Easter Basket Exchange

My friend Kari does this every year and it's a LOT of fun! See her post from last year with all her rules/guidelines, etc here. (Thanks Kari!!!)

Anyone interested in doing this????

It's an Easter Basket Exchange where everyone participating fills out a simple questionnaire, then gets assigned someone else to send an Easter basket to. The questionnaires help guide your contents of the basket; and along with a few simple rules, everyone participating gets an awesome Easter basket to enjoy!

Rules:

1. participants need to be connected with us (one of the contributors to Sisters C Sisters Do)

2. live in the continental U.S. or have an APO address

3. spending cap of $30 (NOT including shipping)

4. please do NOT include cheap chocolate (no one wants to eat it!)

5. Please send a Thank You note or email

The Details:

1. Leave a comment to this post or email me directly (celeste dot mcneil 5 at gmail dot com) to say you want to participate. Make sure I have your email address!!! The deadline to sign up is Tuesday , March 6, which still leaves plenty of time to sign up, a couple of weeks to put your basket together, and just over a week to get it to the recipient.

2. Once I know you're in on this awesome deal, I'll email you a questionnaire. Please respond back ASAP. Just hit respond and then fill in the answers to all the questions. On March 10 I will make the assignments and you can get started on your basket! I will send your answered questionnaire to the person who will be making your basket so they have some idea of what you like or don't like.

3. The idea is to put together an awesome Easter basket for your person. Use your creativity to include fun things (Does NOT have to include ONLY Easter things). The idea is to create a "dream Easter basket" to mail to someone else. Remember there is a spending cap of $30 (so you don't have to spend that much, but please don't spend more), not including shipping. Please also remember that no one like to eat poor quality chocolate, so don't send any quality that YOU wouldn't want to get. It's also fun to include things that are local to you-to share a little of your town with someone else who lives elsewhere.

4. Once you've created the BEST EASTER BASKET EVER, package it all up (you do NOT need to put it in an actual basket) and take it to the post office! Please ship Priority Mail - this will insure it arriving within a week. Kari suggests using a flat rate box, available in various sizes from the post office, so the package is not limited by weight. Please ship your package no later than Thursday March 29 to ensure your package arrives by Easter. There is nothing worse than waiting for an expected package that arrives LATE! (Especially when you KNOW it contains chocolate!)

5. It's up to you decide if you're going to open your package early or not...no rules about that. When you do open it and discover all the AWESOME goodies put together by your new friend, please snap a few pictures and send them to me. We'll do a post-package blog posting. Also, please send your giver a thank you note or email to let them know how much you appreciated all their efforts!

That's it! Post a comment (with your email address) or shoot me an email to get started!

Again the Dates:

Deadline to Sign Up-Tuesday March 6

Responses to questionnaire-ASAP

Assignments emailed to you-Saturday March 10

Deadline to get package in the mail-Thursday March 29

Easter-Sunday April 8

Please let me know if you have any questions, of if I haven't explained something well enough!

Sisters-please feel free to invite a friend or two to participate (if you want to)!

Carseat canopy

front

Notice the tag?

back

I made a carseat canopy for a baby boy.  I really enjoyed doing the giraffe applique! I also really LOVED being able to attach the "Sister C" tags!  I hope you enjoy the pictures. 

Lemon Cupcakes topped with Sugared Lemon

I made these little gems for a dinner we were invited over to with our home teacher.  The lemon cupcake didn't turn out as strong as I wanted but the marshmallow cream frosting and sugared lemon topping was really good.  The marshmallow cream frosting is the same recipe I use to fill twinkies.  It is really good and easy to make.
7 oz of marshmallow cream
1/3 c. shortening
1/3 c. powdered sugar
3 t hot water
1/2 t salt
Mix the first three ingredients.  In a seperate bowl mix the water and salt until salt is dissolved.  Add the water mixture to the frosting mixture. Viola you are done!
To make the sugared lemons, I cut the lemons into slices.  Rolled the slices in lots of sugar.  Cooked the lemons on med high in a skillet laying in a single layer flipping them on occasion.  I cooked them until they were glossy but not brown about 7 minutes.  Took the lemons out to cool and rolled them in sugar again.  They made a really fun and easy topping for the cupcakes.

Pinterest Ideas

Cara showed me how to use Pinterest.  

I found some cute valentine ideas that I decided to try.

.

 These little grape tomato hearts were one of the ideas.  

I came up with craving the cucumber on my own and slicing it into hearts.

These oven fried potatoes were another idea.  

They turned out really cute and delicious, I thought.

Caylee's Valentine box

Caylee made a paper mache hershey Kiss for her Valentine box.  

She gave out hershey kisses packets for her Valentines.

The directions we looked at said to do 6 layers of paper coated in the goop and to let it dry for 8-10 hours.  

We started it on Sunday afternoon, Feb 12th.  

It still was not dry on the evening of the thirteenth.  

So we cut off the bottom which was the most wet and set the kiss over an inverted strainer to dry over night.  

It still was not all the way dry in the morning but we had run out of time, so we set it on a paper plate, attached her paper out the top and covered the whole thing in aluminum foil.  

Then hoped for the best!  

It did not fall apart at school.  

Wheew!  

So when you read directions on paper mache that suggests several layers will dry in 8-10 hours, 

do not believe it!

Favorite Books

I added a side page to the blog.  This is a place everyone can go on and keep a running list of some of their favorite books.  I know I am always looking for a good book.  I love to hear what C is reading but rarely remember the title to find it at the library.  So I thought this could be a good way for everyone to share.  I can take it down if you all want with no worries. 

Ice...

Denver got hit with a BIG snow storm over the weekend, and I took advantage of the ice to practice some photography skills.

I'm finding that I'm starting to look at the world just a little differently...I notice things I never did before, and that I often wish I had my camera just a little bit closer on hand. When I had those thoughts the other day, I took advantage of a quiet minute or two and DID grab the SLR and snapped a few shots...

Hope you enjoy some of them!

LEGO Birthday Party...

I'm not sure what I was thinking...having 10 7 year-old boys over for 2 hours for a birthday party...at MY house...but we had BIG plans...LEGO plans.

Half-pint wanted a LEGO party so I got on-line to come up with some fun ideas and themed out the entire party (at least in color: red, blue, yellow). Here's what we came up with:

Lego mini-figure cupcakes (chocolate-both mini-figures and cupcakes)

Lego Mini-figure coloring bodies, with marshmallow heads

Brick shaped chocolates

Scavenger Hunt lego photo game

Lego short movies to watch

Random brick to build and create

Mini Lego police motocycles for goodie bags

We topped the party off with cheese pizza for dinner and the "pop the balloon on your ankle game" (which was an EXCELLENT way to keep 10 boys busy for a good 20 minutes!!!

I didn't get any photos of the actual party...I was too busy keeping things moving so everything did not deteriate into total chaos in mere seconds!

Overall, it was a fun evening for everyone (I was exhausted by the end...but all the boys had a great time!)

Sassy Wonton Tacos

I made sassy wonton tacos today for lunch.  They were fantastic!  Jade loved them.  I don't know the exact proportions. Here is the recipe!
Ingredients:
wonton skins (about 20)
chopped cabbage
cooked chicken (about 1 breast shredded or cut into small pieces)
can of great northern white beans
cilantro (chopped about 4 or 5 tablespoons)
poppyseed dressing
touch of bbq sauce

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Take a deep side baking dish, spray the inside and out with cooking spray.  Drap the wonton skins over the baking dish diagonally so that it forms a taco shape.  Bake in the oven for 3-5 minutes.   Mix together: chicken, beans, chopped cilantro.  Take the wonton skins out of oven fill with the filling.  Cook for an additional 5 minutes.  Plate tacos on a bed of cabbage with poppyseed dressing.  Put a touch of BBQ in each taco.

Theses are seriously good!