A Birthday Party for Peanut!

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Mae

As I mentioned in a previous post Peanut turned one last month! How it happened is beyond me but we celebrated her special day yesterday. I love to plan parties and throw them. I was raised in a house where Birthday Parties were always a big to do. So I am going to blame my parents for my obsession with the ‘perfect party’.

I decided a few months ago that we were going to have an owl them for Peanut. She is still too little to really have any true likes. She isn’t in to TV or any certain characters. So I took the liberty of planning her a super special Owl party!

I found a great location at a local community center which worked GREAT! There was a cute Barn in the room and the walls were painted in a barn motif too! The best part it was reasonable in price and would be safe for Peanut. I was afraid of having her party at some other popular locations because she might get smushed since she is such a peanut!

It all started with a Google search.. Owl Invitations. The images were endless, but I came up with this super cute one! I called my super crafty sister and asked her if I thought we could come up with something similar.

On the back were all the juicy details! As I mentioned in an earlier post we offer a donation suggestion in Lieu of Gifts. This year we chose The Pajama Program. I included these details on the bottom of the party information section with the needs of the Pajama Program.

I looked a ton of Owl Themed plates but decided on these cute plates from Celebrate Express. I ordered the dessert plates and a couple of Balloons to match. I used light blue table cloths, bright pink plates, green and orange cups, and purple silverware.

I decided on a party during lunch time. Peanut usually is awake and happy during this time which is key for a one year old. This meant we needed to plan a meal. I thought about pizza but decided I would make it easier on some friends who have a dairy allergy. So I made a make your own sandwich buffet! It went over very well It was really easy to do and a great non-pizza option.

Check out the awesome walls!!

We did two crafts at the party! Since Peanut has an older sister I figured that would keep her and her friends busy. They love crafts and all go to preschool. I found this great paper bag owl craft online. She had templates which were AWESOME! So definitely check her out. I used craft paper that I had in my scrapbook stash which made things cheaper. I grabbed some paper bags at the dollar store and the kids really enjoyed it.

The second craft my friend Jennifer from Mosk Momma found at JoAnn Fabrics. During Christmas time they had wood ornaments that could be painted or colored. I got them for a STEAL… Less than .50 a piece. Each kiddo got to make their own. They used good old crayola markers. Here is a picture of Peanut working on her Owl with some help

Now I have a love for cupcakes if you haven’t noticed from reading this blog. So I will be doing a separate post on them soon! However, I will give you a peek at how cute they were! It was my first time dabbling with Marshmallow Fondant and I think you will see more soon. It wasn’t as awful to work with as I thought it might be. I made homemade Funfetti cupcakes that were pretty tasty and so easy to make.

The cute owl on the right was a mouse pad in the dollar bin at Target!!!

A sweet friend made Peanut’s Smash cake. She totally rocks! It was adorable and Peanut did a fantastic job smashing it to pieces

Here is the smash cake…

The last detail from the party was the Party favors. I really wanted to find something that was owl-y and usable. Every kid loves favors but they are usually expensive cheap toys. That is they work out to be about $5-$10 a kid and are toys that don’t last long once they go home. I spent HOURS looking for something and came up with crayon tote bags. Sue from SewnJust4U made my life so much easier! She made the process painless and her work is amazing!

I made a cute little coloring book with Owl images I found online and included it.

We had 3 bitty ones at the party and my AWESOME sister made cute owl crinkle taggies for them!

Inside the crayon totes were these treat bags. I was pretty proud of myself because I was able to recreate the owl face on my own! As you can see in the photo above I gave the little one cereal instead of gummy bears.

So there you have it… the ins and outs of Miss Peanut’s first birthday party! She had a wonderful time, we collected a ton of donations (more on this to come) and everyone seemed to leave with a smile on their face. I call that a success!

Christmas Traditions!

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Mae

Well here we are the day after Christmas… It feels like last week has been a blur! That is partially because Peanut had surgery last Monday to have tubes put in. She has battled 4 sets of double ear infections since October! The first two nights of the week were sleepless. She was in a lot of pain (not from the tubes but from have 2 terrible infections going on!), and was up nearly every hour. I haven’t slept that poor since Munchkin was a baby!

Needless to say, this week came an went even faster than it would normally!

We were still able to do a few of our favorite Christmas traditions. We made a gingerbread house, baked and ‘painted’ sugar cookies, made a few more types of cookies, went to Church on Christmas Eve, went for a drive around our town to see lights, and listened to carols!

Here are two of my favorite cookie recipes!

Secret Kiss Cookies

Ingredients:

1 Cup Butter 1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup sugar 1 cup ground pecans

2 cups flour 1 1lb bag of Hershey Kisses

Powdered Sugar

Directions:

Beat butter, sugar and vanilla. Add flour and nuts.

Chill dough for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven @ 350.

Wrap each kiss in dough (a little goes a long way!) Making little balls. Bake for 6-8 minutes. You can place many cookies on the tray I leave about an inch apart. They do not spread when baking.

Cool and then coat in powdered sugar. Be very gentle these are delicate!

Chocolate Mint Cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup Butter 2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 Cups brown sugar 1 1/4 tsp baking soda

2 tablespoons water 1/2 tsp salt

2 cups of semi-sweet choc chips 2 (4.5 ounce) packages of Andes Mints

2 eggs

Directions:

In a sauce pan over medium heat, cook sugar, butter, and water, stirring occasionally until melted. Remove from heat, stir in chocolate chips until melted set aside to cool for 10 minutes.

Pour the chocolate mixture into a large bowl, and beat in the eggs, one at a time. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, stir into chocolate mixture. Cover and refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheets. Roll dough into walnut sized balls and place 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes in preheated oven, be careful not to over bake. When cookies come out of the oven, press one mint (sometimes a 1/2 is more than enough!) and swirl with a toothpicks. Let them set (or don’t!) before eating!

Store cookies in an airtight container!

Christmas Bark!

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Mae

So I have been so busy with Holiday stuff I have been neglecting the blog some… so I am so sorry! I am going to do my best to post a few over the next couple days. Most of them will be holiday ideas.

This recipe I found on …. you guessed it… PINTEREST! Seriously, I might go broke or save money with all my pins!

Anyway, I made this great Halloween Bark back in October and thought, why not try a Christmas one. It is so simple and even the Non-baker types can make this with NO issues!

Christmas Bark

adapted from Cooking with K

32 Oz. Almond Bark Vanilla (2 Packages)
1 Box of Kellogg’s Crispix Cereal
4 cups Christmas shaped pretzels (or really any small ones will do!)
2 16oz. Bags of M&M’S (any variety will work-Peanut Butter Chocolate Candies, or Peanut Chocolate Candies, or Plain Chocolate Candies- I used Peanut Butter and Pretzel) in Christmas Colors

Holiday Sprinkles **Optional

In a medium microwave safe bowl, melt chocolate in the microwave for 2-4 minutes at 30 second intervals until chocolate is melted. While it is melting you can mi In a large bowl, mix the cereal, pretzels, and M&Ms (you should steal an M&M or two to make sure they are good enough to serve!)

Pour melted chocolate over the cereal mixture. Using a large spatula to fold all together. Try not to mash the cereal too much while doing this.

Once all the mixture is coated completely with the chocolate, pour out onto a table lined with waxed paper (I used baking trays lined with wax paper and set it outside because it cooled REALLY fast!).

Shake some holiday sprinkles on them for extra color!

Once cooled, break up into pieces and store in an air tight container-Ziplocks work well!

Christmas Bark!

Mae’s Got This is not responsible for any diets this recipe might ruin. ENJOY!!!

Gobble Gobble…. Turkey Cookies!

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Mae

Munchkin is in preschool 3 days a week. Tomorrow they are having a Thanksgiving Party! I am sure it will be adorable seeing them all singing their turkey songs. I signed up to bring cookies.

I asked munchkin what kind of cookies did she want me to bring. First she said, “Pumpkins.” Then she changed her mind (isn’t that what 3-year-olds always do?!?) and said “TURKEYS!!”

So I ran to Pinterest.. and search ‘turkey cookies’ there were a couple of consistent pins. So we settled on this one.

Oreo Turkeys!

Now I am not going to lie… these were SUPER labor intensive! Mostly, lots of steps.

What you need per Turkey:

Candy Corn 5-7 (back feathers)
2 Double Stuffed Oreo Cookies (body)
1 Whopper (head)
1 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup (side cut off)
1 Tube of blue piping gel (eyes)
1 tube of white icing (glue)
1 tube/can chocolate icing
red cookie icing
1 sharp knife

This step should make your life easier:

Put your Peanut Butter Cups in the fridge to get hard. If you have cold hard chocolate to work with it makes it a lot easier. OK, so the original recipe I followed did not have this suggestion. I wish it had!!!

Assembling the Bird:

First is the tail using 1 Oreo cookie and 5-6 Candy Corn. Now here is the fun part. Twist to remove the non-icing side. Put a nice blog of icing (white preferably) in the middle. Arrange 5-6 candy corn around one of the edges of the cookie half with the double stuffed icing. Put another small blog of icing on the half of the cookie w/out the icing. Make sure you leave the yellow/orange piece sticking out. Oh, and should an Oreo break during the twisting action it is important that you taste test to check for any potential quality issues.

Take your chocolate (or white) icing and squeeze a good-sized blog onto the top back edge of what will be the bottom Oreo cookie. Take the tail feather Oreo and put the bottom into the icing to have it stand up. If it doesn’t stand, add more icing or prop against a back splash! Once you have it stand put it up against something so it doesn’t fall until the icing is dry.

Remove your Peanut Butter Cups from the fridge. Place with the top of cup face down on your cutting surface. Take your knife and cut off the very bottom so you have a flat surface. Put icing on the cut side and along what would have been the top of the PB cup. Place it against the bottom and back of your Oreo cookies. You should be eating the cut edges so you don’t waste any. (Just saying!)

Next, take a Whopper and put a little blog of icing on it on one side. Place the whopper on top of the PB Cup to make the head.

To make the nose take a piece of candy corn and cut off the white part. Eat or discard the rest (who would discard it!) Now, if you are lucky you will have a bunch of white tips floating around your bag like I did!!

Take your icing and place two white dots as eyes. I put a spoonful in a ziplock baggie and cut a tiny bit off to get a small dot. Get your tube of blue piping gel and place a black dot on each eye.

I used red cookie icing to add a goobler. (Just so you are really informed it is called a Wattle and only on male turkeys – Thanks GOOGLE!)

If you want you can add feet by making some orange icing and piping it on. Or not… they are pretty cute without.

That is it… not too hard but mostly like I said a million steps. Tomorrow at her Thanksgiving party, I am going to watch 15 3-year-olds decapitate and dismember the turkeys I slaved over tonight! It will be worth it!!!!