Hi, friends! It’s been a while since I’ve written a life lately post so I thought it would be fun to do a little update because I have a lot of new stuff to share! If this type of post isn’t your thing, then feel free to skip over this one and I’ll be back next week with a new buttercream recipe for you!

In today’s post we’re discussing all things cookbook, preorder giveaway winners, YouTube videos (plus a video we filmed for it!), 40 acres we recently bought, and our van renovation!

A picture of Danielle in a green shirt holding a mixing bowl with dry ingredients and a whisk.

First things first, I had some new pictures taken for the cookbook last year and love how they turned out. I’m usually in sweat pants and a t-shirt in my kitchen, but it’s always fun to get dressed up.

I also updated my about page with a little more about why I started my blog and some fun facts about me. If you’re interested you can click here to hop on over and read my updated about page.

Cookbook Updates

The cover of the cookbook Live Well Bake Cookies featuring a stack of brookies on a plate.

Over 230 of you have preordered so far, which is just so incredible! I know it’s not very fun to wait a few months for a book to come in, but preordering really helps as a first time author – so thank you!

The book will be released in August and I’m VERY excited for everyone to finally receive their copy.

If you’re interested in learning more about my cookie cookbook, you can find all of the details here on my website or here on Amazon.

Giveaway Winners

I’ve been selecting two winners each month who have preordered the book to send a little package of cookie baking tools. So far I’ve sent out three packages and I’m randomly choosing another winner today! If you’ve preordered the cookbook and haven’t sent me your proof of purchase, just email me a copy to be entered.

The winners so far:

  • Alice S.
  • Charina R.
  • Jen G.

I’ll be sure to update this blog post each month with the winners. If you’re selected, I will notify you by email to let you know first.

YouTube Recipe Videos 

Josh and I recently filmed a YouTube video of me in the kitchen making a recipe from my new cookbook. We filmed a video for the chocolate cut-out sugar cookies (in the chocolate chapter of the book), which you can find here. I shared the full recipe in the description of the video if you want to try it out. I loved this recipe so I thought it would be a fun one to share with all of you!

I really love talking about baking, so I actually found this pretty fun. We decided to order some new equipment to starting filming YouTube videos. If you love watching recipe videos, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel here so you can be notified when a new video is up and be the first to watch them.

We’re planning to start adding more to the YouTube channel soon so stay tuned!

We Bought Some Land!

If you’ve been following around for a while, you may remember this post I did with a tour of our home we built in 2017. We currently live on about 1.5 acres in a neighborhood, but for a while now we’ve been looking for a property with more space. We love to be outdoors with the dogs, so we’ve been casually looking for about a year and a half. 

Earlier this year we found 40 acres that we really loved so we put an offer in on it the next day. It’s close to a bigger city (only 15 minutes away!), but far enough out that it feels peaceful. 

The property is mostly wooded, with some trails cleared through it and a large open field. There’s also two creeks on it, which are so pretty! We’re excited to hopefully build a new home there soon. 

Van Renovation

A cargo van that has a bed with storage underneath, blue cabinets, a sink, and a blue rug with flowers on it.

Josh and I have always enjoyed traveling and camping with our three dogs. We decided to purchase a used cargo van and spent a few months renovating it. Josh is extremely handy so he did most of the work and I just helped with some things, but I love how it turned out!

We put a bed in it and there’s storage underneath (picture below), which is SO nice. We also added some flooring, cabinets for more storage, and a sink.

The back of a renovated cargo van showing the storage underneath the bed.

We’re planning to do a little bit of traveling this year with it, so I’m very excited about that. We’re also thinking about doing some YouTube videos eventually with a little tour of the van and some of the trips we take too. If you’re interested in videos like that let me know and we’ll be sure to do some of them!

Thank You!

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read! While I usually just share recipes, it’s always fun to share life updates from time to time. 

I’d love to hear if you’ve had any exciting life updates lately too!