C is for cookie

We've had a good past few days. We've been baking treats, trying to give them away, and then getting way too many back. Luckily I ran a half marathon on Saturday and burned off some calories there, though at this point, I'd probably need a marathon to do that!

The race was lots of fun. I'd never done a half before and it went by so fast. It was great. About halfway through I thought to myself, I wonder if I'm going fast enough, but decided to be safe and not push it too much more and thanked myself for that around mile 11. The race was in Charlotte, a little over 2 hours away, and we'd planned on all going up the night before and having a little family outing, but then Ben had to work so I ended up waking up at 4:30 in the morning and driving there that day, running the race, and then driving home all by myself. But, I had a good race and ran a 1:30:29 averaging 6:55 miles so it was pretty much worth it.



Anyway, I really enjoyed the treats I made this year so I thought I'd share. Nothing original here, everything I made I found on other cooking blogs. I made chocolate turtle cookies from My Kitchen Cafe, Sugar cookies and the best icing/glaze ever from Our Best Bites (it looks much prettier there), hot chocolate mix from here, and orange cranberry bread from King Arthur flour.

I wish photography was as easy as baking. The cookies looked even better in real life.

It's never too early for presents

Christmas came a little early for Ben and I this year. We've been eyeing my brother's camera all year and finally decided to take the plunge into the world of digital SLR, or fancy pants , cameras. It's a little intimidating. We just stared at it the first few days, too afraid to touch it, but we finally broke it out of the box and read just enough of the massive manual to figure out which button to push to take a basic picture. Hopefully we'll get a little braver soon and check out some of the cooler features that I assume it has, but here are some of the better pictures we've taken so far. Laura Bruschke here we come!

Dancing to the beat of a different drummer

Today was Elise's last day of ballet class. I'm not sure how much ballet she actually learned, as seen in the videos, but she had lots of fun with her little friends and was always good for a laugh and some awesome moves.

How to make your children love you

Go out and buy them a $10 used slide on craigslist, even if it doesn't fit in your car's trunk and you have to make the man you just bought it from tie it down for you. This will make your children happy and pleasant to be around.*

* This effect is, unfortunately, only temporary. And some fighting will occur as a natural result of the acquisition of a new toy.

Bonus: How dads can make their children happy while the moms are away on a long run.

See how easy it is?