Baking Cookies!

Frosting and decorating our yummy fall cut-out sugar cookies.

Mmmmm... Don't they look good!

Chief cookie decorator hard at work!

Hurry up so we can enjoy the fruits of our labor!

I posted last month about spending an evening in the ER with chest pain. Not a fun night. Well, today I followed up on that with a stress test at the hospital. I'm pretty sure I passed with flying colors because the doctor and two nurses commented on my level of fitness. I made it over 13 minutes on the treadmill before my heartrate reached 160 bpm. Apparently most people only last 6-7 minutes before they get there. Every three minutes the treadmill incline increases 10% and it speeds up, getting harder and harder. I was really huffing and puffing at the end! Then they have you jump off the treadmill, quickly lay down on a bed and a doctor looks at your heart with an ultrasound wand. They tell you to breathe out or hold your breath while you're gasping for air, not an easy thing to do!

It was interesting seeing my heart beating on the ultrasound screen. I've seen various parts of my body, but never my heart. It looked pretty good, beating a steady thum THUM, thum THUM, thum THUM...

So, to celebrate my successful stress test it only makes sense to bake cookies, right? That's what I did this afternoon and this evening we frosted and decorated them. A warning to all young parents out there: For years my children would beg me to bake cookies that we could frost. It's a time consuming and messy job so I would sometimes hesitate or say no. Well, guess who was asking everyone to participate in the big cookie bake? Yep, the tables have turned. I now have to beg my children to bake with me apparently. Once they got into it however, we had a ball.

The cookies turned out great, everyone had fun, the dishes are washed and the counters have been wiped down. All in all a successful venture, I'd say. The cookies are out on the screen porch. Tomorrow we'll enjoy them with milk and I'll look at my precious children and hold these moments close to my heart. My blessedly full, healthy, life-giving heart!