Soft Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I thought that I had eaten some great cookies, when I was growing up. My family would buy those soft bagged cookies from the store or purchase some cookie dough and we'd make it from that.

Honestly, I didn't know much about baking until I got married and so my cookies were always burnt or tasted funny.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

I don't really like to eat buffalo wings unless they are boneless and an appetizer that I don't have to cook. Buffalo sauce never really appealed to me until I had kids. Maybe it was because I had craved spicy foods during my pregnancy with my first born: Spicy foods and chocolate milk. I also developed a craving for Diet Coke- which is weird because before I was pregnant, I only drank Diet Pepsi, and it was also torture because I didn't want to drink soda/pop while I was pregnant.

I had never really given buffalo chicken dip a try until someone brought some in for a potluck at work. Then it became a favorite of mine for every potluck and we really took advantage of having them every last Friday of the month because that was also our one dress down day.

After I left work to stay home with my kids, I actually missed eating buffalo chicken dip, so I found a recipe and tried it out. I was so happy I did because it was SOOO easy to make.

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Don't mind the scuffs in my table. We bought it when we only had ONE child.
Now we're waiting for them to grow up a little before we replace it. 

There are only five ingredients, which makes this so easy to make.

What you'll need:

2 cans of precooked chicken

3/4 cup of Buffalo Sauce- We like to use Frank's Red Hot Wings Buffalo Sauce

1 cup Ranch Dressing
2 Packages of cream cheese
2 cups cheddar cheese- We like to buy the bricks and shred them, but the kind that are shredded and bagged are fine, too.

Instructions

• Preheat oven at 400 degrees.
• Soften Cream cheese by leaving it out 30 minutes before you begin or remove wrapper and microwave it in a microwave safe bowl or plate. 
• In a mixing bowl, add chicken, cream cheese, buffalo sauce, ranch dressing, and cup of cheese.
• Combine the mixture until mixture appears smooth. 
• Add mixture to an oven safe pie plate or dip plate/pan.

• Sprinkle remaining cheese over the mixture.
• Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese starts to brown. 

• Wait until dip has cooled to a nice warm temperature before eating.

You can use whatever you like to use for dipping. 

We like to use tortilla chips and cucumbers. Others use chicken crackers and celery.

Conclusion

As you can see, it's very easy to make this recipe and what's even better, is that if you want to bring this to a potluck, you can just throw these all into a slow cooker and after being in it on low, you'll be able to mix it easily and just keep it on warm throughout the day. 

It's super easy and very convertible.

I hope you enjoy this recipe, today and don't forget to check out our recipe tab for more!

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This morning was another one of those really stressful mornings where it might not have been so bad if I had my crap put together.

My son forgot to do his Friday letter on Friday, so I had to make him work on it this morning. Without his ADHD medication, he's squirrely and has a hard time sitting down to focus on it. It doesn't matter that he'll have his recess taken away for the day if he doesn't turn it in. To him, it's future him's problem. To me, however, I know that no recess might cause other issues because he wasn't able to run out that energy that he needed to run out.

Dad, This is What Mom Really Wants for Mother's Day

This title seems pretty bold. I'll admit that I can't speak for all moms, but as a mom, myself, I have a pretty good idea what I'd like, plus, it helps that I also asked other mom's what they wanted and the answers were very similar.

Let's face it, Dads... Some of you are really great at helping the kids pick out something for mom. Really, you're awesome at it.

Others of you, might decide that mom wants a candle or another piece of beautiful jewelry, which, ok, who wouldn't accept something so beautiful, but there are some things that mom would enjoy possibly more than all of those and this is what other mom's said:

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Parents of strong willed children, I really sympathize with you. I, too, have a strong willed child and some days I just want to give up and throw in the towel and let him just run the house and then there are other days when I'm ready to spar with him until he gives in because we're both stubborn and want to be the one who wins.

Our battles can be over anything, really. We might argue over whether this font color is blue, green, or gray or argue over whether tomato is pronounced tuh-mate-o or toe-mah-toe and EVEN IF, we realize one of us is wrong, it will take a long time for us to admit it, if we do at all.

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You guys.... My kids are getting older.

My oldest just turned 9 and he's been getting phone calls from a friend from school. I probably should let him call that friend back, but well, he uses my cell phone and my battery is almost always at 20% battery life when we think about it, and it's MY phone. Sometimes, I just want to use it.

Back in the day, we had something called a landline. It was  a universal phone for everyone in the house and the base was plugged into the wall. If you had a cordless phone, sometimes you'd have to worry about that phone being charged too, but if it was returned to it's base, and it wasn't lost, it wasn't a problem.

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Easter can be a very busy times for parents, especially the parent who puts things together for everyone. 

Mom's can be found in the kitchen cooking up a ham or some other type of special meal because we feel that if we don't, then the day won't be special enough for everyone else.

Let me tell you, doing extra things can be special, but don't get lost in the details because you're also forgetting what the day is really about and that's celebrating that Jesus rose from the grave to save us from our sins.