Back to School Teacher Gift

School is about to start here. Ugh! Not that I don't want my kids to go to school. That's the great part. But that also means I have to go back to work. I'm not quite ready for that part. (Big sigh!)

I wanted to do something for my kid's teachers but I really didn't want to spend a lot of money. I have been stressing a little bit over this but then I found this fantastic idea and knew this was what we were going to do.

Every teacher needs pens. (I work in a middle school. I know this very important fact.) Cool pens are a giant bonus. I thought these were pretty cool. Best part - they were on sale at Fred Meyer for $2.69 and then there was a buy one get one free coupon. But it gets even better! I had a coupon for $2 off any school supply purchase. So I paid 69 cents for both packages! Yipee!

Then I went over to Itsy Bitsy Paper and printed out these very cool (and free) tags that Lindy provided and backed them with some colored cardstock. And viola!


The perfect little teacher gift for the first day of school.

I'm linking to the linky parties on my sidebar!

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

We've been on a cinnamon roll kick lately. Can you ever get enough? I'm swaying towards "no way!" I think my kids would agree with me =o) But it's a lot of work making homemade cinnamon rolls. Don't get me wrong, they are fantastic. But sometimes I don't have a couple of hours to spend in the kitchen (go figure.) So this is the perfect alternative... cinnamon roll pancakes! And they are so darn delicious!!! I think I saw this first on The Idea Room. But it might have been on Recipe Girl. I'm not sure.

They are easy to make (or you can make it more complicated. It's up to you.) =o)

Here's what you'll need:
* Pancake mix (or you can make your own from scratch)
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1 tsp. cinnamon
* 2 Tbsp. melted butter

Mix up the melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. You'll need to put it in a squeeze bottle. (An empty Honey Bear works great.) If you need to thin it out a little with milk but you don't want it too thin.

Make your pancake batter.

Pour batter on your griddle. Immediately swirl on some of the sugar mixture.


When bubbly, turn and cook as you any other pancake.

What do you think? Easy right? And oh, so delicious!


So what do you put on top of cinnamon roll pancakes??? I wanted cream cheese frosting. Because seriously, if you're going to do it why not do it! My son wanted "regular" cinnamon roll frosting (of course) and my daughter wanted maple frosting (like we had on our cinnamon roll bites.) Heck, it's summer time so I made all 3.

Cream cheese frosting:
* 1/4 cup butter, softened
* 4 oz. cream cheese, softened
* 1 1/2 tsp. milk
* 1/2 tsp. vanilla
* 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

"Regular" cinnamon roll frosting:
* 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
* 1/2 tsp. butter, melted
* 1/4 tsp. vanilla
* 1 tsp. 1 Tbsp. milk

Maple frosting:
* 1 1/2 Tbsp maple flavoring
* 4 cups powdered sugar
* 3 Tbsp. butter, softened
* 3/4 Tbsp. hot water

Frost and enjoy!





I'm linking to the linky parties on my sidebar!

A Freezer Full of Cinnamon Rolls

We love cinnamon rolls. No wait, I don't think that's extreme enough. Let me try that again. We LOVE cinnamon rolls!!! If my kids would, I think they would eat them everyday for breakfast. But I'd like to think I'm a better Mom than that =o)

I was trying to think what to make when I had company in town. Things that I could make ahead of time so I wasn't in the kitchen the whole time instead of having fun and visiting. I have never made official homemade cinnamon rolls before but thought I'd give them a try. I figured I'd freeze them, then take them out the night before we wanted them and boom... homemade cinnamon rolls!

So I searched the blogs out there to find a delicious looking cinnamon roll recipe. Then I remembered Tiffanee had a cinnamon roll recipe that was on my to make list. Tiffanee has never let me down before with her amazing recipes so I decided on her Gramma's Overnight Cinnamon Rolls.

Ingredients:
* 1 cup milk
* 1 cup butter
* 1/2 cup sugar

Place in a saucepan. Melt over medium heat, stirring constantly, and bring to a slight boil. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely.

* 1 Tbls. yeast
* 2 cups warm water
* 1 tsp sugar

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Sprinkle sugar over mixture and allow to proof (bubble up a bit).


Add to the yeast mixture:
* 2 eggs, beaten
* 1 tsp. salt
* the milk mixture (from above)
* 5 cups flour

Mix for 5 minutes.

Now add another 4 -5 cups of flour and mix for 10 minutes. This was too much to mix in my Kitchen Aide =o( so I kneaded it by hand. Yoikes.

When it was thoroughly kneaded/mixed, I let it sit on the counter until it doubled in size (about an hour and a half).

Punch down the dough and divide into 2 portions.

Roll out the dough into a large rectangle.


Filling:
* 1/2 cup butter, melted
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
* 1 Tbsp. cinnamon

Drizzle the melted butter over the dough and spread out. Sprinkle with the cinnamon and sugar mixture and roll up.


Tiffanee had the best tip for cutting the dough into rolls.

Take a long piece of waxed dental floss and wrap it around the dough. Cross it


and pull it through the dough.


How cool is that???!!!

Perfectly cut cinnamon rolls. Awesome!

I made up a bunch of pans at this point. Spray the pan with non-stick spray and put the rolls in the pan (not too close together. Then I covered them with Saran Wrap (lightly sprayed with non-stick cooking spray and then foil. Then they all went into the freezer! I wasn't quite sure if this was going to work or not but I was willing to give it a try. Homemade cinnamon rolls anytime we want them and I just do the work once.

When company came to stay I took out a pan, unwrapped the foil from the pan and set it out on the counter to rise during the night. (I took them out around 9pm.) When I woke up they were big and delicious looking! Yeah!

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 15 minutes.

While they are still warm, frost them and then enjoy!!!

Cream Cheese Frosting

* 1/4 cup butter, softened
* 4 oz cream cheese. softened
* 1 1/2 tsp. milk
* 1/2 tsp. vanilla
* 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Mix all ingredients until blended and smooth.

Enjoy!



I'm linking to the linky parties on my sidebar!

{Secret Recipe Club} Mt. Bachelor Bars

I got an email from my Mom awhile back telling me about a fun thing she found. It was The Secret Recipe Club. Intriguing, right? Her email didn't say much, just had the link and said "let's do this." Well, how could I pass up that?!?! So I clinked on the link and was hooked immediately.

What is The Secret Recipe Club you ask? It's a... well, a secret recipe club. Not enough information? You sign up and then you are given a blog to make a recipe from. You can chose any of the recipes on that blog, you just can't tell the blogger that you are making something. Fun right?

So this is my first time. I'm hooked! The blog I was "assigned" was Crumbs and Chaos. Great name! It was hard to pick just one thing to make but after some searching the recipe jumped right out at me. Mt. Bachelor Bars. Sounds interesting right? Well I'm in Oregon which so happens to be where Mt. Bachelor is, so how could I not make these bad boys?! Plus look at them. They scream me all over them!

Ingredients:

Shortbread Layer
* 1 1/4 cups unsalted butter, softened
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 1 egg
*1 tsp. vanilla
* 3 2/3 cup flour

Line a large baking sheet (Like a jelly roll size!) with parchment paper. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Add flour and mix until blended.

Press dough into prepared pan and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Using a fork, prick the dough and bake in a 350 degree over for 10 - 12 minutes.


Caramel Nut Layer
* 2 cups butter
* 2 cups light brown sugar
* 1 cup honey
* 1/2 cup heavy cream
* 5 cups slivered almonds or chopped pecans. (This is where I changed it. I'm not much of a nut person in foods. I know! I just felt my Mom's virtual hand smack me in the back of the head! But I used cashews instead. I mean really, how could you go wrong with cashews?!?!)

Put butter, honey, cream and sugar into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Using a candy thermometer, cook until it's 24o degrees. Remove from heat and add nuts.


Pour onto the (kinda baked) crust and bake an additional 40 minutes until the filling bubbles evenly.


I didn't use a big enough pan I think. Thank goodness I put another pan under because look at the mess I made.


Cool and cut. Dip in chocolate if desired. (Ah, yeah! I desired!)


Heaven, right?


Take a look at all the other blogs who are participating!


I can't wait to get my assignment for September =o)



I'm linking to the linky parties on my sidebar.

Homemade Slime - We Had To Do It

Every time we go to OMSI and play in the children's activity room with slime the kids say "we need to make a bunch of that at home." But then we saw this post and I new I couldn't put it off any longer. (Especially since my daughter was sitting right next to me and shouted "oh my gosh, Mom, let's make that right now!"

It was really easy to make and totally worth it. My kids loved it!


Things you'll need:
* Borax
* water
* Elmer's glue
* plastic cup
* Popsicle sticks for stirring
* food coloring

Tidy Mom has a great YouTube video on how to make it. But it's easy.

Measure out 1/4 cup Borax and pour it into a 2 liter bottle. Add water until it's about 1/3 full. Shake it up.

Measure out equal parts of glue and water. We used 1/3 cup of each.


Add the water to the glue and stir.

Add food coloring and stir.


While you are stirring, add a small amount of the Borax solution to the cup. A couple of drops at a time. Mix. The glue will start to "glob" around the Popsicle stick.


Keep adding a few drops of the Borax solution until it's as think as you want it.

Take the glob off of the Popsicle stick and wash it off in water.

Now play! It's that simple.


You can roll it out. Cut it up. Roll it into a ball. It's endless!


My Son discovered that if you roll it out and then blow under it, it makes farting noises. Oh, how proud he was of his discovery =o)




I'm linking up to the linky parties on my sidebar!

{Secret Recipe Club} Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip

A couple of weeks ago I joined The Secret Recipe Club. It's a group of bloggers/recipe lovers who sign up and get assigned a blog. Then we make something from that blog and write about it. Fun right? My first post is scheduled for this Monday (the 22nd) but then yesterday I received an email from Amanda (the host of this totally fun "club") that a blogger backed out at the last possible minute. She was looking for a volunteer to make something and post it by the following day. That's today! I was a little torn between thinking "there's no way I can make something by tomorrow" and "that would be horrible if it were me".

So, still undecided I clicked on the blog link to see what Connor's Cooking was all about. It took about 5 seconds to make up my mind and email Amanda back and say "I'm in". I mean heck, she had some delicious recipes!

I was torn between the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip and the Oreo Turtle Bars. Decisions, decisions, decisions... I decided to make the Oreo bars later (because I am totally making those!) and make the dip. I thought my family would have no problem gobbling this up!

It was super easy to make (which I love) and so delicious!

Ingredients:
* 1 stick butter
* 1/3 cup brown sugar
* 1 tsp. vanilla
* 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
* 1/2 cup powdered sugar
* 3/4 cup chocolate chips

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and stir until it dissolves and mixture starts to bubble. Remove from heat and add vanilla.

In another bowl, mix cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth.

Pour into brown sugar mixture and mix until well combined. Add chocolate chips and stir.

Refrigerate until ready to serve.


We ate it with Animal Cookies and Nilla Wafers. Oh my. It was delicious!!! I mean seriously... DELICIOUS!!!


Don't forget to come back on Monday to see my first official Secret Recipe =o)

Here are the links to the other recipes made. Amazing, right?

Some Love From Disney's Family Fun Magazine

It's really no secret that we love Disney's Family Fun Magazine. You've heard of it, right? Of course you have. Well, a couple of months ago they contacted me and asked if they could include a picture of Ellie and a little blurb about our Carrot Patch Cookies that we made (from their magazine.) And look at that!

This is from the August edition and there she is. She now thinks she's famous. (Of course I agree with her.)

If you haven't heard of Family Fun Magazine (gasp) here are a few of the amazing things they have in their magazines that we have made.

Our Carrot Patch Cookies


Dye-ving Dudes


Fakin' and Eggs


Candy Valentine iPods


Squiddlers


Pocket Purse


How could we not love this magazine, right? And if you're not interested in buying the magazine, their website has tons of great craft ideas and recipes. So fun!

So thank you to Family Fun Magazine for sending some love our way. My daughter can't wait for school to start so she can bring the magazine in for show and tell!