Turkey Treat Boxes

Yesterday I spent the day in the basement trying to come up with a cute little treat for Emilee and Sean to take in to school for a special Thanksgiving treat. These are what I finally came up with.

I got the idea off (you guessed it) Pinterest.  http://www.mychicnscratch.com/2010/06/triangle-box-1.html
I cut my cardstock 3x8. I used the life is a beach cricut cartridge for the feathers. I filled the turkeys with hershey kisses. Well I only have 20 of them done so far and I wasn't in the mood to work on them today so I'll have to finish the rest tomorrow.
Today I was in the mood to try a new kinda cookie. I made Chocolate Covered Pretzel Cookies!!! They are really GOOD! I might just make some of these for my cookie exchange this year instead of the Almond Joy Cookies I was planning on making. I followed this recipe excepted I added 2 cups of pretzels insead of 1.
http://alskamom.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/chocolate-covered-pretzel-cookies/

 

What's for dinner?

Tonight for dinner we had one of our favorite slow cooker dishes. Stew Beef with Ravioli Dumplings, Yummy and pretty easy!

It really doesn't look very good, but believe me it is delicious! Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds(480g) beef stew meat cut into pieces
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic,minced(we like garlic so added a bit extra)
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano.crushed
• 10-ounce(300g) package frozen peas
•  3 15-ounce(450g) cans beef ravioli in sauce 

 Directions

1. In a baggie combine together flour,salt and pepper.
2. Add beef cubes,a couple at a time.Shake to coat.
3. Using large nonstick skillet,cook meat until browned.
4. Add onion,garlic,and oregano.
5. Cook until onion is tender but not brown.
6. Transfer to slow cooker.
7. Add 1 cup water.
8. Cover and cook on low heat for 8-10 hours.
9. Switch slow cooker to high heat.
10. In stainer rinse peas under hot water to separate.
11. Stir into beef mixture with ravioli .
12. Cover and prepare about half an hour longer 

For dessert  I made Almond Joy Cookies!

The recipe:

 Ingredients-

• 1 cup salted butter (softened)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3.4 ounce package instant vanilla pudding mix
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups chocolate chips
• 2 cups shredded sweetened coconut
• 1 1/2 cups slivered almonds

Directions-
In a bowl cream together butter and sugar. Add pudding and vanilla. Beat in one egg at a time. In a separate bowl mix together flour, salt, and baking soda. Combine the dry ingredients with wet ingredients. Once mixed stir in chocolate chips, coconut, and almonds.
Preheat oven to 350. Spoon cookie dough onto baking sheet and cook for 8-10 min. (however I always end up doing mine for 11 min) Allow to cool on wire cooling rack. 

Halloween

I started this week off a bit under the weather, not sure what it was, maybe a touch of the flu. I just lay around the house Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and by Thursday I started to perk up. Pretty lucky too because I had promised Emilee and Sean I would make treat bags and cookies for their Halloween parties on Friday.
Well you all already know I have pinned so many ideas on Pinterest. I also had discussed and showed the kids my ideas and they helped me narrow them down. They even helped me with the cookies, and what to put into the treat bags.
Sean chose a Frankenstein treat bag, and Emilee wanted a ghost treat bag. So I decided to make all the boys Frankenstein bags and all the girls would get ghost bags.  After looking again at all the ideas out there on the Web, I came up with these.

 

Judging by the looks on all the kids faces, they loved them.

This is a picture of the spider cookies we made.

 And here are the bat cookies.

Well Thursday night I kept thinking how on earth can I get all these treat bags and cookies and the teachers gifts into the school in the least amount of trips as possible. I ended up getting all the cookies, treat bags and gifts into 4 boxes,(with lots of help from my husband) then I had a bag with my camera, (of course) and the plates and napkins. So that was going to be probably 5 trips into the building since the boxes couldn't be stacked because of my fear that I would smash them. Ok so I get to the school and carry 1 box in and tell the Secretary I have at least 4 more trips worth of stuff. She said wait a minute and came back out with a cart that I could use to bring them in with. Yeah!!! So I push the cart out to the van and loaded 1 box on and turn around to get another box and the cart started to roll away(it was quite windy),  awww pheeeww I caught it before it got too far. After all that I got everything in in just 1 more trip. Then the Secretary said they would take it from here. I didn't even have to carry them all the way(not that far. lol) to the classrooms. woo-hoo!!! 

Now it was party time. Emilee's class had lots of parent helpers and Sean's only had 1 so I helped out in Sean's class. We had LOTS of cookies, candy, cupcakes and punch. We played a few games. One of the games we played was the mummy wrap, where you take turns wrapping your buddy up. All the kids loved that! 

Mr. Brooks is such and awesome teacher, he agreed to let the kids wrap him up like a mummy! I think that was the best part of the party for the kids!

You can really tell these children love their teacher! That really makes for a great school year!
Thanks to Mr. Brooks for all he is doing for these little sweeties!