Oh By Gosh, By Golly!

Whoooo weee!!! It has BEEN awhile, folks!

Lots and LOTS of stuff going on on this end, as I'm sure is the case with most of you. Lots of traveling, laughing, people, and cooking, cooking, cooking!

But HEY LOOK AT OUR CHRISTMAS TREE!!!!!!!

It's awesome and I love it :) :) :) :)

Also, we got super cheesy AWESOME and put up one of those "Our First Christmas" ornaments too. I was slightly hesitant to get one at all but, when I found it, I couldn't pass this one up...

IT'S CAKE!!!!!!!!

Wonderful, glorious CAKE!!!!!!!!

We all know my fascination.

Last week at work we had a baking competition. My contribution? Cake balls :) Red velvet, at that, folks. MMMM. But oh, the fate that was to come....

Check out those beauties -- these wonderful balls of YUM before their disastrous end.

Everything was fine and dandy until it came to the "dipping" part. Apparently, this girl is NOT meant to make candy. They tasted fine, but they LOOKED hideous. I couldn't bring something so ugly (albeit, delicious) to compete in a competition, only to get overlooked by leery tasters. Le sigh.

But alas, all was not lost!

Thankfully I have a husband who has co-workers that will eat almost anything -- despite the looks of it -- so I boxed the ugly little treats up and sent them off, mainly to GET THEM OUT OF MY FRIDGE because OH MY GRACIOUS if they stayed I'd eat them all.

And we've had more than our fair share of sugary treats ever since.

For instance - The Cookie Swap.


Oh yes. It happened again.

I was SO THANKFUL when Natalie emailed me a few weeks back to tell me that her church was once again holding its annual cookie swap. When she invited me I hoped and HOPED that everything would fall into place and I would get to attend again this year - and boy, was I EXCITED that it did.

You might remember THIS POST from last year's event - an event I lovingly remember as the day that prompted my fascination with The Monkey Bread.

WHICH, by the way, I made for an early family Christmas celebration a few weeks back:

Ooohh....

Aaahhh....


But back to the Cookie Swap on Saturday!

Late Friday night, the Hubs and I arrived back in town around MIDNIGHT after his family's early Christmas celebration - but staying up an extra 20 minutes to make these babies for The Swap? Totally worth it:

Myyyy ohhhhh my, they were so good.

But then again, is anything NOT good when it involves Oreos? Aaaahhh...so easy, so delicious.

I MIGHT have had one with breakfast this morning. Along with a banana. So it totally makes it healthy.

Welcome to my world.

On Sunday, for the first time in WAY TOO LONG, we woke up before the sun and WENT FOR A RUN!

I'm telling you -- what a way to start a Sunday.

The weather was crazy cold and slightly windy, but to be outside (versus a treadmill) and in the open surrounded by beautiful scenery was invigorating. It felt amazing to be able to just RUN the road ahead and go up and down hills and across bridges and through the trees!

Yes - I said hills. I NEVER thought I'd be so happy to see hills. I guess a few months on the treadmill has had more of an effect than I thought.

Five miles later, we were back in the car and ready to start the week. Here's to doing this more often!

Maybe. Because I do enjoy sleep.

Happy Monday, friends!