Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookies

The hubs' birthday was a couple of weekends ago, and as he is an oreo fiend I usually try and make him something oreo related. Last year was Homeade Oreos, this year I tried Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookies. I put them out at his birthday party and they were a huge hit! AND they disappeared super fast. So fast that I felt compelled to make them again, so that the hubs and I could enjoy a batch to ourselves.

Ok that last sentence makes us sound...like we eat an unnecessarily large amount of cookies.

It's nothing but the truth yo.

I originally got the recipe here and followed it pretty closely - the first time using double stuff oreos and the second using regular. Both were great, but if I were to make these again I would use the double stuff - you get more of that "cookies and cream" flavor.

Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookies

1 stick of softened butter
6 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
11 broken oreos (I prefer double stuff)
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugars until well combined. Add egg and vanilla, mix well. Combine flour, soda, and salt into a separate bowl, then add slowly to the wet ingredients. Add oreos and chocolate chips and stir until just combined. Scoop onto baking sheets and bake for 8-10 min.

Gosling Sketch

The fact is that I have not been spending much time in my sketchbook lately.

This makes me sad and and a little ashamed. Sorry self.

BUT. Today I got the urge and drew this little dude - I've been seeing lots of them around the neighborhood lately. He's trying to overcome his fear and jump the small ledge into the water below.

I can definitely tell that I haven't been drawing for awhile - my technique and speed need improvement. Hopefully today's sketch will inspire me to be a bit more disciplined with it again! PLUS. I've been saying for a long time now that I need to start drawing things OTHER THAN animals. Ugh, it's hard to break away from what's easy though. I know that I'll have to set aside way more time in my day to draw a person or human face than I do to sketch some leeeetle creature.

Too bad that this sweet leeeetle cheeping gosling will soon turn into a squawking honking GOOSE.

Those guys are annoying.

This post contains the biggest run-on sentence ever.

Today I...

Thought about how ripe mangos are probably the prettiest fruit around. Then I ate some ripe mango and thought about how they are also the tastiest.

Avoided the dishes piling on our counter. Yes that is my dirty kitchen bared to the interwebs. I must be feeling extra daring tonight.

Hung out with one of my favorite feline pals. She's concerned about something in this picture. It's very rare that she's not concerned about something.

Considered carpet samples for our basement.

Ate some oreo chocolate chip cookies and pondered their deliciousness. I'll be posting the recipe soon.

Not pictured: working out with a friend, complaining about lack of maternity work out shorts/pants (besides sweatpants which were making me so very hot ((and not in the hottie type of way. More of the pregnant and scary kind of way.)) ), said friend taking me to find some cheap workout maternity capris (scary hot pregnant problem solved!), loving this post from Beth Anne, watching lot's of old episodes of The Office while designing some super fun wedding invites (I'll post them here eventually!), remembering how I used to love watching Jim and Pam before they got all married and boring, and writing huge run-on sentences in today's blog post.

Well I gotta jet, but I'll leave you with this Dwight Schrute quote. Fellas you better take this seriously:

"Women are like wolves. If you want a wolf, you have to trap it. You have to snare it. And then you have to tame it. Keep it happy. Care for it. Feed it. Lovingly. The way an animal deserves to be loved...And my animal deserves a lot of lovin'."

-Dwight, of course talking about his Angela.

Pirates, BEES, Art, and an Eclipse.

Back from a great weekend! There was plenty of time to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather. Friday night the hubs and I went out to eat at The Macaroni Grill because we had a gift card and free dinners are sooo nice. You can draw on the table mats there and hubster made this pirate and kitty themed masterpiece.

We were planning on going to Art-A-Whirl over in Northeast afterwards but I started feeling sick and we made the totally lame decision to go home and just lay there. Well, I just laid there feeling nasty but the hubs was productive and finished putting flooring in our basement.

The next morning I felt slightly better and I headed to the Mill City farmer's market downtown with a couple of friends. I started off with a fresh chocolate croissant.

Can we just pause for a moment to talk about how filled croissants are the best treat ever? I can't decide if I like chocolate or almond filling better. Probably chocolate. No probably almond.

I'll take one of each, please.

I picked up some of these cherry tomatoes. Beautiful AND delicious!

I always like looking at the fancy honeys, although I rarely get any. And there are actual BEES! In that...bee box.

We came across this cute little mobile furniture shop!

Later that day, the hubs and I had just a tiny bit of time after he got off work and before we were headed to my cousin's play for the night. So we caught just a little bit of Art-A-Whirl.

It was HOT, and we were rushed for time. But I'm glad we got to check out at least a few of the local artists.

Here we are: hot, sweaty, and satisfied.

On Sunday after church I headed down to Uptown for brunch at the French Meadow Bakery with a couple of great friends. It was rainy and crowded, but the conversation was great. And to bring the weekend to a close, our small group tried and failed to see the eclipse (or something) that was supposed to be happening. After a bit of time borrowing the neighbor lady's negatives to look through and being attacked by gnats, we decided to go out for pie instead of damaging our eyeballs.

How was your weekend? Hope it was simply grand!

Flowers on a hot day

Some pics today from our gardens!

When I say "gardens" it sounds like I'm some awesome gardener. Which of course I am.

Just kidding, I'm actually not. We really only have one garden (which we mulch in the spring time and don't touch again for another year), and then a little patch of dirt next to our house where some peonies grow. Which were planted there before we even lived here. I don't do anything to them at all except take pictures.

But I proudly display the pictures on my blog of course!

It's going to be a hot weekend here in the twin cities, hitting close to 90 degrees today! Trying to plan a fun date night for the hubs and I for this evening that doesn't include melting into big hot puddles.

Shop and bump update.

I added a new 5 x 7 print to the shop today! This friendly horse has dramatic wind blown mane hair. Perfect for any dramatic wind blown member of your family. Who likes horses.

He's also available as a note card (single card or set.) Check out the options here!

In other news. I had a fun first Semi-Mother's Day, celebrating all the moms and grandmoms in our family with delicious food and fun games. I say "semi" for myself because obviously I am a mother as there is a big ol' behbeh growing inside of me, but don't yet have all of the motherly type responsibility as I have yet to PUSH girlfriend OUT.

Yes, that last part terrifies me. (cue heavy breathing, widening eyes and growing panic)

Oh well. I still have a few more months to harbor my fear!

This pic was taken at about 24 weeks. I told the hubs I wanted some "fun candid" shots taken...but as I had a horrible cold I wasn't feeling "fun" or "candid" at all. So this is what we got! Me working hard to get a semi-natural looking smile out while being eaten by the flower bush. We'll try again soon.

Photo booth traditions.

Yesterday was the hubs' birthday! We had a great time last night hosting lots of friends at our place for the evening. There was food to be eaten, ultimate frisbee to be played, rock band to be rocked, conversation to be had, jokes to be laughed at, and bouldering caves to be bouldered.

Here's the hubs blowing out his ice cream cake! There's a lot of flaming candles on that thing. He's all wet because the weather had to be a big fat bummer and rain on his parade. And when I say his parade I mean his ultimate frisbee game.

That's the only picture I managed to snag of the evening because I'm just. that. good.

Today I made him breakfast which included Buttermilk Bacon Biscuits with Maple Glaze (recipe here). Yes they are just as good as they sound, especially served with a couple extra slices of bacon and an egg. Then we set out to complete our "Brian birthday" yearly tradition.

That tradition being photo booths.

!

We started going to photo booths for his birthday before we were even married. Or engaged! Actually. That's a lot of documentation of funny faces going on. Last year I finally started compiling them all into a Brian's Birthday Book.

I snapped a few photos of some of my favorite pages. Our first ones are from 2005, so this will be our eighth year of photo boothing together! We are getting pretty durn good at squeezing both our butts onto the same little stool and centering our heads in the screen (mine a little behind Brian's on account of me having a MAMMOTH sized noggin...let's hope the baby doesn't take after me there...Lord help me), and waiting for the countdown to each little flash. Silly faces at hand.

The book was simple and quick to make - I just bought a big orange (his fave color) three ring binder, some black paper and sleeves to put the paper in, and some scrapbooking scraps for labels and captions. Then I started gluing and labeling away, and painted the cover with Modge Podge. I don't do much scrapbooking myself, but this was fun and easy to put together.

I think 2009 has my favorite pictures so far. Brian's face in the picture in the right column, third down makes me laugh. So much.

There are lots of pages in the back for coming years! If photo booths ever cease to exist I don't know what will happen. There will certainly be no way to carry on.

So. Today we set off to the mall which holds the closest photo booth (that we know of anyway) to our house. And...it wasn't working. Nurts. Not having time to find another one before the hubs had to run off to work, we sadly hung our heads and left without any 2012 photos in hand.

We're hoping the mall people have it fixed by next week.

!

Do you have any birthday traditions that can't be skipped?

Happenings.

In effort to continue with my "I am hereby taking more pictures" declaration, here's a bit of a photo round up from this past week.

The hubs' early birthday celebration with my fam - he got free ice cream if he rode the saddle while the servers sang to him. Clearly he was having the time of his life!! ///// Some of our small group getting together to send off one of our members, Luther, to 2 years in the Peace Corps - he'll be in Kyrgyzstan! His wise and thoughtful input in our discussions will be greatly missed.

Turquoise toes and shockingly white and pasty feet. (Confession: they are my shockingly white and pasty feet. Confession #2 - I'm a shockingly white and pasty person.) ///// Gepetto watching the birds.

The hubs and his good pal Jason getting all the sanding and mudding finished in our basement! Next steps - priming, painting, flooring and baseboard and...finished basement here we come! You can only see the laundry room here, but there is also an art studio being finished for me and a new storage area! Words cannot express my excitement. Great work boys. Now time to go dust yourselves off please.

Friday Ponderings

A few things have been eating at me today.

Such as.

Why is it that when that new band One Direction comes on the radio, I don't change the channel?
Even worse, why do I turn it UP? It seems to go against everything I stand for. Could it be the pregnancy hormones? Is it because I saw them perform on SNL and was hypnotized by their boy band dance moves? Do they bring me back to my junior high days of The Backstreet Boys and NSync?

I am perplexed by this turn of events and am now listening to Wolfmother to try and put things right.

Also. Why is it so hard to pick out cards at Target? Does anyone else have this problem? I don't even want to think about how long I stood with a blank stare on my face in the card section today, the whole time having to pee. I just want something funny or witty, but also simple. With good design. Is that too hard to ask, Target? Without having to crawl my way through stacks of annoying ones first?

Also. Why have I never worn turquoise and red together before today?

And finally. Why do my cats do hilarious things but then stop as soon as I take out the camera? Can cats really be camera shy? Is that a thing?

But. On a different note. Here's the hubs using Gepetto (who didn't run away from the camera this time) to practice for the baby that's coming our way. I think Gepetto likes the attention.

Awww. I can already tell that he's got this fatherhood thing down.

Kitty Update

Do you remember our friend Daisy?

She moved to her brand new home last week (she was only living with us temporarily.) We miss her quirky noises and funny faces, but are happy she's back with her real mom (and new dad!).

Yes, we are those people who refer to ourselves as our pets' mom and dad. Don't hate.

I have to say that our cats are pretty pleased, since they never really got on board with Daisy taking residence in our house. For the first time in months we don't have nightly hissing and scratching matches during meal time. What a peaceful home!

Except at 5am in the morning when they decide that they need breakfast. The rascals. Seriously. So annoying. We are thinking of getting automatic cat feeders - they are spendy but we are soooo sick of their morning shenanigans. Does anyone have any experience with automatic cat or dog feeders and have advice for us??

Shop Update

Over the past few days I've been adding some new prints to the shop!

These are once again the daily animal doodles, being sold as 5 x 7 fine art prints (a select few are available in 8 x 10 size). I am printing these on Epson's Velvet Fine Art paper. The images print so rich and beautiful on this lightly textured paper - they look like they come right from my sketch book!

As I mentioned before with the note cards, I will be adding more animal doodles to the shop selection soon.

I'm having a super productive week so far and I'm pumped about that. Being productive is the coolest!

How's your week going so far? Hope you are feeling energized and awesome. :)