My favorite No-Bake cookie recipe

This is an abnormal post for me.  Normally, I ramble on about what's been going on with us, or some other random thing.  But I've been wanting to post something on Pinterest for a while, and I believe it has to be in blog form to be "pinned".  So here goes.

This recipe is simple, but you have to follow it to the letter.  That's one thing I learned about it, if you don't, the cookies won't turn out correctly.    Also, it calls for quick-cooking oats, and says it's "essential" to the success of the recipe.  This depends on what kind of cookie you're looking for.  The last time I made them, I used quick-cooking oats, and they were too dry for me (quick-cooking oats are smaller than regular oats, making the cookies really dense).  Every other time, I've used regular oats and they turn out exactly like I want :)

Prep & Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup cocoa (I always add a little extra, for extra chocolate-y-ness)
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 3 cups oats

Preparation:

In a large saucepan, combine sugar, milk, cocoa, salt and butter; mix well.  Bring to a boil and cover saucepan for 30 seconds to allow steam to wash sugar crystals down the sides of the pan.  Stir mixture and bring it to a boil that can't be stirred down for 1 minute*.  Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter until smooth.  Add oats and mix well. 

Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to let the oats absorb the liquid. 

Drop mixture by spoonfuls onto wax paper, or parchment lined baking sheets.  Let cool until you can touch; then reshape the cookies to make them more of a ball shape**.  Let cool completely and store at room temperature.  ENJOY!!

*If you do not let the mixture boil for the 1 minute, the mixture will be too sugary instead of creamy.
**If you have a small or medium Pampered Chef cookie scoop (an ice cream scoop would work too, if you want bigger cookies), you don't have to reshape the cookies.

New year

I always come back from a month or 2 hiatus of blogging and say how terrible I am at keeping up with it, so I'm not going to do that this time :)  I'm going to just do my best to try to keep up with it, and not apologize every time I don't. 

Here's a look back at our year.

January- We went bowling with my dad and brother, and then rang in the new year at home. 

February- Jason had a coaching clinic in Cincinnati, so the kids and I traveled down and stayed in a hotel.  We were able to go to the Newport Aquarium, the kids loved all the fish!  We also helped Jason's brother and his wife welcome their 1st child, Samuel Ray.

March-started out the month with the kids and I being sick.  Livi had a double ear infection, Jackson had 1 ear infection and bronchiolitis (he needed breathing treatments :( ) and I had the worst sinus infection I can remember.  But we made it through :)

April-the weekend before spring break started, we put in a new patio.  We also traveled to Fairborn, Ohio to help my brother and sister-in-law move into their 1st home :)

May- Jackson was dedicated at our church on Mother's day. 

June- We celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary in Myrtle Beach!  It was a good time, even though the kids hated the the ocean...guess we'll have to try again some other time!  We stayed for a whole week and did lots of fun things while we were there.

July- The kids and I tried to spend as much time with Jason as we could before football started later in the month.  Football started the middle of the 2nd week of July and lasted until the end of October...

August- I pulled off my 1st successful garage sale.  I still didn't get rid of as much as I had wanted to, but I did get rid of A LOT (including kids clothes-my biggest seller!).  I started babysitting.  Football season started. 

September- We celebrated the kids' birthdays with a Mickey & Minnie themed birthday party.  Family and friends came to celebrate with us, it was a fun party. 

October- I turned the big "3-0"!  Jason threw me a surprise party the weekend before my birthday, and we ended the night in the ER...too much partying?  Lol, no.  Jason had a painful cyst that they were able to remove, thankfully.  I became an Independent Consultant for Thirty-One.  Football season ended.  We had family pictures taken, with my dad, Aaron & Sarah.  It was chilly that day, but the pictures turned out great!

November- Jason started coaching wrestling.  Thankfully, it's not as time demanding as football is :)  I stopped babysitting, it was a hard decision, but one that had to be made.  We also welcomed Sarah's sister & brother-in-law home from Paraguay.  We celebrated Thanksgiving with both of our families.  The house was packed, but it was nice to be together.  Sarah and I continued our tradition of Black Friday shopping :)  We changed it up a bit this year and went to Wal-Mart...it wasn't a bad experience, but if I ever go back it will be for something I want desperately!

December- As tragedy struck Sandy Hook, Connecticut, I vowed to myself to never take a moment of my children's life for granted.  To always make sure they know how much I love them.  To not stress if the house isn't clean, but to play with them as much as I can.  My heart still hurts for those families. 
I did a few things for Thirty-One in December; the spring product premiere, a home party, and a Cash & Carry.  I joined the choir at church again.  We celebrated Christmas at home with my dad, Aaron & Sarah.  We got the most snow in Ohio that I can remember in years.  The kids played in it for a little while, but got too cold.  Jackson couldn't really move though, I think he was bundled as tightly as "Randy" from "A Christmas Story", lol.  We celebrated Christmas with Jason's family on the 29th at Seth & Crystal's house.  Their niece and nephew were there, so Livi was excited to play with her friend Chloe :)  On New Year's Eve, the kids and I went to Fairborn to celebrate with Aaron & Sarah.  Jason had come down with a fever, and we left to let him rest. 

2012 was a challenging year for me personally.  I'm looking forward, though, to what 2013 has in store for us.