{this moment (with special thanks to Darah)} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

{this moment (with special thanks to Darah)} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

Today was a Daddy/Miles morning, and they were still asleep when I left for work.  I decided to drive Denny’s car because mine would have required scraping, and his had been in the garage.  I left a note for them explaining the situation.

When I got home, it was clear that Miles had read (or had read to him) the note.

M:  Your car has frosting on it!

I wanted to use up the chocolate from Miles’s trick-or-treat bag, since he seems to have developed a preference for Smarties and Dum-Dums and the like (whoa, weird dichotomy).

This is adapted from a recipe I found at allrecipes.com; it’s also a half-batch, so feel free to double it if you really want a lot of cookies.  The amounts here yielded about 3.5 dozen.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 1/3 cups peanut butter
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 pinch salt
3 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 cup chopped-up chocolate candy (I used Snickers, Milky Way, M&Ms, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Milk Duds, and some dark chocolate I had lying around)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350F.  With a stand mixer if you have one, cream together softened butter and peanut butter.  Add sugars and beat until well-combined.  Add eggs one at a time, then vanilla and salt.

In a separate bowl, mix oats, flour, and baking soda.  Add to sugar mixture in several batches.  Stir in candy pieces by hand.  Make golf ball-sized balls and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets (important if you have any candy with caramel, as it will get pretty gooey).  Bake for 12-15 minutes or until slightly underdone-looking (they’ll finish cooking as they cool, and this will keep them chewier).  Cool and enjoy.

{this moment (with special thanks to Darah)} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

Denny was doing some long-overdue cleaning in our bedroom in preparation for some guys to assess our needs for some new windows.  Apparently he kicked up a good amount of dust.

M:  It’s snowing in Mommy and Daddy’s room!

Miles was playing with a toy phone at Mubby and Skittergramps’s house.

M:  Oh, it’s ringing.
Hello?
Yeah.
Mhm.
Okay.  (hanging up)

That was a crocodile.

{this moment (with special thanks to Darah)} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment.