ordered a CAT scan. More waiting.

CAT scan results turned out to be fine, which meant that he had no bleeding or brain injury, and that Moses just had a severe concussion. They told us that we would get our discharge papers and we could go home. Then we waited some more.

Six hours after we arrived at the ER, we finally left to go home. I hope we never have to visit the ER again.

The good news is that Moses will be fine, though this is not his first concussion. That one was also consulted with the nurse on the phone, but not bad enough to need to be seen. My poor boy has a knack for whacking his head, so I hope it never gets worse than today.

And that is how not to spend your Tuesday.

Ah, Nuts!

Yesterday we found out that Asher is allergic to peanuts. We had peanut butter on toast for breakfast and he broke out into hives all over his little body after eating it.

At first, he had gotten a little bit on his finger and rubbed his eye, so the whole side of his face started getting bumpy. Joseph thought that maybe he had been bitten by something, but it soon became apparent that he was reacting to something he'd come in contact with. Since it was before church, we got him into the shower to see if that would help. As I was drying him off, I started noticing bumps all over his arms and legs. I thought his eczema was just flaring up and just smeared his rx cream all over and got him dressed. We headed off to church soon after thinking no more of it.

At church, Joseph walks with Asher in the halls during Sunday school and Priesthood (you know how 12 mo. old toddlers are in class). Asher was rolling on the floor and his shirt lifted up and Joseph saw these huge red bumps all over his torso. He came in to the primary room to let me know that he was taking Asher home to see if he could help relieve his itching, because, by that time, Asher had started scratching all over.

Joseph had no idea how bad it was until he got home and took Asher's clothes off. Hives were everywhere.

Pictures aren't that great. Taking pictures of babies on the move is hard with a camera phone.

They look much worse in real life.

Poor little Asher!

After Joseph had picked Akiko, Moses and me up from church, and we talked about it, we determined that he had a bad reaction to the peanut butter that morning.

Since there seemed to be nothing else wrong with him, I decided not to call the doctor until this morning. If he'd had any breathing problems, we would have taken him straight to the hospital, which is only about half a mile from church.

I took him into the doctor this morning where our suspicions were confirmed. His hives were gone, but the redness where they were was still prevalent. We've got an appointment to go see the immunologist next week. I'm not totally sure what is in store for that visit, so we'll burn that bridge when we get there.

So, for the time being, Asher has to stay away from peanuts and I get to keep antihistamine with me at all times. 

I guess this also means no Mini Snickers for me while I'm still nursing. Nuts! Those are my favorite. (Pun completely intended.)

Happy Birthday Asher!!

One year ago, you joined our family.

We are so glad you did.

We love you so much.

Happy Birthday Asher!!

You're #1!