Baking IS my therapy!

So Courtney just got home from an almost week at Annie's (thanks Annie!) and Kade's been at Scout Camp all week, which means it has been a very quiet week. Tomorrow we get to go see Kade at camp so Courtney and I decided to bake a treat to take to the boys (if they last that long . . . seriously). My old standby as far as treats go has always been chocolate chip cookies. I love things like lemon bars, chocolate cake, cheesecake, etc. but there is just something about chocolate chip cookies (and the dough) that never lets me down. Simple goodness.

So I am sharing my favorite recipe along with pictures I took to experiment with the "food" setting on my camera. (Seriously, there is a food setting. Seriously.)

Nieman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 C. butter, softened
1 C. white sugar
1 C. packed brown sugar

2 eggs
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla

2 1/2 C. oatmeal (grind the oatmeal in your blender until it looks like flour)
2 C. flour

lots o' chocolate chips (or broken up Rolos and chocolate chips)

Mix ingredients together and Bake at 350 degrees for 11 minutes. Try not to all of the dough before you get them baked.


Mmmmmmmmm . . . cookie dough.


The finished product. Hope they make it til tomorrow!

July

Not much time to write, but I uploaded these pics the other night and finally thought I'd post them. I'm certainly not complaining, but my new camera takes such high quality pictures that it takes for-ev-er (said like the Sandlot) for them to upload, so I have to have other things to do while they are loading.

Anyway, Courtney turned 10 on July 5, we were camping again but managed to get back in time for our traditional birthday celebration with Kesley who turned 9 on July 5 as well.


Here are the girls waiting to blow out their candles. (I am pretty sure Courtney is hypnotized.)


This is our traditional "put your cheeks together so I can have a picture of the birthday girls faces" picture. I have quite a few of them from previous years, I'll have to see if I can dig them out.


And finally, here is a picture of the wicked awesome smoke cloud in the sky after the INL fire on Tuesday night. I really like my new camera.

Other than that, I did in fact pass my last class, which means that I am totally and completely done with school forever and ever and now only have to pass stupid Audit, so I am back to studying, begrudgingly, but am loving not having homework, group projects, papers to write, etc. etc.

Happy July everyone!