Mary Kay Party

It had been years since I had been to a Mary Kay party so when my mother-in-law called and asked if I wanted to come over for Mary Kay make overs I jumped at the chance. In fact I had SO much fun that I ended up booking a party of my own! The nice thing about Mary Kay is that it's nice and low key. I sent out some text messages and got a few replies. All in all it was me, three friends, and a friend's daughter whom she brought to help her learn early the importance of taking care of your skin.

I love entertaining so even though I had just gotten back from our anniversary trip I had to do a couple special things.

First thing I did was make short bread cookies.

 I love these simple cookies. We make them quite a bit in our house since they only take three ingreedients for the cookies. So simple in fact I thought I would share the recipe.

Favorite Shortbread:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons sugar 

1/2 cup butter

 

 

Make sure butter is room temp and combine butter sugar and flour.

For square cookies kneed into ball and flatten into a one inch thick rectangle on a cookie sheet. Then cut into squares. We prefer pretty shapes so I roll out the dough and cut with tiny cookie cutters. 

Bake at 350 for 12 minutes or until you think they are done. No eggs or anything so no need to worry about under cooking. We decorated these cookies with simple powdered sugar icing and sanding sugar. 

 

I also used some fold over elastic to make simple head bands. They are a knock off of the Anthropologie head bands. They are so simple to do but people love them. I made enough for every one to be able to take one home. (Side note. I love Anthropologie but I cannot believe how much they want to charge for these things.)

 

Dayna did such a great job with us! We were a crazy bunch and kept her out crazy late but she did so great. She answered all our questions and made the whole evening a bunch of fun.

I ended up getting Satin Hands collection in peach. I normally don't like peach flavoring or scent but this is nice and light. With all the hand work I do with my dolls my hands get pretty beat up. I love Satin Hands because it keeps my hands soft and smooth and less like to get cut up with the thread.

All in all it was a great night with great friends.

Mary Kay Party

 It had been years since I had been to a Mary Kay party so when my mother-in-law called and asked if I wanted to come over for Mary Kay make overs I jumped at the chance. In fact I had SO much fun that I ended up booking a party of my own! The nice thing about Mary Kay is that it's nice and low key. I sent out some text messages and got a few replies. All in all it was me, three friends, and a friend's daughter whom she brought to help her learn early the importance of taking care of your skin.

I love entertaining so even though I had just gotten back from our anniversary trip I had to do a couple special things.

First thing I did was make short bread cookies.

 I love these simple cookies. We make them quite a bit in our house since they only take three ingreedients for the cookies. So simple in fact I thought I would share the recipe.

Favorite Shortbread:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons sugar 

1/2 cup butter

 

 

Make sure butter is room temp and combine butter sugar and flour.

For square cookies kneed into ball and flatten into a one inch thick rectangle on a cookie sheet. Then cut into squares. We prefer pretty shapes so I roll out the dough and cut with tiny cookie cutters. 

Bake at 350 for 12 minutes or until you think they are done. No eggs or anything so no need to worry about under cooking. We decorated these cookies with simple powdered sugar icing and sanding sugar. 

 

I also used some fold over elastic to make simple head bands. They are a knock off of the Anthropologie head bands. They are so simple to do but people love them. I made enough for every one to be able to take one home. (Side note. I love Anthropologie but I cannot believe how much they want to charge for these things.)

 

Dayna did such a great job with us! We were a crazy bunch and kept her out crazy late but she did so great. She answered all our questions and made the whole evening a bunch of fun.

I ended up getting Satin Hands collection in peach. I normally don't like peach flavoring or scent but this is nice and light. With all the hand work I do with my dolls my hands get pretty beat up. I love Satin Hands because it keeps my hands soft and smooth and less like to get cut up with the thread.

All in all it was a great night with great friends.

Kitchen Therapy

We got back in town from vacation late Sunday night and jumped back into life first thing Monday morning. Yesterday was actually my first day back into regular routine since the miscarriage. It actually went smoother than I expected. I spent the morning do laundry, grocery shopping, and dealing with FAMIS and Medicaid over the phone and through faxes. Surprisingly it went rather smoothly and every one I talked to was very kind and helpful.

In the afternoon I engaged in some serious kitchen therapy. Cooking, baking, bread making, even decorating my Kitchen aide mixer! Nothing soothes me quite like the kitchen. One of the things I made was buffalo chicken hot pockets. I normally use this as a left over re-purpose, but Josh asked for them so I went a head and made the dip and bread solely for this purpose. I've had a couple people ask about it so I thought I would share the recipie here.

Filling

Ingredients:
1 can chicken (large size) (This is the first place you can use left overs. Instead of buying chicken use left over rotisserie chicken or really any left over chicken that doesn't have to strong a flavor and isn't in a sauce)
1 8 oz. brick cream cheese
1/2 c blue cheese dressing (we use ranch since I can't stand blue cheese)
1/4 c cayenne pepper sauce
1 pkg. shredded cheddar cheese. 

Directions: 
Melt cream cheese over medium-low heat. Once creamy, add blue cheese, hot sauce, and chicken.
Remove from heat, fold in 1/2 pkg. of shredded cheese.
Pour into square 8x8 oven-safe dish. Top with remaining cheese. Bake at 350°F until cheese is melted and bubbly. (You can also just dump it all into a crock pot)

Bread
For the bread I use my go to bread recipe which can be found HERE. But you can really use any dinner roll dough.

Assemble
Once your dip is made stick it in the fridge to cool. You want to be sure the dip is pretty solid as it makes it easier to work with. (I often make a double batch of dip and use the left overs for the hot pockets).

Make bread according to directions. Once is has risen once, grab small balls off and flatten into circles. Put a scoop of filling in the middle and wrap dough around it. Make desired amount of pockets. Put in warm place to rise till roughly double. Bake at 350 till top of rolls are brown. (Time will vary depending on size of rolls.)