Welcome December and my busiest month of the year.
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| Welcome to The Spa at Orchard Ridge |
As if this month isn’t busy enough, we have three children
who all have birthdays in the next couple of weeks. We eat a lot of cake this month. Clark our oldest son, will turn 22 on December 20th and Harrison, will be sweet 16 on December 19th. I’ll never forget when I went into labour with Harry, the day before his older brother was about to turn 6 years old. It was getting close to midnight and I told
my Doctor to break my water to move things along, as
I wanted our oldest son to have his “own” birthday. As it turned out, Harrison was born before midnight and when we told Clark he wouldn’t have to share his birthday, he replied quite graciously, that he wouldn’t have minded sharing his birthday and having Harrison was the best birthday present he would ever receive.
When we found out we were expecting Grace, we were just so
thrilled that we hardly blinked when we found out her due date was December 18th. I actually thought it would be really cool
to have three children’s birthdays in a row but she had other ideas and arrived 2 weeks early on December 5th. She will turn 12 this coming Friday but last weekend, we celebrated by giving her a Spa Getaway party.
I had so much fun planning her birthday and that is also why I wasn’t blogging last week. Sadly, I didn’t take enough pictures to share today. I wasn’t really thinking “blog opportunity” when planning and throwing my daughter her birthday. However, I did take some pictures of the Ice Cream Cake I made and a few pictures of the Bath Salts that the girls made on the morning after the sleepover. I thought you may like to see them and have the recipes. The Bath Salts are easy, fun to make and I personally think they would make great gifts for teachers this holiday season.
The night before the party, we took Grace to her voice recital where she sang a cute Hawaiian Christmas song which set the perfect mood for returning home to make an ice cream cake.
The cake takes about 15 minutes to make. Max. When I think of all the years we used to buy our children their frozen cakes in the past I cringe. The last cake we had, was ridiculously expensive and had freezer burn so I’m glad to have found a great recipe to share with you now. Okay, maybe being totally sustainable means you have your own cow and you can make your OWN ice cream, etc, but hey, making things yourself is rewarding and does make you feel independent of others in many ways. Plus it’s just plain delicious. I know from past experiences, children who visit us and taste our own homemade Ice Cream cakes are amazed, asking several times, “and you made THIS?”
Hope’s Ice Cream Cake
1 box of oreo type cookies
1/4 cup melted butter
1 carton of ice cream
possibly two if you want two flavours or colours
Whipping Cream
Anything you want to garnish the cake with
The first thing you need to do is set out your ice cream of choice and let it sit and soften while you are preparing the crust. Grace really likes mint, so we purchased Breyers Mint Chocolate chip Ice Cream. I find that a large container is enough, although as you will see later, I often use a small amount of vanilla or chocolate to bring the ice cream to the top of the cake pan.
To make the crust you need a box of cookies. Typically, we use Oreo type cookies but our local Super Store has a store brand this time of year with candy cane filling in the middle. It’s perfect for the season and goes delightfully with our mint ice cream.
Set aside several cookies, which can later be split apart or broken up to garnish your cake. Then grind the rest of the cookies with a food processor, or you can put them into a freezer bag and break them up into fine crumbs with a rolling pin.
Put the crumbs into a mixing bowl and add 1/4 cup of melted, cooled, butter. Mix really well until well combined.
Press the cookie mixture into a spring form pan. I find there is a fine line over how hard to press the crumb mixture down. If you press too hard it can be really difficult to cut later, so press just enough to spread on the pan evenly.
Put all of the softened ice cream into a bowl and mix until creamy. If your ice cream is still quite hard, just let it soften a bit more.
Take the creamy, softened ice cream and spread it on top of your cookie crust in your spring form pan
My mint chocolate chip ice cream only went 3/4s of the way up the pan, so I put the cake in the freezer to let the first layer harden as I softened some vanilla ice cream. Once softened, I put a few drops of red food colouring in and stirred it really well. I thought this was a nice touch for a spa cake, calm green and soft pink always comes to mind when I think of relaxation and girls.
During this next step, you can get as creative as you like when making your cake. In the past, I have made strawberry ice cream cakes with the top being chocolate ice cream and then garnishing the whole cake with strawberries and cookies. I have also made a chocolate, strawberry and vanilla cake…you can also sprinkle cookie crumbs between layers.
For this cake though, I thought the light pink was a lovely finishing touch.
Once the cake pan is topped with the softened ice cream of your choice, cover it and place it in the freezer. For a good set, leave it 24 hours.
About an hour before the party, I brought out the cake and let it sit for about 10 minutes. Then I carefully unlatched the lock on the spring form pan and lifted it up off the cake. I transferred the cake onto a crystal cake dish and brought out the items that I was going to decorate the cake with. For this cake I chose some red and green sprinkles, left over cookies split in half, some crushed candy canes and of course whipping cream.
You can whip your own cream but I find buying the kind in a can the easiest for a nice decorative touch.
As I was busy getting things ready in the afternoon I DID snap a picture of our chalk board and all the things we had planned for the evening. When the girls arrived, I had spa music playing, candles lit and I used lots of aromatherapy to make the house smell relaxing.
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| This was the “waiting room”…I had a salt crystal light, candles, and a water feature tinkling at our front door…of course I Googled some great spa music and it was playing on my computer all night…oh and the smell in the house…lovely scents from the store “Saje” |
Once everyone had arrived and settled in, we served dinner. I thought the appropriate dinner selection would be one less spicy but our daughter loves butter chicken, vegetable samosa’s etc, and ceasar salad so that was our menu.
After dinner, each girl was asked to find a comfy chair in our living room, where I had placed a white plastic bucket filled with hot water at the foot. In the water, I had poured a mixture of sea salts, epsom salts and some lavender essential oil….and of course a touch of blue food colouring. The girls settled in comfortably, chatting easily, as the spa music filled the room. It didn’t hurt that we had already decorated our house with greenery and white lights everywhere, which really set a peaceful mood.
As they were soaking their feet, I went from girl to girl and placed the honey facial mask that I had made ahead of time.
Hope’s Facial Mask
1 egg,
1/4 cup of honey
1/2 cup of flour
Lavender Essential oil…(I also put in a few drops of vanilla)
After they all had their facial masks on, I placed a “cold” cucumber slices over their eyes. Each girl went “awwww,” as they felt the refreshing cucumber go on their eyes. As they relaxed, I went around from girl to girl and massaged their feet using an exfoliating product I had purchased at the “Body Shop” but I had read that a homemade product of sugar and honey works great too.
This would have worked a lot better had I had some help, as I was really moving from girl to girl and in and out of the kitchen with fresh hot water to add to the their foot baths. They didn’t seem to notice though since they were all really quiet (amazing for 11 year old chatty girls!) as they had their heads back, just enjoying the treatment.
After about 20 minutes with the mask on their face, I heated up some wet wash clothes, with lavender sprinkled on them, in the microwave. Once heated, I gently placed it over each of their faces, with just their noses exposed. Each of them, audiably sighed, and as they relaxed further into this warmth, I went around the room and took their feet out of the foot bath. I gave each of them one final foot massage rubbing in some lovely rich “Satsumi,” body butter from from the store, The Body Shop. The smell is absolutely lovely.
Once all the girls had their feet massaged. I gave them a new round of warm wash clothes to wipe off their honey masks. I then brought in lovely red towels for them to dry their faces (we really needed new towels and these were on sale at The Bay recently…I thought they looked rather festive and although one thinks of WHITE for spa towels…I thought these were warm and rich looking and lovely with the white lights and candles and all the greenery. (For some of the greenery, D went out just before the party and pruned some of our pine bushes) I put the towels in their laps and brought each of them a small bucket of warm water, in which I had placed a light vanilla scented soap, some epsom salts and dried peppermint leaves from our garden. Oh this was lovely, and the girls seemed to really enjoy soaking not just their fingers but immersed their whole hands into the warm water. After about another 15 minutes, I brought clean warm water and they rinsed off their hands. Then, I gave them all some of the Satsumi body butter for their hands. Finally, I gave them all an emery board and asked that they file their toe nails and finger nails.
It was time to play the Nail game. I pushed everything out of the way and laid down on the floor a warm fleece blanket that I had just heated in the dryer. The girls sat down forming a circle and I explained the game.
We had a selection of 5 nail colours plus a clear colour set aside. Each girl threw dice to see who would go first…the highest throw started the game. The first girl chose a nail polish bottle of her choice and spun it. The person the bottle pointed to when it stopped spinning was instructed to roll the dice. The number it landed on would then determine how many toe nails she had to paint the selected colour. She would then paint her nails, which ever toe nail she chose, and then she selected the next colour and spun the bottle and the game continued for a long time. Choruses of laughter spilled from the living room. When all their toes were painted, the game was over. The girls had such a great time and in the end, everyone seemed really happy with the results of their pedicure. (Note…if you are doing this make sure to put down a blanket that is not near and dear to you…in case some nail polish gets spilled.) Also, before they started painting their nails, I gave them nail painting instructions 101 so they spread the polish with ease. (One stroke down the middle…then sides…finishing with a Q tip with nail polish remover to take away any overages)
After their pedicure, the girls painted their finger nails the colour of their choice.(It helped that I bought Sally Hanson, fast dry nail polish) After that, the girls went out to the hot tub, where I could hear them laughing and giggling. When they came in they were all prunes but they said it was wonderful, luxuriating in the hot water with the cold winter air on their faces. It was perfect as I was able to clean up from the spa part of our evening and set out the cake, popcorn, punch, pop, licorice for the movie/sleepover portion of the party.
The next morning, after D’s delicious pancakes (he really knows how to make a great breakfast!) I had the girls make Lavender Bath Salts to take home. It was really fun watching them turn some basic ingredients into a lovely gift and I was thinking, hmmmm….I should include this in my blog in case you are looking for a homemade gift to give to someone special this holiday season.
Hope’s Bath Salts
A glass container
Epsom Salts
Sea Salts
Food Colouring
Essential Oil of your choice….we used Lavender
Ribbon of your choice…we used raffia ribbon for a cottage look
Mix 1 part epsom salts with 1 part sea salts. Add the food colouring of your choice. You have to really mix the colouring in well until you get a nice consistency. The girls used blue and a bit of red for a lovely blue. Finally, add and stir in the essential oil of your choice.
Ideally, you would let it sit and dry overnight but we had to pour with a funnel into the girls glass containers and added a label and the raffia ribbon. You can do different colours and layer it as you desire or have it all the same colour. One Christmas our girls made peppermint bath salts and did one layer of green, then pink, alternating layers right to the top of the jar…fixing a bow and attaching a candy cane beneath it…the sky is the limit regarding your choice of scent and colours..and jars. Canning jars would be really cool with the raffia ribbon!
I wished I had taken pictures of the girl’s thank you bags but you know how busy things get at parties….but here’s what I did in case you are wanting to throw your daughter a spa party. I went to the dollar store and found really pretty glitzy clutch purses. The make up bags that they had were kind of tacky and weren’t big enough for what I wanted to put in them.
Inside these bright pink, glittery bags, (like evening bags) I placed a bar of lavender soap, nail polish remover (in case the parents weren’t thrilled over the girls manicures/pedicures) a few emery boards, some cotton squares(put into t little bag to keep them sterile) and a bottle of nice nail polish (I didn’t get these at the dollar store but bought a good quality bottle of nail polish) Finally, when you are 11, turning 12, you still like candy, so I threw a handful of wrapped candy….holiday variety, since she is my December baby. I wrapped the whole purse with raffia ribbon as it was bulging full. In addition to their bath salts, it was a nice way to say thank you for coming. Grace is really blessed to have such wonderful friends!
Well, that’s one birthday down, two more to go….the next one is a SWEET SIXTEEN for my quickly growing sweet boy, uummm, young man, Harrison…stay tuned. Although celebrating each of our children’s birthdays is very special, remembering the journey to Grace, reminds me how special this time of year truly is. It’s the season of light. The season of miracles. The season of love.
Before I close I thought an appropriate YouTube video was, (click here if you can’t see below) Joe Cocker’s song, “You ARE so Beautiful.” because although this blog post was all about Grace’s spa beauty party, she reminds me all the time what beauty is all about.
Happy Birthday Grace. Your soul shines!
Until we meet again, may you be well, happy and peaceful.
Blessings from Hope