Cousin Craft Camp 2010

It's Cousin Craft Camp time again! It has been so fun having the Rissers here for a whole week!! We are having so much fun and we still have a couple more days left!!


Cousin Cook-Off... We split up into teams, chose an appetizer and a dessert, shopped, cooked and presented at the Johnson's on Saturday. We had everyone vote. Emily, Jillian and Megan won in the dessert catagory with their Chinese Take-out Cupcakes. Brooklin and Heather won with their Cheese-y Corn Dip.

The girls played a game of Kick-the-Can...

We took a trip to Painted Earth, a paint-you-own pottery shop. Grace and Ethan even got to come inbetween their vacations.

They had a Cousin Camp-Out in the backyard...

Brooklin and Megan set up shop giving massages. They earned quite a few dollars for our trip to the mall.

A little sewing...

Family time at the Johnson's...

Divingboard...

IN-N-OUT!

White Lime for yogurt...

The mall...

And last night we made our own lip gloss...

The fun and activities keep on coming!...

Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago I found a great recipe for Chocolate Mint Cupcakes. Tomorrow, all of the Moms-In-Touch groups in our school district are taking goodies to the district office. I made one batch of chocolate mint and one batch of lemon. In the recipe the cupcakes are from scratch, but why do that when a cake mix is just as good!



I made the batter according to the box directions.


To the chocolate batter, added 1 1/2 teaspoons peppermint (not regular mint) extract.

For the lemom cupcakes, I made cream cheese frosting and added 1 teaspoon lemon extract. I used my decorator gadget to pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes. I sprinkled them with pink and yellow sugar.

For the chocolate mint cupcakes, I made another batch of cream cheese frosting and added 1 teaspoon peppermint extract.

I used my decorator again to fill each cupcake with a surprise frosting center. Then I piped more frosting on top to hide the holes and sprinkled them with green sugar. So cute and so yummy!

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 ounce cream cheese, softened

1 stick butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or another flavor, if desired)

3 cups powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese and butter until combined. Add extract and blend. Add powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time until smooth.

Valentine's Day Sleepover

A week or so ago, my mom and I planned to have a Valentine's Day Sleepover for the cousins at our house!

Mom and the kids arrived at around 4pm and within the first 30 minutes, Ethan was minorly injured and went home to mom and dad. So, now it was a Girl Night. Plans didn't change but we did talk about bras at dinner... :)

Anyway, first we had Make-Your-Own Pizzas! Emily even got fancy with the dough twirling!

Next, we did a Treasure Hunt. Mimi did the clues. The big girls read the clues and the little girls figured them out.

Everyone got a prize at the end.

After the treasure was eaten (chocolate, of course!) we made yummy, sticky, PinkPopcornBalls-on-a-Stick.

We stayed up late and watched Secondhand Lions.

In the morning we had waffles and sausage for breakfast and then pampered our feet with pedicures. We had a soaking station and a painting station. Everyone picked a different color polish.

Let's do it again next year! (Hey other cousins, you're all invited too...!)