Meg and a bread pudding

"Isn't it amazing how peaceful the house is when Meg isn't screaming?" Jonathan, just now.

She actually doesn't mostly. But when she does scream, she fills the house. It's like light or packing peanuts - it expands into all available space - only more, um, shrill. She came equipped with excellent lungs.

In other news, I recently made a lovely bread pudding and yesterday we went exploring and found a beautiful lake. And I haven't made these button cookies, but aren't they adorable? (You have to scroll down for pictures.)

I actually made a half recipe of the bread pudding (without the applejack). The half-amount was precisely how much maple syrup we had on hand, which was a pity because what I made disappeared really fast. It came out of the oven a delicious mound of moist, apple-ey, maple-ey goodness. The only change I would make next time would be to cook it on a lower shelf in the oven because the top apples crossed the line from "caramelized" to "carbonized." But that recipe is definitely a keeper.

As for the lake, we need to go back when it isn't raining and nearly dark and January, and bring friends. :-)