THIN MINT TRUFFLES

I love chocolate and I love mint.  Put them together and I'm in Heaven! 

So, when it's Girl Scout cookie time I stock up on Thin Mint cookies.  They are great frozen!  I often find I eat way to many of them as they pop into your mouth and go down so easy. 

Same goes for most of the other flavors that Girl Scout cookies come in.

This year, I thought it would be fun to try some of the great recipes I've seen floating around that actually use Girl Scout cookies in the recipes. 

Tonight, I made Thin Mint Cookie Truffles.  They were so easy and while I didn't think it was possible to top the flavor of the Thin Mint Cookies, I was wrong.  This recipes pushes it up to a whole new level.

They take minutes to make and they could be placed into a box to give as a present to someone special.  Only, make two batches because you will not want to give these all away. 

You only need a few ingredients.  I used four but actually you could get away with only three if you only used one color of chocolate.

So, by now you must be asking "so how do I make these?".  OK, I won't make you wait a minute longer.

You take one box of Girl Scout Thin Mints cookies.  Crush them up into tiny pieces.  You can do this by hand or in a food processor.

Once they are all crushed, take 4 oz. of cream cheese that is room temperature and mix it into the cookie crumbs.  Mix well.

Then roll into small balls and stick them in the refrigerator to set up.  Once cold, remove and dip each ball into melted chocolate.  Drizzle with a contrasting color of chocolate and then put back in the refrigerator to harden up.

That's it!  Easy, isn't it!

So, when you get asked by a girl scout if you would like to buy a box of cookies, say yes.  In fact, get a few boxes. 

There are so many great recipes that use the cookies that you will be happy you did.  Plus, if you don't feel like cooking up anything, they are wonderful alone!

If you have not been asked to buy any cookies and you live in Orange County CA, let me know, I'm a girl scout leader and would be happy to bring you as many boxes as you would like.

CAMPING FUN

Yesterday I shared with you the decorations for Camp Trinity.  Today, I wanted to show you the fun we had over the weekend stay.

We rented a cabin at the KOA camp ground in Chula Vista CA.  It was about 2 hours from where we live.  So, of course, everyone was hungry before we got there.

We stopped to have lunch at Sam's Pizza.  The pizza was super BIG and it was one of the best pizzas I've ever had.

After lunch, we went straight to our cabin.  It was so nice!  Much better then I expected it to be.

We quickly unpacked, everyone claimed where they were going to sleep and then the girls changed to go swimming.

All of the girls are like fish and could stay in the pool all weekend.  But, there was to much fun to be had and after a few hours, it was time to get out.

While the girls were swimming, I hung out at the cabin and got the decorations up.  The girls were thrilled when they walked inside.

After they took a shower and changed their clothes, it was time to go on a scavenger hunt. 

They worked in teams and tried to find everything on the list. Some items were easy to find and some were harder.

It turned out to be a close call on who won.  The team that returned back to the cabin first only lost because they were not able to bring back everything they should have.

But, no one was really a loser.  Everyone got a treat.

Speaking of treats, the girls took trail mix and water with them on their hunt.  Then they came back and chowed down on chips, candy and soda.

They decided it was time to open presents.  It was fun to see what everyone got Trinity.  They had fun laughing at some of the things and oohing and awing over other gifts.

I think it's so cute how the girls were just as excited to give Trinity her gifts as she was to get them.  Each girl had her picture taken with the birthday girl.

She got some lovely things and was grateful for everything she got.

It was then time to go rent bikes.  They had some crazy ones to pick from.

They all took turns trying out all the bikes.  Heck, I could not pass these up myself.  So, even I got on and had some fun.

It was fun watching them trying to race and listening to the them laughing.

This camp ground was a great place for kids.  They had so much to do.  They had a park that the girls wanted to play at for a little while after riding bikes.

I can't get over how well they all got along.  Not one disagreement the whole weekend.  They were all perfect!  Which made it nice for me and my sister.

After playing and getting tons of exercise all day, they were one hungry crew.  So we went back to the cabin and had a BBQ!  We ate outside.

It was super yummy.  Something about cooking and eating outside seems to make everything taste so much better.

It got dark outside so, we built a fire to warm up.  It sure does get cold out there!  I think they said it was going to be 29 degrees that night.

Rather then bringing a cake, we brought cupcakes that I had made at home.  They were not frosted though.  The girls frosted her own cupcake and decorated it.

Knowing it would be hard to fit 12 candles on Trinity's cupcake, Maureen brought super skinny, curly ones.  They were able to all fit on her cupcake with ease.

We sang Happy Birthday, the girls ate the cupcakes faster then I've ever seen girls eat cupcakes before.

I would have thought they were to full to eat anything else but I was wrong.  They had really worked up an appetite and claimed they still had room for S'Mores.

Even though we were by the fire, it was still very cold.  So, the girls wanted to go inside the cabin to warm up.  They wanted to watch a movie.

When I got inside they were in their pj's all bundled up and snuggling together on one couch enjoying the movie.

I told them to pull out the couch because it turned into a bed.  They were more then happy to have the extra room.  They were then all cozy and warm and watched the movie.

My sister and I went into one of the bedrooms and watched TV in there so the girls could have some alone time.

They ended up talking and giggling until the wee hours of the morning.  Finally, the cabin was quiet and everyone was asleep.

We all got up early, made a big pancake and bacon breakfast.  Then we packed up, cleaned up and hit the road.

 However, even though we left the cabin, the fun was not over.  We didn't have time for the girls to have fun with Silly String and poppers.

We decided rather then not do them, we would stop at a park for a little more fun before we went home.

By the time we were almost home and near the park, Maureen said she thought it would be fun to go to lunch at Farrell's Ice cream shop.

All together the girls yelled out "YA!".  Farrell's is a fun place to bring kids.  They have waiters and waitresses that run around, sing and dance and celebrate birthdays of whoever is having a special day.

We had lunch then of course ice cream sundaes.  YUM!

The last stop was to the park.  The girls all ran around Trinity and started to spray her saying "she was the birthday girl so they had to get her". 

Then it turned into a free for all with everyone spraying each other.

I couldn't help but crack up as I watched them running all around laughing so hard as they got each other.

It was a perfect ending to a perfect weekend.

The girls all said they had the best time and it was the best birthday party they had ever gone to.

That of course put a smile on my face because making sure they all had a good time was the whole goal.

If you missed out on the post showing the decorations, you can find it by clicking here.

I entered this party over at My Insanity.  Can you please go over and vote for this party and help me win :)  Thank you.  Just click here to get there.

CAMPING BIRTHDAY PARTY

 Normally, right after Trinity's birthday party is over, I start planning on the theme for next year.  This year, she kept saying she didn't want a party.  

But, a week before her birthday she changed her mind!  She wanted to rent a cabin and bring just her closest girl friends for a weekend of fun.

There wasn't much time to plan anything but it turned out to be one of the best parties she ever had...her words, not mine.

Since we were going to be in a cabin, CAMP TRINITY seemed the perfect theme.

This was the cabin we rented.  Just seeing where we were going to staying for the weekend thrilled the girls!

As they got closer, they could see signs were hanging on the door.

Two signs were hung up.  One saying "What happens at camp, stays at camp!".  The girls loved this saying and it was said over and over again all weekend long.

The other sign said "Welcome to Camp Trinity!".  This gave them a hint as to what was inside.

As soon as they walked in the room was full of the girls excitement.  They loved what they saw.

A S'More bar was just waiting for the sky to get dark so they could go out by the camp fire and cook marshmallows to place on chocolate and mashed down with gram crackers.

There were "Camp Trinity" chocolate bars and "Camp Trinity" Peanut butter cups.  

I loved using the covers.  It brought the theme more to life.

 Rather then just having marshmallows, we had "Puffy Clouds".

Multi color marshmallows were called "Rainbow bits".

The "Grizzly Bears", better known as cinnamon bears and gummy bears,  were attacked and eaten up quickly.

We planned to have a scavenger hunt and there were "Camp Trinity" Trail Mix bags made up and bottles of water for the girls to take with them.

I wasn't sure how the trail mix would go over since there was so much other candy, chips and junk food (all not shown here) for them to snack on.  But, I was happy, they all grabbed a bag and a bottle of water to take with them and left the other junk food behind...for now.

Since we were going to have a BBQ, the table where they were going to eat, was set up outside.

 There wasn't much room on the table to do decorating so I just kept it very simple.

Since the color theme of the party was green and brown, I just got plain color plates.  I did get them in square shapes to add a bit more interest to the look.

I got some pretty napkins with a left pattern on it to bring in some of the camping theme.

Since it was outside and there was a breeze, the napkins wanted to keep flying away.  To solve that problem, I just put a cute green and white paper straw on top.  It not worked to hold the napkins down but it added another layer of texture and interest to the place settings.

The use of battery candles kept the danger of starting a fire away but still added a flicker glow to the table when it got dark outside.

Some more printable tags were added to the cups to tie in the theme from inside.

I was happy that even though the decorations were kept fairly simple, Trinity loved the theme and all the little details of her party.

You can read about the fun activities we had by clicking here.