Jakes 18th Birthday

My sister Chris's son, Jake, turned 18 today. We had a wonderful time at his party. We got to see Uncle Aurthur(uncle Bootsie) and Aunt Linda whom I haven't seen in quite some time. Katie's little boy, Broden, as usual stole the show. Jake is a senior in high school and is going in the Air National Guard right after. He is such a sweet kid. He and Etta actually got along pretty good today. They used to just fight all the time. I guess since he is all grown up and Etta is getting there, things will change and they will get along a lot better.

Cookie exchange

My first cookie exchange party was a lot of fun. A nice veriety of cookies was the order of the day. My supervisor, Suzanne, made some Norwiegian chocolate chip cookies and pecan pie cookies (the top cookie and the one with the thumb print). Mom made cookie bars and lemon cookies (far left and bottom), Ann made peanut butter munchies(the dark chocolate cookie) Judy made no bake chocolate, coconut, and peanut butter,(obvious) and I made Lace cookies and chocolate crinkles(center and bottom right).

My neice brought her little girls. They were certainly the life of the party. The cats of course hid for the evening. Faith was facinated with the train around the village and Emily love all the red decorations and lights on the Christmas tree. I didn't get any pictures of my Mom! But, she was there too. I can't wait to do this again next year. It's nice have a ladies only get together where you get to talk crafts, recipes and all about men. The great thing about the cookie exchange itself is you get a variety of cookies after baking two batches of cookies.

The party is done!

You know, my husband had the right idea. He headed for the hills, literally. He went hunting instead of staying home for OUR daughters birthday/slumber party. I never really had a slumber party growing up, so I didn't know what I was in for. He has two sisters, whom I know for a fact, had slumber parties. He failed to tell me what I was in for. He knew. I swear he did. He can't tell me any different.
The girls had a wonderful time tearing through my house. Throwing the confetti my Husband thought would be a wonderful addition to the party, wrapping my daughter like a mummy with an entire roll of toilet paper and a leftover roll of streamers, and generally torturing the cats until i had to put them in the bedroom. Poor things. They ventured out after the girls went to sleep and looked at me as if it was all my fault. One girl, as she was running by said This is the best birthday party I have ever been to. Why, because you can't act like this anywhere else??
They made slipper socks which went fairly well. No mess from that. I was shocked. Then we made cinnamon ornaments. My little girl, the apple of my eye, made a turd with her dough. Of course, that generated much laughter from the girls and a little head shake from me. However, she did make some cute ornaments in the long run.
All in all, the girls and I had a great time. They were wonderful kids, no worse than you would think a group of girls would be with a sugar high. Amazingly they crashed at 10:30pm. Not too bad. We had home made waffles for breakfast the next morning. They loved that. and they were gone by 8 except one. She left at noon which I told the parents ahead of time it was OK.
I can tell you this, i don't think I will have another slumber party for quite some time.

Planning my daughters slumber party

She is turning 11 friday and is having her first slumber party. Oh good lord. 6 pre-teens in my house over night. Keep them busy is what I say. I'm thinking rent a few movies, come up with a couple crafts. I do know we will make the cinnimon ornaments. Very easy and a little something for mom.
To make:
Mix together 1-1/2 cups cinnimon, 1 cup applesauce and 1/4 cup white glue. This will make a dough that smells good enough to eat. I don't recommend eating it. Cover it with a towel while you clean up the mess for 30 min. (you may end up with cinnimon everywhere) Then you roll out some of the dough and use cookie cutters to make ornaments. Be sure to make a hole in the ornament so you can hang it. Now, you can either bake at 200 degrees, flipping every few minutes until dry, or you can let them sit on wax paper, flipping every so often for a day or two. I reccomend the latter, because the ornaments can curl in the oven. I don' t have the patience to stand there and baby sit them. But when I do this with the girls, I will bake.
I also plan to make slipper socks.