Oreo Banana Split Bites

I want to share the love with these amazing yummy treats. You can find the recipe here. I made these for my 7 year old's classroom birthday celebration. 

A few helpful tips: 

I thought one package of Oreos would be enough for a class of 17, nope, I needed 2 packages which led to another trip to town just to buy more Oreos. So save a trip and just buy at least 2 to begin with.

We ran out of white chocolate, so we used milk chocolate for about 1/2 of them. They turned out cute too.

If you can only handle a little bit of sweet, you will probably only be able to eat 1/2 of these. They are very very sweet. Good, but sweet.

If you don't want to use nuts, don't use them. We didn't and they were still tasty.

If you plan to take them to school, I suggest bringing a package of wipes for the kids. The teacher said they came in very handy when all the 1st graders had chocolate hands and faces.

Triple layer Neapolitan Oreos. I didn't even know they made these! Split in 1/2 with a banana slice in between.

Little helper, she was so good about helping. She will be a great little chef one day. =)

This is the before-the-drizzle shot. 

Ready to take to school.

Here are the mild chocolate ones. They look just as cute!

School/Home Relationship

I am a firm believer in the home/school relationship. I want my children to know that what happens at school is important to their home life. They are not two separate things, and if something happens at school, it carries home. I am very interested in how my children do at school each day, and this chart helps me know as well as being a good reminder to my kids that behavior is important in every aspect of life.

Last year, I started with my 1st kindergartner. First, I talked to the teacher to let her know what I was planning and asked for suggestions and if she was okay with it. Then I went home and made a simple chart that allowed the teacher to put a smily face for yes, my child behaved well at school or write what my child did that was not the best choice at school. It worked really well. If my daughter got a frown face, she did not get her sticker for the day on her chart at home.

This year, I wanted to start my second kindergartner off this way as well. I made some changes on the chart. I added a note to the bottom of the chart. I have my daughter sign it at the beginning of each week after we review what the note says. This chart stays in her folder that comes home everyday and it is simple for the teacher to add a smily face. So far my daughter has not had one frowny face. If she keeps it up, we may retire the chart. But for now, it is a good motivator for her to work hard and behave well at school.

How was your school day? by Jessica

(So you have something to pin ;)

Back-to-School Breakfast & Teacher Gift

I really enjoy giving teachers gifts. They don't have to be big or extra spendy, just something that helps the teacher feel appreciated and hopefully know that I am fully supportive of a home/school relationship.

Last year this is what I did. This year while in Vegas my mom and I found some really cute plates that were on a great sale.  I made cookies, attached a little note, and sent them to school with the kiddos on the first day. They got great reviews, yay!

Another tradition I started last year in the hopes of adding lasting memories for my children was a back to school breakfast. The night before, I decorate the table with cute things I have around the house as well as a sign I made about what the kids want to be when they grow up. In the morning I make them a special breakfast of things they really like. This year it was muffins. 

I also want a first day photo by the door and with them holding the sign about what they want to be when they grow up so they can see the change each year. I also like one of them in their room, preferably at their desk, but not necessarily if it interrupts with what the teacher has going on.

First day of kindergarten! 

1st day of 1st grade!

My little boy is off to school this year for his first day of preschool. It started a few days after the rest of school started so he got his own breakfast.

I have to tell this story, the night before school started as I was tucking my little man in for bed, I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He looked at me thoughtfully and said, "I want to be a mommy like you." I smiled and said, "Awe hunny, you are a boy so you can be a daddy, but not a mommy." He looked at me about to argue-he even got a little "but" out-and then said, "I guess I want to work with fire then." "You mean you want to be a fireman?" "Yep, a fireman." I can't believe how his sweet, wonderful, full of life, little brain works. I also can't believe that he is in preschool already!   

Another school year started. It's going to be great!!!

Back-to-School Fairy

She's back!!! Last year I wanted to do more things for my kids that would make lasting memories. What better way to make memories than start traditions? You can see last year's BTSF post here.

So basically, the BTSF leaves a little note and gift on the doorstep, rings the doorbell , and somehow disappears before the kids even get a chance to see where she went. This all happens as the kids are getting ready for bed the night before school starts. The note usually complements them on how much they learned last year and suggests that they keep learning. Recently we have been having issues with bossiness. The BTSF knew this and gave some advice that our kiddos really seemed to take to heart. This year, the BTSF was long winded. My hubby asked why the BTSF would leave such a long note for a couple of beginning readers! Just a suggestion... =)

Here is how our adventure played out this year:

And Open!

This year, the BTSF left some markers, school supplies, sunglasses, a craft item, and a new shirt.

Graduation Time

With the end of the year here it is now time to celebrate with all the graduates. We have a good family friend whose daughter graduated high school this year. We ended up making her graduation cake and I am here today to show you the process and the finished product.

My hubby's grandmother made and decorated cakes for years and apparently she passed down her talent to my husband. He has always liked to pretend to decorate cakes for all our birthdays, but when this opportunity came up for him to make a cake for someone else, he jumped all over it.

I'm not going to lie, I was pretty nervous because he has never made a "professional" type cake before. But it all turned out great and the mother and graduate were happy with the final product.

I don't know the actual terms, but these are a few that my husband or I have heard throughout the years. So pardon my non-cake terminology.

They wanted a swirl cake, but after trying several different methods, we just couldn't get it right. So we ended up doing a zebra cake which gave us much better results. Here is the link to the recipe and directions for the actual cake.

Because he had never used fondant for embellishments (we used it for the flowers) we had fun experimenting with various patterns and tools. That was my job, the flowers.

Crumb coating it. Hubs had never done this before, but it helped to create a hardened layer that would not lift up the cake when he tried to frost it.

They didn't want fondant, which is good, because the hubby is used to playing around with buttercream frosting. 

Making it all smooth.

Starting the decorations. Here is the picture he was working from.

Adding the finishing touches. 

 

And the completed cake. This sucker was heavy!!! And to top it off, my husband hurt his back, so guess who got to lift this thing in and out of the fridge and the car for delivery? 

It was fun to help out, but I wish my husband would stop saying that WE have to start on the next cake. This is HIS thing, not mine! Ha! I'll post those pics of that one too when we are done.

Teacher's end of year gift

I am one of those moms who loves to create things for my kids to give to their teachers for all the work they do. I have been a sub for 3 years, and in the meantime I earned an elementary education degree. I have a pretty good idea of just how much these teachers invest in my children emotionally, physically, and educationally. Giving small gifts throughout the year is a small way to say thank you.

This year I had a Kindergartener and a Preschooler who had two teachers. I needed 3 gifts. Earlier in the year I found this on Pinterest, and I know some people who have old wood so I thought I'd give it a try. Because of weather I haven't had the chance to pick up this wood yet, so I had to improvise.

I know that subway art is crazy in right now. I like the look of it, and thought maybe I could give it a try. I started by goggle-ing subway art to get some ideas. My favorites were the ones with gray and a mustard yellow colors with the chevron pattern in the background. Though it isn't what I envisioned, I think they turned out pretty dang awesome.

If you want to try one, I will do my best to walk you though my process.

Supplies I used:
Microsoft Word
Google
8x10 White picture frame (or a cheap black one painted white, and any size you want)
White scrapbook paper cut to 8x10 (or whatever size your picture frame is)
Color printer

1. Google the chevron pattern to find the one you like. I used this website. Right click on the pattern, click copy, and then open Word and either right click again to paste the image or hit the control and v button on your keyboard. For a Mac like I have hit command and v. This is the shortcut for paste. I use this all the time. For me it is just easier than all the clicking. Resize by dragging on the corner of the image until it covers your entire page. You can try different formatting, coloring, and filtering by clicking on the image and then clicking on the format picture tab at the top of the screen. That is how I got my chevron pattern a little blurry.

2. It is easier if you make all your images so that they show behind or in front of all the text. This allows you to freely move the image anyplace you want to despite the margins or text you might have. To do this click on the image. Click on the format picture tab at the top. Then click on wrap text. I choose in font of text, but behind text works too.

3. Create a box in word. Recolor it to whatever color you would like. Mine is plain white. I created a glow effect to give it soft edges. You can do this by clicking on the box or image, clicking on the format button at the top and adding the glow or any other effect you'd like to try. You can customize the effect by right clicking on the box or image and clicking on format shape. This should open a new dialog box that will allow you to adjust the size and color of the effect and a whole lot of other things. Don't be afraid to experiment. With the undo buttons in Word, you can pretty much do anything and undo it if you don't like it.

4. I wanted more than just a white box behind it. It just looked like it was missing something. So I googled a ton of different backgrounds until I settled on a rustic looking lined paper. I made this slightly bigger than the white box. Again, play with the format by recoloring and filtering and adding a glow or shadow. It takes time, but it will help give you different ideas for what you want.

5. To make it easier for me when I started working on the wording, I grouped the three backgrounds together. This is a step that is totally optional, but if I accidentally moved the background while working on the words, it was easy to put back because all three were connected into one. To do this you need to click on one of the background images. While holding down the control button on the keyboard on a PC or the command button on a Mac click on another background image. Repeat this until all of the background images are clicked. You will know you have all of them if each image has a little circle on all corners.

I know that this is an image of the words, and a preview of what is to come, but I wanted to show you what I meant by all the images have little circles on the corners. This is what it should look like if all the background images are clicked.

6. Once you have the backgrounds done how you want them, you can move onto the words. I started by typing my quote one word at a time into a text box. You don't need to worry about the size or font yet. Just get the words. These are the words from the pin I found on Pinterest.

7. The next part was one of the harder ones for me. I liked so many fonts. I started by choosing two that looked schoolish. Then I went to find some that matched those, but didn't seem to find what I was looking for in word. I went to this site that has many fonts to download for free. I fount two I liked. The downloading process is different for each computer and software you have, so if you need help with that, I suggest googling it. It is usually pretty easy once you have the directions in front of you. 

Then, working text box by text box, just change the font and size. It doesn't have to be perfect yet, just eyeball it. For example, I knew I wanted child to be big so I made it really big. 

8. After this I started coloring the words. I knew I wanted a yellow in there so that's where I started. Then I rotated the other colors through the rest of the words. There were some spots where the color didn't look right with the font so I either changed the font or the color. I used purple, green, yellow, orange, and blue. You can customize your colors too if you don't like the selection they have. You can also add shadows and different effects to the words which is what I did to create the glow look around each word. Play around. Have fun. Don't be afraid to try different things.

This is what I had as a final product until I made another one and added an image. Then I redid this to add an image.

Here are the final pieces:

The most important advice I can give you is to try different things out. It can always be changed back. Have fun!

*UPDATE* 

I was asked to provide the fonts I used. If you want to give it a try yourself the ones that were already on my computer are chalkboard and chalkduster. The ones I found online are scretch and teenage angst. 

If you would just like to use the ones I made, go for it. For some reason, however, the words only work if you open them as docx files. You should be able to have the choice of how to open them after you click on the orange download or print button.

Here is Life is about dreams...

Here is A teacher plants the seeds...

Here is A truly special teacher...

I also wanted to share what my daughter's kindergarten teacher did with hers. She had each of the students sign the white frame on the front and wrote the year and who gave it to her on the back. I thought that was such a great idea. 

Wacky Wednesday

The kindergarteners in our school celebrated Dr. Suess's birthday with a week of fun activities and dress up days. My daughter's favorite dress up day was wacky Wednesday. She wore mismatched pants and shirt, two different shoes and some crazy hair.  Isn't she just adorable?

We did all the ponies, but we couldn't keep the top one because we needed her to be able to get her hat on for recesses. They did, however, stand up a bit without the top ponytail. 

Notice the shoes and one pant leg tucked into her shoe/sock? That was entirely her idea!

Valentine's Day Box

Happy Valentines Day!

Yesterday was a special day for us as we got to celebrate valentines day with our kiddos. I know that many people find valentines day to be a "made up" holiday for an excuse to spend money to show someone you care about them when you should show that special someone everyday you care about them. But since my husband and I have had children, we enjoy celebrating valentines day because it is another day when we can surprise our kids with some fun things. More on the surprises later...

For now, I have a special box to share with you. My youngest daughter was instructed to create a valentines day box for school. I had seen these and even though they are technically called "Tattle Boxes," I thought they would make a cute valentines day monster. After consulting with my daughter, she decided this is what she wanted to do for her v-day box.

Step 1: Gather materials. For this part we used a tissue box, paint brush, acrylic paint, and newspaper. 

Because purple is her favorite color, that's the color she wanted the box to be. We mixed together red and blue to get a purpleish color.

I let her do most of the work. Sometimes I tend to get crazy involved in helping, but this time I knew she would be so proud if she did this on her own.

Step 2: While the paint is drying, gather the materials for the next part. This time we used blue card stock,  a hot glue gun, googily eyes, and plastic thread spools, and newspaper.

Step 3: We turned on the fan and the paint dried pretty quickly. We did a second coat and while that was drying, Little Miss cut teeth out of the blue paper. I'm not sure what prompted her to use blue for the teeth, but that's what she picked...

Step 4: She decided she liked the dots on the example boxes that I showed her from online, so we went with it. Again, I mixed some colors together to get a greenish color. She used a q-tip to dab the dots on the box. 

Step 5: Here is where I stepped in. I used the hot glue gun to attach the googily eyes to the thread spools. Then I used the glue gun to attach the teeth to the box. I thought this part might get tricky, but if you cut the paper into four pieces (at least for my style of box) and then put the glue on the paper instead of trying to put the glue on the inside of the box it goes rather smoothly. Lastly, glue the spools to the box.

It's cute, huh?

To finish it off, she wanted a bow. She was so excited to take it to school on Monday. Unfortunately, Monday we had a blizzard and school was cancelled. However, her box, which she named Melly, made it the next day and was filled with all kinds of fun valentines day goodies.