Start of School Year Teacher Gift - If you give a teacher a cookie ...

A quick break from the Emoji Party items I have a quick teacher gift for the start of school. So school started early this year so this is a little late but hey it's the thought! I saw this awesome idea on Thirty Handmade Days she has a FREE printable also that you can use! You know my love of a free printable, less work for me! 

With Cole now in middle school and having 6 teachers it is not as easy to make teacher gifts. Well ... it's easy but can get spendy!! So I decided to make these cookie bags which is inexpensive and a cute idea!!

What you Need:

Baked Cookies (recipe below)

Clear treat bags (25pk $1 Dollar Tree)

Card Stock

Twine (or ribbon)

Hole Puncer

Scissors or paper cutter tool

Place cookies in the bag (I put 4 in each bag). I printed her FREE printable (link if you click on her blog name above) onto card stock paper. I used my paper cutter to cut them down and then a hole punch to add a hole. I used twine since I have a crap load of it left over from my mom's wine party last year, PLUS it's very rustic and cool looking! Tie on the card and close up the bag!

  All packed up and ready to go to school!a

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

 All Recipes Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons hot water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour, chocolate chips, and nuts. Drop by large spoonfuls onto ungreased pans.
3. Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned.

I did a mix of semi sweet, dark chocolate and for fun added in some butter finger crumbles. Mine seemed to spread a bit too much and took 15min in my oven to bake.

Back To School .... Here We Come

We are back in the swing of things and it's flying by already!  Both boys are in school now, I actually handled it better then I thought I would ... lol.  Cole entered the 3rd Grade and is already acting like he is too cool for mom.  Caden entered into Kindergarten and is still my little man!  Both came home from the first day with smiles and talks of how they loved their teachers and class.  I think Cole really is enjoying having a male teacher and bounding great! Here is to a great year!

My friend Amy posted on her facebook page a picture of her daughter doing this and I had to do it with the boys.  Their Signs say First day of ... Name ... Age ... And What they want to be when they grow up.

Cole's wants to be a Scientist

Caden wants to be a Policeman

Hope you have a great week and if you have kids in school they have a great first week!

School Supply Cakes (2 to choose from)

Well I thought I would make something fun for the teachers (Cole is going to be in 3rd and Caden starts Kindergarten).  I've been seeing these amazing School Supply Cake's on Pinterest and thought I had to make one.  But then I thought I had to make one for each teacher.  You know me I can't do the same for both so I found a different type to make also.

The first one I found cute School Supply Cake on Carries Scrapyard that she made.  I took the picture and ran with it.  NOW if I read her whole post I would have found she found instructions on the Butler's site (yup I didn't so mine is a we'll my own).

Supplies Needed:

(1) Plastic Container - You could use a Roll of Paper Towels also

(5) large rubber bands 

(6) 24 count Crayons

(4) 1-Subject Spiral Bound Notebooks 

(10) Bottles School Glue

(6) Small Glue Sticks 

(20) No.2 Pencils 

(1) box of Kleenex Tissues

Wood Cut-outs (I picked up 2 apples, 1 worm & 1 bus - Michael's)

Ribbon (Apples - Found it at Michael's)

Packing Tape

I took a plastic container placed the spiral bound notebooks around it and one rubber band around it to hold it in place.  Then I added the crayons and glue sticks around the bottom, grabbed another rubber band and secured it around those to keep them in place.  I took the Glue bottles on put them on top and once again took a rubber band to secure them.   On top I stuck a Kleenex Tissue box in the center (half of the box will be behind the notebook paper.  I placed 5 pencils on each side of the tissue box (held on with packing tape).  I found some cute ribbon with apples on it that I added to each tier to hide the rubber bands.  The top tier I tied a bow and then added in the wood apples, worm and bus.

Next on my to do list was one a little bit more "boyish" per Cole :). He picked out this School Supply Cake I found on Come Together Kids.  I had to make it fit to our needs and played around with it a little bit.  The bin I found was a little large so that changed the design a little bit. 

What you need:

(7) Kleenex Boxes

(1) Bin 

(20) Pencils

(6) Glue Sticks

(2) Crayons

(4) Hand Sanitizers

(1) School Stickers - Found at the Dollar Store

(1) School Paper Borders - Found at the Dollar Store

(1) Package of School Cut outs - Found at the Dollar Store

Packing Tape

I took 6 Kleenex Boxes and taped them together, I added the paper School Paper Border around it (use tape to secure).  Add the bin on top, I taped the pencils on the front and then added the border around that also.  Cole added the Cut-out Apple and Stars to the side of the bin.  I then added 1 box of Kleenex on top of the bin, added the box of school stickers in front.  Added the crayons on the side and filled in the gap with the glue sticks.  Added the school border and secured with tape.  We also added on 4 hand sanitizers (taped together) on top.

It took a little bit of time but my helper Cole did a great job and he was very excited to bring them to school to show them off.  I'd say they were a success, what do you think?

Ladies and Gentlemen Start Your Engines ...

Have you every seen that lady comic that does the mom song?

That is how I felt today. First we get up and running get the everyone dressed and ready for the day ahead. I pack lunches and of course make sure my coffee was poured and pulsing thru my veins before I even attempted to drive a car. We hope in the car and thankfully no one is crying, maybe whining but no actually crying. First stop drop Cole off at daycare/PreK, run his backpack to his cubby on the other end of the school, sign him in and give him a quick hug and kiss. Hop back in the car and drop Caden off at Grandma Pats, give him a quick kiss and wave hi to grandma. Hop back in the car and drop Roy off at the other host families house, thank them again for letting him come over before school. Flip the car around and head to work, phew all in 35 minutes, I think that may be a record! OMG I wish I could take a nap is all I could think, maybe 1 or 2 more cups of coffee.

After the 3 ok 4th cup of coffee I'm feeling half way normal and trying to find my desk. You take one day off and it takes almost a week to recover. It's like taking vacation and when you come back you have so much laundry it's like you need another vacation. Well the lesson of today is even though you're asked to do something find a price and give people the option, yet another thing to add to my list of growing items. After my little learning experience the day went rather fast, tomorrow we'll be a crazy day I'm sure.

And the race begins all over again. I pick Roy up, we stop by the grocery store yet again to pick up some items for this cake I need to make for school. I get in there grab a few items and look down crap I forgot my cloth bag, that's ok I think I will only need one plastic bag I can use it for dirty diapers. Don't you just love how my mind goes back to excuses not to use the cloth bags, at least this time I didn't just buy another one. I'm soon going to end up with the same amount of cloth bags as the plastic bags that are taking up a side of my pantry. One day they come in handy! So I'm in the cake isle, you would think they have a red velvet mix but no they don't. Thankfully I printed out a recipe earlier in the day, well that would help if I would have put it in my purse instead of sitting on my desk! Geez, I look at the time 5:10 everyone is gone from the office. Thinking hat on ... I can call Anng and ask her to Google a recipe for me. I think she was going to pee her pants laughing at me, yup I know I'm a dork. So she gives me a list and oh yeah can you give me the baking instructions since I don't have Internet yet at home. I go down picking up the items, then I look at what all I have to buy and the time it is going to take to do this. By this time it's almost 5:30 and I need to pick Cole up at 6pm or they charge per minute. Oh crap grab 2 boxes of scone mix and some raspberry jelly and call it good.

Back in the car run over to pick Caden up, barely have time to say hi to Grandma or to pay her, geez have to do that in the morning. Hop in the car yet again and race over to Cole's daycare. I had a vision in my mind of Cole sitting there at almost 6pm by himself. I arrive at 5:52 (hey 8 minutes to spare) and there is a bunch of kids, phew I'm not the only one. We drive home, Cole and Roy crash and Caden helps in the kitchen. You know by holding onto the back of my pants while I try to move from the fridge to the stove! Finally I grab a banana and put him in his highchair so I can get a little something done. Get dinner done and Tarra and her daughter Khari show up. We had a great meal and it was so nice to have adult conversation and the kids actually didn't scream too loud.

Bath time and finally a little mommy time I sit down at watch Project Runway and think phew I'm done. Then my brain kicks in and reminds me, HELLO you need to make scones! So I get up and start making scones, Cole of course isn't a sleep in sneaks into the kitchen. Fine you watch and then it's bed time! I think I might be done around 11pm and then we'll do it all again tomorrow!

First day of PreK

Well today was the big day, Cole's first day of PreK. I was so ready to let him go, yup I know keep telling myself that. I started the morning off with a nice breakfast and just kind of kept doing NEEDED things around the house, ok fine I was stahling! Finally around 11ish we get in the car to leave. Guess what I hadn't done, filled out all the paperwork for the registration (you know the ones I already turned in but they lost). So I try to fill them out in the car, but 15 pages of the same info takes a little while to fill out. After Caden is crying so hard and Cole is kicking Roy's seat we get out of the car and go back in to finish the paperwork. 5 minutes later we're back in the car and going to the school, really that wasn't me stahling again ... ok maybe it was! We get to the school and Cole runs to the front door, I of course make him stand for a few pictures. At least they were outside, I wanted to do them inside too but he won't let me! We go in and pay our tution and off to the daycare we go. The kids were about to come in so I had to leave Cole by himself, sad mommy but I did it! As you can see it didn't effect him at all.

Ok mom just let me go in!

After a quick lunch we head over to Roy's school to turn in his paperwork (yes I know a day early) and buy his lunchs for the month. Stop by work to pick up my paycheck and off to the grocery store. Hey when I'm down one kid I do all I can! We pick Cole up early today, and he's outside playing having a great time. The first words out of the teachers mouth was "he listens great" ... what are you talking about my son? Then we met the other teachers all sing his prais, guess this is just the new faze. He told me his friends are AWESOME and his teachers were COOL! So I guess it was a hit and he can't wait to go again tomorrow.

We get in the car and all 3 boys fall asleep, I run to pick up a pizza since we're having guest over tonight. Anngie and her daughter KJ came over to play. Anngie and I have agreed that playdate on a school night is not the best idea we've ever had. Rick was so sweet and came home and put the bouncy house out front. The kids played nice for 5.4 seconds before the crying started. Yup time to put the pizza in, after a little tongue sticking out and looking at me we calmed down and had a great night! Oh yeah well at least we got one glass of wine girl, next time I'll break out the hard stuff! LOL

Well it was a great first day, I'm sure we'll have so much fun doing it all over again. Since tomorrow will be the first test of my 3 stops before I can get to work. 1st Cole at his school, 2nd Caden to daycare and 3rd Roy to the other host family's house. Yup sounds like fun right? I'm off to watch the new 90210!! I can't wait my favorite show from Jr. High is back with some of my favorite characters! Yes I know I watch to much TV and shows that are for a younger crowd!