It's A Girl!

 I had the privilege of making these for Tacie's baby shower.  I used my go to recipe:
Sugar Cookies:

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup butter (creamed)

1 cup sour cream

Combine & beat until creamy. Add 6 1/2 cups flour and 2 tsp. baking soda, and 1 tsp. salt. Mix well. Roll out on floured counter 1/2 inch thick. Or place between sheets of parchment paper roll out, freeze for 20 minutes, then cut shapes out and put on cookie sheet. (This method will keep you from having to use so much flour which makes your cookies taste like flour :)   Bake for 10 min. @ 350.

 It was fun decorating these for a girl shower this time.  I found some really fun designs online that I copied.

Pink Baby Bottles

Onesie's

Baby Bibs

 I got so giddy when I saw this beautiful set up that Joy did.  I wish I could take credit for some of it. My cookies are just an after thought to this fun table which I'm totally okay with. Hopefully you won't mind all the pics but I was in love and want to remember this.

 Look at this adorable diaper cake!

 I also really loved her table cloth and runner.

 This was the biggest veggie tray basket I have ever seen.  I actually can take credit for the celery and radishes on this tray. =)

Beautiful wreath

 Love the lanterns! Oh and there are some cookies, blah, blah, next...

Baby Carriage fruit tray

Take home treats: party mints in boxes and thank you suckers!

 She made these wreaths for the front door! Loved it all!

Happy 4th Birthday Lucy!

Today is Lucy's 4th birthday. 

Lucy loves Hello Kitty more than she loves pink but you add them together and you have the happiest 4 year old ever!

 I found the Hello Kitty cake mold at Hobby Lobby.  She wanted a strawberry cake(Duncan Hines) with cream cheese frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter softened

1 tsp. vanilla

4 cups powdered sugar.
I copied the instructions on the mold.  It was easy just took some time to do all those darn white stars.  I even used a bigger star tip than they suggested (21.)

 In her eyes it turned out perfect, mine not so much!

 She wanted to make sure her Hello Kitty stuffed animal made it to the party. ;)

 We couldn't decide if we should do rice crispy treats or cookies so we did both.

 I used the regular rice crispy treat recipe but added vanilla and a few more marshmallows:

• 3 tablespoons butter 
• 1 package (10 oz., about 40) JET-PUFFED Marshmallows 
• OR 
• 4 cups (I add close to 5 cups) JET-PUFFED Miniature Marshmallows 
• 6 cups Kellogg's® Rice Krispies® cereal
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• In microwave-safe bowl heat butter and marshmallows on HIGH for 1 minute.  . Stir until smooth. May need a little more time but I like it when the marshmallows aren't all the way melted. Add vanilla. Stir. Add cereal, stir.  You could add your extra marshmallows here to if desired. Spread in buttered 9x13 pan.
• I found a Hello Kitty cookie cutter at Wal-Mart that I used to cut the shapes out with. It was a little more difficult than the cookie to decorate since the crispies aren't flat but hopefully they still look like Hello Kitty.

 These turned out to be Lucy's favorite so she decided we should make these for her preschool class too!

 Sugar Cookies:

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup butter (creamed)

1 cup sour cream

Combine & beat until creamy. Add 6 1/2 cups flour and 2 tsp. baking soda, and 1 tsp. salt. Mix well. Roll out on floured counter 1/2 inch thick. Or place between sheets of parchment paper roll out, freeze for 20 minutes, then cut shapes out and put on cookie sheet. (This method will keep you from having to use so much flour which makes your cookies taste like flour :)   Bake for 10 min. @ 350.

 Anna and Tacie helped me decorate these.  I love doing treats with friends!

 Lucy wanted Hello Kitty fruit snacks to share with her friends too.

 Here are the take home bags we did. We found most of these things in the Target dollar spot.  The Ring Pops and Bracelets are at Wal-Mart.

This was a fun memory for me.  Since we didn't have 8 of everything here we had to mix and match some things and Lucy had so much fun picking out what she thought each friend would like.  It was adorable watching her put them together and then hand them out to her special friends.  She is so sweet! 

Happy Birthday my little Hello Kitty Princess! (That is what she likes us to call her lately.  She is not just Daddy's princess but his Hello Kitty Princess.)

Caramel Christmas Gifts

We used caramels as our filler for the few Christmas gifts we handed out this year.

 Here's the 2 recipes we used:
#1-Mom's Caramels (I doubled this recipe)
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup karo syrup
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup of butter
 1/2 tsp. vanilla.

Add sugar, 1/2 cup of the cream and karo to heavy pan over low heat. Wash sides with hot water and don't let boil until sugar dissolves. Once sugar is dissolved turn heat up to medium. Add other half of cream slowly then add butter. Cook to 242 degrees (this temp depends on the altitude your in).  I usually do the drop water test(put a spoonful of caramel into a cup of ice water then sample it) every time to make sure it's at the consistency I like. Add vanilla. Pour into greased 9x13 pan. Once it's cooled cut into bite size pieces and wrap in wax paper.

#2-Eggnog Caramels (I got this recipe from livelaugheat.com-her recipe is a little different)

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
• 2 cups eggnog
• 3/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp sea salt (add less if using salted butter)
• Directions
  Line an 8×8 pan with buttered or sprayed aluminum foil. In a pot, combine all ingredients and bring to a boil over high heat. Turn down heat to medium and insert candy thermometer. Continue to stir mixture until it reaches 245* F. (Mine almost cooked to 250 so do the drop test if your not sure) Then remove from heat and pour into prepared pan. Allow the mixture to cool completely for a few hours in the refrigerator. Remove mixture from the pan using the foil. Cut into 1″ squares. Store caramels in an airtight container.
  
   We made these for all the kid's teachers. 

 We wanted to give them gift cards but didn't want to just hand them a card so we filled mason jars with caramels and decorated the lid with ribbon and Christmas paper.

 We made this simple tag to attach to the jars.  We tried to incorporate the Amazon A in (a)mazing but this was as good as we could do.

 I put these together for the ladies I visit teach at church.

 I found these containers in the dollar spot at Target.  I filled the inside with caramels and attached this ornament.

I found the ornament at Hobby Lobby.

 We put these together for Jared's employees.

I found this tag here at lillunna.com

 We thought this gift card was perfect to go with the cute tag.

Have a Sweet Holiday Season!

More Christmas Pretzels

These were for our ward Christmas party.

 I did these the simple way again.  I used the Caramel Apple Wraps, chocolate and sprinkles. I also did a few trees.

 I broke the pretzel rods in half to make them go further and plus there are always so many yummy treats to sample at a church party so the smaller the better, right?

Christmas tree snacks

 It's Wyatt's turn to bring the class snack in and this is what he wanted to do, Christmas tree pretzels.

 I copied this idea from online.  All you need are pretzel rods, green candy melts, sprinkles, mini M&M's, and wax paper.

Melt your green chocolate and put it in a ziplock baggie, cut the corner, and pipe it over the pretzel in a tree shape using a zig-zag pattern.  If you are like me and need a guideline to go by just trace a basic tree shape onto a piece of paper and lay your wax paper over it before piping.  Decorate with sprinkles before it dries.  I used mini M&M's for the star and ornaments, candy cane sprinkles, and Christmas colored non-pareil sprinkles.

 We also made some fruit trees to balance out the treat since we are suppose to bring a healthy snack.

I found the trays at Dollar Tree.  I also saw this idea online.