Party party!

One thing that the Christmas season never fails to bring is fun parties!  The night after my cookie decorating class I got to experience my first ever cookie exchange.  I hate to say that I did not take the time to individually decorate 4 dozen cookies but I made some very yummy chocolate crinkle cookies. I will share that recipe sometime soon.  I loved having the girl time and was amazed at the variety of cookies that everyone made. 

Some made their favorite childhood cookie or the cookie they made every year but most of us (me included) took the opportunity to try a new recipe.   New recipe or old they were very yummy. Thanks girls for the good time.

Saturday night our friends Robyn and Derrick hosted a Christmas party at their house.  We had lots of yummy foods and treats. 

While the ladies were getting the food ready, the men folk kept an eye on the kids in the basement. 

Chase found himself some older girls at the party and would not leave them alone. After he finished eating dinner he stood up and asked, "Where are my girls?"  They were really good with him and he did not want to leave them.  Thanks Robyn and Derrick for hosting, we had a wonderful evening with friends!

Then Sunday night our lifegroup also had a Christmas party.  This party took a strange twist as it was Minute to Win It themed.  A couple of our friends are crazy about the TV game show Minute to Win It so they took the time to come up with the games for us to have a fun night.  Sorry about the quality of pictures, I forgot my camera which was a big bummer!

Watching this game made me laugh so hard I cried... several times.  If you are looking for a fun game night and your friends are willing to take part, this was a really fun idea! 

The cookie express

It has been quite a cookie fest around here the last few days and we have been loving it!  Growing up my mom always made sugar cookies and let us kids decorate them.  We always looked forward to getting to decorate our cookies which usually included slathering icing over the cookie and covering them with sprinkles and candy... yum!  My cookies never looked like the gourmet cookies you see in bakeries but they still tasted good.  Well on Monday night I got the opportunity to learn how to make my cookies more gourmet looking.  My friend Lindsay's mom had been wanting to learn how to decorate cookies so she found a place that would teach cookie decorating.  I have to say when I saw the examples of what we would be doing I was very skeptical.  We were decorating a Santa, snowman, and Mr. and Mrs. Gingerbread. 

They pre-iced the square portion of Santa's face so we would have time to decorate it (otherwise it wouldn't have had time to harden).

Those were our blank slates to work with and slowly we transformed them into master pieces...

The icing being the right consistency for what you are doing is the key!

Thanks Robyn for being my hand model!

Good workin ladies!

And the final products of all our hard work...

Ok so you caught me, those were the examples... but mine were not too far off.

We had a ton of fun decorating/creating and can't wait to decorate some of our own.  Now only if we had spare time at home without so many little hands flying around, maybe we could take the time to make such beautiful cookies.  Guess that is what bedtime is for :).  After making the cookies we got a discount in the store upstairs so we did a little shopping.

Thanks gal's for such a great time!

Buckeyes

I remember when I was growing up a friend's mom always made these yummy peanut butter balls covered with chocolate. I had forgotten about them until I stumbled on this recipe the other day for buckeyes.  They looked simple enough and I had all the ingredients on hand (score!) so I decided to give them a try.

To make the peanut butter balls first you mix with your hands 1 1/2 cups peanut butter, 1/2 cup butter softened, 1tsp vanilla, and 4 cups sifted confectioner's sugar. Then you roll into small balls and refrigerate...

Then in a double boiler melt 2 tbls shortening and 4 cups chocolate chips.

Once melted, using a tooth pick coat each ball in the chocolate. Once they are coated, refrigerate until set.

YUMMY! Beware, they are very rich!  More cookies to come soon... are you hungry yet?

Happy Feet

Ever had to walk a mile in another mans shoes?

Although it is a great question to ask yourself before you go around judging others, I was simply referring to Chase marching around the house in Kevin's shoes.  Food for thought...

Happy Monday!

Cookies

There is something about this time of year that makes me want to bake, bake, bake! We have been busy baking in our house the last couple of days.  Kevin volunteered to make cookies for a charity bake sale at work, I have a cookie exchange this week, and there were just some new recipes I wanted to try. Kevin decided for his work he wanted to make sopapilla cheesecake  and Cream cheese bars. These are two of our favorite treats in our house, they are very yummy.  If you are looking for yummy recipes you should check out my sister in law's blog McMania, she is always cooking up something yummy. Most of the recipes that I make that you all love have come from her!  Anyway, I don't usually blog my cooking expeditions, so stick with me.

The first cookie I wanted to try is called an Icebox cookie. My friend Mandy in SC makes these and I found the recipe in my Good Housekeeping Christmas Cookie swap cookbook so I had to give it a go. The first thing I needed was a good assistant...

In case you can't tell, he was helping me shell the pistachios...

For this recipe you will need:
5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour               2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda                              2 eggs
1/4 tsp Salt                                       2 tsp almond extract
2 cups butter softened                       2/3 cup shelled pistachios finely chopped

After we shelled and chopped the pistachios we (or Chase) whisked together the flour, baking soda, and salt...

 Then with the mixer at medium speed we beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Then we added the eggs and almond extract and beat until well blended. Chase was proud of the almond extract...

Then on low speed we beat in the flour mixture until blended.  Then to get into the Christmas spirit we split the dough in half and added red food coloring to one and the pistachios and green food coloring to the other...

Then we covered the bottom of two loaf pans with plastic wrap and spread half the green dough into the bottom of each pan. We then placed it in the freezor for 10 minutes to set...

Then we covered with the remaining red dough and covered with plastic wrap and placed in the fridge overnight.  Then using a serrated knife we cut the dough crosswise into 1/4 inch thick slices, then cut each slice crosswise into 3 cookies. We placed the cookies on a cookie sheet and baked at 350 for 10 minutes. This is what we ended up with...

YUM! Pretty red and green for Christmas. Well mine are pink and green because I ran out of red food coloring, but you get the point.  More baking to come soon...

Fun Fridays...

Loving the snow so far... Hope your having a great Friday!

Merry Christmas to me

With all the presents under the tree I had noticed my name on couple of them. Questioning him on the contents he teased me that I could have a guess a day and if I guessed correctly I could open my present. As curious as I was and excited I wanted to wait until Christmas. WELL... Last night Kevin brought it up again so I jokingly made an off the wall guess. Something I never thought in a million years he would get for me.

Yep, he got me an iPad! It is so fast and easy to use. I am hopeful that it will be so much easier for me to stay connected. Unlike our laptop it doesn't take 20 years to load and is so easy for me to carry around the house with me while chasing my little ones. I am so excited. Thank you Kevin!!!

Jamestown

While Laura was visiting we decided to make a quick trip to visit some of our family in upstate New York, to the small town of Jamestown.  When I say a quick trip, I mean we left on Monday morning and were home Tuesday night.  It was approximately a 6 hour dive so I think we spent more time in the car than we did there, but it was well worth it.  We stayed with my Aunt Jami, who picked up my Grandma so she could spend some time with us as well. 

Aunt Jami's Granddaughters came over to play and the kids took over the house but had fun running around.

For the first time ever that night Chase asked me if he could go to bed.  He was getting to sleep on the floor in Aunt Jami and Uncle Donnie's room in his sleeping bag and he thought it was the coolest thing ever.  He went to bed without complaint and slept great!  The next day we packed everything up and headed over to the nursing home to visit my Grandma Olson one more time. 

Out of about 10 pictures this was a good as it got...

Grandma gave Chase a ride around on her walker.  After we said our goodbyes we headed over to my other Grandmothers house and spent some time with her and my Aunt Shelly. 

We were really glad to have had some time to visit family even though it was a very short trip.  I had been debating taking the trip my self with the kids but I was very thankful to have Laura with me to help with the kids!