Chocolate Chip Cookies from My Childhood

These are my childhood cookies! Here's simple recipe & tutorial for chocolate chip cookies that you can freeze for later!

With school around the corner, I've been thinking about how I will try and organize school lunches and other meals. I've been pinning ideas of meals and snacks that can be made ahead and frozen for future use.  I haven't done much with freezer meals in the past, but I think it would help a lot if I could get ahead on some of these things!

The first thing I decided to make was chocolate chip cookies. This is the one recipe I remember helping with most when I was a child and we always used the same recipe from my mom's cookbook. Over the years, my sister Amber got really into making them and made some adjustments to the recipe to perfect it to our liking.

So today, I give you: Chocolate Chip Cookies from my Childhood! :)

We usually double the recipe, so the recipe I'm sharing with you will make approximately 5 dozen cookies (perfect for freezing!)  I made these today and we kept one dozen out and I froze 4 dozen.

Here's what you'll need:

August 2015 Sharing Time - Week 3

Welcome to August's Sharing Time Linky!

You can find the link party at the bottom of this post,but first, here's a quick review of our week!

Since the last Shraing Time post, I wrote about Wall Planners.. you can enter a Personalized Wall Planner Giveaway at that post!

This week I wrote a bit about why I'm not blogging as much this summer, and shared a great video that goes along with that.  If you haven't seen it, go check it out!

Now, on to the August link party!  I love to see what fun things you've been up to!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Spend Focussed Time to Make Memories With Your Kids

It's interesting how this wasn't an issue when I was a kid. Cell phones, the internet, tablets, computers... all of these things have added so much good and so much bad to our lives. We can use them in many different ways, and they can affect us in different ways, depending on the choices that we make about how (and when) we use them.

I haven't been very active on the blog lately, and that's because I've been trying to avoid being on the computer too much while my kids are home for summer break. I saw this video today and was reassured that this is the right choice for me right now. This is the only summer that my kids will be this age. I don't want to look back on this time with regret, or wondering if I missed things because I was absorbed in blogging.

The whole point of this blog, from the beginning, was to inspire me and to inspire others to do fun things with their kids- to spend time with them, making memories while raising them.

So, posts are likely to be sparse for the remainder of our summer break and then pick up again in the Fall. I hope you're all making the best of your time with your kids this summer, too!

This video has reminded me not only to spend time with my kids, but to continue to make sure that I'm really focussed on them during the time I'm with them. If you've got a few minutes, I think you'll appreciate this video!

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Personal Planner Wall Planner & A Giveaway!

Last year, I shared a review of Personal-Planner.com's planners and this year I'm sharing their Wall Planner. I'll show you some photos of how I've used mine so far, and at the end of this post, there's a giveaway so that one of you can win a planner!

Here's a look at the Wall Planner I'm using.  You can choose from a variety of available covers or upload your own.  Since I knew that I wouldn't really be looking at my cover if it was hanging on the wall, I just chose one of the available covers, rather than spending time creating a custom one (which is what I did with the planner I ordered last year).  Below is a look at the front cover (on the left) and the inside of the wall planner (on the right).

You can customize these a lot!  I chose the number of columns that I wanted as well as the colours for each column and the background colour (at the top).  You can title your tabs (at the top of the columns) if you want to, but I left mine blank so that I could play around with different approaches to planning this way.  I can use one column for each person (which is what I was originally going to do- and you can even upload a photo of the person whose column it is & have it printed that way), but I thought that might not actually be the most efficient way to schedule our family's activities since not all of us have very many individual events scheduled regularly.

August 2015 Sharing Time - Week 1

Welcome to August's Sharing Time Linky!

You can find the link party at the bottom of this post,but first, here's a quick review of our week!

I posted yesterday about all the fun we had at the Niagara Falls KOA! You can read all about our experience and see a ton of photos in that post!

Earlier in the week, I wrote about how I'm attempting to add a bit of specialness to our regular days this summer. :)  (Also, some of my thoughts on the new Minion movie)

I'm excited to see what you've been up to this summer!  Here's the new party for August!

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Camping in Comfort at Niagara Falls KOA

Ken & I have been camping once as a couple, and we went once as a family.  It was a lot of fun to be outside and to "get away", but we were exhausted after one night because we slept so poorly!  Last summer, we opted to have a backyard camp-out (and we came inside to sleep in the end!).  So, while our kids love it, Ken and I have realized that we're not big fans of camping... at least not in the traditional way.  

We do love to get away and enjoy nature however, which is why we were excited to spend a few days at the Niagara Falls KOA (Kampgrounds of America) in Ontario.  It didn't take long on their website before I discovered that they not only offer cabins to camp in, but they also have "deluxe cabins".. and our preferred style of camping was discovered! :)

The girls had been talking about this little trip for weeks, so when we were ready for our road trip, they were very excited!

I took lots of photos of our time at the KOA because there is just so much to see and do! I'll walk you through our experience with lots of visuals!  Here are the girls in front of our cabin.  We were happy to have a fire pit and a BBQ to cook over as well as a table with 6 chairs outside, and a table with 4 chairs inside.  I loved the swing on our little front lawn!

Inside our cabin, we were very happy to have a bathroom (not pictured) with a full tub and shower (with good water pressure), regular toilet, and small vanity with sink and mirror.  They provide hair/body soap in the bathroom. Because the females in our family have a lot of hair, it's hard to do without conditioner (I know.. we think we're glamping here ;), so Ken drove to the grocery store to grab some. This "Kampground" is very conveniently located near lots of stores, so he didn't have to go far!