Chocolate Chip Cookies vs Transformers & a horrible Thunderstorm

This morning I suprised David by asking him if he wanted to help me bake chocolate chip cookies while Nathaniel was down for his nap in the afternoon. "Yes!" was the enthusastic answer I received. So shortly after Nathaniel went to bed, I got out the mixer, ingredients & David got his little chair & away we went.....

David is lovingly posing with my mixer, which I love. It was a birthday present from Richard and the boys this past November. Richard always says he doesn't like getting me stuff like this, but hey, if I want it, buy it! I've wanted a Kitchen Aid stand mixer about as long as we've been married.
I have a secret ingredient in my chocolate chip cookies. Wanna know what it is? Hmmm? If you keep reading, I might just tell you....

David enjoying the batter left on the beater.....

I also have a secret techinique for baking cookies. If you keep reading, I might just tell you......

We got 4 and 2/3rds dozen out of this batch. Would've had five dozen if David & I hadn't had 2 each.

David didn't actually do much baking. He was busy laying out the current Autobots & the Army vs. the Decepticons battle. He did come in occassionally to check on the cookies in the oven. In case you didn't know, these are all Decepticons.....

And these are the army guys, their tank, and their allies, the Autobots...... (the tank used to be an RC tank. Until it sat for a year while Richard was in Iraq & the battery went bad. Haven't replaced it yet.)

And the battle begins......

Last night we had a major thunderstorm. I didn't even know it was raining or storming, for that matter, until a huge, loud, sounded like it was in our front yard, clap of thunder went off about 3:30 am. Woke me up from a sound sleep, scared the dogs & the cat and woke Nathaniel. David? He slept through that. About an hour later he woke up cause Nathaniel was crying cause of a somewhat quieter bout of thunder sounded off. The dogs, Stormy especially, had a really hard time settling back down. She was pacing up and down the hall & kept going into the boys' room, which caused Nathaniel to keep waking up. I even had the door to their room closed and she'd nose it open. Old house, doors don't latch securely. So between 3:30 am and 8:30 am when Nathaniel woke up and crawled into bed with me, I think I got about 2 hours of sleep. So why am I still up at 10:50 pm? I'm not sure, but I'm heading for bed now. Hopefully it'll be an uneventful night. Its supposed to thunderstorm again though. I guess we'll find out later.