Making Rock Candy

So I been wanting to do this for awhile with the girls, so I decided I had enough sugar to do this project. I also had mason jars from Danika's birthday left over. I had bought skewers and clothespins to do this project, so I had everything on hand. I read several different recipes, one of my girlfriends had done this project for her kids for science. So I got her feed back also on what to do and not do.
So I used 3 cups sugar to1 cup water; boil to candy stage. You then turn off the heat, let set for about 10 min. You want it to cool some. We used 3-4 drops of color. 1/2 tsp for imitation flavoring and 1/4 tsp if it is oil based.
Since we were doing 4 jars (2 colors for each kid), I had put the sugar mix in a bowl and waited for it to cool, while getting the other girl ready for her next color.












It was fun and messy. The girls picked cherry, raspberry, peppermint & plain for their flavors.

The girls had plugged in the radio in the kitchen so we were rocking out making rock candy!!

I have to say within 2 hours the blue peppermint began crystallizing. I will show you pictures.












I also read that during the time, if it begins to crystallize on the sides to pour into a new jar and wash out the old one.. move the stick over too- don't forget.

It was all over the mason jar, I could  not pry it out at all. I used  a knife to jab it out and then the stick came out with nothing on it. Guess what we might have to do tonight? Start a new blue one over. This one got crazy and over grew. I really think it was the flavoring, because that was the only difference between all the jars.

Baking Cakes

SO, my boyfriend volunteered me to make cakes for his oldest daughters boyfriends birthday. About 50+ people were suppose to show. More like 20-25 showed, but the point was Andres (the boyfriend) likes Burnt Almond cake & I figured for that many people I will just do 2 cakes & one will be chocolate. You can never lose with chocolate, right?! Burnt Almond takes alot of time to do & many ingredients! I use to work in a bakery for about 20 years and so I use to decorate & at some point started making all the icings, etc..
I made the cakes the night before, and the burnt almond crunch. I gave myself about 3 hours to make the icings and decorate the cakes. I make the icing from scratch and ice the cakes right away. The 2nd cake was chocolate, strawberries & buttercream.  I can not give out my burnt almond cream recipe, but I must say it turned out delicious! I brought some in for a girl at work, who loves to bake also & she could not stop eating it & begged for the recipe. The only thing I have to say, is that when I know how to prep a recipe, I never go by the measurements. I do my own thing, whatever looks right. Hard to explain, I guess it is like something you know so well, you don't have to follow directions. You know what it is suppose to look like.

One thing, I do miss about working in the bakery is the fact that you have a huge table to work on. I had to sweep my floor 4 times in this process. And then this morning mop it, I would have  mopped it that day or the next but time restraints and to many people in the house at one time.

One of my projects

I had to face it, I need to do Danika's school year scrapbooks, but what is the best thing for a mother who works 40+ hours, plays softball on Tuesday nights, cooks dinner 3-4 nights a week, makes lunches, etc..
Where is the time to actually sit down and do a 12x12 scrapbook? It would take me 3 years to do 1 year, maybe! I am not kidding.. so I started thinking, I know it hurt to think, but had to be done. I have been seeing those SMASH books and I really like them. My thought here is that I can buy the smaller one, because I just realized they came out with the 12x12 & the smaller one can be carried around with me on a daily or weekly basis and I can add to it. I love the thing. Plus, you can use your Michaels coupon and get the 40-50% off!! Cant beat that...
So I started it, only by adding some writing on it: but I am really interested on how it is going to turn out. I am so excited about it. And I am going to start stocking up on them so I have them already, before they may not be around.You know how that goes, you get addicted to something and then they take it away. The only thing with the front of this first one, I could not find any stickers I liked that had Kindergarten on it, so I wrote with puffy paint.
The other great thing about this book/journal:
1. I can write what she said that day word for word, even tell how I am feeling at the moment, etc.
2. It has it's own pen/glue attached to the book.
3. It has it's own plastic cover for it to protect it.
4. They come in all different colors, so doesn't have to be exact all the time!

Just to let you know, I used PAINT software to block out her last name out..Those heart and flowers are not really there. I need to add school stickers to the front. I will show pictures later...

Hailey's End of the Year Gifts

I found the cutest idea for Hailey, actually for any child. I had to recreate it and do it in word, but it worked.     I found a 3pk of pop rocks at the dollar store & felt like I scored big TIME!

 I took the picture right after gluing it so it did not have time to dry..
The only thing is, I started this idea & told Hailey about it a week prior and she was excited. I wanted her to participate, so that she can feel proud passing them out. You can not get that sense if I do it for her. The night I picked her up, the day before the last day of school, her mom had done something for her really good friends. I told Hailey we did not have to do anything if she did not want, she seemed to still want to do it. I told her that she has to help glue or cut them out.  As the night went on, she never said anything about it. I did not want to add to anything, so I never brought it up again. Plus, I do not want to step on her mom's toes. If she had done something, I did not want to over shadow her. So I just took a step back and the pop rocks are in the candy drawer. As I always say, whatever I do for Danika in this way, I will do for Hailey. It is her choice to follow through or not, but my time & energy is still there for her as well as my daughter.

End of the School year gifts for kindergarten

I made 2 seperate things for my daughter's class. My daughter's schools mascot is an owl, so I can not pass these things up..

These are the cutest little things! I got mini hershey chocolate bars and wrapped them with these. My only issue is passing them out to the other children- due to food allergies with peanuts. They had Mr. Goodbars in the mix. So I told my daughter to make sure to let the parents and the other students that they may contain peanuts. It all depends on what you grab, but you can not see it. I found these cute printable here:

The main gift was not this, it was sticking with the whole teacher appreciation S'more idea...

I had found one with kindergarten on it & then when I went to print it up, I could not find it. So I had to make my own and add it to the other one I printed up.
Lollipops & Paper Blog had the initial idea, but when I went to print it up I could not find the Kindergarten. I just am lame and could not see it..
On her blog it seemed like she could make more than I could.. I used the stackable marshmallows, which is the greatest idea! I put one small Hershey bar, 2 stackable marshmallows, 1 graham cracker..
I wish I had more time to go out and get the sheets that are labels, they would have looked alot cleaner than this. I used tape and regular paper.. It did the job. We got to her class and added it to everyone's cubby. She is in a class of 1st graders and kindergarten, so I only did the amount for kindergarten that is in her class and the rest were left the way it was.
A couple of moms were still hanging out and were asking what are those, one mom was really impressed.. It was nice.
It makes me feel good that I can still squeeze in some little things like this for the girls.
Next up is Hailey's- her last day is on the 8th of June. This ideas ROCKS!!

A Thank You from a teacher

SO, I have to say I got a thank you card from Hailey's teacher.. Very nice! She said that we were very thoughtful & she appreciates students like her! How cute & thoughtful that was.

What I did not tell you, is that Hailey had already told me that she thought her teacher was mean.. She was really strict. Oppss.. Nothing like a little kiss butt to change her mind! The funny thing about that is, I had made up the S'more thing already & told Hailey she did not have to give it to her teacher, I can use it later.. But, Hailey still wanted to do it.
Makes me feel good that she sent that and that she recognized.
Danika's teacher did not do that. She did say thank you in person. I am that type of person that can not do one thing for my daughter and not include my bonus child.. Especially if we have them on the same day. That just isn't right..

Next up this week and next week, will be end of school year gifts for their classmates..
Then for the Summer time, our family projects: organizing their room, organizing the office,
putting together things to do with the kids: like glow in the dark slime, rock candy, camping, painting shirts and backpacks.. What fun!!

Executive Homemaker Binder

Since I made a homework binder for my friend, I decided to make an executive binder for myself. Somewhere I can put everything & it is in one spot. Since, I only have 1 child to keep track of homework, one huge binder for that would be ridiculous. I got the main idea from: www.ExecutiveHomemaker.com
But, I broke mine up into several different ideas that I had gotten off TipJunkie..

You make what dividers fit your life.. And this is what fits mine
So I have To*Do's, Menu w/ Grocery, Danika's school, Personal & Bday's, Cleaning..

       

 I have a calendar, I have my daughters
 Summer Camp info, her recital info,
 I have a pantry & Freezer Inventory check list for Grocery Shopping. My Grocery Shopping list is in the pocket in front.
I  LOVE to do list, so I have a couple different ones, but I mainly use the Running To Do list in purple!

You can print any of the following up, I will give you the links:

PANTRY INVENTORY
FREEZER INVENTORY
RUNNING TO DO LIST
WHAT'S FOR DINNER
ONLINE DEALS PURCHASED

For More printables to help you organize your way: