Shark Attack!

It's teacher appreciation time again. My kids' school does a staff breakfast each year to thank the teachers. This year they did an underwater theme. So, I made this watermelon shark. He really made a splash!

Also for teacher appreciation, the K-Kids group that my oldest is part of (it's a children's division of Kiwanis) do 'secret pals'. The kids each choose a teacher or staff member (chosen randomly from a hat) and give a small thank you gift at least once a week for the month of May. At the appreciation breakfast the staff gets to find out who their secret pal is, and usually give a gift in return. This year we made a basket full of sunshine, filled with lots of yellow items (candy, pen, chips, juice, candle...), a bag of mint things (with a cute saying about how their involve-'mint' has 'mint' a lot to me), some homemade cookies (for making her one smart cookie), and a notepad and notecards (for a note-worthy teacher). She had such fun helping to put the gifts together and giving them to her teacher.
We also gave a gift to her regular teacher, as well as my son's teacher. It was various types of popcorn and tootsie pops, in a popcorn bowl from the dollar store, with a card that said "For a POP-ular teacher". I love doing gifts for others.

Valentine's Deployment Package

Since it is now after Valentine's Day, and he already got his package, here is what I sent my husband for the day of love <3 .="" p="">

There are 2 packages of Nutella To Go, 4 chocolate cakes-in-a-jar, Twizzler bites, lifesaver gummies, Blow Pop minis, Mike and Ikes, Hot Tamales, chocolate and white chocolate dipped pretzels with valentine sprinkles, conversation hearts, valentines PEZ, Lofthouse heart cookies,  chocolate m&m cookies and plain m&m cookies (in pringles cans for protection). Pretty much everything non-melty from the valentine candy aisle. My husband said everything arrived safely, except some of the pretzels broke. Now he'll go into a sugar coma from eating it all.

Once a Month Cooking

Have you ever done Once-a-Month cooking? The idea is that you do all your dinner cooking/prepping in one day and freeze it all. Then you have ready-to-go meals the rest of the month. It saves time and money, and it's healthier than store-bought freezer meals. I've decided to give it a try. During winter I do a lot of crock pot cooking anyway.

I'm kind of a picky eater (thankfully my kids aren't), and can't always find recipes we will all like. Over on Pinterest I have pinned a bunch of crock-pot and freezer meal sites and recipes. I sifted through them and found 24 recipes that I wanted to do, including ones I do already. 2 of the recipes even made double, so at the end of the day I had 26 meals ready to go.

On Friday, with only 2 of my kids shopping with me, I bought what I needed. And on Saturday I prepped and cooked. I spent about 2 hours prepping/cooking and $180 on ingredients (thank you Winco). I got freezer bags and pans at our local dollar store, and labeled them with masking tape and a sharpie. The labels have the recipe name and cooking instructions.

Here is what I made (recipes linked):

For crockpot

Mongolian Beef

Teriyaki Chicken

Garlic Bread Chicken

Hawaiian Pork

Honey Sesame Chicken

Beef Stew

Butter Chicken (mine)

Ranch House Pork Chops

Beef Tips & Gravy

Quick Chick

Chicken and Dumplings

Hawaiian Haystacks

Pot Roast

Curry (mine)…no link yet

For Oven

Cheese Lasagna (basic)…no link

Baked Macaroni & Cheese (mine)…no link yet

Island Chicken

Chicken Pot Pie

Garlic Ranch Chicken

Chicken Fajitas

Funeral Potatoes

Pesto Chicken Alfredo

Cornflake Chicken Tenders

Chicken Shish-Kabobs

And a bonus link! There are a few recipes in here that call for a 'cream of --' soup. Instead of using a canned soup, I used this recipe, and will add water at the time of cooking.

Cream of "something" soup recipe

Christmas Deployment Package

My husband is deployed. So, he didn't get too much for Christmas. We'll get him some things when he gets back, but I wasn't about to ship a bunch of stuff to him that he didn't need or couldn't use. So I decided to just send him some fun things this year.
For his Christmas package I did a "12 Days of Christmas". I scoured the internet for ideas, including lists of things people usually send to military members. Here is what I came up with.

1st day of Christmas -1 game of Battleship
2nd day of Christmas -2 cans of Pringles (he likes chips)
3rd day of Christmas -3 Fiber One bars (he is on some health kick)
4th day of Christmas -4 bags of combos
5th day of Christmas -5 hot chocolate accessory sets (marshmallow snowmen, peppermint sticks...)
6th day of Christmas - a card game of Fact or Crap (there were 48 cards, so '6' x8)
7th day of Christmas -7 small bags of candy (peppermints, candy coal, and orange jelly candies since we always get oranges in our stockings)
8th day of Christmas -8 bags of popcorn (4 different flavors)
9th day of Christmas -9 hot cocoa mixes (3 different flavors)
10th day of Christmas -a pair of Christmas-y socks, so he'll have 10 comfy toes.
11th day of Christmas -11 chocolate candy canes
12th day of Christmas -a tin with 12 gourmet butter cookies in it.

I had a little room left in the box, so I sent him some chocolate pudding, a travel sized nutella (comes with little bread sticks for dipping), and a back massager (it's plastic and looks like a hand). He says he'll put out a tip jar now and offer back rubs for his buddies.

Christmas Gifts 2012

Now that Christmas is over I can show you the things I made. I didn't do too many hand made gifts this year.
For one of my nephews I made a Bapron.


For my brother, a long time trekkie, I made a Star Trek apron. I even gave him the rank of Captain (hand embroidered).






For my older daughter I knitted a ballet sweater, since she often complains of being cold in her leotards.


My youngest got a marble maze toy. I don't think he has quite figured out what it's for though. But my other kids like it.

And for my younger daughter I made an art bag. She loves having her own colored pencils and coloring book.




I also made a bunk bed fort, so my kids don't have to use their blankets to make a fort every day (I didn't make windows or put words on mine). It went up that day and hasn't come down since. Sorry I don't have a photo.