Cooking Birthday Party

Like I mentioned earlier my 2nd daughter turned 7 this past week, so on Saturday we had her birthday party.  We did a cooking party, I did this for my oldest daughter when she was in first grade 2 years ago. It was so fun that my 2nd daughter wanted to do it for her birthday party this year. I changed up a few things this time around, you know live and learn and all that.  So this is what we did this time...
This party works well with a smaller birthday group.  I let my kids invite as many kids as can fit at our dinner table.  So in our case she invited 7 friends. First thing I did was make Chefs hats for all of the girls, I used the directions from here.

For the party

The first thing we did was make personal pizzas.  I gave each of the girls one or two Pillsbury Grand refrigerator biscuits.  They smashed them flat to form a crust

then they added sauce and all the other toppings.

While the personal pizzas were baking in the oven they used fabric markers to decorate their white aprons, they also made fruit salad to go with their pizza.

Fruit Salad

Once they were done eating and decorating their apron, we did the  presents.  Once presents were done they came back to the table and they finished up by decorating their own cupcake.  Then we sent them home with a fun party favor.

The Party Favor
First I get a bowl and fill it up with various kitchen items.  The first time I did a bowl, spoon, sugar cookie mix, cookie cutters, and pot holders.
This time I went with a cupcake theme.  So we did a bowl, potholders, cupcake pan, cake mix, icing and a spoon. Then I wrapped that all up in clear plastic wrapping paper.

I just got it all from the dollar store, and some of the stuff comes in packages of more than one, like the potholders, bowls and spoons.  I think it works out to be around $ 3.75 per party favor. 

It’s always a lot of fun.  If anyone is inspired to try it for one of their kiddos, I would love to here about it. 

Birthday Dress

My 2nd daughter turns 7 today!  So for her birthday I wanted to make her a special outfit.  She is such a girly girl that I knew I  wanted to make a dress with a little jacket.  I used Simplicity pattern # 2683 for the jacket.  I have to say though when I use a pattern to sew something I just cut out the pieces and then sew it together however I want.  I don’t read the directions.  That way it looks like I want it too and I like to add extra stuff.  The dress is a very loose interpretation of the dress also from Simplicity pattern # 2683.  I didn’t have enough material to actually make the dress so I improvised.  I have to say it looks pretty sinking cute on her even if the pictures don’t do it justice. *** So after I was done making this lovely dress my 2 year old decided it need some air conditioning and cut 3 small slits in the back of it.  My daughter really wanted to wear it to school today, so I just ironed on some fusible (webbing, bonding, what’s that stuff called???) so she could wear it today.  Any ideas for a permanent solution? P.S.  While I was ironing on the fusible stuff she (the 2 year old) ate one of the ice-cream cone cake pops I made for my 7 year old to bring to school.  Ever have one of those mornings??

And a ragged bow headband to match. 

Rolo Cookies

This is one of my favorite cookies recipes.  I got it from a friend a long time ago.  I have tried a lot of different things in the middle, but Rolos and Peppermint Patties are my favorite.

The Recipe
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cups of cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 – 3 cups of flour.
The Directions

This recipe will do more than one bag of Rolos, so I usually get one bag of Rolos and one bag of Peppermint Patties.  Start by unwrapping them, I usually give this job to the kiddos they LOVE it.

Once your dough is finished, take a little bit of it and flatten it out in your hand.  Then add your Rolo or Peppermint Patty to the center. Carefully cover the whole candy and roll into a ball or shape into a disc. Use enough dough that it covers the whole candy but without a lot of extra. 

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

  

Let cool on pan 2 minutes and remove to a wire cooling rack.

I like to add a little melted white chocolate for a little decoration.

Cinnamon Current Swirl Bread

Yet another bread recipe.  I have mentioned how much I love making bread right?? Well I do!  This is my own recipe.

BREAD

1 cup of warm water

1 tbs yeast

1/2 cup of honey (or sugar)

3-4 cups of flour (wheat, white or a little of both, today I used both)

1 egg

1/4 cup of butter

1/2 tsp. of salt

1/2 tsp. of baking powder

1/2 tsp. of cinnamon

FILLING

1/4 cupish of butter

1/2 cup of cinnamon and sugar

1/2 cup of dried currents ( you could also use raisins)

Place the first three ingredients into your mixer.  Then add 3 cups of flour, and the rest of the ingredients. Add enough of the remaining flour that the dough starts to clean the sides of the bowl.  Mix for 2 minutes.  When it’s done let it rise until it’s doubled in size.   Punch down and dump it out onto a floured surface.  Knead the dough adding more flour (if needed) until it’s smooth and elastic. Roll out the dough into a rectangle, like you would if you were making cinnamon rolls. Spread with a thin layer of butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar and then with the currents.  Roll the dough up, (make it as tight of a roll as you can) like you would cinnamon rolls trying to keep the ends even.  Chopped the dough rope in half to form two loafs.  Place them in a greased loaf pan and let them rise until they are about 1 inch above the pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Enjoy the heavenly aroma as it bakes in your oven.  Remove from pan and let cool on a cooling rack.  ENJOY!

I had little helpers today that totally squished the loafs before I could bake them, but they still turned out pretty good, and they taste divine.

*sometimes when I need to make bread and I’m in a bit of a hurry I turn my oven on and set the bowl on the oven so my bread will rise a little faster.

I’m in LOVE! With my new floor!!

We have 5 kids and a living room with basically white carpet.  Those two things just really don’t mix.  For the last 6 years we have been routinely cleaning our carpets, to try and fight the high traffic dirt AND we even bought a carpet cleaner so we wouldn’t have to rent one anymore.  (BISSEL carpet cleaners ROCK).  And on and off for the last few years we have talked about taking out the carpet and replacing it with laminate.  This past weekend we finally did… I LOVE IT!  It turned out so great and it wasn’t too much of a headache we had a couple of friends come over and help. 

Old nasty carpet with old nasty trim.

After we torn out the carpet, pad and tack strips, I spent the day repainting everything. I just repainted the same color but it made a HUGE difference. Everything looks so fresh and clean again!

And this is how it looks now. Great eh?  I wish I could have gotten pictures before they put the furniture back in, but alas I didn’t.

We replaced our old nasty trim with new taller trim, I love how that turned out too.  I kind of have a new look planned for this room, hopefully it will all come together.

New trim, I still have to do the touch up work on the trim but you get the idea.

BEFORE

AFTER

ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN GET A GREAT THROW RUG??? I have looked at Costco, Home Depot and even Wal*Mart, with no luck.  I need suggestions!!

Girl Scout Thinking Day–Australia

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this but I’m a Girl Scout leader.  I have a Brownie/Daisy troop.  I started doing it for my girls, they wanted to try girl scouts and I thought it could be something fun for us to do together.  And I’m so glad I did.  I love doing it!  So this year for thinking day another troop hosted an activity where troops signed up to represent a country and then we made a poster, and supplied a craft, activity or a sample of food.  Our troop  chose Australia.  These are the projects we came up with.

I got this huge poster with cut out faces so you can take pictures of yourself as a little outback boy and girl.  It was only $1.50 from Oriental Trading so I knew I had to get it. You can find it HERE (for now).

I tried to paint it, but it made it all bubbly so then I had to color it all by hand,  not the most fun thing I’ve ever done.

One  girl in our troops parents donated the wood to make a frame to hold the poster.

We used spray adhesive to attach the poster to a big piece of cardboard then I staple gunned it to the frame.

Me and two other moms made Anzac cookies. These were a little tricky this was the first time any of us had made them and we all had different little issues.  But once you sort the issues out they’re not to bad they taste kind of like an oatmeal cookie without the raisins.  I found the recipe for them on Allrecipes.  The history behind these cookies is interesting. These were sent to troops from their wives during WWI and were suppose to hold up to shipping/ spoilage better than other cookies, also they don’t contain any eggs something that could be scarce during war times.

and cupcakes for the girl scout birthday!