Chocolate Chocolate

We have a new favorite cookie at our house.

I made the "Hershey's Perfect Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies" recipe that was on the bag.

I made the recipe exactly as stated with the exception of using Ener-G egg replacer for the eggs.

Oh my, they are so good!

First Day of School

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with school but I was finally

able to catch a picture of the cat sleeping on top of the dog.

The cat (named Puppy-cat) does this a lot and Rosie is so old she doesn't seem to care.

Dwayne gave the cat his name because he acts more like a dog than a cat!

It's hard to believe that summer has flown by and it's time for school again.

We're hitting the books for several weeks and then plan on a vacation in September.

So for now we'll be tackling some math, grammar, science, history, and a few other fun things.

Connor

Nolan

Food!

This is my latest pizza creation.  Stuffed crust.

You take a cheese stick, slice it and then roll it into the crust.

It's become our standard pizza now.

Some of our homegrown carrots.

Our latest food allergy friendly product!!!!  Yay!!!

The Hershey's company makes these chocolate chips that Connor can eat.

They are not made in a facility with nuts!!!  Unlike the Nestle brand.

The best part is that we can buy these in town.

Yes, the corner is cut on one bag.. we had to try these as soon as I brought them home. :)

Lil' Chef

Nolan's first attempt at baking by himself!

I just stood by to make sure he understood the directions on the recipe.

He did such an awesome job.

He made blueberry muffins... and they didn't last 24 hours.

They were as yummy as they looked.

Now that Nolan has discovered that he likes cooking, he wants to help more.

He volunteered to get all the ingredients out for the angel food cake I was making.

Everyone needs an ingredient tower in their kitchen!

He did a great job and saved me some time :).

Camp

Last week the boys and I went to Checkpoint Bible Camp.

This was Nolan's third year and Connor's first.

It was my first time as well.

I helped in the kitchen by managing the meals for the campers with food allergies.

I can't say enough good things about this camp.

It's so unique.

The camp is essentially two camps in one.

One for juniors (grades 3 - 6) and one for middle school (grades 7 - 9).

Every day each camp had chapel followed by bible teaching... and it wasn't the fluffy stuff!

The middle school campers have (among other things) MTA's (Ministry Training Activities).

The highlight of the week is Thursday evening when the middle school campers lead chapel.

They played music, did vocals, read scripture, skits and told bible stories...

all things they learned during the week at their MTA's.

It's truly a blessing to watch.

The junior campers have lots of cool activities to do.

Here is Connor in drumming class.

They have field activities every day.

It rained on this particular day and had to be indoors

but they had a blast none the less!

A chipmunk that posed for me while I was walking back to the dinning hall.

One evening they had an Olympics night.

They had 8 events set up.

They had 3 minutes at each station to complete a task.

This one is a baby pool filled with water, marbles and ice.

They had to get as many marbles out of the pool and into the small

tubs as they could... using their bare feet.

Did I mention the ice?

It wasn't exactly hot outside... let's just say

this station had the most screams!

Everyone needs a Giant Jenga!

The camp uses a Boyscout camp facility and has access to

all of its activities, including the rifle range and archery building.

This is one of the popular ones for the boys.

I tagged along to watch Nolan shoot and they

asked me if I wanted to do it too!

Not bad for my first time with a rifle!

This year the boys did derby cars. 

This is Nolan's car winning a race.

We had such a great time at camp... only 51 weeks until the next one!