Girl Scout Bridging Ceremony

What It Is
Well, here's a kind of party I haven't had to plan since I was a girl (a million years ago). I had a bit of trouble finding ideas for Brownie Bridging (also known as Fly Up) online, so I thought I would share what I came up with here. Bridging in Girl Scouts is when the girls move from one level to another, such as from Brownies to Juniors. It's a pretty big deal. All the families are invited to celebrate all that the girls accomplished in the past couple years, and talk about what they have to look forward to in the next level of Scouting. Being in Girl Scouts made a HUGE impact on my life and I am very happy that my daughter is loving her experience as well.

The Ceremony
Our troop's Bridging Ceremony was to take place outside at a local park. The girls learned to cook over a fire early in the day, and then the families came later for the Ceremony. Lots of ceremony ideas I saw online used candles, but I knew those would blow out in the windy great outdoors. The script I wrote uses flowers that the girls place in a vase. I patched together this script from various ideas I saw online. A Girl Scout always uses resources wisely! Here is a PDF of the Bridging Ceremony Script we used:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byh3C6Lxek0gdGFBMjljLUtTSGs/view?usp=sharing

The Bridge
The actual bridging part of our ceremony was outside on a real bridge over a creek. I wanted to make it special with some decorations so the girls would like it. The decorations needed to be 1) inexpensive, 2) not damaged by rain or wind, 3) bright and cheerful. I decided on rainbow colored duct tape and a pack of multi-colored balloons. My husband was enlisted to help me wrap the duct tape around a tree, trail it across the bridge and wrap it around a stick that we stuck into the mud (there not being an appropriate tree on the other bank). We blew up the balloons and folded the duct tape with the balloon knot in the middle to suspend everything over the creek. This worked well as there was no railing on our bridge. If the bridge had a railing, it may have been even easier to decorate with balloons. I didn't feel like we had to go crazy with decorations - I mean, we were outside and natural beauty surrounded us. But the balloons and bright tape did make it more fun for the girls to run across the bridge and into their future of Junior Girl Scouting. Of course, we removed all trace of the decorations when we left the site. (Take only photographs, leave only footprints!)

Don't Forget
- Recognize your leaders and parent volunteers.
- Let the girls help plan the ceremony - who has what part, what songs to sing, etc.

Baby Shower Must-Take Photos

When you host a baby shower for a friend, make sure you enlist someone to document the big day through photography.  The mom-to-be is going to be too busy socializing to take her own photos, but you know she will want to remember this party! You don't need professional photography, but get a guest with a reliable camera who isn't shy about asking people to pose and smile.  Of course, you can do it yourself if you have time between all your hosting duties!

Food Photos

Pretend there is a comma between "Welcome" and "Simon".
Unless this cake is actually issuing a command for us to welcome Simon. Hmm...  

I'm not saying that Oreos covered with chocolate stamped with little ducks are
the cutest baby shower favor you will ever see in your life, but seriously, they've gotta be in the top 5.  

Yogurt bars are THE BEST for brunch time showers. And check out that low-cost and adorable flag banner!

 Special Gifts

This thoughtful guest made a banner for the new baby's room.  It's sweet to get a photo of the gift and the giver. 

Fun Group Shots

It's likely that the gang doesn't get together very often.  A group photo like this will be treasured by the new mom!  Try to think of a cute place to take the photo.  And take a few to make sure everyone has their eyes open. 

Guests Having Fun

Mix it up with candid and posed shots. 

 

Guests decorate wooden blocks with paint markers for the baby.
Hey, a shower activity that doesn't embarrass anyone! Awesome!

 With the Host

You hosted this amazing party!  Make sure you get a nice photo with the guest of honor. #friendsforever

 Next Step - Don't forget to give the mom-to-be copies of your photos!!

Prisoners of Love Bridal Shower

I recently had the honor of hosting a bridal shower for my friend.  She works as a Victim Advocate and is marrying an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney.  So, these are two people who have dedicated their careers to catching criminals and getting justice for victims of crime.  I thought a law enforcement themed bridal shower would be pretty fun, especially since almost everyone attending the shower would be their co-workers.  The official theme of the shower was "Prisoners of Love".  We had a blast!

The Invitation-  As the followers of this blog know, I am a big fan of creating a PDF or image file and emailing the invitation to guests.  This saves paper and maintains the integrity of your design.  If this had been a more formal shower, I would have printed out the invitations and mailed them, but as we all work in the same office, email was the perfect way to get the word out.  The benefit of the image file was that I could also print a couple color copies to hang in the office as a reminder.

 

The Decor - To go along with the theme - basically a mix of love and crime - I incorporated the colors from the invite, turquoise and red, to come up with a centerpiece.  All the tables had red roses in a turquoise vase surrounded by handcuffs or shackles (that the probation department kindly let me borrow for the afternoon!) 

 

The Activity - The guest of honor wanted NO GAMES.  And, of course, I listened to the bride-to-be!  But we had to have something fun to pass the time and make this more than just a luncheon with presents.   It was decided to have a photo booth.  I'd seen photo booths at weddings, run by professionals, but as this was a lower-budget affair, the co-host and I created our own photo booth with a twist.  We made a WANTED poster out of a cardboard display board.  I found a bunch of crimes - some from the Ohio Revised Code that were actual crimes, and some that we just made up for fun.  The "crimes" people could choose from were: Assaulting a Police Horse, Running an Illegal Gambling Ring, Hoarding Fabulous Shoes, Doing the "Footloose" Dance in a Public Place, Swearing in Front of Women and Children, Public Intoxication, Misuse of a Public Transportation System, Driving Too Slowly, Stealing Doug's (the groom's) Heart, etc.  Actually, at the shower, the bride-to-be started looking through the crimes and assigned them to different people, which in itself was pretty funny.  Plenty of props were around so people could be as silly as they wanted to be.

 

The Bonus - I edited all the photos from the shower and put them in an album for the bride as a keepsake of the day.  I also posted all the photos on an online site so that all the guests could laugh at the photos.  I filtered some photos in sepia tone or black and white so they would look more old-timey. 

World's Best Vanilla Cut-Out Cookie Recipe

I have long held a love/hate relationship with cut-out cookies.  I think they can be so delicious and look gorgeous, but MAN are they a lot of work and so easy to screw up.  I have searched for years for the perfect cut-out cookie recipe (you know, not constantly searched, but I have tried literally SEVERAL recipes.)  I am nearly bursting with jubilation to announce that perfect recipe here.

First, when searching for a cut-out cookie recipe discard anything that mentions Crisco.  Butter, my friends, butter is the magical ingredient that blissfully clogs our arteries while we dream of Christmas.

Triple batch, baby!  (Note to self: overkill - maybe double batch next year.)

Second, you need to take some time with your cookie decorations.  I don't know when it became acceptable to just slap on some nasty tasting white "frosting," throw some red sugar crystals in the general direction of the cookie, and call it a day.  Not on my cookie tray.  Go big, or go make some rice krispie treats with my four year old. (Just kidding, but they do look nice when you take the time.)

Third, roll them out THICK.  Some people enjoy really thin, crispy cut-out cookies, but those people, I feel, are the minority.  A thicker, chewy on the inside cookie is going to balance the frosting better and accentuate the vanilla-y buttery deliciousness.

World's Best Vanilla Cut-Out Cookie Recipe:
from Bon Appetit December 2003 (with slight changes)

Cookies

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (get the real stuff, not the imitation kind)
• Additional sugar

For cookies:
Sift first 3 ingredients into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter and 1 cup sugar in large bowl to blend well. Add egg, sour cream, and vanilla; beat 1 minute. Beat in dry ingredients in 2 additions until just blended. Gather dough together; divide in half. Flatten each half into disk; wrap in plastic and chill 1 hour. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Keep chilled. Soften dough slightly at room temperature before rolling out.)

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Sprinkle work surface and top of dough disks with additional sugar. Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough to no less than 1/4-inch thickness. Dough may be very soft and sticky, so roll out the dough between two pieces of wax paper or parchment paper. Using assorted 2- to 3-inch cookie cutters, cut out cookies. Transfer to prepared sheets, spacing 1 inch apart. Gather scraps and roll out on sugared surface; cut out more cookies. Repeat until all dough is used. Chill all cookies on baking sheets at least 15 minutes and up to 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, until very light golden appears just at bottom edges, about 11 minutes. Transfer cookies to racks and cool completely.

Icing

• 4 cups (or more) sifted powdered sugar (sifted, then measured)
• 3 tablespoons (or more) whole milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• (I also add 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract)
• Colored sugar crystals, sprinkles, and/or decors

For icing:
Combine 4 cups powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons milk, and vanilla in medium bowl. Stir until icing is well blended, smooth, and spreadable, adding more milk by teaspoonfuls if too thick or more sugar by tablespoonfuls if too thin. Use a food coloring gel, such as Wilton's, and stir a tiny bit into a portion of your icing to make a pretty color.  Using small icing spatula or table knife, spread thin layer of icing atop each cookie.  If using colored sugar crystals, sprinkle over cookies before icing sets. (Can be made 3 days ahead. Store airtight between sheets of waxed paper at room temperature.)

HOSTESS TIPS

1. Don't make your icing colors too bright.  A pastel blue is nice, but some people are turned off by a dark blue frosted cookie.  You just know it is going to give you blue teeth!

2. When decorating, get a bottle of those rainbow jimmies.  They are great for giving eyes to your snowman or Santa. 

3. You can freeze the cookies frosted or unfrosted, but sometimes the frosting gets a little blotchy in the freezer.  They will still taste awesome and it's not like those tiny imperfections would prevent anyone from eating them.  You really can't tell at all on the ones with lots of sprinkles, but if you look closely at the plain iced cookies, you may see a couple imperfections after they come out of the freezer - such as a couple spots that are a shade lighter.  If you want perfect, freeze the unfrosted cookies if you need to, then decorate them just a day or two before you need them.  Store in an airtight container.

4. Red food coloring added to icing often just looks pink.  If that bothers you, a delicious fix is to put some red colored sugar over the top of the pink icing.  You can see that effect on the cookies in the picture above. 

5. Cookie pans.  I highly recommend using a light-colored alumnium cookie sheet.  Use parchment paper so your cookies don't stick.  The cookies are very fragile when they first come out of the oven.

6. This is the same recipe I used to make the wedding favor cookies in this post.  But I used royal icing to decorate those.  Although royal icing arguably does not taste as good as the icing in this post, it gets really hard.  This quality makes it ideal for wedding favors because it dries quickly and the colors don't run much.

A Party at the End of the World

There has been a lot of speculation that the world will end on December 21, 2012.  This belief is based on the calculation that a calendar made by the Mayans literally ENDS on that date. 

So, what better way to spend the last day of our existence than to have a rocking party, surrounded by our friends?  It's the last day to confess our transgressions, tell our friends how much we love them, and drink one last glass of scotch before God knows what disaster will happen on the morrow.  

Note that December 21, 2012 is a Thursday, but most people probably won't mind attending a mid-week party.  Just start a little earlier than usual.  I mean, it's the LAST DAY OF THE WORLD, so it's not like anyone will have to go to work in the morning anyways. 

HOSTESS IDEAS

ATTIRE - If this really is the last day of your life, what do you want to wear?  I say, tell the guests to wear whatever clothes they want to wear once more before the END OF TIME.  For me, this is going to be a fabulous floor-length gown, probably a boa, and definitely my wedding tiara.  For my husband, it is going to be his jammies. 

FOOD - Well, for once in our lives, calories REALLY don't count.  So you might as well indulge.  I'm thinking cheesecake, and sausages wrapped in bacon, and caviar.  NO veggie trays in sight.  Is there a food you always thought you should try before you die?  Order some of that for the party.

BEVERAGES - You might as well drink whatever you want because the best thing about the world ending is that you don't have to worry about a hangover.  Yay!

ACTIVITIES - Maybe you could play the old party game "I Never".  It seems really poignant now doesn't it?  Thinking that if you have to drink because you "never" did something, you really will never get a chance to do it now?   (To think my life is over and I never got a tattoo in a naughty place.  Sigh.)  Or maybe everyone has to make an end of the world confession.  They can have the chance to get some secret off their chest before the earthquakes, meteor, floods, and/or lava destroy the earth tomorrow. 

PLAY LIST - Okay.   I worked a long time on this.  I think I have most of the Apocolypse-related music here.  Let me know if I missed any songs we should play before the world ends.

"Until the End of the World"- U2

"It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"- REM

"1999"- Prince

“Learn to Fly” - Foo Fighters

"Until the World Ends"- Britney Spears

"The End" - The Doors

"Five Feet High and Risin'” - Johnny Cash

"When the Levee Breaks" - Memphis Minnie/Led Zeppelin

"So Long It's Been Good to Know You" - Woody Guthrie

"Black Diamond Bay" - Bob Dylan

“Flirtin’ with Disaster” - Molly Hatchet

“Apocalypse Please” – Muse

“The Day the Whole World Went Away” – Nine Inch Nails

“London Calling” - The Clash

“99 Red Balloons” – Nena

“Bad Moon Rising” - Credence Clearwater Revival

“King of the World” - Steely Dan

“1812 Overture (Finale)” - Tchaikovsky

 “I Don’t Want to Wait (For our lives to be over)” - Paula Cole

“The Final Countdown” - Europe

“Death is Not the End” - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (by Bob Dylan)

“I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” – Aerosmith

“Highway to Hell” - AC/DC

“End of the Road” - Boyz 2 Men

“The End of the World” – Skeeter Davis

“Nothin’ But Flowers” – Talking Heads

“When the World Ends” - Dave Matthews Band

“Rapture” – Blondie

“Black Hole Sun” - Soundgarden

“Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” – Bob Dylan (but love the Edie Brickell version)

“Gimme Shelter” - Rolling Stones

“O Fortuna” – from Carmina Burana (Carl Orff)

 

These songs are more on the funny/ironic side -

“Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” – Eric Idle

“Get Happy” – Judy Garland

“Come Sail Away” – Styx

“Apocolypso” – Jimmy Buffett

“Tomorrow” – from Annie

“Let it Be” – the Beatles

“Adios and Vaya Con Dios” – Zac Brown Band

“I’ll Fly Away” – O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack

“Last Dance” - Donna Summer

“People Get Ready” – I love the Ziggy Marley version

“Wastin’ Time” – Kid Rock

“The End” – The Beatles

Kate's Monster Cookies

Some foods take on a legendary status in families.  For my family those foods include Dad's chili, chicken paprikas, Mom's cheesecakes, and most importantly Monster Cookies. 

Monster Cookies entered our lives sometime around 1990 through a recipe my Grandma Emily discovered.  The recipe was actually called "Kate's Monster Cookies", so I knew they were meant for me.  We never looked back.  If my friends knew two things, it was that they were always welcome at my parents' house, and that there would always be Monster Cookies.

When I moved away for college, the recipe for Monster Cookies came with me.  I made a slight variation to our original recipe - less white sugar.  The variation was made by mistake, but as the taste and consistency of the cookies was actually improved, the variation became the law.  My college roommates couldn't get enough of these beloved "Monsters".  Later, my co-workers demanded that I make them again and again and begged for the recipe.  I'm really not over-selling these cookies to you.  They are, quite simply, the best cookie ever.  These cookies have oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate chips, and M&Ms.  There are chewy and crunchy.  They are alpha and omega.  They are ying and yang. 

Hope you love them as much as I do.

KATE'S MONSTER COOKIES

makes 7 DOZEN (And don't even think about halving this recipe.  You will want them all.  Plus, they freeze really well.)

1 C (two sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 C creamy peanut butter
2 1/4 C brown sugar
2 Tbsp sugar
6 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp light corn syrup
1/2 C flour
1 Tbsp baking soda
9 C Quick Quaker Oats
2 C M&Ms
2 C chocolate chips

In a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer, cream butter, peanut butter, brown sugar and sugar. Mix in eggs, one at a time.  Add vanilla and corn syrup and mix until blended.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking soda together.

Add the flour mixture to the batter.

Add the quick oats, one cup at a time.  Mix at the lowest speed.  The mixture will start to really fill up your mixing bowl.  The more you can do with the electric mixer though, the better, because the dough is very thick and difficult to stir by hand.

Add M&Ms and mix at low speed.  Add chocolate chips and mix.  Mix in by hand if you have to/want to.

Refrigerate dough for one hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Roll dough into 1.5 inch balls.  Place on ungreased cookie sheet, one inch apart. Bake for 11-12 minutes at 350 degrees.  They are done when you just start seeing a little golden brown on the tops of the cookies.  Let cookies sit for a minute on the pan, then carefully transfer to a wire rack to cool.


TIPS
1. Refrigerate the dough between batches. 

2. If the dough is too sticky for your liking while you are rolling them into balls, add a little flour.  But don't go overboard adding extra flour or the taste will be adversely effected.  My hands are absolutely covered with sticky dough when I am rolling the dough into balls, so don't be surprised by that.

3. Take the rings off your hands before shaping the dough into balls.  Like I said, it gets messy.

4. Use RED and GREEN seasonal M&Ms and voila!  You have the perfect Christmas Cookies.

5. You can make the dough one day ahead of time and refrigerate the dough overnight in a covered bowl if you want. It takes kind of a long time to make these since the recipe makes so many cookies, so I often make half of the Monsters one day, and finish them up the next day.

6. These cookies do not break easily, so they are the best kind of cookie to make and ship to friends.  If you know anyone in college, they are a wonderful study food - you get the sugar rush plus all the protein from the peanut butter. 

7. Do not over bake.  They should be a bit chewy inside.

The Night the Baby was Conceived...

I was at a charming baby shower over the weekend for a darling young woman.  She's one of those pregnant ladies with a PERFECT pregancy shape.  No bloating, no cankles, just a round little baby bump that looks like she has a honeydew melon under her shirt or something.  (Unlike me, who looked like a beached whale from seven months on.  But I digress.) 

At the shower they had a fun little activity that made everyone giggle.  I thought I would pass it on because it was just hysterical.  And it only takes a few minutes to do.

BABY SHOWER ACTIVITY - PILLOW TALK

One host or guest secretly writes down all the things the mom-to-be says while she is opening her presents.  After the presents are opened, the host explains to everyone that the comments were what the mom-to-be said the night the baby was conceived.   All the comments should be read out loud to the group.  The innuendos can be hilarious! 

Obviously don't introduce this activity to a group who would be offended by the joke, but at the shower I attended, there were a bunch of the mom-to-be's friends, as well as a few older relatives, and everybody thought it was great. 

Here's the list from that party, just so you can get an idea: