Softball party

Jared had a party today to celebrate the end of their softball season. He is part of a community league of mostly friends from church. He has loved every minute of it. We were in charge of bringing dessert and this is what we made. 

Cookie Cake:

 • 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour maybe less
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 ½ cups chocolate chips (I used a mixture of butterscotch, white, and milk chocolate)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Directions
1. In large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well.
2. Gradually add flour, salt, and baking soda, beating until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.
3. Spread in greased 16 inch round pizza pan. Leave 1 ½ inch border to allow for spreading. Bake at 350 degrees maybe a little less for 15 to 20 minutes. Cool cookie in pan on a cooling rack. Decorate as desired.

*We traced a circle in the middle of the cookie using a Tupperware lid. Jared says the softballs they used were yellow so that's why this is yellow.

Way to go team!

Back to School Snack

It's the first week of school and all is right in the world. Ethan isn't the small dog at school anymore. Lucy got a wonderful Kindergarten teacher.  Mr. Estrada moved up a grade and kept his same class from last year which means Wyatt has him for one more year. It's going to be an awesome year!

Today is Wyatt's turn to bring in the class snack. We wanted to do an apple theme.

Apple juice, apples and apple pretzels. 

I learned a great way to keep apples from browning for several hours and it's way better than lemon juice.

Slice apples and then soak them in 1 cup cold water and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt for 10 minutes. Rinse with cold water. I promise they don't taste salty. 

We made a fruit dip to go with the apples:

Mix together: 8 oz. cream cheese softened, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup sugar, and 2 tsp. vanilla

I found small clear cups with lids at Walmart (near the plastic cups) to serve this in.

We wanted to give each kid a couple yummy apple pretzels to go along with the plain ones. 

We used red candy melts to dip the pretzels in. I started by dipping the bottom half of the pretzel in the chocolate and setting it to dry on wax paper. Once it was dry I dipped the top half and then added a small piece of a pretzel for the apple stem and a mini green M&M for the leaf. 

We put the container of dip in the bottom of the cup, then a baggie of sliced apples, and a handful of regular pretzels, followed by the apple pretzels. Yummy!

We tried to make these look like apples with the red cups and green leafs (printed out using my accent cricut cartridge.) Wyatt and Lucy added the back to school stickers. 

We added the juice boxes to each bag to make it easier for Wyatt to hand out. 

Happy First Day of School Friends!