Dozens, Dozens & more DOZENS of cookies!!!

Kim and I must've gone CRAZY this year because we decided to give the gift of sugary treats to all the folks in our SPED department!  We made boxes for all the aides, teachers, clerical secretaries, bosses, etc!  We had found these really cute bakery boxes in Visalia at Hobby Lobby on one of our road trips in search of creativity and bargins.  I think we made 10 different kinds of goodies by the time we filled up all of the boxes!  We had peppermint bark, snicker-doodles, pumpkin bars, toffee chip cookies, spice cookies, haystacks, chocolate covered peanut butter patties, peanut butter covered Nutella patties, sugar cookies with a white chocolate peppermint Hershey kiss, and chocolate chocolate chip cookies!  They were VERY well received!!!  I then made some plates of cookies that I had left over to take to family!       

Food Coloring & Fireworks!!! July 4th, 2011

It is Monday July the 4th and although I don't have any big exciting plans, I do have one primary goal to try and keep my girls calm with all the loud booms, crackles, and screeches! 

With summer school over I'd spent the weekend getting my house and kitchen put back together and by Monday afternoon I guess I was glutton.  I decided to use some of the leftover cake mix and white chocolate from our cakeball baking day in summer school to create a more patriotic version.  Baking occupied my afternoon and kept my girls fascinated waiting for me to drop something tasty for them to snatch up! 

By the evening we'd settled in for a movie in attempt to drowned out the fireworks to keep the girls calm.  Once it was fully dark the fireworks were in the full force, the girls wouldn't quit barking or

running back and forth showing their confusion and panic.  I gave up on the movie idea and went outside into the backyard with them instead in hopes of helping them stay calm  while getting to

enjoy the free show!  I of-course took my camera with me to see if I could capture any of the overhead illegal bursts of color.  I live on the outskirts of the city and it seemed like I was surrounded

by such fireworks and these were not simple bottle rockets, they were the next best thing to the real deal!!!  Enjoy my humble attempt at capturing their beauty!  

Rainbow Cupcakes!!! Summer school...June 23rd, 2011

Summer school is winding down and I always try to have a cooking lesson at least once a week...we've made full meals like lasagna, salad and bread and then we've done minor things like baking cookies.  I had been telling the students I had a surprise for them that included food dye but I never told them what exactly it was going to be.  Finally the day had arrived and we were going to be making rainbow colored cupcakes where each one has multiple colors swirled inside.  We taught the kids to separate the white cake batter into 5-6 bowls and then using gel food coloring (the gels tend to be

more vibrant than the liquid kind) dyed each a different color.  Then using spoons they added batter a spoonful of color at a time until each cup was 3/4 full.  The coolest part was after they were done baking because I let the students choose which two cupcakes they wanted to ice and eat.  I didn't let anyone eat until all the kids had theirs iced and ready...then we had a countdown where everyone took a bite at the same time and then compared colorful middles.  I don't think I've EVER seen kids eat cupcakes so SLOWLY before in my

life because with every bite they were comparing it to other kids. Overall, everyone was quite impressed and ultimately went home with a sugar high! :-)