Muffins with Mom, and the best Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe ever

Our local elementary school does some fun stuff throughout the year to involve the families. They do a Doughnuts with Dad morning, a grandparents day where they can go and have lunch with the grand kids, and this morning, Muffins with Mom. I felt kind of bad for Bailey this year - Doughnuts with Dad didn't work out - for obvious reasons; Dad kind of has to be around for that one. Then, grandparents day rolled around, and that didn't work out because we don't have any of those here, let alone any other relatives around to go with her. Needless to say, she came home in tears because she ate lunch all alone because most of the other kids had grandparents with them! I felt so bad! I didn't even realize that I could have gone with her - I probably could have found a babysitter for that one. Oh well, next year, right? Well, I knew muffins with mom was coming up, and I also knew that there was no way I was going to be able to have the baby nursed and ready, the other three kids dressed and ready, let alone myself ready to be at the school at 7:30 in the morning for muffins. (Not to mention the physical strength and energy alone it takes to tote a car seat, diaper bag, and two year old on a leash with me while vocally ushering the two older ones along with me, in a crowd. It is a little overwhelming for me, I don't know how others do it). So I had a talk with Bailey, and told her that every family is different. I told her that if we had dad at home, it would be easier for me to go with her by myself, just her and me. I also explained the difficulties for mom to be able to get there to be with her. She was pretty sad, and I of course felt bad. I offered the alternative to have a 'muffins with mom' morning at our own house before she went to school; then she could cheerfully tell her friends that she had already done it at home. That went over pretty good. I made yummy coffee cake muffins, scrambled eggs with cheese on top, and OJ. The muffins were so yummy I want to share the recipe:

Coffee Cake

(don't know who the recipe is by, otherwise I would give credit where credit is due)

2 C flour
1/2 C butter
1 C brown sugar
1 C sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Mix these together until butter is in fine pieces. I used my hands to squish it all together until it was a crumbly texture. (Obviously the butter needs to be cold to do this). Reserve one cup of this mixture to put over the top of batter before baking.

Stir into dry mixture:

2 beaten eggs
1 tsp. baking soda
1 C buttermilk

(I used 1 C milk instead, and it turned out delicious).

Pour into 9x13 pan and sprinkle with 1 C topping mixture. Bake at 350 for 25-30 min.
Variation: I made mine into muffins. however, I would say this makes 18 muffins rather than 12 - I poured mine into a 12 - muffin tin and they boiled over a little, I had to tuck the extra back into the tins when I was done baking. They are pretty sticky and yummy. I am freezing the extras for another morning!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And this is just for Kimberlee, and anyone else who wants the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever. It comes straight off the back of the nestle toll house chocolate chips bag, with a small variation:

1/2 C butter (You really need butter, not margarine for it to taste really good)
3/4 C sugar
3/4 C brown sugar

Cream together first three ingredients. Then add:

2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla - (this is the variation. Original recipe calls for 1 tsp. I have found you need more.)

Once this is all mixed together, add dry ingredients:

2 1/4 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

2 C chocolate chips - Semi Sweet is what I usually use, sometimes milk chocolate instead. Both are yummy.

(I also really, really like adding the peanut butter chips/chocolate chips bags they sell instead of the semi sweet. Who am I kidding? They are both dang good.)

Bake at 375 for 9-11 minutes.

I usually make up a double batch, fill up a couple of cookie sheets with cookie dough balls and put them in the freezer, then transfer into gallon size freezer bags once the dough has frozen so they are ready to go when we want to make quick treats. This has been really great when taking dinners to friends, or for our last minute family nights we throw together; things just seem to get more chaotic as the years go by. When baking from a frozen state, I adjust the temperature to 350 for 10-12 minutes. Yum.