Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Using either a stand or electric beater, cream the butter and add the sugars until they're thoroughly blended. Add the vanilla and then crack the eggs in one at a time.

Slowly incorporate the flour, soda, salt, and pudding. Mix until all ingredients are fully blended together.

Fold in chocolate chips (I add mine in and turn the mixer on for a few more seconds).

Place dough in lumps on non-stick cookie pan (mine is about 17"x12") and evenly spread with hands or a spatula to cover most of the pan with the dough.

Place dough in oven for about 10 minutes. At 10 minutes, check to see if the dough is turning slightly golden. If not, leave in for a couple more minutes. Do not over bake!

Remove pan from oven and allow it to cool for about 5-10 minutes.

Begin cutting cookies with Texas cookie cutter - if the dough is sticking well to the cutter, you can transfer the cookies straight from the cookie cutter. If not, then use the cutter to cut the shapes out of the dough, but remove the shapes with a spatula once the cookies have cooled a bit more. (I usually don't have any issues getting the shapes from the pan to a cooling rack, but it's occasionally easier to remove the in-between pieces before transferring the Texas shapes to the cooling rack).