Summer Bucket List

Being a teacher, summer is one of my favorite times of the year. For eight or nine, straight weeks I can relax, catch up on my reading, drink coffee at a leisurely pace, and spend lots of time with my children. Today, as we drove home from a busy weekend of wedding festivities for my baby brother and my beautiful new sister-in-law; I started doing something I often do on Sunday afternoons, I started thinking about the week ahead. It was then that I realized that sometime in the middle of last week, my summer vacation had reached the half-way point. You know the point when there are fewer days left of summer vacation left and more days in your rear-view mirror.

In four short weeks, I will be heading back to work. So far this summer has been one of the best. It has been jam packed and full of fun. We've spent a week in Nags Head at a beach house with friends. My husband and I spent a long weekend in New York City to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. I've been tutoring and trying to prepare for my new position as the Reading Specialist of my school in the fall. Oh, and this weekend my son turned 6 (I still can't believe it) and my brother became a married man. We've also been squeezing in trips to the library, the pool, and to get ice cream, play dates, laundry, cleaning out and listing our rental property, dinners with friends and a little bit of couch snuggling.

At the beginning of every summer I make a giant mental list of all of the things I want to accomplish this summer. Tomorrow, I'm going to sit down with my 6 year old son and 3 year old daughter and we're going to come up with a list of things they want to do over the next few weeks. Two things they aren't allowed to put on the list...video games and television. We're going to make the most of the next four weeks before it's back to work!

Click, Clack, Peep!

Finally, Spring is Here! The weather is warm, the flowers are blooming, my eyes are itchy, T-ball is in full swing, and there are two dozen chick eggs incubating my classroom. What would be more appropriate than another farm animal story complete with it's own baby duckling? Doreen Cronin is back with a brand new Farmer Brown book, Click, Clack, Peep! This time, it isn't Duck who's starting the trouble, it's a fluffy, new duckling who wants to play instead of sleep. Will the farm animals ever get the duckling to sleep? This is an excellent book for young children learning about farm animals or Spring.

I Know A Wee Piggy

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As a teacher, I love getting new books for my classroom. I especially love getting new, free books for my classroom. There are so many great books out there (and I am very partial to my favorites) so it's sometimes hard to branch out and spend money on new books that might not be as "good". Upon receiving some free books (ordered with bonus points) from my classroom's latest Scholastic book order, I came across a book that is sure to be added to "my favorites" list; I Know A Wee Piggy written by Kim Norman and illustrated by Henry Cole.

First let me start by saying, I was drawn to purchasing this book solely on the fact that it was illustrated by Henry Cole. I am drawn to Cole's childlike illustrations and bright colors like a moth to my front porch light. I know they say you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but I just can't help myself when it comes to Henry Cole. Perhaps it's because I've seen him in the flesh on two occasions and he used to be a regular teacher like me. Or maybe that's just why his name sticks in my head when I see it on the front cover of a book. Either way I think his illustrations are fabulous and chances are if he's illustrated a book, then I'll definitely read it. And usually I'll like it too.

If you've read any of my other book reviews, you might know that I'm a little bit partial to the story, "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" because it reminds me of my Granny. I Know A Wee Piggy has the same cadence but tells the story of a little piggy at a county fair. This little piggy is somewhat of a mischief maker as he "wallows" in different colors all over the fair. I Know A Wee Piggy would make an excellent addition to any farm, color or rhyming unit in the younger grades. It would also be a fun vocabulary read aloud for upper grades. I love the use of the word wallowed.  Perfect for all ages, you'll definitely want to add this book to your children's book collection!

Cake Batter Rice Krispies Treats

I rarely make Rice Krispies Treats. I'm not sure why, they are easy to make and require less than 5 ingredients. They are also pretty delicious; I almost forget how yummy they are until I actually eat a homemade treat. And the only good ones are in fact the homemade ones. The prepackaged Treats taste nothing like a fresh homemade Rice Krispies Treat. They must not be made with the same butter and melted marshmallows that I use. But back to why I never make them. They have no nutritional value, I hate to break it to you, but rice cereal, butter and marshmallows will never be a healthy balanced meal. But then again, my weekly cookies aren't healthy either, so that must not be the reason. Everything in moderation right? Perhaps it's the sticky mess that melting marshmallows makes in the saucepan after cooking that doesn't put Rice Krispies Treats at the top of my "want to bake" list?

Despite my Rice Krispies Treat reluctance, when I saw a picture of Cake Batter Rice Krispies Treats as I was scrolling through my Pinterest feed, I thought, "These would be a fun treat for the kids." Do you think that I pinned the recipe? Of course not. And when I went back to try to find them, I couldn't remember the exact ones and all of the recipes were a little bit different and none exactly like I wanted. Hmmm. So I just googled Cake Batter Rice Krispies Treats and used the recipe from Food.com, well, mostly. I had to make a few changes, of course.

First, I gathered my ingredients.

You need Rice Krispies cereal, yellow or white cake mix (I used Funfetti, because I just couldn't resist), mini-marshmallows (I used jumbo jet puffed because that's what we had--it all melts the same), butter, and sprinkles.

I melted one 16 oz bag of jumbo Jet-Puffed marshmallows with four tablespoons of butter (1/2 stick). The actual recipe called for one 10 oz bag of mini-marshmallows, but I wasn't about to try to figure out trying to use a partial bag. In my defense, I do teach kindergarten, so that kind of math would really require a lot of time and brain power for me. Half of the bag would have been 8 oz and I would need another 2 oz from the leftover half so I'd divide what was left into fourths and only use 1/4 of that half of the bag. Okay, I'll stop. You get my point. The recipe also called for 3 tablespoons of butter now that I'm being honest, but I had an almost full half stick in the fridge and I didn't want the extra tablespoon I was about to shave off to get lonely.

So, one 16 oz bag of jumbo marshmallows and four tablespoons of butter melting in a saucepan over medium heat.

When the marshmallows were mostly melted, I stirred in 1/2 cup of Funfetti cake batter into the butter/marshmallow mixture.

Next, I shook in some sprinkles and gave the mixture a quick stir.

Before, the sprinkles started melting too, I cut off the heat and added 6 cups of Rice Krispie cereal. The recipe called for 5 cups, but I had more marshmallow and butter, so I thought more Krispies would be needed.

Mmmmm...then I dumped the mixture from the pan into a butter greased cake pan. You'll want to grease the pan or you'll never get the treats out later. You could use cooking spray, but I no longer use cooking spray, so butter it was. Then I used parchment paper to press them down flat into the pan. You'll want to use parchment so that your fingers don't become a sticky mess.

Then comes a light smattering of sprinkles on top before letting them sit to cool.

After cooling, about 30 minutes, cut and enjoy. This is a treat that everyone in your family will enjoy!