I really cook!!

The other day I took some leftover cupcakes to school and someone said,

"Do you guys just live on cupcakes and frosting?"

NO! (though it does sound good)

I had to explain that my husband doesn't even like 90% of my cakes and frosting, so there is definitely a need to cook.

So I thought I better get photographic evidence... Sunday Dinner

All from scratch, all very yummy.

And yes, that's a pie. It's the only 'treat' he likes!

Note to parents...

It was midterms last week. I have been answering emails and notes and phone calls since. (Apparently we are meaner in 5th grade than in 4th)

And then I recieved this email, I have taken out names (not that anyone reads this at my school, nor that you would know them, but I did anyway)....

Note to parents.... please take a lesson from this one...

Ms. Reina

_______ came home today with his mid-terms. To make a long story short he cried pretty hard (please don't ever tell him I told you that). It was a FANTASTIC Love and Logic moment. His grades were, well needless to say, terrible. I couldn't have been happier. Before you think me an animal of a mother; I just have to say that he excels at everything he does and I have been hoping for some time that something would be hard for him so that he could learn early on that it's not always that way. Initially he felt very hopeless and said "well, this is what I"m going to get". After some discussion he made the decision that it would be best to make an appointment with you to try to clarify the grades and do some problem solving with you.

I LOVE THIS MOTHER, and more-so I love her child. He's one of my best students (he went out of town,it's hard to catch up, she's vowed NEVER to take her kids out of town during the school year again) I have to keep reading this when I get all the rest of the emails stressing about every little point.

Welcome to 5th grade, it's time to learn responsibility.

Back at it again....

I've been thinking about blogging for the last few weeks, but I've had a terrible cold. And when I have a cold I find that a very good excuse for slacking on things - like exercising, planning, grading, and blogging.

I'm officially over the cold (thank heavens - knock on wood - PLEASE not again!), so it's time to get back at it.

That would be fine and lovely except it's not that easy.

You see, just about the time I get the school year really moving along, you know when the children are trained and doing what they are supposed to and you kind of have a clue about what you are teaching.... well, about that time every year is when I begin the play. (duh duh duhhhh - sorry that's just the sound effect in my head and my edit button doesn't click on until 6)

This year we are doing Seussical Jr!

It's an adorable play with SO MUCH cute music and lots of fun familiar characters. I am excited because it has such a great message and those are always my favorite productions.

We are also excited to be performing at Olympus High School this year! We were hoping to go back to Evergreen, but they were lame about sharing their stage and could only give us a date in November. (I would have been putting on the play in 2 weeks - yeah, I don't think so.)So we went to Oly and they were SO nice and helpful, so we're taking the show on the road. (We actually rehearse in our own gym until the last week then we get 5 days on the actual stage to build the set and rehearse - it's awesome! (note sarcasm)).

Tomorrow the auditions begin, which means I get to hear 150-200 kids sing and dance their very best in hopes of scoring the elusive JoJo part. It's great fun, and really hard.

So my point here (there is one), I now have a new reason to slack - it's play season. But I will try hard not too, because I love reading blogs and I feel like I should write one, just to be fair.

My weekend...

All last week I was anxiously looking forward to having NO SCHOOL on Friday! I had grand plans to clean, garden, grade, and bake a cake for Lizzie's Birthday. Well, it didn't quite work out that way.

First, Heidi asked me if I could make a Derby CupCake for her last bout celebration party. Since I'm poor at attending derby (it's so loud for my sensitive old lady ears), I thought I could support through cake.

Then, a friend in our ward called to see if I would make a cake for her sister's birthday, and she would pay. Can't say no to a paying customer!

So I got up Friday and did ALL my cleaning, weeding, errands (must buy butter!), and chores (that I had intended on spreading throughout the weekend). Then I sat down to create all the gumpaste flowers.

Lizzie had requested flowers in orange, pink, blue, and green (somehow I didn't actually get green on the cake, oops). Lizzie is a creative, high-style kind of girl, I didn't think 'real' looking flowers suited so I thought I'd try this layered look. It took a lot of cutting, but they came out cute!
Next I had to attempt some derby logos. The Sisters of No Mercy logo is a flaming skull nun...hmm, don't think I have that cookie cutter. I came up with my own version and some black and gold jammer stars.
Saturday Art had to go to work (pheww, I needed a distraction free kitchen), so my baking started at 5:30 AM with a mountain of butter. Literally, a mountain.
By 8, I had baked a chocolate cake, a vanilla cake, two mini chocolate cakes, and 7 dozen mini chocolate cupcakes.
Up next, frosting, LOTS of frosting. 4 batches of vanilla buttercream, double batch of chocolate buttercream and a double batch of chocolate ganache. Do you see the need for the mountain of butter?

I think my poor mixer is going to give out, buttercream takes a lot of whipping!
Chocolate Buttercream and Ganache take cooling so I went to stacking the vanilla buttercream cake. This was for the girl in my ward; she requested vanilla cake, vanilla buttercream, no fondant, no colors or flowers, very simple and maybe something to do with dogs, but for an adult. ???????

Mini cupcakes dipped in ganache...yummy...
Well, lets just say the rest of the day consisted of stacking, frosting, coating, frosting again, decorating, piping, and DISHES! Fortunately Art came home and proceeded to make his famous red sauce, so he cooked red sauce on one side of the room and I decorated on the other. Family bonding.
My request for a new house is a BIG fridge. I can't shop if it's a cake weekend.

This is also the only picture I got of the finished derby cake, Heidi said she would take one and send it to me. It had gray icing ("Gray icing, I can't begin to imagine how you make gray icing!" - Heidi will get that.)
Here are the finished products: The PLAIN Vanilla Cake

Lizzie's #11 Birthday cake with flowers and fondant (she requested the fondant, she actually thinks it tastes good!)

It was actually a very fun weekend and I enjoyed all the baking. It wasn't as exhausting as I thought it would be, however, it's now Wednesday, and I'm home sick. No voice yesterday (I'll have to post about that, my kids were so cute.) Maybe it was a bit much for one weekend!

Finally...

I finally restarted my computer so I could use my camera card to upload pictures (yeah, it's an issue). So here it is... (FYI, I should be planning my day, oh well)

The Art Corner...home to all things creative...
The United States, empty... we haven't discovered them yet!
All the important stuff... jobs, schedule, calendar, mystery bag, volume wheel

The Queen's Throne... and yes, it is that clean every day, or I would go nuts!
And that's all for now...

should be...

Do you ever have one of those 'should be' moments?

Like, I should be cooking something for dinner, but instead I'm making Mint Cookies.

Or I should be updating my blog with picture and antics from the first week but instead I'm reading.

I SHOULD BE doing a lot of productive things today, but instead I woke up with a migraine that made me nauseous and have spent the day in my jammies trying to convince Art he should go find me some sort of baked good.

So in a meager attempt to redeem myself, here's what I know about the first week of school:

1. It is EXHAUSTING (Yes, Libbi, even after 9 years) - I was in bed and asleep by 9 every night this week, 8:30 on Friday.

2. All 10 year olds LOVE to talk, but none as much as last years

3. 10 year old boys CAN be polite, "Thank you Mrs. Reina for teaching me today." "Thanks Mrs. Reina for being a great teacher" "Did you have a nice evening? It's good be here today!" - Yes, I have heard this over and over from a student this week.

4. It takes WEEKS to organize and label it all (shorter for me thanks to Roxy, Lacy and Shelby my organizers extraordinaire), and the children destroy it in a matter of minutes.

5. There is no such thing as totally prepared.

6. I will survive

And one day soon add photos...

coming...

I took pics and mentally prepared a blog entry. And then I taught all day, and then there was no more. Man I am tired, and it's day one. (ok, day two now)... More to come, if I survive.