Mother's Day "Sundaes"

May 3rd, 2011 Activity

Mark off in Faith in God: Service to Others

Tonight was Activity Girls and it was actually my Co-Leaders turn to plan the activity but she called me this morning and said she had Pneumonia.  To top it off, my day was already busy baking treats for some of my kids teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week.  Eek! 

Thankfully I had seen this cute idea for a Mother's Day gift a couple of weeks ago.

I found the bath salts and the scrubby sponges at the dollar store.  The bath salts were a dollar a jar, and each jar made two sundaes. The scrubby's were two for a dollar and came in white and purple.  While at the dollar store I also found some razor's that had cute twirly round handles that kind of looked like straws or maybe the handle of a spoon, and they were five for a dollar.

Next door to the dollar store is a Baskin Robbins and little Ella insisted we stop in for some Cotton Candy ice cream.  While we were in there, I asked if I could buy some of their sundae cups.  They were only 25 cents apiece and saved me having to hunt for them elsewhere.   (I might have indulged in a scoop of ice cream while I was there.  It might have come in a waffle cone.)

The only thing I still needed was something for the "cherry on top."  I thought about using tiny little red tea light candles but they were kind of expensive.  I looked for some red candy but couldn't find anything appealing.  While standing in line at the checkout stand at my grocery store, I saw some Ferrero Roche Chocolates and thought that would make a cute topper.

The rest of the stuff, paper to make the little sundae cards, glue sticks, etc I already had in my scrapbooking stash.

The girls and I had a great time making these cute little gifts.  Because it's Teacher Appreciation Week some of the girls opted to make them for their teachers instead which I thought was a great idea.  We put them in brown paper lunch sacks and tied on the handmade sundae card with some colorful ribbon.  They almost looked good enough to eat!

Number One Room Mom!

This actually isn't one of my creations, but is such a cute idea, I definitely plan on stealing borrowing the concept.   

I love being able to help out in my kids classes at school.  Especially since each one of my kids has an awesome teacher.

Riley's teacher Mrs O. is incredible!  We just love her.   She also happened to be his 5th grade teacher and she and the entire class moved up to 6th grade together.  Did I mention she was teacher of the year in our district last year?  She is such a fun teacher but firm at the same time. 

About two weeks before Christmas, I stuck my head into her classroom for some reason, and she said she had a gift for me, but just couldn't hold on to it until Christmas.  And she gave me this cute little thing:

Is this not the cutest little gift ever?  The red thing is a actually a pot holder/oven mitt.  Inside the pastry bag is sugar cookie mix and of course there is the spatula and some sprinkles.  Tied into the ribbon is a cookie cutter.  Mrs. O. knows that I love to make cookies and I love how personalized this gift is to my taste.   And I feel like I won an award: "#1 Room Mom!" 

I actually did steal, I mean utilize, this idea for my sister for Christmas.  She loves Lemon Bars and asked if I would make her some since she is in town for the holidays this year.  I made her some of course, but I also found a cute yellow mixing bowl, a yellow oven mitt, yellow spatula, yellow measuring cups and a whisk.  I put all the dry ingredients into two disposable pastry bags and included the recipe on a laminated card.  I arranged everything in the bowl and filled the empty space with fresh lemons.  The possibilities really are endless if you would like to make a custom little kitchen gift.

So thanks Mrs O.  We love you!

The Best Visiting Teacher Ever!!!

In our church we have a program called Visiting Teaching.  Ladies are assigned a Visiting Teacher who checks in on them once a month and share a short spiritual message.  My Visiting Teacher is amazing.  She also happens to be my neighbor.

She is the mom to 13 kids.  She and her husband just celebrated 50 years of marriage.  She bakes the most amazing bread.  We have an auction at our church every year and people outbid each other like crazy to get her bread.  But I get the bread delivered straight to my door, right out of the oven.  And let me tell you...I brag about this a lot!!

Last month, for my birthday, she brought over some beautiful pink carnations for me.   I still needed to return her vase but I didn't want to return it empty.  On a little trip to Michaels I found these branch thingies that were 40% off.  (I have no idea what the proper name for them is)  I also found some ornaments in the clearance bin.  After I cut the branches to the right size, my 4 year old literally put this together!

 

My bad photography doesn't capture this, but the branches have really pretty sparkles on them.  We added a colorful bow and Voila!  A quick and easy little something to add to your Holiday decor. I would advise if making one for yourself, that you maybe add some glass beads to the bottom of the vase to weigh it down a little to counterbalance the height of the branches.  Unfortunately I had to quickly get this out of our house because our Kitty thought this was made especially just for her.  

Sorry kitty, my friend loved and wants to keep it!

Tea Towel Wedding Gift

A while ago, I saw the most adorable tutorial on Aly & Ash for a Mother's Day Tea Towel Cake.  I thought it was really cute, but both my mother and mother-in-law have well established kitchens so I didn't really have any use for it at the time but I loved it, so I book-marked it.

This past weekend my hubby and I attended the wedding reception of one of his coworkers.   I just love weddings and they were the cutest couple.

By the time I finally took a peek at the registry to buy them a gift, most of the stuff they registered for, had already been purchased.  Left on the list were were various kitchen utensils, dish towels etc.  While I love that kind of stuff, and know that it's a necessity for a new kitchen, opening a box full of wooden spoons and dish towels is kind of boring!  Thankfully I remembered Aly & Ash's cute tutorial that took dish towels and made them look like a tiered wedding cake.

You can check out the link above to Aly & Ash if you would like to follow their tutorial.  I just winged it.  I actually used a 9" round cake pan as the base and wrapped in some ribbon.  I used some double stick tape to adhere the ribbon and added the bow.  If you want to see how I make the bow, click here.  I used some construction paper to anchor the towels and cut them in different heights to make the two different "layers"  Once again I didn't use any particular measurements - just eyeballed it and adjusted it till I thought it looked good. 

For the third "layer"  I folded two towels accordian style.  The same way you would make a paper fan.  Then I folded them in half and stuffed them into the second layer.  Fluff them up a little until they look the way you want them to.  Then I just added in the utensils.  (I used tongs, whisk, zester, three pastry brushes, wooden spoon)

Thanks Aly & Ash for the tutorial.  And congrats to the beautiful bride Jen and her handsome groom Paul!!

Our Hero! - Happy Father's Day 2010

Due to a family members medical emergency last month, things were kind of really hectic around here!  Throughout it all, my dear husband was so supportive.  Coming home from work early, working from home, eating fast food, helping more with the kids and just being ready with a hug!   It would have been really easy to postpone our Father's Day Celebration to another day but I wanted to make we took at least part of the day to acknowledge how much Chris means to me and the children.

Thankfully a few weeks prior to Father's Day, I stumbled upon a great idea on one of my favorite blogs:  http://jordanferney.blogspot.com/

The kids and I assembled some of Chris's favorite snacks, placed them in cello bags and labeled them with cute labels:

(Pardon my poor photography and my kitchen tablecloth in the background!)

I found a cute blue wicker box on clearance at Michaels.  It had a cute mini chalkboard on the front.  The kids wrote little messages on it.  I'm not sure if Chris will use the box again but I'm sure we will find it a home around here somewhere.  So after a breakfast in bed of Eggs Benedict, the kids proudly presented their gift basket.

Happy Father's Day to an all around great guy, wonderful husband and fantastic dad.........

Our Hero!!!

Gift Baskets and Cookie Gifts

The Young Women at our church put on a small carnival to raise money to go to Girls Camp.  They needed donations for Door Prizes and also baked goods that they could sell.  I came up with the following.

 Green Butterfly tote with a cute mug, picture frame and flowers.

Pink Butterfly tote with a cute mug, picture frame and flowers.

Ice Cream Cone Sugar Cookies - perfect for summer!

Itty-Bitty Cookie Bites!

Flower Sugar Cookes on a stick

Rice Krispy Treats on a stick - cause everything tastes better on a stick right?

Ciara's Baptism

Last month, my first born daughter turned 8 years old!!  Eight is a special birthday in our Church, because that is when children are baptized.

Ciara was being a little stinker about photos, but we managed to snap a few.

We ordered this beautiful dress from a shop in China.

Funny that the girl always fighting t0 be the center of attention refused to pose for photos!

(I think her nerves were getting the best of her)

I got the idea for this adorable towel on a blog I visited, and just had to make 

one as a gift for Ciara.

 

We had a wonderful day.  Thank you to all of our wonderful friends and family who joined us for Ciara's special day.

Teacher Appreciation Week

Of course as I write this, because I have been slow with the updates, school has already ended for summer.

The week of May 3rd was Teacher Appreciation Week.  Several years ago, I found out that nothing was being done for the teachers.  Well the Jordan kids were not going to stand for that.  So we started baking.  First it was just for the actual teacher of their grade.  Then of course we had to include the PE teacher, the music teacher, the gym teacher, the librarian, the art teacher, their teachers from previous years, the.....you get the picture.   We ended up making bags and bags of cookies!  And for some reason, when we do anything like this, my kids think its a tradition and we have to do it every year.

We started with the gifted program that they attend once a day.  I think we made 18 bags of cookies.  I got to go up there and have lunch with kids while they ran around delivering cookies to all the teachers and staff.  We had a blast!

Next was Ella's preschool - a much smaller group to bake for!

Last but not least, was Riley and Ciara's elementary school.  I think we made 25 bags for them.

We have been soo blessed to have the most amazing teachers.  Each one of them has become like a member of our family and I am so thankful for the love and care they have shown to each of our children.  Ms Becky, Ms D, and Ms O - Thanks a million, we love you!

 

Spring Flower Appreciation Cookies

The kids and I have been having a great time decorating sugar cookies and delivering them to our family and friends for the holidays.  We made green shamrock cookies for St Patricks day.  We made sheep, carrots, bunnies and sweet yellow chicks for Easter.

We delivered some cookies to my sweet friend Lynette and her family.  Lynette is a super mom to four children, great wife, attentive daughter, active in her church and a wonderful friend.  On top of her extremely busy life, she is also in school getting her degree to be a counselor - which means she has to spend many hours counseling students and clients as part of an internship.

She recently finished her internship, and wanted to give her coworkers a little token of appreciation so she asked me if I could make up some cute little flower cookies in some fun spring colors.

 I wish I had my sister in law's photography skills............. Alas, I do not.

I packaged them up individually in little cello bags and tied them with some bright ribbon.  Lynette made some adorable little stickers to add to the front of the bag.

 I also made some bite size little flowers with the scraps of dough.   

I thought they were really cute.  

So I bagged them up and gave them to Lynette as a little bonus.

Thanks for ordering the cookies from me Lynette!