Teacher Appreciation Treat

Every day this week we've had a different theme for what to take to the teachers. Monday was a special lunch we hosted (complete with massages for the teachers!), Tuesday was flower day, and Wednesday was sweet day.

I made these brownies (You will hate me forever for giving you this recipe because they are so easy to make and so stinkin' good!) I then had to figure out had to package them to look cute.

Do you know about howdoesshe.com? It's a great site! And it's where I got the free printable treat topper I used.

Here's the link if you want to use it or save it for later. All I did was put the best brownies ever in ziplock bags and then I put the card stock topper on there and stapled it. The kids signed their names on the back and delivered them to their teachers, who by now have surely gained 20 pounds each from all the candy and sweets they were brought. (I know I would have anyway!)

And just to make things easier, here's the brownie recipe from Lindsey's blog from the link above. =)

2 c. sugar
1 c. butter
2 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs
3/4 c. cocoa
1 c. flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
dash cinnamon

Mix ingredients and bake in greased pan at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

* I think it works best to make them in a 9x13 pan lined in foil that you spray with Pam. Once they've cooled somewhat, lift the brownies out with the foil and fold the foil down on the sides and cut them with a plastic knife. They will be perfect thin brownie squares. You will probably also have to bake them closer to 35-40 minutes. Trust me - I've made them lots of times and have mastered this one!

Teacher Appreciation Dessert

A couple of weeks ago I made chocolate cookie cheesecake for the staff and teachers at the kids' school.

Spring had come and that seemed like a good enough reason to make some cheesecake! I plated it up and added a little bit of ribbon and a little bird on each one. The bird was some free art I found online - I just added the words and cut it out with my creative memories circle cutting tool thing-a-mabob. (I should totally be a consultant for that company because I sound very knowledgeable, don't you think?)

John asked if it was a peace offering because they had to take care of John David all day. Very funny, Daddy.

Valentine Treats

Today the kids had their Valentine's Day parties at school so of course we had to do something special. I always like to find something unique for them to take instead of just buying a box of premade cards and being done with it. (Although I usually wish that's what I would have done when I'm finally finished!)

Last year we made these airplanes and they were so cute! (An idea from family fun)

Another year Julia made these flower valentine cards from family fun.

This year we made rice krispie treats that were wrapped like lollipops. It was a variation of an idea Lindsey posted about that I thought was way too cute to pass up.

We did big ones for all the teachers and staff and smaller ones for friends.

And since I didn't buy enough marshmallows (oops!) we did bags of hershey kisses with a Yoda tag for John David. He was totally impressed with my ability to make something Star Wars related on my own.

Of course there has to be a pretty basket to carry all of the treats to school.

Where do you find ideas for Valentine treats? Any great websites?

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Teacher Treat & Bible Character Day

A couple of weeks ago I made a double batch of my mother-in-law's yummy walnut muffins for the school teachers. I sprinkled them with a tiny bit of powdered sugar to make them pretty and then I bagged them in sets of 6.

I tied them up with raffia and added a twig and some leaves from the yard. The kids took them to the teachers' lounge and they didn't last long, I was told. If we had a working printer I would have printed out some fallish looking tags that had some meaningful words on them.

Here's John David dressed like Lazarus for Bible character day at school. The kids were told to dress up like someone of something from the Bible. We talked about a number of options.

Daddy suggested perhaps one of them could be the "still small voice" that spoke to Elijah.

We quickly realized the impossibility of any of our children being something "still" and "small".

Then I (we both claim we had the idea first, but this is my blog so I say "I") had the idea to be Lazarus after Jesus called him back to life. "I" thought we could just wrap him up like a mummy and it would be clever, cheap, and easy.

Yeah, not so much. Thinking back, I don't know why this was so hard, but it was. I should have been able to find cheaper fabric but I used cheesecloth which was $1.75 a yard. I didn't want to spend a fortune so I bought 5 yards and even though I cut it into long strips, it still didn't go far enough. Of course we didn't try all of this until the morning of. Because that's how we roll.

Julia just wanted to be an angel so I just dressed her in one of her plain white dresses and bought her wings and a halo. Easy peasy and she was happy.

He did NOT want the strips around his legs. He's posing with a girl who was representing the verse, "And Jesus wept." An appropriate picture since the reason Jesus wept was because Lazarus had died.

(Oh man, it just hit me! I should have bought a couple of white flat sheets from walmart and just cut it up in strips. Arghhhh. Cheaper AND better. I'm so annoyed with myself now....)

Teacher Birthday Ideas

At the PTF meeting a week ago I signed up to be in charge of celebrating teacher birthdays and doing the teacher appreciation stuff. I received the birthday list on Friday and there's a birthday this Thursday!

Does anyone have ideas? I'm probably going to call the school's secretary in a little bit to find out some favorite things. I'd like to include students, but I'm not sure there's enough time for this one. It also seems that this first birthday will set the precedent so I need to do it right. Not too big, not too small. Sweet, thoughtful, useful, fun, budget friendly. You know.

Help?