Pattie's Place – Page 28 – Good Stuff from Pattie

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

03/03/2011 by Pattie 2 Comments

This free scrapbooking design customized with Smilebox

HOORAY FOR DR. SEUSS DAY!

Every time I read the book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, it brings me back. I am back 20 years ago sitting with my kids around me reading a bedtime story. I still remember the funny little rhymes we all laughed to because they still make me giggle, and I so enjoy the giggles I get from the first graders. Dr. Seuss, you were a master author and illustrator. The books are still timeless fun. I remember calling my daughter a Zizzer, Zazzer Zuzz when she was 3 years old. The name stuck for quite a few years. Who didn’t love the Foot Book, or Green Eggs and Ham, or Sneetches?

My cute class with their hats and “Cat” rhymes…

Well, today was Dr. Seuss’s birthday and we celebrate every year in school in a national Read Across America day. We wore our jammies, brought pillows and Dr. Seuss books of every kind. I think our class had about 25 different books and several book collections. The kids enjoyed reading to each other and laughing at the funny pictures.

One of MY favorite Dr. Seuss Books!

Sunrise “Characters” at Dr. Seuss Night!

We made our hats, did a cool crossword puzzle and a maze and then had some contests to see who could write the most “at” words to rhyme with Cat in the Hat. Then we wrote our own “at” rhyming poems. We tried to be as silly as possible. They turned out pretty funny. Here are a few of them….

Cute and Wacky Rhymes….

I made the Giant Cat….my contribution…

Then we voted for our favorite Dr. Seuss book in our weekly graph. I think the winner was Green Eggs and Ham. And, by the way, guess what we had for lunch……yeah….you guessed it…..green eggs……..and ham!
Thanks cafeteria ladies who make it fun to go to lunch! ew, they really didn’t look that appetizing, but the kids liked them……I actually forgot my lunch today but luckily I had lunch choice number 2. : D

We actually had Green Eggs! Mmmmmmm?

We read this in a choral reading…VERY NOISY!

Then we came back from lunch and did a funny choral reading on Green Eggs and Ham. Each table had to read a line going around the room over and over and they started to outdo each other in the expression department. It got quite loud and funny by the end. “I DO NOT LIKE THEM SAM I AM!
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM!

Yum! This Ham and Eggs is better than my waffle!

Lots of Grinchy people everywhere….

Dr. Seuss Cake…yummy!

Then tonight our school had a party. There were grinches, Sneetches, Thing 1 and 2 and the Cat in the Hat. We had giant slides and jumping rooms and face painting and fun confetti looking cake. The kids could write on murals about “The Places They Were Going….” or fish at the Red Fish, Blue Fish Pond, or go get a glow in the dark bracelet or exchange a used book for another one.

Thing 1 and Thing 2…..I wonder if they are related?

There were lots of slides and fun in the school gym….

Mrs. Neilsen had to cut LOTS OF CAKE! She’s one
of the nicest parents at Sunrise…

This was a colorful mural all down the wall with kids drawing favorite places….

This was my booth, I’m around the corner painting stars on faces….

Cutest Cat in the Hat I saw…..

Lots of fun games with “The Cat in the Hat”

It was a great day. I was in the face painting booth. I loved painting little “Sneech” stars on all these cute little faces. One little 2 year old came up to me and lifted up her shirt wanting a sneetch star on her tummy, too cute. Her mommy must have read her the Sneetches. She knew the story. Then one of the dads came up dressed as a Sneetch! Too Funny! I wonder if I could ever get MY husband to wear yellow tights? hmmm….
NOT in a million years……: D

Fishing Booth….one fish…two fish….or Face Painting Sneetch Stars….

Going fishing at the fishing pond…

It’s amazing that one man’s (Dr. Seuss) creativity and imagination can bring about MAGICAL fun so many, many years later and for ALL AGES! . He had over 40 books published in his lifetime. He is still my very favorite children’s author. Thanks Theodore, for all the good fun that is funny.

My Favorite Mexican Restaurant

02/26/2011 by Pattie 1 Comment

I love the small mexican restaurant in Sandy called LA COSTA. It is right near Chin Wah and over in the old shopping center where Fred Myer used to be and the DI is now. It used to be a real tiny hole in the wall when it was across the street in back of Movies 9. But they moved to the old Rafael’s site a few years ago. I love going there on the spur of the moment. The link is http://www.lacostamexrestaurant.com/#s1

The owner there is Benito. He used to have a bright purple car parked outside. You could always tell if he or his wife, Danielle was working, because the purple car would be there. I used to wonder how they could take your order, just from memory, never writing down a dang thing. They still do that. The service has always been one of their strong points. I have always felt taken care of. They are all very solicitous waiters, but they don’t hang around taking up your time, although they are very friendly. They do it just right, in my opinion.

John took this pic from his lame Android camera phone…

My husband used to travel a lot. He used to tell me about waitresses that would sit and talk to the businessmen for 15 minutes and then scoot into the booth and talk some more. I really wouldn’t have appreciated that kind of waitress. The waiters and waitresses at LA COSTA are some of my favorites.
My husband always tries his bad Spanish out on them, and they never cringe or get all bugged. I would if I were them, but they just giggle and mildly correct him. He loves it. There is entertainment there on weekends, but we hardly ever go on weekends.

I had to put some cute winter pics up of Megan and Marisa

Aint she just the cutest kid?

I have a hard time choosing between my favorites there, but everything is delicious and very authentic Mexican. I think my favorites are the Burrito Guadalahara, the Chimichangas, and the homemade tamales. My husband ALWAYS gets the same thing; pork burrito. But I think once he got the fajitas and they were also delicious.

Well, and Josie is too cute too!

I think my favorite thing about LA COSTA is the chips and salsa AND REFRIED BEANS they give you as a free appetizer. We like the salsa, it is not mild but not super hot. It is zesty and really food processed the way I like salsa, not too many giant chunks, and with lots of zing and cilantro. Then we mix it by pouring it on top of the little bowl of homemade refried beans they give you. And the chips are always really thin and crispy hot, like they were just deep fried or something. I LOVE the chips and salsa there. Soooooo good.

I made this salsa myself! Black beans, corn, cilandro, tomatoes, Yum.

My chimichanga comes with sour cream and guacamole, rice and beans. And with those hot crispy chips, I can play with dipping my chips in all kinds of stuff. You should try that place, if you like yummy Mexican food. We go there every Cinco de Mayo and listen to the mariachis and drink virgin strawberry daquiris with our food. It’s a party there on the 5th of May. You should try it sometime. It’s on 94th and between 7th and 13th East. Yummo.

Overspending!

02/19/2011 by Pattie Leave a Comment

I went to a really good, “Differentiating in Math” conference for teachers this week. This wonderful elementary school teacher with 30 years of experience taught us a new, fun math game just about every 5 minutes for an entire day. I think my overloaded brain began to shut down about 2:15 in the afternoon. I had copied and typed on my laptop just about every explanation out of her mouth. Then, to top it all off, she handed us all out a 1/2 inch thick book to go with all her other games and activities! Talk about a goldmine!

I’ve probably got half as many games as she does already and now I have triple that! What’s a teacher to do? Then her husband was outside in the lobby selling her other books. She must have had about 20 different workbooks with fun science, writing, reading and math games and activities. What a super teacher! Each of her books cost $20 dollars and teachers were grabbing up 3 books at a time because she offered a $5.00 discount.

I’ve been out of legislature “classroom spending” money since December! So as I looked longingly through the stacks of wonderful stuff I was a little jealous of my 2 neighboring teachers who were district trainers and had a stipend to spend on stuff to use for professional development classes for their district teachers. I know also from experience that whenever I buy a teacher book like that I might use 1 or 2 things out of it and leave the rest. It’s not super cost effective. So I looked through her sample books and copied down the directions for a few minibooks and science projects and got a few more freebie good ideas.

It is so easy to go overboard when you are a teacher. I remember when I was a student teacher and my wonderful master teacher was in her early 50s and had taught for over 20 years. She had so much stuff packed into her little classroom. I remember asking her how much money she spends in a year on her kids. She said easily $3,000 and some years it is more. EGADS!

I taught in California for 4 years before moving to Utah and they don’t give you a stipend for those expenses that you incur teaching. I got paid $14,000 more in California so it wasn’t as painful spending a few hundred dollars a year on my class. But the legislature here does give us more than $100 dollars to spend on kids. I use it usually to buy experiment stuff, craft and art supplies and some party goods and books, books books. I must have several thousand books in my classroom library. Most of those are really good childrens literature and chapter books for the students. But many of them are teacher books with good ideas I’ve used over the years.

Math Games are Fun in my Class at center time.

Well, on the way home from my conference I was listening to talk radio and they were interviewing Governor Chris Christie and how he came into office in New Jersey being promised everything was in order and would go smoothly for him. He said the first month in office he was shocked to find out he wasn’t going to be able to make the payroll for the next month! The state was millions in the hole. People in their state had increases in taxes 115 times in 8 years. Everybody told him to raise taxes again, there was no other way. He wouldn’t do it. He cut spending across the board by 9% and got a BOATLOAD of flack for it. But he stood firm.
I think I like this guy!

I think this pic of Mitt Romney and Chris Christie might be fortelling … future running mates? Hmmm…

It was refreshing listening to him being interviewed. It was very unusual to have someone political talk straight and kind of be bold. I am so fearful of what will happen to our country if lawmakers can’t stop spending our money. The moderator kept saying “When they raise taxes, that just means they are spending more of YOUR money that you earned. It made me kind of bugged, when you look at it that way. Yeah, why are they dipping into my paycheck again? Don’t I deserve to keep most of it? Maybe they need to cut their budgets and learn to SPEND LESS!

Sodoku is a brain teaser math game…Fun!

Luckily when I was growing up my parents made us earn treats and special toys we wanted and any clothing we wanted had to be very limited because we had a big family. I remember babysitting at 13 and buying all my own clothes or sewing clothes after that. I never remember mom and dad paying for anything as soon as I could earn my own money. When I went off to college I was very prepared to keep a checkbook, because I had saved all my own money for college by having 3 part time jobs the last year of high school and working fulltime all summer and getting a scholarship to pay for my tuition.

Do we as consumers overspend like our government does?
What does that teach our kids? Will they be credit debtors too?

My first day of arrival in my Idaho college town I scoured campus and the small town shops till I found a job in the school library. I never got student loans. I earned and saved summers between college years. I worked my way through school and only remember asking mom and dad 1 time to send me $20.00. That was when I went on a 3 week student trip across the United States with a singing group I was in called The New Freedom Singers. I was very self sufficient by age 16. I remember my senior year I had quite a big bank account.

My kids were pretty prepared for real life. But we did help with college for 2 years…then they were on their own.

Kids today, my own including, are more coddled. We don’t make them work that hard, or wait for things they want quite as much. They get stuff way to easily I think. When I was first dating my husband I remember once his mom handed him a credit card to go buy some new clothes. He never once looked at a price tag. He grabbed up stuff he wanted and went to pay. I was quite surprised by that. I was only his girlfriend at the time, but I saw how different we were raised. I think because my parents made it harder for me, I learned to be a little more frugal. Well in reality I am cheap and he likes quality stuff. 🙂

College aged kids today are bombarded with credit offers…probably super hard to resist!

On the way home from the conference I stopped at Hobby Lobby and I wanted to get first choice of all their St. Patrick’s day craft supplies. I bought some half price Valentine rubber stamps and cookie decorating sprinkles and gift bags for next year’s class. But it is easy to spend $15.00 here and there. Teachers do spend a lot on their students. Supply money never really covers all that we want to do.

I buy mealworms and butterfly gardens every year and air dry clay to do solar systems on foam core board, and lots of stuff from Oriental Trading. It makes your lessons so much better if you have neat stuff to experiment with and for kids to try out and experience first hand. It is always great to get a new book to introduce a new topic you are teaching. It all adds up though.

I remember when my kids went off to college. They got sent all these credit card applications in the mail. What the heck? Why send things like that to the most vulnerable of all consumers! Some of my roomates didn’t handle life on their own that well, calling home a lot asking mom and dad for more money. The college scene almost encourages the credit card habit. I wonder if my grandkids will even be able to live the American Dream if we can’t get a handle on our huge stack of deficits in the near future.

My students at my school take part in doing Junior Achievement in first grade. The lesson this week was on “Distinguishing Between Needs and Wants”. It was such an interesting lesson and so timely. I appreciate it so much that my students are being taught that some things are not necessary in order to live. Some things are just desires and we can be happy without a huge list of them. I do get a lot for my money, but even with that, it is hard for me to put the cool book full of games back, when I know I don’t really need 25 more. And I might not really need those glittery 3D shamrocks for our Leprechaun hats. It is not really in “the common core” after all.

College kids are bombarded with credit card offers!
Why do credit card companies do that to the most vulnerable?
Makes me mad!
So sadly I put some glittery green stuff back with a sigh, and wish that I was loaded and could just, well, you know…spoil the little guys rotton! But I realize that’s really the point. It isn’t even good for them. When I do buy them fun things I have sometimes heard, “Is that all we get?” Kind of disturbing!. I hope my kids never said that…

So I’m taking some advice from Governor Christie. I’m going to become more fiscally efficient.. And the Jr. Achievement advice; I’m going to get better at distinguishing between “needs and wants”. I guess I really don’t need that new dining room set I’ve been eyeing at Costco after all. I already have 2 nice dining room sets. What would I do with the old one? My kids all have nicer furniture than I do, nobody ever wants my hand me downs! Funny because I remember our first 5 years of marriage all we owned were hand me down pieces. Hmmm…

I hope we can get a handle on our government’s overspending…so my grandkids won’t suffer the consequences…

I hope our country can get it together and slash spending a bit and clear out unnecessary government programs. Can they distinguish between true needs and lobbyists’ or deep pocket contributors’ wants and start being a lot more fiscally responsible.We ought to demand it. I hope as a teacher and as a parent I can set a better example too.We don’t have debt except our mortgages. So that is a good thing. And maybe I can still keep the little bottle of green glitter in my shopping cart…..yeah I know it’s not a need….but hey, it was 30% off this week.

My Cute Grandbabies

02/19/2011 by Pattie Leave a Comment

Valentines Day Party in First Grade

02/13/2011 by Pattie 5 Comments

Another photo collage by Smilebox

A fun day I look forward to every year is Valentines Day. I have 3 little granddaughters and a first grade classroom. So that is a lot of fun people to plan for and they LOVE to have those parties!

We always decorate a heart shaped cookie. I have so many different sprinkles that everybody is sure to make a masterpiece!

My daughter made these cute vinyl blocks.

cute valentine decor

Some fun books we read…

Then we HAVE to play some Valentine Bingo games using markers made of conversation hearts. Then the fun part, passing out our Valentines to each other. First graders are really into this part of the fun and they love to look for everybody’s Valentine holder to match the names up with their card.

Here is how we make our Valentine Holders. They are really sturdy and always turn out pretty.

Cute Valentine Holders…kids decorate them with cut outs

Start with a rectangle shape folded in half about 14 x 18 folded rectangle.

Then from the folded end turn up a corner to the middle and press (you are making a heart shape)

Then do the other side. I staple the middle twice at this point, just to keep it together
but only through the top folded layer, don’t staple through to the back layer.

Then cut a heart shape along the top of the back layer…then add a handle, staple to front
and then to back. I used a 2 inch piece of thin poster board for handles. !

Then DECORATE IT!

I gave them die cutouts of valentine hearts, stickers and foam peel and sticks…

Another fun thing I do is to play Valentine Hot Potato using a stuffed heart about 10 inches in diameter.
We play some fun rock and roll music and we pass the stuffed heart around till the music stops. Or another fun game is musical chairs. When the music stops if you are the one without a chair, come out and get a little lollypop, so nobody feels bad when they get out.

The Valentine Bulletin Board turned out so pretty…We wrote about the “Things and People we Love!”

Budding authors…the kids wrote sloppy copies…

And I typed them up on cute paper… oops
I just noticed the hearts are upside down! OH NO!

You can probably tell we’ve been working on “adjectives” to describe things….

We make crafts too. An easy and fun one for little kids is to make a red, white, pink and purple bracelet using a pipe cleaner/chenille stem, and some kind of valentine beads. I usually find what I’m looking for at Oriental Trading in the foam beads section. Link HERE These cute hearts are easy for little kids to put on a pipe cleaner. Or if you want to take more time, use lanyard plastic string and make necklaces. It is stiff and easy for little kids to bead with. You just have to tie it in a knot when you are done.

Playing Valentine Bingo with Conversation Hearts

A fun favor is to make popcorn treats using white chocolate melted and drizzled over warm popcorn. It is really cute with red and pink white chocolate disks, melted in the microwave. It makes a very pretty popcorn ball too. Wrap them in little clear plastic lollypop bags you get from any craft store, and top with these cute bag toppers. Just staple one on each bag. These gals Chica and Jo are real crafters and have lots of fun ideas. Link to the Popcorn Bag Tag HERE.

Another idea I saw in Family Fun Magazine. It is making mustaches and lips attached to a stick. Or maybe I could use a tootsie roll pop? The link is here for that cute craft. CRAFT

Making our cookies…I found these cute melamine plates at Smiths for 99 cents!
These will make a cute table for my granddaughters at the Sunday Dinner!

We frost them all with pink icing and have fun going crazy with the sprinkles!

Thanks PTA for these yummy heart sugar cookies! YOU ROCK!

The more sprinkles the better…yummy pink icing…

I have some cute little gifts I’ve been saving for my granddaughters. I got them some little bath soaps shaped like pink dreamsicles, and some life saver shaped fizzies for the tub.Link is HERE They each have some cute little hairbands to have fun with too, and little baby Josie has a cute little velour outfit I got last year on an after holiday clearance. I just guessed at her size. I got my kids Almond Roca and some fun gift cards. I hope they love their Valentines!

Cute decorations for our bulletin board….looks like somebody ripped the head off of CUPID!!!

We sang fun songs…

Marisa and Megan’s little Valentine Gifts

Our finished works of art!

We read my very favorite Valentine Book…it’s a real Tear Jerker!

Here’s a cute card printable I found on Craftaholics Anonymous’s Blog. She’s really talented and I love her stuff… So go over there if you want to see some cute crafty stuff… The link is HERE

I got my married kids Almond Roca with some Coupons attached…They loved it!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYONE! GIVE YOUR SWEET KIDS A BIG HUG AND KISS!

Redoing the Guest Bedroom

02/10/2011 by Pattie 7 Comments

Our old chest of drawers…circa 1980s

cute little teapot and granny lamps…

I always hated this room when we bought this house. It was an added on room and there were all these weird little bumpouts and wiring boxes up by the ceiling. I wondered why in the heck they did not try to make it a smoother room. It looked like a “me and my redneck brothers decided to build a bedroom” type job. So I decided to redecorate the room, thinking I could hide some of its flaws.

I love the little painted bench I got at a boutique when I remodeled this guest room…

finished guest bedroom redo…

It has this little white shelf all around it up by the ceiling. I used to think, “what in the world would ever fit up there, and how would you get to it?” It was only about 8 inches from the ceiling so knick knacks had to be really small to fit up there. Now, I actually think it was a good idea to add it to the wall because from a design standpoint, it hides a lot of those eyesore bumped out areas. So even though the Guest Room hardly gets used, only when one of my brothers from California or my sister from Washington has come to visit, I decided to spruce it up a little anyway.

Here are kinda “Before” pictures..I’d already painted walls….John is laying the wood flooring in the hallway…

I painted everything green or white…and listened to talk radio all summer…

Here are the “After” pictures…with all the decorations in the guest bedroom redo…

Bird prints up on the left wall matted in white…and a cute dragonfly pillow…I loved the pastel green guest room

So I went to find paint colors that would brighten and freshen the room up a bit. But I forgot how bad I am at picking paint shades. I should have gotten my husband to pick it. He really does a swell job on getting just the right shades. He’s taken more art classes than me. 🙂 So, it is a little “minty” but it is okay.

Pottery Barn pillows in the back…you can get pillow inserts from Target a lot cheaper than the Pottery Barn ones….and I found them on sale! I think they were $9 instead of $24 from the Barn

I made a flower arrangement to match…

We got a new bedspread from Kohls (great place for nice linens) and curtains from T.J. Maxx. They have the metal grommets in the top, I LOVE those. Then I looked around at how I could decorate it. I had been collecting birdhouses over the years before I lost interest in that kind of “country” look. So I had probably a dozen birdhouses. Some of them were pretty cute still, so I got the idea to do a “birdhouse” themed room. It would go with green, right? Grass….trees…..birds?…..probably a stretch….

I love these faux silk curtains with metal grommets at the top…got them at T. J. Max, my fav store for decorating!

Birdhouse collection…the rest are up on the shelves around the room….

I went over to Roberts Crafts and last Spring they had all these birdy themed things going on. I bought this light green, wrought iron shelf for $8 bucks on clearance, and put the birdhouses on it that wouldn’t fit around the white ceiling shelf. Then I went looking for art and I found a few bird prints from T.J. Maxx with green & white mattes! Yipee! What a streak of luck!.

One of a dozen birdhouses I have collected and placed in this green, pastel bird-themed guestroom….

cute tapestry hangs on one wall….

Then I did a few flower arrangements with containers I had around the house. The tin, welcome container I painted from blue to green. I love doing silk flowers and fake plants. And do you know why? Oh yes…..you remember….me with the black thumb….anything living around here gets dead real soon….

You can see the white shelf all around the room…not much fits up in the tiny space….

My boys hate these old school pics…
I don’t know why I torture them by placing them all over… snicker….

It was about this time that my daughter bought one of those cricut machines…you know the ones where you can cut out your own vinyl sayings and things? So she told me anything I wanted she would make me for my house. I really liked the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and I was trying to remember the bluebirds fly part…I thought that might be cute over the bed or somewhere…I haven’t figured that part out completely yet.

Here’s the finished wood floor and green patterned rug….I’ve since found a lighter shade pastel rug that was bigger for only $20 bucks at Lowes….love it when I find a deal…so this is in the hallway leading to the guest bedroom now.

We bought a few new light fixtures, new faux wood, white blinds, and some throw pillows and a sage green floor rug. The best part was putting in new wood floors. John did those himself. I did all the painting and decorating.we are quite the tag team hehe…

New ceiling fixture…I liked this one…it looks antiqued….my husband called the old lamps “boob lamps” well, because they kind look like boobs up on the ceiling…you know the ones I’m talkin about!

The new wood flooring looks real nice…

Our dog Bruce likes my mother’s dolly…..sniff…sniff…

My mom’s doll in an old wooden cradle…very sweet!

This antique dolly was my mother’s play toy…

I have my mom’s 70 year old porcelain dolly in a little wooden cradle by the bed. It’s very precious to me. And the furniture is all of our old stuff, circa 1980 something…I forget how old it is, but it was really stylin’ stuff when we first bought it as newlyweds. 🙂 So I think the guestroom was the easiest facelift in the house….It looks so fresh now! Anyway…. next…we did the grandkid’s sleepover room. It turned out REALLY cute!

Me with my mom’s old porcelain face dollie circa 1940ish….

Volkswagen Super Bowl XLV Ad: The Force

02/10/2011 by Pattie Leave a Comment

Super Bowl Time! Let’s Party!

02/06/2011 by Pattie Leave a Comment

Every year I have the kids do a class graph. And here is the question I ask. Which team will win the Super Bowl on Sunday? There are always some sports fans amongst the first graders who know the score. They know the players and the teams. This year it was Trace. He knows the teams and he was certain of the winner.

We each cut out a football to “VOTE” for our Team! Go Team!

Well, we shall see. I have a fun little challenge for the kids. Those who predict the winner correctly will win a football sweatband for their wrist. Those that predict incorrectly get to do 12 pushups. We decided on the number 12 because I told them I also have to do pushups if I lose. And I have lost in years past. It wasn’t pretty watching me trying to do more than 12. So we keep it at 12 pushups. (oh and all the kids will win the wristbands…they don’t know that yet though…I like to keep the competition going…)

The Pittsburgh Steelers against the Green Bay Packers

Here is our graph. Wish me luck. I’m rootin for the Steelers. Don’t ask me why. I’m not even a football person. It’s just because the kids made me choose. Fair is fair in the game of life…or football!

I’m looking more forward to my daughter’s super bowl party. I’m going to make a baked brie with dried cherries and pecans and jam inside. I’m going to shape it like a football and cover it with puff pastry. The recipe for the Baked Brie is HERE. At the Pepperidge Farm Website you can also watch a video on how to make the Baked Brie. It is to die for Yummy!

I shaped my brie cheese like a football

I found the Roman Numerals on the website. I’m not sure if it is 45 or not, cuz I can’t remember my Roman Numerals, but it sure looks cool! I put the letters on with the extra puff pastry. I filled it with raspberry jam, some brown sugar, pecans and dried cherries. I am waiting to bake it till just before the Super Bowl starts. I have Triscuits, Pretzel Ritz and Wheat Thins to munch on it with. Ooh lala, can’t wait.

Yummy baked brie with dried cranberries and pecans inside…I’m going to shape it like a football!

I’m also making and some black bean and corn and avocado salsa. The recipe is HERE I always doctor it up a bit. I added some cucumber and avocado and Tuscan House Italian dressing and I always do fresh tomato not canned. And I bought these new Pretzel style Ritz Crackers to go with the salsa that are super crunchy and yummy. With Triscuits and Wheat Thins and Tostitos chips, we should be a happy bunch. It’s a really fresh and kind of filling and really good!

This yummy salsa is made from black eyed peas, black beans, corn, green pepper,
avocado, tomato, cilantro and purple onion, with a few dashes of lime and Italian Salad Dressing.

Those will be good Super Bowl Party foods, won’t they? They’ll go nicely with pizza and chicken wings.
I can’t wait for the funny commercials. I’ve heard the Doritos ones are hysterical…..Happy Super Bowl Partying!

Making Valentine Cookies

02/04/2011 by Pattie Leave a Comment

On Saturday my 2 little granddaugters came over and we decided to make some Valentine treats. My little Marisa Belle LOVES to bake. So I had found this cute pan made by Wilton. I thought it might be fun to do some sugar cookies this way. So we mixed up some cookie dough and tried it out.

The girls…I LOVE them!

Marisa, my daughter Tiff, and Megan

Marisa liked actually dumping all the ingredients in herself, so I did the measuring……she did the dumping….and the mixmaster did the rest!

This is one of my fav appliances…does all the work for me!

We also made some with the Valentine Cookie cutters

You guys just keep bakin em and I’ll keep eatin em!

Here’s little 2 year old Megan getting in on the action. She just liked eating the dough, the candies, and the finished cookies. She is not looking like a future Betty Crocker. But you never know for sure……

Mmmmmmmm GOOD!

The cute Wilton pan….

I read the directions afterwards….fill 3/4 full……OOPS! No wonder they were so puffy!

I had these cute little sprinkles I had bought at Hobby Lobby along with the Wilton pan. Then I saw some even CUTER ones at Roberts Crafts. These flat heart sprinkles will be so much fun!

I loved the flat heart sprinkles…so cute!

I’m really good at this grandma!

We made up some pink icing and decorated the cookies. They really ballooned up like puff balls. I think I needed to use less batter…..sometimes don’t ya just think…..MORE is BETTER? I get carried away with that. 🙂

Here they are enjoying their cookies. I think I liked just the rolled out ones we made better. Oh well, you never know until you try something new! I wonder what Martha Stewart would say about these molded cookie pans……I should have asked the expert. Sigh…..or maybe I should have just followed the directions. 🙂

Can I take all these home? Please?

Just gimme the candy on top…that’s all I really want….

Oh well. It’s the fun memories I’m making that count the most anyway. I think the girls loved our finished products. Yum!

And I made it all by myself!

Megan on her chair….kimme a kiss cutie!

Happy Groundhog’s Day!

02/03/2011 by Pattie 2 Comments

Nothing is more fun than telling the Legend of the Groundhog to a bunch of first graders. They are amazed that this little hairy rodent, correction……large hairy rodent is in charge of our weather! It’s hysterical to hear their conversations to each other about if he did or didn’t see his shadow and how that will affect the future. I had to talk them down, reminding them that a legend is not equivalent to science. But they think it IS all very scientific. I don’t know if they got it. At the very least they think groundhogs have some close family ties to to Mother Nature!

Most of the kids predict an early Spring…I hope they’re right!

We all started the day doing a groundhog play and making our “props” (i.e. cool, buck toothed rodent hats)
Everybody wanted to be the star of the show of course. Luckily Addie’s mom was my mother helper for the day and she had them just trade parts. Problem solved! Then we made our predictions and wrote them down. I told them the Groundhog is only accurate 80% of the time, he could still be wrong! So most of them went with his advice anyway…. You know kids and their animals…..:) Then we graphed our preditions on our giant class graph using little groundhog cutouts. Yup, Spring won out.

Ricky the Rodent….I mean….Gregory the Groundhog!

Then we read all about the Legend of Groundhog’s Day. I forgot to show them the utube of Phil in Pennsylvania, but I’ll do that tomorrow. It’s fun to see the actual little guy popping out. I wonder how old that dude is by now… like 200? He always looks very well fed, like a little portly for a rodent!

The Legend lives on…..

Today was a freezing day to go out and check out sun shadows! Ugh! But we did it anyways!

Then we made some cute little pop up groundhog puppets with the groundhog’s “house” being a cut in half paper bag and the 2 predictions on either side. I found some cute songs that go along with spring is early, or 6 more weeks of winter so we attached those to the bag and got out our instruments and sang songs. Then I passed everybody out a tatoo for Groundhog’s Day. We just took those home to try them out.

Groovy tatoos of the groundhog.

Then we wrote our predictions out. They were really cute. We will have to wait and see who is right and who is wrong. We talked about sun and shadows and how they are made. We made little sunclocks and put a piece of red string around them. Then we made solar bracelets out of solar beads. We all went outside to check out the sun. It wasn’t as cold as yesterday thanks goodness, it was only about 20 degrees though.
EEK! Super chilly. They also loved my little solar robot. We watched him walk around the playground. The kids would make a shadow over him and he would immediately stop. Then everybody would laugh. And they would hop out of the way so the sun could hit his solar cell and he’d start marching again.

I’m predicting I don’t last much longer in these single digit temperatures! Ugh! Bring on the sun Mr. Groundhog!

I found these very cute cupcakes in a magazine and I so wanted to bake some and make these too! But I was too lazy to do them. It is really the fault of my favorite show. It happened to be on last night and I get really glued to the t.v. when it comes on. (The Good Wife on CBS at 9:00). Oh well, maybe next year….

Aren’t these just the cutest things?

Their hats turned out so cute too…

My kids really loved doing the fun Groundhog’s Day activities. I hope his prediction is right this year. I’m slowly beginning to tire of shoveling snow off my car. I’m missing the beaches of sunny California. And so I can hardly wait for an early Spring. Happy Groundhog’s Day!

Pop! Goes the Groundhog!

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