Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers living in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

Quick: You’re completely swamped with work tasks, have a trip to pack for, and have inexplicably torn apart 3 rooms of your house in an attempt to reorganize - what do you do?

Bake, of course!

Seriously, this is what my day is like and add to it the fact that my husband is as crazy as I am and left me home alone with the kids so he could go to the hardware store to buy paint for the room HE tore apart. We’re insane. Anyway, when faced with a situation like this, I do what I’ve always done - avoid all work and bake (you should have seen my freezer when I was pregnant - I nested by baking!). In my defense, I couldn’t do anything REAL this morning because I was home alone with the kids - baking is an honest to goodness fun family activity, right?

Now, because if I’m going to gain 15 pounds this week, so are you I love you all and want you to share my yummy treat, here’s the recipe for the monster cookies that my children and I made a double recipe (I don’t just bake, I bake in mass quantities) of this morning - yummmmmmmm…………..

Monster Cookies

Oven 350 Degrees F.

1 stick butter
1.5 cups peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1.5 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp corn syrup
4.5 cups oatmeal (quick oats)
2 tsp baking soda
M&Ms - as many as you want!
chocolate chips - as many as you want!

Bake approximately 13 minutes - don’t overbake!

These cookes are to DIE FOR and the reason the recipe is slightly imprecise is because my friend and I forced this lady at a party a few years ago to sit down with us and recite the recipe from memory……..they’re that good.

Oh, and if you want to join my in my non-sleep state right now - drink what I’ve been drinking. Rachael (one of the mamas here) shared this (slightly modified by me) recipe and I’ve been indulging ever since:

Iced Coffee

Brewed and cooled coffee
Half and half
Coffee ice cubes
I add flavored creamer too for some sweetness

Heaven in a cup, I swear. I’m flying high………..

Now back to work. With chocolate on my face and jittery hands………….

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Tags: baking, coffee, cookies, rachael