M&M Oatmeal Cookies

I love cooking, but I can't lie... It hurts... My arms and my back and my toes and my wrist and my- you get the picture.
Now, this is a recipe from my great-grandma (thanks, again!) that I have modified a bit. She had six hard-working boys and a husband, therefore she cooked in very large quantities! It makes around 10 dozen cookies, and you can just dump them into a bucket and toss them in the freezer, trust me, they taste good right out of there too! Originally, it was meant to be a Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, but since I had already posted one of those, and I had a ton (really, almost a ton) of M&M's, I tweaked it a bit! Hope you enjoy them!

To get started, you'll need:

3 cups butter
3 cups brown sugar
1 2/3 cups white sugar
6 large eggs
1/2 cup water
1 T. vanilla
6 cups sifted flour
2 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. salt
6 cups oatmeal
3 cups M&M's or chocolate chips

First, dump your brown sugar into a VERY large bowl.

Then add your white sugar.

And then your butter, all three cups worth... Cream this together. Then add your eggs, water, and vanilla. Mix really well!

Now, sift in your flour. Mentally prepare yourself for the workout to follow.

Start mixing....

And mixing... Until it looks like this!

Now be sure to SIFT in the baking soda and salt, as baking soda, when not sifted, can clump together and form bitter little pockets in your food. Absolutely nasty!

Now, you've made it through mixing six cups of flour, lets try six cups of oatmeal, shall we?

Yay! You made it! How are your arms and wrists feeling?? Sore? Just wait, we're almost done!

Now you can dump in the three cups of M&M's... mmm.. Yummy! Now at this stage, you should have about 12.5 lbs. of cookie dough!

Then plop these little babies onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350* for 15 minutes, then pull them out, turn them around, and bake for another 2 minutes. 

Cool before removing from pan. Enjoy!