London's First Ever Sleepaway at Girl Scout Camp in Jockey Hollow Tonight!

I can't believe it, my baby girl is getting so grown up. This morning, Rex and I put London on the bus to Jockey Hollow Girl Scout Camp with all of her stuff for a one night sleepover -- sleeping bag, pillow, favorite stuffed animal, last minute love note from mom snuck into her sleeping bag...

This was London and Maddie's first week at the Girl Scouts Jockey Hollow Day Camp, and both girls have loved it so far -- classic summer camp stuff, like swimming and hiking and arts & crafts. For rising third graders and up, the Girl Scout camp also offers the opportunity to sleep over on Wednesday night during some of the weeks of camp. Maddie isn't old enough this year, and probably isn't quite ready to sleep away from home, but I'll be glad to have her home tonight to keep me company while her sister camps out with a bunch of her Girl Scout buddies.

Christmas Cookie Recipes for London’s Brownie Troop: Roxy’s Nightmares (Double Batch)

From time to time, I've worried that London will get thrown out of her Brownie troop due to her mother's missing Girl Scout gene... first the inability to sew or iron patches onto her vest (did someone say "stapler"??) and now...I'm the last mommy to submit two recipes for the Official Mendham Brownie Troop Cookbook (did someone say "take out"??)

So tomorrow is the big Brownie Gingerbread House Decorating Day at our fearless troop leader's house... causing visions of London's 4th birthday party to dance in my head... that was the year I decided it would be fun to have 30 pre-schoolers over to the house to decorate 30 gingerbread houses with 30 pounds of icing... but that's another story.

Today's story involves recipes, and, just in time for tomorrow's troop gathering, London asked me to type up the recipe for my favorite Christmas cookies, otherwise known as Roxy's Nightmares. I've been making these cookies for over 30 years, and they are good...so good that you should go straight to the double batch or there won't be enough to go around. Even if you live alone.

While I don't want to alert the wildlife protection agencies here, I'm about to kill two birds with one stone, as I'm going to share this Christmas Cookie recipe with my blogosphere buddy SpicyBug, who is a few ingredients short of a full batch in her quest to complete her holiday baking. When the girls and I get around to baking this weekend, I'll add photos to this post. In the meantime, whip up a double batch and come back to comment and let me know how they turned out.

Ingredients:

• Two 12 oz. packages chocolate chips
• One cup butter (two sticks)
• Four (4) eggs
• Two (2) cups sugar
• Three (3) cups flour
• One teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• One (1) teaspoon vanilla
• Mini marshmallows
  

Steps:

• Melt one cup chips and butter over low heat.
• Pre-heat oven 375 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
• Mix everything else, then add chocolate mixture.
• Drop onto cookie sheets with marshmallows in centers.
• Bake 8 minutes.
  

Enjoy!

Weird Snow in the Roxiticus Valley

Okay, it isn't even Halloween, the leaves are still colorful on the trees, and as you can see, we have about two inches of snow on the ground in the Roxiticus Valley. We got a call from Mendham Township Elementary School, letting us know that they were not sending the kids home early. Instead, the school officials were hopeful that the road crews would have time to salt and sand and clean up the roads before the school buses headed home at the regular dismissal times. Maddie's first Daisy Girl Scouts meeting was cancelled, and although Randolph Gymnastics is open for business, I decided we were better off scheduling a make-up for our classes today.

I know I promised my loyal Roxiticus Desperate Housewives readers some more photos from the Bay Head Halloween Parade, but first I want to show you this crazy snow!