Tomatoe Basil Bread Stacks

I told you - you were in for a treat.. here it is!  Oh don't they look delish?  A year ago I shared with you one of our families favorite summer snacks.  Tomatoe, basil & mozzarella cheese mixed together with balsamic vinaigrette.  Well here is another version RuthAnn made us after we decorated cookies with her. First slice a baguette, then place a slice of mozzarella cheese on each slice of bread. Then add a slice of tomatoe, and a basil leaf.....      

place them on a lined cookie sheet & drizzle with Paul Newmans balsamic vinaigrette dressing 

place in the oven and broil them until the cheese melts and the bread is toasted. Look at that- healthy never looked so good!!! One bite you'll be hooked!! Did I mention my friends can cook? And yes... I do love that.  Thanks RuthAnn- you're the best. Love ya!

 

Missionary Sugar cookies

Oh I have a fun one to post today!!! A couple of weeks ago I was asked to help one of my favorite people make cookies for her Grandsons Mission Farewell.  I love when I get to hang out with this fun group of friends.  RuthAnn, Jean, LuAnn, Shirley & Dave.  Five of us out of the group have been doing things together for 20 years now.  They are all Teachers I met when my children were going to Elementary school-and oh how I love them!!  So when RuthAnn asked us to help with the cookies I was so excited, I had never made Missionaries before, but Dave had helped make some for a couple of his Nephews----so he was the expert.  They are made out of a gingerbread man cookie cutter- how cleaver is that?  I thought they turned out so darling......

we used the glaze frosting recipe I have used for a few years, it's easy- you pipe around the outside edges and then flood the center with the frosting, and it works great. I'll post the recipe soon

they have to set for a while to harden, and you can freeze them once they are set- it was such a fun day- all of us helped in some way......some of us had more stressful parts than others lol- and I totally passed on the ties- Dave had that one under control :)  There were a couple of moments I wondered if they were really going to be presentation worthy for a farewell- so I decided to share the "before" we cleaned them up picture for you all to see- and here it is......

See what I mean?  The oozing, dripping, running frosting had me a bit nervous... I thought oh no they are a disaster-- so you can see from the picture that they really do clean up very nice!!!  All you need is a tooth pick to scrape around the edge- so scroll up one picture and see how they transform from mess- to perfection!!  Come back Wednesday and see the LOVELY snack we had after the cookie making was all done-- you are in for a TREAT!! 

AHOY MATEY'S - Pirate Party

We had our Pirate Party/sleep over this last week... I had been crazy busy with 2 weddings- so it was simple, but everyone had a lot of fun. Adam helped me make this sign to welcome the little scoundrels.  I had them each take a pirate flag as they came into the back yard.  

We had pizza for dinner, so I just had a table set up with some treats and snacks to munch on through-out the night

Cookies, drinks, chocolate coins in the treasure box.... the center piece was made of small paper treasure boxes filled with "Treasure" of course.  They each got to take 2 boxes....

I had extra nacho containers from our movie night, so I stapled them in the middle to look like a boat- filled them with crackers, pretzels, & popcorn. Then glued a flag onto a stripe straw for a pirate boat.

There were treasure maps to color 

they loved the treasure hunt... I had clues attached to sm. pirate flags for them to find. They were simple clues like "go give the scruffy mutt a bone."-- which lead them to the dog kennel and another flag with a clue.....

the last clue lead them to the sand box where they had to dip up the treasure.... it was everything they needed to dress up as.......

PIRATES... of course.  Aren't they the cutest little scallywags you've ever seen??

we played pin the eye patch on the parrot & walked the plank- then told pirate stories around the bon fire while they roasted marshmallows... then it was time for bed!!!

It turned out to be a very fun party... they just like to be together!  This was our last summer play day- I'm not sure how I feel about that!!  But I think there will be many more parties to come. :)