Weekend Happenings - Cookie & Birthday Parties

Saturday, our house was the site of the 4th (at least) Annual Cookie Party.  This pretty much entails: frosting a 5-gallon pail's worth of sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies; dipping everything under the sun in chocolate; and eating All. Day. Long.

It was SO MUCH FUN!

We invited 24 people and we had 16 people here - which was about the perfect number.  The 9 kids had a blast decorating the cookies.  K and I had done the cookie baking last weekend - and we couldn't find the Christmas cutters, so we had dinosaurs, flowers, cars, teddy bears, and lots of stars and circles.  I use a sour cream sugar cookie recipe, so they aren't so sweet - then we frost the cookies with a cream cheese frosting, again, not so sweet.  Then, when I make the gingerbread cookies, I cut up some of my homemade crystalized ginger, so you get the bite of the spicy ginger.  Yum!  Then, we use about 20 types of sprinkles - everything from standard red and green sugar to cows, pigs, and school buses. (We consider it a yearly challenge to come up with the most original sprinkles.)

Everyone brings a dish to pass, so we don't all succumb to the sugar coma.

Then, the adults dip into the chocolate.  I made four types of homemade marshmallows (easy peasy) vanilla bean, cinnamon, toasted coconut, and caramel covered.  So, we dipped those and dried fruit, nuts, cookies, and whatever else we can dip in chocolate.

Then, we have the picture of the aftermath:

Then, on to Sunday...

Birthday party for K and my nephew.  The kids raked it in.  Thank you to my sister-in-law for hosting that.

I Want My House Back

If you know me, you realize that I am a lazylaid-back housekeeper.  On any given day, I have 3 to 6 children in this house ranging in age from 2 to 8.  This group of children is enough to mess up complicate any cleaning scheme.  In fact, my husband and I have always been pretty good at "The Flight of the Bumblebee" emergency cleaning when people are coming over.

So, for me to admit that I need to be able to see my cupboards and that my living room needs to get about 3 feet bigger on every side is actually a huge accomplishment.

My husband made huge strides towards us being able to gain room, make that REgain room.  He put the flooring down in the newly remodeled guest room/craft room.  He still needs to do the closet, but we can actually put the bed back in there, so I can get back on the front porch.

Then, we will be able to move the extra craft supplies that I purchased at an estate sale, that are currently inhabiting the new game closet, will be able to at least go into the craft room in a stack, so I can list them on Ebay.  Then,, we can finish the games closet by painting and putting the shelves.  This will allow us to move the MOUNTAIN of board games from the front porch to their home in the game closet.

By clearing off the front porch, I can guarantee that I will have a home for the hundreds of cookies that will be decorated during our annual cookie decorating party, which is ONLY 5 weeks away from today!  Gaaaaacccckkkkk!

This knowledge that the cookie party is coming up sooner than I thought it was, is probably the reason that I NEED a clean house.

Another thing that has to happen is for my canning things to be finally put away.  After I finish another couple of batches of apple, cranberry, cherry relish tomorrow, I think I will finally be done and can put away the steam canner. 

The craft room/guest room will also have to have a shelf for food storage, because I have never canned so much food as this year, and every place that I have ever used is currently stuffed to the brim with home canned goods.  I need another shelf.  Then, the "extra" table that we set up in, oh, August, will finally be able to be moved into the craft room.  The crafting stuff currently residing under the "extra" table will be able to find their home in the craft room. 

Then, as a final step, at least for finding my home again, the other crafting stuff hiding upstairs will be able to go into the craft room and the toys will be able to move from the living room to the upstairs hiding area.

I'm going to gain at least 80 square feet of living space between the kitchen and the living room.  My house is going to feel huge.

I can't wait.