Teacher Appreciation

For the teacher appreciation gifts this year, I ended up doing the following smaller gifts.  It seemed like due to after school which sort of is during the school day and then several changes during the year, I had several to do so I tried to keep them simple.  Plus I have an upcoming engagement which meant I did not want too much to do in order to prep beforehand.  I must add that the sucker bouquet was the biggest pain to make.  I don't know how most people do it and I don't think mine were the cutest by far.  I had to wrap it with tape to keep them all together and look right.  They still didn't seem to look quite right.  If I had a third hand, I think I could have made them cuter.

 

Monday: "You are EXTRA special" on some Extra gum, dressed like a gift.

 

Tuesday: "Ms. Teacher, Student is a sucker for you!" around a sucker bouquet.

 

Wednesday: "We need some S'MORE teachers like you!" around a bag of the stuff needed to make some.

Thursday: "You are SIMPLY the best!" around a "simply" drink, all different.

There is also a swim teacher now that I decided to deserved a gift.  We have gone from not even enjoying time in the bath to working on swimming across the pool in 6 short months so I am just amazed at how they do it at this place.  It is a "fish bowl" which was a small vase filled with Swedish fish.  I put three bags of them in there.  The bowl has written on it, "Mr. Teacher, you are O-fish-ally the best swim teacher!"  The "fish" is a sad picture of a fish, but at least the point can be made ;)

 

 

Pizza Monkey Bread

I have made this a few times already.  The first time it was straight from the recipe which is how I roll.  The second time my husband who really loves to cook got involved and added garlic to the butter which was much nicer.  This time he suggested I add basil to the stuffing.  He wasn't around when I put them together or he would have told me to do more in each.  The ones which I did put more, you could taste the basil and it was nice.

Simple recipe which I know I found lots of place, but I tried to make it as easy as I could since cooking isn't really something I love with a passion.  The dough is just the store bought in a can with the biscuits.  Then there is one pepperoni and half a mozzarella ball which were the type in the container with oil and seasonings.  I have tried making the bites a little bigger with two pepperonis and one whole ball.  Those are a little too big for me.  But having the two pepperonis with half a ball might be good as well.  This is two cans of dough, one package of mozzarella and then a package of pepperonis which does not get used up.

dibby up the dough, flatten, add pepperoni, basil, and cheese. fold to close and pitch to make sure it stays that way

melted butter with brush, garlic crushed into it

butter is used to coat each bite, and the bites are randomly

bake as dough can instructs, then let cool to touch, turn over bunt cake pan and put on a platter







Valentine Food

The heart shaped food that I have tried.  Valentine's Day is not really a watermelon time of year, so the heart-shaped watermelon didn't work out as I had hoped.

hot dog cut to make heart with cheese on ends

watermelon heart with oranges on ends.  the orange was from our tree which was still giving us oranges in February but they weren't that easy to cut up...

most of the watermelon did not get arrows since the watermelon was pretty small for the cookie cutters

pretzel with cinnamon hearts on ends

cute, but only a few thought they tasted cute...

Tinkerbell Party aka Fairies and Pirates

 We did a Tinkerbell party for our oldest.  We included pirates as well since there were many boys invited, although one boy did want to dress up with wings.  We had wings and wands for the fairies to use to dress up at the party.  And the pirates got hats and eye patches.  The weather gave way to some pretty muddy conditions, so all of the outdoor activities were a no go.  We planned on doing "boat races" where two or three kiddos were in a cardboard box together and two "boats" would race each other.  We also planned to do "walk the plank" which is just a board raised slightly off the ground.

There was a sign outside that said "Welcome to Neverland.  Hello Fairies, Pirates, and Mainlanders!  Welcome to our daughter's birthday party.  We fairies have been awaiting your arrival!  Fairies, please grab your wings and wand.  All pirates much get their scurvy pirate gear too!"We did decorate some of the inside.  We used streamers and balloons to make "Pixie Hallow" and "Mermaid Lagoon."  The balloons were filled with regular air, which ended up being great because it gave the kids something to do inside.  They also enjoyed playing in the streamers which were hung from the ceiling.  This is make it difficult for any non-little person to actually see anyone else, but the kids enjoyed.

For the food, which was served in the "Fairy Garden," we had "krakens in island worms" which were hot dogs cut to look like squid or octopus set on top of mac'n'cheese which was dyed using blue food coloring to make it green.  The hot dogs were cut and then boiled which made them come out all crazy as desired.

Then we had "garden vegetables" (just veggie tray), "pirate cannonballs" (cheese balls), "fruit kabobs with pixie dust" (just fruit on a stick with a little sugar sprinkled on it), "lost treasure" (cupcakes), and "fairy nectar" (lime sorbet punch with ginger ale).

Although it seemed to be one of my least planned out and most rushed parties, it all turned out fine.  It seems that the parties are getting to be more and more like that these days.  I'm hoping the next one will get more of my attention...

Gender Reveal Scratch-off

Since we did not have time in the schedule to have a party for our only gender reveal, I still wanted to do something fun for family and close friends.  I went with the scratch-off idea.  I got cards printed with all of the words from Jamie Konet, which turned out to be so cute.  I then colored a heart when we got the gender results.  I covered the heart with a peel-and-stick laminated sheet which was painted and then punched.  The paint was two part paint and one part dish soap.  It actually seemed to scratch off really easy.  Although I didn't properly measure it out, so the mixture was probably just a bit too much soap.  Also, the punch did not turn out great.  I read about someone else using a punch, which is why I did it.  I think it was the punch I was using and not the idea.  We are calling the baby "Lucky" at the moment so I tried a four-leaf clover punch.  I think it was either too small or at least parts of it were too small.  I only got a few which looked completely whole after punching.  Anyway, it was a lot of fun to do the project.  It has been a while since I have had a chance to do any project really so I was really itching for one.

Ice Cream Soda Favor

So I got to host a pre-baby outing for a friend.  Since it was an outing I didn't do any decorating or anything that would involve too much work or creativity.  However, being the way I am I must do something, so I did a favor.  The momma-to-be had mentioned something about a milkshake while talking about things so I guess I kind of stuck on that and ended up with an ice cream soda favor.  It was super easy to make.  I figured everyone would find something to do with a few extra washcloths.  Actually the hardest part was finding the glasses since there did not seem to be too many choices (not too common of an idea yet I suppose).  The washcloths are just folded in half, laid on top of one another and then rolled up at a slight angle.  They were then stuffed into the glasses. I did sort of twist them down farther into the glasses, going in the same direction as the roll.  And then added a cherry on top for giggles.

birthday board

So this is my version of the birthday calendar board that I have been seeing on pinterest.  I have actually wanted to do this kind of thing for a while.  I have just been waiting for a good moment to request someone make me the frames.  Mother's Day was a good time.  This is STILL not complete, but I am tired of waiting.  It will have a piece of molding to cover the edges of the pin board and calkboard separating them from the calendar.

This board is pretty large, being 3' x 4', but we have a large family and I figured there would be more family and friends in the future.  The lettering is from the cricut.  The hooks are from the local hardware store.  I measured everything out and made the grid.  Pre-holes were drilled for the hooks and then they were screwed in the board.  The only place I could find little frames here so I made them work.  Other than that it was just painting and gluing.  We already had a pin board which I cut to fit my purposes and I used chalkboard paint on wood for the other half of the message area.

Book Club Dinner

So the pictures aren't all that great.  I don't know what I am doing so I am blaming it on my camera not focusing as well anymore.  Below is the dinner I put together for book club.  I guess I didn't take a picture of the pasta dish with bread that we had for our main course.  The bread was just store bought but the pasta was a lighter summer pasta with tomatoes and chicken bites.

We started with an appetizer which ended up being great.  I wasn't sure how it would all work since I have only made this where it was all kind of mixed and not separate bite size pieces.  But it looked cute so I thought I would try it.

Caprice



Then we did mini wedge salads with bluecheese dressing, tomatoes, and bacon bits.

Mini Wedge Salad

 Of course it is book club so we had some wine.  This time it was a white sangria with lemons and strawberries.  It was great for summer and the fruit was awesome!

White Sangria

 Finally we had dessert.  I found a recipe for this, but since I don't like coffee I used extra chocolate.  It was a bit odd to eat and make but it ended up being pretty good.  I could not find the mascarpone cheese so I just used a substitute which was easy to find when searching online.

Tiramisu Roulade sans espresso

Milk and Cookies Party

 Our little cookie turned 1!  So this is how we celebrated.  It turned out pretty cute.  The only downside was the rain outside which delayed the carnival games from starting.

The desserts were the biggest hit.  Along with some typical chocolate chip, peanut butter and oatmeal raisin cookies, we had some speciality items.

We had s'mores...

And chocolate whoopie pies...

And rainbow pinwheels...



And brownie batter dip with fruit...



And cookie dough batter dip.

We also served milk!



We had set up some carnival games outdoors under shade of course because it is already warm outside.

We had "pin the mustache on the face...

And "milk toss" which is sort of like bowling...

And "ring the bottle" to round it off.

Our favors were bags for the cookies and some paper milk cartons filled with goodies, which included "milk straws" which are flavored beads in a straw to add to milk, grape mustache candies, and a milk to go.



And the birthday girl out her own special whoopie pie.  I was going to make her a cake that looked like a cookie, but decided the whoopie pie would be cuter.

The paper milk carton was a free printable from papercrave.com which I then blew up to make it a size which I could actually stuff.  The cute glass milk bottles were an online purchase with cross-stitch hoops as rings.  The milk toss game pieces were also an online purchase, as well as all of the goodies for the cartons.  I found the products at multiple sites.  And all of the the recipes for the speciality items were online as well. I found them some many places but just used the one that sounded best to me.