Pinterest Project: Hamburger Cupcakes and Fries

I saw these great cupcakes on pinterest a long time ago and had been looking for an excuse to make them. We're having a big BBQ tomorrow for the fourth of July, and since we will not be having the traditional hamburgers and hot dogs (but rather the most delicious brisket, ribs, and chicken), I thought they would be the perfect addition to our meal.

Michelle came over yesterday to help me put these together. The idea is simple. Bake a yellow cupcake and cut it in half. Bake a pan of brownies, cut circles using a biscuit cutter. Place brownie circle between two pieces of cupcake and pipe frosting on to look like lettuce, ketchup, or mustard. Sprinkle sesame seeds on top to make the cupcake look a little more like the top of a hamburger bun. On the original website, she had a printable for the cute little baskets to put these in so of course I was all over that. And I went ahead and modified the fry package to say Happy 4th of July instead of Happy Father's Day.

The second part of these are the fries. Sugar cookie fries to be exact. The idea for these is also pretty simple. Buy sugar cookie dough, roll out, bake, cut into strips, and sprinkle sugar on top to look like salt.

Here is our finished product:

What do you think? I love them! They were a HUGE hit today at the BBQ! :)

pinterest win.

Pinterest Projects: Story Elements

I am always looking for new fun things to use in my classroom to make ordinary lessons more fun. In first grade we are constantly reviewing story elements in fiction books and practicing retelling the story using beginning, middle, and end.  Doing this so often, it can get boring so I wanted to come up with some new fun ways to work on this skill that the kids would be excited about.  I found two cute ideas on Pinterest, and quickly put them together at the teacher center one afternoon.

First up, the story map board:

First graders LOVE sticky notes. I mean they really LOVE them! Anything automatically becomes a million times more fun if a sticky note is involved. I love this story map because the kids can be actively engaged using sticky notes. Give every kid a sticky note, and assign them a part to listen and record while you are reading. After the story you can review the story elements using the kids sticky notes. If two kids write the same thing (which they should in this instance), just stack their stickies on top of each other. Every kid is actively engaged and having fun. Love it. Here's mine:

Another fun project I found were these story element wands:

These didn't have a tutorial, just the picture, so I just figured out how to make them myself. I used some felt and a di-cut machine to cut out two large stars in each color. Then I used a smaller star di-cut and some white felt to cut the middle of each. Using a sharpie, I wrote each story element on the center piece of the wand (I made: characters, setting, problem, solution, beginning, middle, and end). First, I sewed the small star to the center of a larger star. Then, I cut a piece of quitting batting (just a small square) and placed it between the two big star layers and sewed around the edge, leaving a small space for the stick. At hobby lobby I purchased a set of wooden dowel rides, which I wrapped in glittery ribbon and hot glued inside the star. Simple, and fun.

I really think the kids are going to love using these to practice retelling the story and describing story elements. Can't wait to use them next year!

Pinterest Project: Brownie Batter Cupcakes

It had been awhile since I made any new cupcakes, so one afternoon last week when I got bored I decided to try a new recipe I saw on pinterest.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of these cupcakes after I was finished, but let me tell you, they were amazing. They looked super cute and they were delicious!! I used a yellow cake mix to make the cupcake but modified the recipe by adding some sugar, sour cream, and vanilla. The cake turned out moist and full of flavor (much better than the simple box cake mix by itself). In the middle of these cupcakes is a bite of brownie, yum! I accidentally made more brownie bites than I needed for the cupcakes so we kept some of those in the fridge to eat as a bite size treat. That is the first dessert I have found that I cannot keep Tony away from. Those brownie bites inside are DELICIOUS! You could make that as a treat all on it's own.

I sent a dozen of these to work with Tony (because we don't need to be fatties and eat 18 cupcakes all ourselves) and they were devoured by the end of the day. Definitely a hit. If you like the taste of brownie and are looking for a good cupcake, I suggest you try these.

another pinterest win.

Pinterest Project: Sunbathing Towel and Pillow

Last weekend Tony, Michelle, and I planned to take a day trip down to the beach the coming Friday. A few days before, I was playing around on pinterest, and found this awesome tutorial for a beach towel with a pillow that rolls up into a tote bag.

I knew I had to make one before our beach trip at the end of the week. I made one important change from the original. In the tutorial they stuffed the pillow part and sewed it together. This seemed like it would make washing it extremely difficult. So instead, I bought a full size pillow (on sale at Target for $4!) and made a pocket with velcro to slide it in. Now when I want to wash the towel I just slide the pillow out and throw the thing in the washing machine.

This project was really simple. You don't have to measure anything and the sewing does not have to be perfect. Check out the link above for the tutorial if you are interested in making one (though I highly recommend making the pillow part a velcro pocket instead of stitching it closed for ease of use). I used mine at the beach yesterday and it worked wonderfully! With the added length the pillow portion adds, my feet no longer hang off the end of the towel when I lay down on it. It was so much more comfortable to lay on a long towel with a pillow than the regular beach towel. Michelle was jealous of how awesome it turned out, so we've decided to make her one during our craft day next Tuesday (we'll be making a number of pinterest projects that day so stay tuned). I just love how this turned out. It took about 30 minutes from start to finish and I have a great beach towel for laying out. yay!

another pinterest win!

Pinterest Project: Weekly Menu Board

After a very long hiatus from blogging, I'm back! haha

Summer is in full swing and I am greatly enjoying my time off from work. Since my sweet boys moved to London about a month ago, I am not working this summer. I thought I would be miserably bored, but I have found the break has actually been wonderful.

With all this time off, I have plenty of time to play on pinterest (my latest obsession). I've already made something like 15 projects for my classroom next year. As some of you may know, not everything you see on pinterest turns out exactly like it looks when you make it haha. Sidenote: one of my new favorite blogs to read is _______. She blogs about different projects she tries from pinterest that turn out as total failures. It's sort of hilarious if you are bored and want to check it out. Anyway, since I've been trying out projects and tricks learned from pinterest I thought I might blog about some of the successes (and failures, though I haven't had a major failure yet).

First up: my new weekly menu planning board. Here is the original I saw on pinterest:

This looked like something cute and simple that could actually be used in my house. I am really trying to be more diligent about menu planning each week so we end up eating less fast food and I can better budget money for weekly meals. The only problem I have is I tend to forget half of the yummy meals we have had before.  My solution: this menu board. I color coded the cards by different types of meals, soups/stews, pasta dishes, casseroles, meat dishes, and misc. I have also marked them with symbols to show healthy meals and crockpot meals. This way I can plan a variety of meals each week. To use this, all I have to do is flip  through the meal cards and clip my choices next to each day of the week. Another great thing about this, is on the back of each card I have listed the ingredients needed for that meal. That way when I plan my weekly meals, to make my grocery list, all I have to do is flip each card over and record what I need from the store. Easy!

The original I saw was thin and could be clipped to the fridge. I wasn't such a fan of that idea because things are forever falling off my fridge if it bumps the wall at a weird angle. Instead, I found these great wooden plaques at hobby lobby for just a couple dollars. I used a cute piece of scrap paper and some modge podge to add color, then glued on mini clothespins for each day of the week. This fits perfectly in a cookbook stand and doubles as a cute kitchen decoration. One change I'll probably have to make soon is adding bigger pockets for meals. For now, all the meals we have made and eat regularly fit in the small pockets, but as we try more meals I'll need a bigger space to keep them like the original.

There you have it, my weekly menu board. Pinterest win. :)

"The Skanks"

Today we read a book called Aliens Love Panta Claus. It goes along with the book Alien's Love Underpants. The premise of the story is the aliens are helping out Santa, but keep using underwear for everything. They use them as a hat on the snowman, exchange the stockings for underwear, use them as ornaments on the tree etc. After reading the book, I wrote the following sentence on the board and the kids had to finish the sentence in a creative way and illustrate. Then I put all the pages together to make a class book:

"The aliens might use the underwear to______________"

One little girl brings me her paper and it looks beautiful. Her handwriting is perfect (better than mine, I swear haha), her picture fills the page, and everything looks fantastic. I read her paper to discover this gem:

"The aliens might use the underwear as gifts and deliver them to the skanks."

no. freaking. kidding.

The picture is of a house, and on the house it says "The Skank's House". Next to the house are the gifts that have been delivered by the aliens and they are labeled with tags such as "To Mrs. Skank".

I couldn't even bring myself to ask her what it said because I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face (not in front of her of course, this happened when I immediately ran to show Michelle haha). Best I can figure, she either has some friends with a similar name and sounded it out wrong, or she might have been trying to write "The Skunk's House" because a number of other kids had the brilliant idea to write things about skunks and thought it was funny.

Either way, this one is a keeper.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

So many things to be thankful for ... here are just a few:

- I'm thankful that after last years group of hellions, I have a small class of perfect angels this year
- I'm thankful for my AMAZING team that I work with. It is not possible to have a better group of ladies to spend my days with. They are truly my friends and I look forward to seeing them each day at work.
- I'm thankful my whole family is able to spend Thanksgiving together this year (and I'm thankful they are coming to Houston so I don't have to spend my break traveling!)
- I'm thankful for my wonderful best friend who came home from China early to cook a turkey for my family. He's so good to me!
- I'm thankful for my naughty kitten, who as we speak is climbing the Christmas tree, yet again!
- I'm thankful I didn't move to Colorado after all last year, because life turned out pretty damn good here. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by friends and family!