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!

 

"Thanks A Buzzillion" Bee Cookies

A couple of weeks ago, we had a meeting for the Teachers of our Primary at Church.  (Primary is the Organization for children 18 mos - 11 years old)

We wanted to let our teachers know how much we appreciate them, so among other things we gave them these:

A little something sweet, for the sweet teachers of our ward!

Local Squirrels Celebrate Earth Day!

I love to celebrate holidays.  Mostly my family and I celebrate the mainstream ones, like Valentines Day, Easter, Christmas etc.  We've never celebrated holidays such as "National Talk like a Pirate Day" or even Earth Day. 

So this past Earth Day started like any other regular day.  I packed the kids lunches and got them off to school.  Then I sat down at my computer to check my email and take a peek at Facebook.   One of my friends wrote a funny post that made me almost pee my pants laughing.  I will not mention her name - you know that whole protecting the innocent thing.  Anyway.....first a bird was trapped in her fireplace.  Then she went down to her basement to get something from the laundry room and was greeted by a squirrel.  Yes.  A squirrel.  Eating chocolate chips that it had retrieved from her food storage.   This alone may not strike you as funny, but the local animal control people came, captured the little critter and promptly  released it in my friends very own back yard.

I'll give you three guesses as to what appeared in her house the very next day.  If you guessed "A Squirrel" you would be ................wrong.  Well sorta.  After that first squirrel was captured and released, they trapped four more squirrels in their basement!!!   Following their story was almost like watching a soap opera.  Had they trapped them all?  Would more suddenly show up?  How were they getting in?  Over a period of a week they trapped them all in a live trap and released then in a park a little bit further away then their backyard.  

I'm sure this was stressful for my dear friends.  I would be stressed out waiting for squirrels to jump out at me at any moment!  I almost had a nervous breakdown when I had crickets in my house but I'm sure they will look back at this in a few years and laugh.

About a week or so after their home was squirrel free, I was shopping for some cookie cutters and I came along a particular one I thought would be perfect for my friends.

So I baked up a couple of these:

Ladybug Cake

My friend Lynette called me and said that her little lady wanted a ladybug cake for her birthday but she couldn't find one at any of our local bakeries.

She said "Feel free to say no."    But who could say no to this face?

I have to admit I was a little nervous - I've never made a ladybug cake before, and I'm soo critical of my own work.  In the end, I came up with this:

I think the end result was cute.  The head was a little big and the fondant was far from perfect, but everyone seemed happy with it.  The best thing of all - Carissa, the birthday girl loved it.

Easy Flower Headband

Spring has sprung in St Louis and my girlie is super excited to wear her spring dresses.  Sometimes she wears the craziest clothes.  Other times she becomes quite the fashionista and she wants the perfect accessory to go with her clothes.

She wanted a pink flower headband to go with the pink and black dress she planned on wearing for Easter.  I've seen this on a lot of different craft blogs made out of all sorts of things.  

I'm sure little explanation is needed here but here goes:  I used a store bought plain elastic headband (I think it was a Goody one).  I took two flowers in different shades of pink and a little pink button and simply sewed them on to the headband.  You can buy the flowers at most craft stores or scrapbook supply store.  I made a blue and brown one (my favorite color combo) for my younger daughter but she refused to stay still for a picture.  On that one I used one large and one small flower and I liked how that one looked better.  It seemed to add more contrast.  I think I will also try sewing some flowers on the elastic hair ties since my little one sometimes takes the headbands off.

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!

Extraordinary Buttermilk Biscuits

I've never had much luck making homemade biscuits so I usually just go with the canned kind.  The darn things are soo expensive though - and this particular night we were scraping the bottom of the pantry.  Also my friend Elizabeth had made some yummy ones and inspired me to try again.

I found this recipe on the back of the Gold Medal Flour bag.

2 1/2 cups Gold Medal Self Rising Flour*

2 teaspoons sugar

1/2 cup butter or shortening

3/4 to 1 cup buttermilk, milk or whipping cream**

Heat oven to 450 degrees.  In medium bowl, stir together flour and sugar.  Using pastry blender or fork, cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.  Stir in cream until dough leaves the side of the bowl.  (If dough is dry, stir in 1-2 tbsp additional cream)

On lightly floured surface, knead dough just until smooth.  Roll to 1/2 inch thickness.  Cut dough with floured 2 1/2 inch round cutter.  Place on an ungreased cookie sheet.  For crusty sides place 1 inch apart, for soft sides place biscuits touching each other.  I opted for the soft sides.  I also brushed the top with melted butter which the recipe did not call for.

Bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown.  Makes about 12 soft and fluffy biscuits.  My kids gobbled them up with a little bit of real butter and some honey.  Yum - Yum!

Want a sweet biscuit?

Cinnamon Sugar Biscuits:  Increase sugar to 1/2 cup, add 1/2 tsp cinnamon to flour mixture.  After baking, brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

*I actually didn't have enough flour in the bag for this recipe.  So I used some all purpose flour - for each cup of all-purpose flour, add 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

**I always have heavy cream in my fridge so this is what I used.  Plus I have an aversion to buttermilk.  I don't mind eating things with buttermilk in it, as long as I don't see it being poured in there.