August, 2011 | The Angel Forever

Monthly Archives August 2011

Prev Month( 7th ) Next Month( 9th )

A Back to School Milestone

Posted on August 22, 2011 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Back to school in our area does not officially begin until after Labor Day. The day after Labor Day, NHL goes back to school. He will be a third grader this year. It is a big day for him because he has never done a back to school in this building yet. Last year, NHL switched schools at the end of the year. He did this with grace and adored the new school.

For the first time since JSL was born, I will have me time five days a week. JSL will be in preschool Monday to Friday. For 20 hours each week I will be able to devote time to my new business, my writing, cleaning, and ME! Yes, I will miss the boys, but it will be nice to get things accomplished without interruptions. Of course, next year when JSL heads to kindergarten for full days – I will likely be in tears.

As a former teacher, it is strange not sitting at home working on seating charts, lesson plans, and letters to parents and students. It is still nerve wracking to be on the flip side and wonder how the school year will be for both of my boys.

Back to school season is the perfect time to start thinking about items for the teachers in your life. Think about it, they spend a large amount of time in the classroom with your child. The reality is a school family is formed for those 10 months. I know during this time I would look for cards to use to write notes to parents, or for thank you notes when people would volunteer in my room or go on a fieldtrip with us.

So what is a back to school milestone that you remember from your childhood, as a teacher, or with your own children?

Now please excuse me, I am off to make more magical memories before Summer 2011 is over and the 2011-2012 school year rush begins. Oh and when I have time, I will be checking out the lunch notes and other items to surprise kids with from Tiny Prints.

Disclosure: I wrote this post as part of a Global Influence campaign for Tiny Prints. By sharing this information with my readers, I will also receive a Tiny Prints gift code to thank me for my participation. No other compensation has been given.

Global Influence Network

Categories:
jsl looking back milestone nhl photos school sponsored post

Cutting and Pasting Practice – Catch Me There

Posted on August 21, 2011 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

As a teacher, you would think that I would know when kids need to learn to cut and paste. Well, you would be wrong. I have now been caught off guard with both of my kids. Thanks to this, we spent time this summer practicing and working on cutting and pasting skills. To help make this more fun, I tied in Disney. Shocked, aren’t you?!

My latest post on The Disney Driven Life: Cutting and Pasting Practice with Disney is all about the project that we did and more ideas you can try. It really is amazing how much time kids will spend cutting and pasting when they have items that they love in front of them.

Please stop by to say hello and check out the other magical posts from my Disney Drive Life friends. My other posts there can be found under NDM183 – that’s me!

So what other ideas do you have for cutting and pasting practice with younger kids?

Do not forget that even older children need to work on these skills since they do not use scissors as often as younger kids may in school and when crafting.

Categories:
arts and crafts Disney DisneyDrivenLife Educational EduMICKation My Other Projects photos

Sweet Temptations Surprise

Posted on August 20, 2011 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

Dear NHL and JSL,

Sometimes surprises are the best thing. Wednesday, we went and picked up Daddy for lunch to celebrate NHL’s birthday together. After lunch, we were going to go shopping for a few things, but then I had an idea. I thought we would head over to one of your favorite ice cream spots. Both of you love Scoops because they have amazing ice cream and you can watch the cows while you eat. When we pulled up, they were closed. I guess I did not realize that they are not open during the day mid-week.

Not to worry. I quickly recalled that a cake shop was right down the road. We had seen their truck over the weekend at a Farmers Market. We did not buy anything from their colorful truck because cousin SG would not be able to eat anything. Your disappointment over the ice cream quickly went away when we pulled up to Sweet Temptations and went inside.

Since it was a special occasion, I told the two of you to pick whatever you wanted from the case. Dangerous thing to do, but I had an idea what you may select. Here is a look at the items that we brought home.

NHL, you immediately homed in on a dragon creation. It was two chocolate chip cookies combined with a large amount of icing inside it’s mouth and on top. When I picked it up out of the box, I was floored with how heavy it was. There was no doubt that you loved it since you kept “mmmmmm-ing” as you ate it.

JSL, you had one item in mind. You wanted something chocolate. It was the chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing, of course. One minute I saw the cupcake in your hands, the next it vanished. Since you were the only one that tried it, you must have really liked it since I have never seen you gobble up a cupcake like that.

Since Daddy was not with us, I did not have any idea what kind of cupcake to get him. After making cupcakes all weekend, I was in the mood to try something different. I opted to get the cookie sandwich to share with him. YUM! The chocolate chip cookies were gooey, fresh, and amazing. The frosting inside was the perfect amount and not too sweet. Half was the perfect amount for me to splurge on.

Little surprises like this during the summer have been so much fun. I hope that we get back to Sweet Temptations again soon to show Daddy all of the fancy cupcake creations that they have.

Love,

Mommy

_______________________________________

If you want to participate in Dear Kid Saturday, head on over to Cutest Kid Ever by clicking on the button below.

Categories:
baking birthday Dear Kid Saturday decisions food glorious food jsl Local Business nhl photos summer TechyDad yummy

Games for the Entire Family

Posted on August 19, 2011 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

We have collected many board games over the years. Even before we had kids, TechyDad and I had several that we bought for game nights and/or when we had company over. Back in the day, Scattergories, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, and Upwords were favorites.

As a child, I remember playing board games with friends all the time. Titles that come to mind include:

The Game of Life
Allowance
Uno
Monopoly
Trivial Pursuit
Boggle

The list could go on and on. Games were huge on cold winter nights, or to pull out during summer days after we ran and played.

Now that we have kids, our most used games are things like Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Memory, Rush Hour Jr, Uno, and others for 10 and under.

While NHL would prefer his Nintendo DS and Wii games, we all need to unplug. Board games are the perfect time to do this and allow us to have special time together where we can work on many skills. For NHL’s birthday, he received a new game and it has been used a LOT lately. Here it is:

What I love about this game is it takes something familiar with the kids (Disney) and puts a fun spin on it. The kids know the Pictureka game show, so they were excited to have a version for our house. Yes, it says ages 6+, but let me tell you my 4 year old was keeping up with us. The only item JSL needed assistance with was reading the cards. If people told him he was looking for “items with a tail,” he was good to go. Yes, I knew this would be a popular game in our house. Locating games that are appropriate for 4 and 8 year olds can be very tricky, or impossible at times.

So my question to you this week:

What are some of your favorite board games to play with your family and why?

____________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #165

Categories:
Aloha Friday birthday Disney fun looking back photos play time TechyDad

Lion Cupcake Construction

Posted on August 18, 2011 12:13 am by TheAngelForever

When NHL asked me to make his birthday party an animal, specifically lion, theme I did not cringe – well not right away. First, we went to the craft store, party supply place, and I went to Google to see what was out there. Thanks to a quick search on YouTube, I found a fun video and was all ready.

Let me take you on an adventure as I got ready for my practice run of the lion cupcakes. First, I had some of my items set to start. No comments about mixing Pillsbury and Betty Crocker items please.

Cake mix – Or, if you want, use a from scratch recipe
Frosting – I had two cans so I could have plenty of the two colors I needed to make
Black icing – Note: This did not work well. Thanks to this, I bought Wilton black sparkle
Food coloring – To make 2 shades of orange for the lion face
Popcorn – We now wonder if popcorn from our Whirly Pop with some salt may have been better to add a salty/sweet contrast

Not seen in the photo:

Pretzel sticks – lion whiskers
Mini chocolate chips – lion eyes
Cheerios – lion ears
Eggs – We did not use eggs because my niece is very allergic to them. I used the item below.

When making the practice batch of cupcakes, JSL wanted to help me out. He had a lot of fun making the “eggs” and mixing everything else together.

Then, the cupcakes were ready to head into the oven.

Thanks to the egg replacer, they bake faster and are still a bit “squishy” when they come out of the oven. While I was waiting for the cupcakes to cool, I set up an assembly line of sorts. For some reason, I took the photo before the cheerios were here. Then, my hands were full of icing and I never went back. You get the idea.

First, you use the darker orange to cover the entire cupcake and then put a smaller light orange circle within that.

Then, JSL helped me to put the popcorn mane around the entire cupcake.

Up next were the Cheerio ears and pretzel whiskers.

Then, we gently placed the mini-chips for the eyes and drew on the nose and smile.

Here are my practice lions. You can see the blobs that happened with the original black icing that I bought.

The boys were not upset with the blob faces on the lions. They thought they were quite fun and delicious.

When I made them on Sunday, I tried a few different things to make them a little easier. Although I liked the ease of the Wilton gel, it was runny and the faces did not stay the way I made them. Perhaps if there was room in the refrigerator that would have helped. Still, they came out cute. Here’s a view from the party:

If you are curious about the video I used, or the other animals here it is. The Howdini video: Jungle Animal Cupcakes: Monkey, Lion, Tiger, and Zebra Cupcakes.