Atlanta Braves Cozy Coupe Makeover

So the beginning of October was our friend's baby's birthday... he turned 1!  Roommate and I wanted to do something fun for him, and really liked the idea of painting a cozy coupe.

We went through many ideas, including turning it into a car from the movie Cars, a cop car, and a golf cart, but finally decided on making a baseball-mobile celebrating the Atlanta Braves (daddy's favorite team) inspired by babble.

This was our car before (we found it on craigslist for $20):

We took it apart, and spray-painted the bottom navy blue and the top white. We used Krylon Fusion for plastic spray paint because reviews online said it was the only one that would stay on.  We used a whole can of white and a whole can of blue... but it was close.

I painted an Atlanta A on each door...

And roommate printed and mod-podged a front and back license plate:

(How cute is that back one!?)

Finally, I hand-painted baseball laces to the top. We waited 2 days for it to dry before putting it all back together. Online, it says you're supposed to wait a whole week before using it, but our planning took 2 whole weeks so that wasn't happening.

(Headlights are hand-painted)

Funny story - we just placed the wheel bar that we removed for painting underneath while it dried. Rolling it out the door on the way to the party, roommate picked up the car and the wheels fell off - this is when we realized we never snapped it back in.

No big deal, we'll do it now.

NOT. We pushed, we hammered, and pulled, we put all of both of our weight on the wheels and they would NOT snap back in.

But we were getting late, so we put in in the car and decided to do research on the way.

Well, the 'research' was depressing.

It doesn't happen. To put the wheels back on, you have to remove the red piece on the end, and that includes destroying it.

Plan B: Sneakily pull daddy away and have him help us put the wheels back on.

One more attempt in the trunk of the car right before we walked into the party FINALLY proved successful, and nobody has to know!

If you guys are reading this now... 

NOW YOU KNOW.

Baby shower gifts - Gator Baby Football blanket and diaper baby

One of my good friends from high school is having a baby early next year, and that means baby shower... which means... BABY SHOWER GIFTS!  For her, I made a baby football blanket with a gator backing, as well as a diaper baby.

Let me tell you about them...


Baby Football Blanket with Gator Backing inspired by missmontanas on etsy


This football blanket was simple, but the fabric was a little pricey. All I did was get 2 yards of gator fabric and 2 yards of brown fuzzy dotty fabric. I cut them both into football shapes, added batting to the middle, and sewed them together (pillow-case style). And I added white ribbon for the lacing.

I would have added baby's name, but he doesn't have one yet!

Diaper Baby inspired by picture on pinterest


This baby was made after seeing the cutest picture on pinterest (sorry, it just links to google). I bought a onesie and diapers, and the girls spent an afternoon shaping diapers to look like a baby while the boys watched football. I stuck some booties on the feet, a beanie on the head, and a pacifier in the mouth.

Fall Recipe Update

So I'm ready to update the blog, and I go through my photos. That's when I realize I haven't really updated anything personal (non-Prek theme related) since school started! I'd go on about school and work and blah blah blah... but instead I'll spare you and just get to it.

Recipe #140 - Braided Spaghetti Bread from Rhodesbread
This carb-load of a meal was absolutely amazing. Just imagine... garlic bread... STUFFED with delicious spaghetti, sauce, and cheese.

Seriously, we were all obsessed with this meal.

Fiance just glanced over my shoulder and saw the picture... his exact words: "Oh man... we need to make that again. Spaghetti bread is the bomb!" (or was it 'da bomb'?)

Even Lily was begging for some!

Recipe #141 - Melt-in-your-mouth Pumpkin Cookies with FROSTING from parentpretty:

These cookies were yum yum yum! The cookie itself didn't have too much sweetness, but the frosting on top made it perfect! I took them out of the oven before they got too hard, but after putting them in my sweet container (glass plate with glass cover) they softened too much so we practically had to eat them with a spoon. 

Can anyone explain this?

Anyways, a perfect pumpkin cookie :)

Recipe #142 - Mediterranean Crescent Pinwheels from Pillsbury - Reading the reviews on these pinwheels, I saw a lot of people saying they were WAY too salty.  I used regular ham instead of prosciutto, and it didn't seem too salty. I have to say, I didn't LOVE them, they just sat in the fridge til they went bad.

Recipe #143 - Crab and Artichoke Dip from fortheloveofcooking - I made this for a girl's night, and was still blending it when people arrived. Suddenly, I faced the challenge of baking and following a recipe while talking... while doesn't usually work out so well. I thought I had managed to do everything right as I was telling everyone how I can't bake a talk, but when it came out of the oven it seemed as if something wasn't right. It just wasn't thick enough. We started eating it anyways, and it wasn't until an hour later when I was picking up the kitchen that I saw the cream cheese still sitting on the counter. Oops! 

I just added the cream cheese in and threw it back in the oven, but I don't think it was the same as it could have been.

Recipe #144 - Dirt Cake Cupcakes from insidebrucrewlife

No, your eyes do not deceive you. These are dirt cake CUPCAKES. The whole pudding-oreo-chocolate-worm deal, in a cupcake form.

And they were... AMAZING. 

I love dirt cake.

I love pudding.

I especially love the little worms.

Although a little messy and difficult to get the pudding in the cupcake, it doesn't matter.

Just put them in my mouth. 

Recipe #145 - Pretzel Eyeballs from cookingclassessandiegoca - I made these eyeballs as a fun treat for my students on Halloween, as well as to go in a Halloween gift for a secret pal. The link is broken, so I had to just kind of guess.  I'm not sure what they used for the white of the eyeballs (I didn't see any large white chocolate chips) so I used marshmallows.  I baked them in the oven for a few minutes (the first batch I forgot about and the marshmallows browned) and stuck in the chocolate chips. I tried adding red sprinkles to make them look bloodshot, but they didn't stick.

I would say these are very cute and delicious and the kids loved the, but they were VERY time consuming (setting up every little pretzel, carefully adding every marshmallow, and every chocolate chip).

Recipe #146 - Peanut Butter Football Dip from crazyforcrust - So we went to a football game two weeks ago and did the whole tailgating shebang. As much as I despise the football obsession, I do enjoy using it as an opportunity to make food!  I decided to make peanut butter football dip, because we all love peanut butter, and it is so freaking cute.

This was just a blend of peanut butter, cream cheese, whipped topping, sugar, etc. It's molded into a football shape and covered in brown sprinkles.  I used white chocolate chips for the lacing.

Oh, and it's delicious with pretzels!

Recipe #147 - Tiramisu from whatscookingwithruthie
My roomate's birthday was last week, and I wanted to do something to make the Monday a little more exciting! I texted her boyfriend to ask what her favorite dessert was, and he replied 'tiramisu'

Challenge... accepted.

Alright, glance over recipe. No big deal. Go to store. Gather ingredients.

Wait... what is marscarpone cheese? (This is the point where I stand in the middle of the grocery store googling where to find something instead of asking an associate)
According to my search, marscarpone isn't found in all stores, is quite expensive, and can be substituted for a simple mix of cream cheese, sour cream, and heavy whipping cream (see that recipe here).
Ok, crisis averted. On to the next ingredients. Eggs, check. Sugar, check. Coffee, check. Coffee liquor, check. Ladyfingers...

Ladyfingers... I can picture them in my head. They're long cookie-like things. They must be in the cookie aisle, right?
Wrong. 5 minutes gone walking up and down the cookie aisle.
Maybe they're crackers?
Nope.
I give up. Googling substitution for ladyfingers...
Angel food cake!
I know where to find that... the bakery! Off to the bakery I go and I see the angel food cake... right next to the ladyfingers.
I still opt for the angel food cake because the ladyfingers are about twice the price for the amount I need.

Ok, so the hard part is over. Now I get to bake it. While I'm dipping the angel food, I start thinking about how I don't know what I'm doing and I'm giving this to a friend.

Hmmm...

Well, it turned out okay. The substitute for the cheese was actually sweeter than the real thing, and the angel food cake was less dense than ladyfingers, so it was a little liquidy.

It grew on me, and the roommate was nice about it (It helped that she brought home a container of tiramisu that her mom had made her the night before).    TIRAMISU ALL DAY!

Recipe #148 - Afternoon Tea courtesy of Publix ;)

Another fun birthday surprise! I cheated a little... I was going to make all the scones and attempted to make clotted cream (fail), but I ended up using the lovely resources at Publix to help me out. I put everything together though!

Included in our spread was little tea sandwiches (tuna salad and cucumber/cream cheese), crackers with brie cheese, cinnamon and blueberry scones with creme fraiche (the American version of clotted cream!) and jam (ok, it was grape jelly). There were also little bite-sized cakes and delicious teas! 

Recipe #149 - Spinach Artichoke Pasta from alifeofflavor

I made this dish tonight for dinner. It was SO good (I might have had to lick the spoon clean when I was only on the garlic cream cheese part), but I don't think I cut the artichokes small enough. Once it cools down it doesn't look too good, so it would have to be a served-right-away and eaten soon with no leftovers meal. 

Pre-K Week 6: Health and National Talk Like a Pirate Day

Week 6 was mainly focused on staying healthy, including learning about doctors, dentists, washing your hands, and keeping healthy hair.  This went along with Mr. H in our letter people curriculum (he has healthy hair).

For our healthy teeth day, we made toothbrushes by coloring & adding yarn for the bristles:

We also practiced flossing (play-doh out of mega blocks using yarn). The kids absolutely LOVED this and played for all of centers with it.

We also practiced 'brushing teeth' by painting a tooth on butcher paper using a toothbrush.

One other activity that we did with dental hygiene is tooth counting from mydeliciousambiguity. To make this, I just made a mouth and the students added white unifix cubes for teeth based on what number they rolled on a die.

For 'healthy hair' day, we made 'happy healthy hair hats' by adding yarn to a paper plate hat. We also talked about showering every day and using shampoo in your hair.

My favorite was talking about washing hands, and making this 'We Be-Leaf in Hand Washing' poster:

This was a great intro to talking about fall, and by switching colors it gave the students a great chance to practice washing their hands and seeing if they did it correctly (if all the paint was gone). The poster is SO cute and it's been up for 2 months now :)

Thursday was National Talk like a Pirate Day, so we did pirate activities all day. It was so fun!  We started by making pirate hats. I pre-cut out the hats, and the kids decorated them with white crayon and 3D pirate stickers.

We also made pirate faces out of paper plates... these turned out great!

 






For snack, we had pirate bananas courtesy of a sharpie and colorful napkins :)

At recess, we practiced 'walking the plank' on a balance beam.

And at the end of the day, we had a treasure hunt around the school (using clues from growingkinders), ending in our classroom where they found a pirate sensory bin!

 

What a great week!

Pre-K Week 5: Space!

Space week was one of my favorite weeks this year!  The summer before last, I attended a Pre-Service Teacher Institute through NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. This week-long workshop gave me a renewed interest in space, and I really was able to be comfortable in sharing the information and getting students excited.

This unit tied in nicely with Mr. X in our letter people curriculum, as he was a letter person who loved space and planets.

Some of the activities we did included:

Telescope out of a Paper Towel Tube: from the Letter People Curriculum:
For this activity, the students learned about using a telescope to see things in the night sky, such as the moon, stars, and planets.  They then made their own telescopes by attaching a piece of black construction paper to the end of a toilet paper tube with a rubber band. We poked holes in the paper to make it look like stars. I also had the students decorate their tubes with pictures of the sky and the letter X.  This was a very simple project that everyone was able to do with minimal help, and the kids loved using the telescopes on the playground.

 


And I love this picture :)

Another project that we did was make finger rockets. I learned how to do this in my NASA workshop. To read more about the activities I learned there, read my PSTI blog.  To find directions on this rocket and other rocket activities, check out NASA's rocket packet.

This rocket is extremely easy and quick to make, but it requires some skills that little hands can't necessarily do independently. You use plumbing foam (the same stuff I use to make wreaths!) found at the hardware store for less than a dollar.

Cut the foam into 12" pieces. Make 4 equal slits on one end. Add fins (template on NASA guide) and a small piece of duct tape to connect the slits. On the other end of the foam, secure a thick rubber band with two pieces of overlapping duct tape. Again, read the guide (it's super easy) and don't rely on my quick instructions.

The rockets work SO well... on my example to the kids I shot it in the air so it wouldn't get lost over the fence of the playground. It went so high it landed on the roof :/

Luckily, only one of my students figured out how to actually shoot the rocket in the intended way, and even he could only get it a few feet so there weren't any problems. The rest of the kids had a great time trying to make them fly, just throwing them, and counting backwards from 10 to make them BLAST OFF!!!

Another little art project we did this week was making Space Man Helmets from empty milk containers. This activity was from the Letter people curriculum, and it fit in nicely with talking about astronauts.  I cut the containers and added tape so the edges wouldn't cut the students. The students decorated the helmets with paint, but when the paint dried it just flaked off :( 

They also used some stickers. It was an easy make-believe project if nothing else.

Some of the more simple paper activities included making a night sky using die-cuts: 

And drawing a picture of the night sky compared to the day sky:

And finally, here's our space bulletin board! I just cut a simple rocket with fire out of butcher paper. I then made the sign 'Our Work is Out of this World!'  I think it looked awesome and I kept it up as long as I could!