My daughter's 2nd grade holiday party is approaching and I wanted to come up with some sort of goodie bag/game prize that is both creative and useful. Since the celebration is one for all holidays, I decided to put together "Snowman Soup" for every child in the classroom.
Materials needed {per child}:
one packet of hot chocolate
mini marshmallows individually wrapped in little plastic bags {because they get sticky on their own}
A large, family-sized bag of Hershey kisses yields approximately 4-5 pieces per child in a class of 22 students.
Assemble together in a bag and staple the tag onto the top.
The tags I used came with this cute poem on the back...
The final product! My daughter and I had a fun time assembling them and she is so excited to hand them out to her friends at school on Friday afternoon.
This past weekend was full of Christmas{y} activities such as my work party, the Nutcracker ballet with my daughter, cookie baking with my mom and a performance of Harry Connick Jr.'s The Happy Elf musical at our local community theater. Though I barely had time for nothing else, it sure was fun to take in a few shows and gather with my coworkers.
Here I am about to board the bus for our party with my friends at work...
My favorite people to work with!
Our old teammate {Katie} met up with us for a bit. It was great to see her too!
And of course, my BFF at work, Beth...
Even though you work with people everyday, it's always nice to have a chance to socialize with them beyond the school walls.
Cookie baking has become a tradition that I do every year with my mom. Though we like all kinds of cookies, there are a few must-haves that we are certain to make. Two of those include my Baba's Jelly cookies and the Spritz cookies using an 80 year old cookie press.
While we were busy perfecting each and every cookie, Payton and Alli were having fun making holiday cards using the old cards my parents received in 2011. Leave it up to my mom to pull those babies out!
First up, "Jellies" with red raspberry preserves. The dough for this particular cookie doesn't expand so we fit a ton on one baking sheet. We like to make them rather small since that is how my grandmother used to do it.
If I had to choose, these are probably my favorite holiday treats.
After a quick lunch, we were on to the next type...old fashioned Spritz.
Spritz cookies are made by placing buttery dough into a metal cylinder tube. By turning the knob, the insert inside is lowered and pushes the dough through these metal stencils. This particular cookie press belonged to my grandmother and like I said, my mom estimates it to be approximately 80 years old. We've tried the newer plastic versions and they just don't match up.
This year I picked up colored sugar for the top. These buttery cookies are so good that they melt in your mouth.
After dinner my family wanted cookies for dessert. Being the cookie police, I only allowed two per person. Needless to say, my family was not happy but they need to last until Christmas!
On another subject, running has been hard to squeeze in. I did, however, run 4 on Saturday and about 7.5 miles with Jesse on Sunday. Hey, it's something.
What did you do this weekend that put you in the Christmas spirit?
This past weekend, I held my daughter's 8th birthday party at my house. There were ten children in attendance, both boys and girls, so I knew that I needed to have structured activities for them to do while at my home for two hours. As part of the festivities, the children had a chance to sing karaoke and dance to the latest hits.
When the children arrived, I had them sit down to decorate wooden frames with their names prewritten at the bottom with puffy paint. They bedazzled them using foam stickers since glue tends to get messy and needs time to dry. During the party, I took a photo of each child holding a large, blow-up microphone. This will be sent home with the thank you note and they can place it in their frame to remember the day.
In addition to the frames, each child took home a plastic maraca because after all, it was a music party...
Food was set out on my dining room table, buffet style. No matter the party genre, I always have fresh flowers on my table...like these alstroemeria. They are a type of lily that is rather inexpensive, lasts forever, and are readily available in any grocery store. Disposable utensils make clean-up easier, however they look nicer displayed in clear glasses of varying heights.
Since it was a child's party, I decided to have a children-friendly menu complete with mac and cheese, meatballs {courtesy of my mom}, veggies, fruit, and chips {which I never buy except for special occasions}. For the mac and cheese, I used my mother-in-law's special family recipe. The best part? You don't have to cook the noodles prior to baking. Plus, I use half the amount of butter called for in the recipe. It's always a hit with everyone, young and old.
Yep...that's all of the ingredients you need for that recipe!
A friend at school let me borrow her karaoke machine so that, plus all of the songs I had on CD and on the iPod worked well for a good hour of singing and dancing. At one point, I lost count of how many times we heard the 8 year old favorite, "Call Me Maybe." To designate a performance area, I set up a mini stage complete with a black backdrop and surrounding balloons.
Rather than a cake for dessert, I ordered chocolate and vanilla cupcakes without sprinkles and the children decorated them using a variety of candy picked up from the bulk candy isle.
Payton's masterpiece!
Plus a few others as well...
A few of my girlfriends hung around while the party was in full force. The moms had fun, along with the kids!
To me, all that mattered was that Payton had a fun time. After the dust settled, she told me that it was the best party and that made my day. Mission, accomplished.
