First Day of School!!

Teacher Welcome Gift

Well my kids start school on Friday. It's a bittersweet moment but to be honest, I'm glad. This summer in Oklahoma has been a hot 110-115 degrees every day!! So I was pretty much stuck inside with the entire brood all summer! I'm pretty excited to have some quiet time during the day.

That being said, my kids always want to give their teacher's a welcome gift on the first day of school. Back to school shopping has gotten pretty expensive so I wanted their gifts to be cheap and easy. I headed to Goodwill and picked up a pair of cute coffee mugs for $1.49. Yay! In addition to the coffee mugs, I added some cute little things. For example, chocolates, Carefree gum, a gluestick, a crayon, ear plugs, and a band-aid.

I found the following little insert for the card explaining the gifts on another blog and for the life of me, I can't find it to link to. I'm a bad blogger! Anyways here's the little poem:

                Welcome Teacher! Here is a first day kit just for you!

Crayon: to ensure that your day bright & cheerful

Rubber Band: to remind you to be flexible

Gluestick: to hold it all together

Ear Plugs: when you just can't take the noise anymore

Carefree Gum: to help your class stick together and remind you to stay care free

Bandaid: to help fix any hurt feelings

Chocolate: to enjoy all the sweet moments

Coffee mug: to keep your liquid motivation flowing

Cute right?! I'm loving it!!

Look Who's A Giveaway Winner!!

So I completely hit the jackpot and won an awesome giveaway at

Lee la la!

This is the fantastic prize that I have the privilege of putting on my little Ballerina!

Oh my gosh!! I cannot put into words how excited I am about this!! Check out Lindsay's blog. She's fabulous and so is her blog!!

Italian Sausage and Peppers

I love cooking a quick meal for the family! I love not spending a huge amount of time on dinner and still have it turn out fabulous!! This recipe is one that fits the above description beautifully! Italian sausage with bell peppers!

I got this recipe from my sister-in-law who is married to an Italian man and has 4 hungry teenagers to feed. It is by far the simplest and yummiest meal!

Ingredients:

Bell Peppers (I used 1 red, 1 yellow, and 2 orange), 1 yellow onion (I only used half), 2 packages of spicy Italian sausage links, 2 tablespoons of minced garlic, and a pinch of kosher salt.

Directions:

Slice sausage links into cylindrical coins, place in bowl with diced onion, and toss with the minced garlic. Set aside.

Remove seeds from peppers and slice into thin strips. Set to the side also.

In a large pan, cook the sausage/onion mixture over Med-High heat until the sausages are slightly browned and their juices have coated the bottom of the pan. Remove the sausage/onion mixture from pan and add the peppers. This cooks the peppers in the sausage sauce. This is usually where I add the kosher salt. Cook until peppers are slightly limp. Add the sausage/onion mixture and cover. Allow all of this to cook together, stirring occasionally for about 10-15 minutes depending on your stove top.

Finally remove from heat and drain. Place in serving bowl and enjoy! We usually add fresh grated Parmesan cheese before diving in but we're a cheese-loving family!

Today I added this recipe as our bread, Parmesan Knots from Chef in Training. They were a huge hit and if you haven't checked out her blog, you must. It's awesome!!

Back to School ideas

I found and listed some really cool "Back to School" ideas on my teacher blog,

Mrs. Morris' Classroom Chalk Talk.

Stop by and let me know if you've run across any great ideas!!

Our Anniversary!

Yesterday was our anniversary!! It was so awesome!! And my love gave me the greatest gift ever...an Edible Arrangements bouquet! It was super yummy and so beautiful!!

Pearl & Ribbon Necklace

Tomorrow is my anniversary! I'm excited and I bought the most adorable outfit to wear to dinner with my husband. I'll post it tomorrow! But anyways, I couldn't find the perfect necklace. I seriously have like 30 necklaces and none of them were right for the outfit so I decided to make one.

I used crochet twine, brown organza ribbon, and ivory pearls to make my necklace.

It was surprisingly easy to make, I just threaded the twine onto a needle and alternately threaded the pearls and the ribbon (folding the ribbon along the way).

I'm really excited about the way it turned out!

My New Teaching Blog!!

So starting next week, I begin my final year as a college student. I am graduating May of 2012 with a BS in Elementary Education!! I am so stinking excited that I can hardly handle it!! I've been going crazy researching classroom decor, ways to keep my future classroom clutter-free, bookmarking future lesson plans for ever grade possible, and basically driving my husband crazy!!

So with all of that in mind, I started a second blog, Mrs. Morris' Classroom Chalk Talk. I have zero followers but that doesn't matter. I'll be posting all the adorable and genius ideas that I run across in fellow educators blogs.

I do ask for a small favor, if you happen to know of any awesome teacher blogs, please point me in their direction.

Thanks a million!!

Back to School Cupcakes

"Back to School" Apple Cupcakes

I decided to make special "Back to School" cupcakes for my little loves. They turned out good. The Apple Cuppy-cakes!

I took my red silicone baking cups and baked some plain white cupcakes. After baking, I added some icing and a chocolate doughnut to the top then put them in the freezer for one hour.

While the cupcakes were chilling, I took tootsie rolls and cut them in half to be the apple stems. I also took green Jolly Rancher fruit chews, rolled them flat and cut them into leaf shapes.

I took one can of white frosting and added red food coloring until it got to the color that I liked. Then I microwaved the icing to make it smooth. This made icing the cupcakes much easier because all I needed to do is dip the cupcakes into the icing and spooning additional icing into the hard to reach places. Finally I added the stem and leaf to each cupcake.

It's A Blog Hop!!

Loving the idea of a Blog Hop!! It's so great to see everyone else's wonderful blogs!!