Bead Cub Scout Neckerchief Slide

I had purchased a bunch of yellow and blue beads and boondoggle crafting cord and with the suggestion from a friend was able to come up with a fun neckerchief slide for the Cub Scouts using no glue!

Pony Bead Cub Scout Neckerchief Slide:

Materials:

30 beads

2 24" long strings of boondoggle craft cord

String the first row of three beads onto a cord and push to the center of the cord.  Lace the 2nd row of beads onto another cord.

Lace the other cord through the same beads in reverse order.  Pull both cords snugly.  

Continue with the next row of beads until you have 10 laced rows, 5 out from one side and 5 from the other.  

Loop beads around and string one cord through the first row of beads.  Tie cords together pulling tight.

Push loose ends into the next row of beads.  Repeat with the other three strings.

Pull strings really tight and snip.

A completed Neckerchief Slide!

Favorite Pumpkin Pancakes

This post has been moved to Evolve:

https://www.livegrowgive.org/pumpkin-pancakes

November 9, 2017

Layered Brownie Cookies

My husband's office was having their Thanksgiving Lunch celebration and he asked me to make brownies.  At first I was just going to cheat and use a mix until I realized I didn't have one.  So I pulled out my recipe books to find one and remembered a recipe a friend had shared.  My husband loves these and is hoping that the others don't try them so he can eat them all!

Layered Brownie Cookies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 oz semisweet chocolate, melted
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
about 9 whole graham crackers
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 F.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  In a separate bowl/measuring cup combine milk and vanilla.  In a mixing bowl combine flour, salt, and baking soda.  Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk mixture.

Remove 1/3 of the batter to a separate bowl; stir in the melted chocolate and then fold in the walnuts.  Spread into a greased 9x13 baking pan.  Arrange the graham crackers over the top.

Add chocolate chips to remaining batter.  Drop by spoonfuls over graham crackers and spread evenly.

 Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes or until top is golden brown and the top springs back when lightly touched.  Cool on a wire rack before cutting.  Makes about 1 1/2-2 dozen.

Enjoy!

Layered Brownie Cookies
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 oz semisweet chocolate, melted
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
about 9 whole graham crackers
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 F.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  In a separate bowl/measuring cup combine milk and vanilla.  In a mixing bowl combine flour, salt, and baking soda.  Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk mixture.

Remove 1/3 of the batter to a separate bowl; stir in the melted chocolate and then fold in the walnuts.  Spread into a greased 9x13 baking pan.  Arrange the graham crackers over the top.

Add chocolate chips to remaining batter.  Drop by spoonfuls over graham crackers and spread evenly.  Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes or until top is golden brown and the top springs back when lightly touched.  Cool on a wire rack before cutting.  Makes about 1 1/2-2 dozen.

Cub Scout Angry Birds Neckerchief Slide

For our upcoming pack meeting I was given the assignment to come up with a neckerchief activity for the boys to do since we are doing a uniform inspection and we don't want all the boys to be bored the whole time.  So after experimenting with a couple different ideas this is what I came up with! It is simple enough for the cub scouts to do by themselves, stays on, is adjustable, and fun!

Supplies:
Red, Orange, and white craft foam
Google Eyes
Skinny Hole punch
Cording
Craft Feathers
Hot glue or craft glue

First cut 2 circles out of the craft foam, one smaller than the other.  I tested it with kids scissors and it cut just fine.

Punch 2 holes in the center of the larger circle.

Cut a piece of cording about 6 or 7" long

Thread the cording through the 2 holes in the large circle.  

Decorate the face of the bird on the small circle.  To get the white piece I traced the small red circle on a piece of white foam.  Then I cut out the circle then cut the circle in half.  

Take the half circle and trace the bottom of the circle on the white.

Cut along your line and you have the belly.

To make the beak, cut a small rectangle out of the orange craft foam.

Cut it in half on the long diagonal.

Glue the white belly to the bottom.  I found hot glue worked the best, if you want the boys to wear it that night, this is the best option, the craft glue will have to sit at least overnight... Then glue on the eyes, I used the self adhesive ones that worked great.  Then glue the 2 triangles in the shape of a beak ontop of the white.  Set the face aside and glue your feathers in place on the large circle.  Then put a good glob of glue on the bad of your bird face and secure it to the large circle.

When dry flip it over and have the boys tie a square knot to make the loop.  The great part about this is you can retie it if it is too big or too small...

It slides up the neckerchief best if you hold it by the cording, but it works great and stays in place!

Maple Pumpkin Scones

These little scones have become my new favorite recipe.  Scones have always been a favorite in my house and I love pumpkin so I was excited to try them.  I adapted a recipe I originally found on Pinterest and got raving reviews from my husband and my oldest son.  My little one just licked off the frosting... I guess you can't win all your battles :) I hope you like them as much as we do!

Maple Pumpkin Scones

2 cups flour

1/2 cup minus 1 Tbsp sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1/4 tsp ginger

6 Tbsp cold butter

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

4 Tbsp sour cream

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp maple extract or to taste

1 Tbsp or so of milk

Preheat your oven to 425 F.  In a mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.  With a pastry blender cut in the cold butter until a coarse meal. Add pumpkin, cream, and egg.  Mix until almost all the way combined.  Dump out on a pastry mat or floured wax paper.  Use your hands to knead 3 or 4 times until an even consistency.  Shape into a 6" round disk.  Use a knife and cut like a pizza into 8 slices.  Bake on a stone or baking sheet for 15-20 minutes until just starting to brown.  Remove to a cooling rack and mix the glaze.

In a small bowl mix the powdered sugar, extracts, and milk.  I just eyeball the measurements.  After the scones have cooled 5 minutes or so (if you can wait that long, I couldn't!) drizzle with the maple glaze.

Enjoy a fabulous taste of fall!

Recipe Adapted from:

http://www.momswhothink.com/bread-recipes/starbucks-pumpkin-scones-recipe.html

October Book Club

The October Book was selected by my friend Amanda:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

This book is one of the great reason's I love being in a book club.  This is probably a book I would not have picked up to read on my own but I absolutely loved it!  I am so glad I bought this book instead of borrowing it from the library because I will most definitely want to read it again!  The author does a wonderful job illustrating with her words creating a masterpiece of black and white in your mind as you follow the intoxicating story.  I love how the characters were all interconnected, and the author did a wonderful job connecting the different timelines as everything comes together at the end.  This was a book I didn't want to put down.  

September Book Club

When I lived in Tucson I had a great group of ladies that got together once a month outside of our playgroups and normal Mommy playdates for a chance to get together minus kids and have fun and adult conversation.  After moving to Virginia this was something that I missed terribly.  After over two years I have finally got one started again! Thank you my wonderful Grace friends for making this dream a reality!

The first book we read was in September and my choice was:
Enclave by Ann Aguirre

This was a quick and easy read.  Some of the situations posed were interesting to contemplate.  It made you wonder about the role of current government and media/propoganda... We had an interesting discussion about society after reading this book.  Some books can get really graphic but this is a book I think did a good job of getting across the main idea without crossing the line into the unnecessarily graphic details and I would have no problem recommending to Teenage readers.  It was not a real in depth detailed book but I liked it enough to want to finish the series.  I did also like that the author did research before writing the story and remained true to her findings in the situations posed throughout the book.