My 2012 Christmas Cookie Exchange Party!

Having a 4 yr old..2 yr old.. and almost 5 week old has

delayed this post a week or so. :) But here it is!

I really look forward to this party with friends every year.

I LOVE to bake... It's fun seeing the variety of cookies everyone brings...

and I love any excuse to get the girls together and have a party!

Here's a round up of photos from the fun night!

With a 4 week old at the time, the party details were cut to a minimum.

And with Christmas around the corner...extra budgeting is happening.

But I was happy how it all came together and

that we could have a fun girls' night!

First things first...the invite! I e-mailed it out to some of my girls.

I love having a creative project to work on....

but I also need some brain power to do DIY Projects and

my kids have currently zapped all brain power from me.

So I tried to keep it simple this year.

I feel like a walking zombie plenty of these newborn days..

A lot of things happened the couple days before with a baby strapped to me,

during naps, or while nursing (creating printables).

I had little helpers while making my sweets. :)

Here's how the set up looked like before everyone arrived and

placed some of their cookies on the taste testing table!

This year I used all my own plates from pottery barn..(wedding dishes)

and my reindeer (target couple years ago). The mini trees are from Big Lots ($6) and I put some gold ornaments on them from the dollar store. (our tree is all silver or I would have used those!)

I made a banner in Photoshop and then strung it up with some tinsel from the Dollar Store.

I got a sheet of gold sparkly card stock from JoAnns on clearance..and used my circle punch to cut out circles to place around the table for a little sparkle. :)

I also created some tented cards with numbers on them for the cookie voting.

I also had favors for the ladies.

I grabbed up a variety of mugs from our local thrift store...

50 cents each.. ran them through the dishwasher..

then used an OIL BASED Sharpie to decorate them!

Baked in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Sophie LOVED them..

so she got her own too. it says sophia on it. :)

(she is reallyyyy into hot chocolate with marshmallows right now. hehe.)

I filled up some of the extra clear bags with a marshmallow mix and marshmallows...

then tied with the gold curling ribbon from the dollar store.

The prizes this year were edible. (above are shots of work in progress)

Edible amazingness.

Oreo Truffles.

All time favorite dessert right now..... dangerous little things.

I made up some cute tags to go with them.. and packaged them

up in clear bags and dollar store curling ribbon. 

The cookie competition was fierce this year... ;)

Lots of yummy varieties to sample...

We loaded up our little plates with a taste of each... and got to voting!

 It's a tough job but someone had to do it!

 

Like previous years, I made up Ballot Cards for the voting!

I think it adds a fun activity to the night.

After the cookie sampling and voting was done...

it was time to load up the cookie trays!

I got silver dollar store trays..I thought they would be a fun alternative

to the christmas trays they had..

because the girls can use them for other occasions..

(like new years!)

I made Reese's Peanut Butter Cookies. A family favorite!

It was a fun group of girls!

I was so happy that we made this happen...

December is such a busy month.. 4 girls had to cancel last minute.

Here's some shots of the lovely ladies who came.
We all were happy to have girl talk and sample cookies... ;)
(ps. cute red straws below were from bed bath and beyond.)

Not only did the girls have the yummy oreo truffles...
but one of the girls that came sells Thirty One products, and
brought a handful of them for the winners to choose from! :)
A winner across the board was the Peppermint Candy Cane Brownies.

YUM! We all ended up with some pretty trays of cookies..
to freeze for Christmas... or to dive into right away.
we chose to dive in. ;)

If you want to check out my past cookie exchanges...

Here's from 2010 in our old rental...

and here's from 2011.

Thanks for stopping by..
Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Christmas is almost here!!!!
Can't wait to share our Christmas Card(s) Cutenessssss.
Today the girls and I are going to decorate sugar cookies...
and on Christmas Eve we're decorating their gingerbread houses!
I have a feeling sienna will be eating most of the decorations. :)

Oatmeal Scotchies Recipe & My Cookie Exchange Packaging

Oatmeal Scotchies

If you are looking for a new cookie to try out here you goooo!

My friend sarah made these at bible study and

I immediately was trying to get the recipe out of her.

Lucky for me it was on the back of the nestle butterscotch chips bag!

Not so lucky for me...is the fact that there are TWO recipes on the back..

and if I'm not careful two cute little distractions who shall remain nameless

but are brunette and blonde.....

distract me enough to make me follow the recipe for the brownies

instead of the cookies on one occasion....Mommy brain.

Gotta love a mess up like that the night before a cookie exchange party...

but, I googled and asked friends for help and we switched up the recipe to work!

crisis was adverted.

Long story short...try these! You will love them.

**I put in half chocolate chips and half butterscotch chips**

Oatmeal Scotchies Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract or grated peel of 1 orange

3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats

1 2/3 cups (11-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Butterscotch Flavored Morsels

**I do half butterscotch half chocolate chips**

Directions

PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats and morsels. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 7 to 8 minutes for chewy cookies or 9 to 10 minutes for crisp cookies. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

I recently went to a cookie exchange party..

a local follower of mine invited me and it was so much fun!

Real life friends now! :) Here's how I packaged up my cookies.

I used my treat bag tag printables and put the recipe name on them and the link to www.verybestbaking.com so they could look up the recipe!

I thought it was a nice fun touch. :)

Hope you are all having a great week. Just wanted to say thank you for the messages and the kind emails I have received..you know who you are. :) This week has been a bit tough with missing Shannon..your support, prayers and kind words mean so much to me. I am always so touched when I hear how you have spent hours reading about shannon on my blog..falling in love with her like we loved her. I am happy when I hear that she is touching lives still. I was so blessed to have such a great friend all those years.. and am glad others are able to see how amazing she was.