Our New Favorite Cookie Bars

We love chocolate chip cookies, but sometimes the prospect of scooping each cookie out individually, baking pan after pan of them, and then shifting them around during and after cooling seems like a lot of effort.  Cookie bars are a quick and easy way to get chocolate chip cookies without a lot of fuss.  My mom has a cookie bar recipe that uses a cake mix as the base, and it is very good and easy.  However, I recently found a really good scratch-made cookie bar recipe that we love!  I've made these cookie bars for several events when I was asked to bring a dessert, and people have really liked them.

Here's how I make them:

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

2 1/8 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Spray a 9x13-inch baking dish with nonstick spray and set aside.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda.  Set aside.  In the mixer bowl, mix melted butter and sugars until combined.  Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix until smooth.  Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix on low, just until combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.
Transfer cookie dough to the prepared dish, smoothing the top with the spatula.  Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top of the bars are light golden brown and the edges start to pull away from the pan.  Cool bars on a wire rack to room temperature.  Cut bars into squares and serve.

Summer List - Reading, Cows, and Grilled Pizza

We have made a little more progress on our summer list in the past couple of weeks!  Here's what we've been up to in the past couple of weeks.

Barnes and Noble Reading Program

Drew did the Barnes and Noble Summer Reading Program this summer.  He had to read eight books and then record the books' titles and authors.  Then he had to recommend each book to someone he knows and tell why that person would enjoy the book.

Once Drew finished his list, we took it to a Barnes and Noble store and turned it in.  He got to select a free book (there was an end cap of books for him to choose from).

 Drew and Maddie both enjoyed browsing through the children's section,

 and Maddie enjoyed the trains.

 Drew picked out a Lego Ninjago book.

Chick-fil-a Cow Appreciation Day

We had planned be in South Carolina, where there are Chick-fil-a's everywhere, for Cow Appreciation Day this year, but we ended up changing our vacation plans, so we had very few options if we still wanted to participate.  We could drive an hour to Toledo, or we could go about half an hour away to the Oakland University food court - Michigan's only Chick-fil-a, like we did last year.  We decided to go to Oakland University again.  I liked the idea of not fighting a crowd, and it was a shorter drive.

 There weren't any other cows again this year, and the workers were happy to see us.  Maddie started pulling off her spots as soon as we got in line, but they let us each get a full meal for free anyway.

 My little cows.

 Maddie loved the lemonade, and towards the end, she finally tried some nuggets.  Drew loved everything, and he was a great help as we navigated the line with a stroller and a tray.

Visit a Dairy Farm

We followed up our Chick-fil-a lunch with a trip to the dairy farm, to continue with the cow theme.  We started out by looking at the adult cows.

 Drew petted one, and it tried to lick him!

 We made a very quick stop at the pig pen.  The pigs smelled absolutely horrible!

Our favorites were the calves!

 Maddie kept going back and forth between calves, petting them and saying, "Cute, Mommy!"

 We walked back past the big cows on our way to the shop.

 We bought some ice cream and enjoyed it at a picnic table.

 Maddie got a chocolate mustache!

Grill Pizza and S'mores

We had a fun dinner one night last week - grilled pizza and s'mores.  We grilled the dough first, then added our sauce and toppings.

 After we ate our pizza, we went back outside and made s'mores.  We toasted our marshmallows over the grill.

 Drew convinced me to buy some giant marshmallows at Aldi a few weeks ago.  They made some very gooey s'mores!

 Maddie just ate her marshmallow plain.

Garden Box

We have some vegetables growing in our garden box now!  Our first jalapeno pepper is growing.

  Our tomato plants have gotten quite tall!

 We have some tomatoes growing too!

Here's how our summer list looks now.  We are starting to make a dent in it!  We rescheduled our vacation to South Carolina, and since we will now be out of town during choir camp, Drew will not be able to participate in that camp, so I've crossed it off our list.  I was able to make dental appointments for Jim, Drew, and me for August, so that project is scheduled, but not completed yet.

Hawkins Family Summer List
1.  Drew - Barnes and Noble summer reading program
2.  Make homemade ice cream
3.  Grill pizza and s'mores
4.  Go to the sprinkler park
5.  Have a garage sale
6.  Make a strawberry pie
7.  Go to the library
8.  Get Sonic shakes in our jammies (They are half-price after 8:00 pm!)
9.  Have a picnic
10.  Go putt-putting
11.  Go to Metro Beach
12.  Go to the Lego store
13.  Paint our bedroom
14.  Go to the dairy farm
15.  Drew - learn to ride a bike
16.  Drew - go to choir camp - We will be on vacation, so Drew will not be doing choir camp.
17.  Drew and Jim - go to a Home Depot craft morning
18.  Make kabobs
19.  Keep up with our garden box - so far, so good!
20.  Go to the dentist - We have appointments for August!
21.  Organize the bedrooms - Drew, Maddie, Us
22.  Go to a baseball game
23.  Maddie - try potty training
24.  Go to Dress Like a Cow Day at Chick-Fil-a
25.  Go bowling

Summer List - Baseball, Bowling, and Bedroom

I shared a few weeks ago about the summer list we made, and I am back today to share a little bit of progress.  In the past few weeks, Jim and Drew went bowling, we went to a baseball game, and we organized Drew's bedroom.  Our garden box has also been doing pretty well - our plants are growing, and we are keeping it watered and weeded.  I have a few pictures to share about our summer so far.

Bowling
A group of men and boys from our church went bowling one evening a few weeks ago.  Jim and Drew were part of the group, and they had a great time.  Unfortunately, they were having so much fun that they forgot to take any pictures, so you will just have to take my word for it that they truly went.  :)

Baseball Game
Our baseball game ended up being another church activity!  A big group of about 65 people from our church went down to Detroit to see a Tigers game earlier this week, and Jim, Drew, and I were part of the group.  We started by tailgating at church.  We had hot dogs for dinner, and people played games outside behind the church.  Jim and Drew played corn hole,

 and Drew tried a new game, called, "Nine Squares."

We traveled down to the stadium on church buses and arrived shortly before the start of the game.  

  

 Our whole group sat together for the game, and Drew learned about "photo bombing" from the teenagers in front of us.  I made him take a picture with me, too.

It was quite hot for about the first hour of the game, but once the sun set below the walls of the stadium, it became much more comfortable.  The sky was very pretty as the sun was setting.

The Tigers ended up winning 3-0, with the pitcher, Rick Porcello, getting his second straight complete game shut-out.  It was a fun night!

Organizing Drew's Bedroom
Drew and I spent a few hours last week organizing his bedroom.  We were urged into action because Drew's DS was missing.  I was pretty sure that it was somewhere in Drew's room, and as we cleaned, sure enough, we found it!  We found some other things that had been missing, and we also set aside several things for our garage sale and threw out some other things.

It felt good to get his room organized, and he has realized that her really likes his room this way - imagine that!

He is working hard to keep it clean and nice.

Garden Box
This summer we planted tomatoes (Roma and cherry) and peppers (jalapeno and bell).

Our plants are growing pretty well, and we've had enough rain that we really haven't had to do that much watering.  We are just starting to get our first flowers on our tomato plants, and we are hoping for some veggies in the next several weeks!

So, here's how our Summer list looks so far.  We might have been a bit ambitious, but we are still hoping to accomplish many of these things before school starts back up.  We'll see!

Hawkins Family Summer List
1.  Drew - Barnes and Noble summer reading program
2.  Make homemade ice cream
3.  Grill pizza and s'mores
4.  Go to the sprinkler park
5.  Have a garage sale
6.  Make a strawberry pie
7.  Go to the library
8.  Get Sonic shakes in our jammies (They are half-price after 8:00 pm!)
9.  Have a picnic
10.  Go putt-putting
11.  Go to Metro Beach
12.  Go to the Lego store
13.  Paint our bedroom
14.  Go to the dairy farm
15.  Drew - learn to ride a bike
16.  Drew - go to choir camp
17.  Drew and Jim - go to a Home Depot craft morning
18.  Make kabobs
19.  Keep up with our garden box - so far, so good!
20.  Go to the dentist
21.  Organize the bedrooms - Drew, Maddie, Us
22.  Go to a baseball game
23.  Maddie - try potty training
24.  Go to Dress Like a Cow Day at Chick-Fil-a
25.  Go bowling