I Heart Chocolate Chip Cookies, Especially When Love Is Baked Into Them!

It's a shortened work week with Christmas in less than 5 days and the office closing on Friday in observance of Christmas on Saturday, but work at my family's company still must go on 'til 5pm hits on Thursday...To make the office environment a little more festive aside from the Holiday decor that lines the windows, entrance, and our reception area prettied up with a pretty Christmas tree, one of our kind marketing community liaisons brought us some extra holiday cheer in the form of her homemade and ever-so-delighful chocolate chip pecan cookies!  Dear Kim made quite the batch placed ever so sweetly in 2 baking tins in the front of our coffee station, and once it was announced that her cookies were in the house, whoa! did they go fast and furiously!  Kim's take on the tried and true Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe is absolutely enjoyable!  And quite surprisingly, I especially enjoy the fact that her version yields big chewy and chunky treats which also contain chopped pecans adding a little something something to the beautiful traditional flavor of the cookie.  I typically prefer to do without nuts in cookies, but Kim's cookies are just all the more perfect with the added crunch and texture of the pecans (not walnuts, not almonds, not hazelnuts, etc.).  So thanks to Kim for being so gracious and so generous this Holiday Season and always!  We're glad she's part of the Team, and we're glad she made this work week before Christmas all the more festive!

Thanks, Kim!  Cookies were awesome, as usual!

On another front, the reality of this week is that there's still work to be done at work...But in the meantime, my Girlies are on their Winter break for the next 2 weeks, and Alex is on vacation from work for the next 2 weeks as well! I'm rather jealous that I have to pop into the office for the next 2 weeks and thereafter, but such is life at times, no?! On the other hand, I am so thankful that my dear Girlies and their awesome Daddy get to spend some wonderful quality time together, including in the area of baking, which was one of the activities of the day, besides the Girlies playing in their fanciest dresses at 7:30am, under the watchful (read: sleeping) eye of my hubby/their father...(sigh!), while I got ready for work. So anyway, while I was busily walking up and down the aisles at work getting things done and trying to organize my desk, and complete my many to-do lists (unsuccessfully, ahem), Elena, Katrina, and Alex were busy following a cookie recipe found on the back of a lesser known chocolate chip package in the hopes of making gigantic cookie replicas of Sponge Bob (ugh!) & Dora the Explorer, and this is how they turned out:

An abstract interpretation of Sponge Bob Square Pants!

An abstract interpretation of Dora the Explorer!

So close, and yet...Well, it's all about the effort and quality time spent in the fun baking process, right? And I have to admit that the brown sugar that characterized this particular chocolate chip cookie recipe made it ever so chewy and scrumptious! It's the fun and love that went into the baking of it that also added to its yumminess, that's for sure!

I can't wait to take this Wednesday off from the office to prep for Christmas with my family...Of course, the goings-on at that office will forever be on my mind, but I'll be thinking of it and our hard-working employees while I bake some banana bread loaves for the following day's Christmas Fun at the Office festivities.  But I truly can't wait to take some quality time with my Girlies and Alex and bake with my loved ones as we excitedly await Christmas and all the blessings it brings!  That in itself is truly delicious!