When life gives you LEMONS...

...you should make COOKIES! and CAKE! 

I LOVE lemon flavoured things! And I think LEMONS and SUMMER go hand in hand! Here are a few recipes for some awesome 'lemony' treats for summer time! 

Summer Lemon Cookies

What you need:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 tbsp lemon zest

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 baking soda

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup icing sugar

Preheat oven to 350'. 

Spray baking sheets with Pam.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar with mixer. 

Add vanilla, egg, lemon zest and juice. 

Stir in all dry ingredients, except icing sugar!

Pour icing sugar onto a large plate. 

Roll a tablespoon of dough into a ball and roll in icing sugar. 

Repeat to fill cookie sheet full.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. 

Remove and cool on wire rack.

ENJOY!!! 

I have made this next LEMON treat quite a few times over the last year! I found the recipe on Pinterest last summer and it has been a real hit with everyone! 

Lemonade Cake 

What you need:

CAKE:

1 lemon cake mix (I used Betty Crocker)

4 eggs

1 1/4 cup milk

1/3 cup oil

3 tbsp lemonade from concentrate 

GLAZE:

3 tbsp lemonade from concentrate

1 cup icing sugar

1 tbsp water

FROSTING:

1 block (8 oz) cream cheese

1/2 cup butter

3 tbsp lemonade from concentrate

1/2 tsp vanilla

5 1/2 cups icing sugar 

Preheat oven to 350'

Spray 2 round 8' cake pans with Pam/cooking spray.

In a mixer, combine all 'cake' ingredients, until well blended.

Bake cakes for approx. 30 minutes. (use baking time on box)

Let the cakes cool in the pan, for about an hour. 

Poke holes in the cakes using a fork.

Combine all of the 'glaze' ingredients in a bowl and stir until smooth.

Pour equally over the tops of the cakes...still in the pans.

Cover and let sit in the refrigerator overnight (or at least an hour) 

To make frosting: Cream the butter and cream cheese with a mixer.

Add lemonade and vanilla.

Slowly add in icing sugar until the frosting is smooth. 

Place one cake on a serving plate. Cover with half of the frosting.

Place the other cake on top, and cover with remaining frosting!

ENJOY!!

Mix cake ingredients.

Pour into round pans.

Bake and let cool.

Combine icing sugar, lemonade
and water for the glaze.

Pour over the cakes equally

Combine all frosting ingredients!

Frost cake #1!

Add cake #2 on top!

Frost the entire cake!

ENJOY!
Delish Lemonade Cake! 

SPRING in Grade One!

It's hard to believe that this school year is coming to an end! My lil grade one babies are not such babies anymore! Well, when it comes to tattling they are...but you know what I mean!! I like to do the odd post about school, because this will be a way to remember what I did each year when I am looking back at my blog!

 Warning: This is a LONG post about grade one! Most of you probably don't care about this sorta stuff, so I give you permission to STOP reading now! Ha ha! 

So this is a little snippet of what we have been up to in grade one lately...

We were working on our INSECT unit, so we went on a BUG HUNT! 

The kids loved it!! 

My kids are getting really good at directed drawing! They are following instructions and paying alot more attention to details! Finally!!

We are now working on our Plants and Flowers unit!

This is always a nice unit to do at the end of the year because there are so many hands on activities! And at the end of the year, keeping them interested is NOT an easy job! 

 These are a few of our 'centers' from this unit...

Diggin' Up Sight Words!

They LOVE this centre! 

Flower Shop!

Another favourite! They create their own bouquet and then draw it and write a descriptive paragraph about it!

Write the Room!

Students find the words on the sunflowers around the room. They LOVE using clip boards! ha! 

Independent Reading!

My students LOVE LOVE using light pointers when they are reading! I saw this little trick on a teaching blog a few years ago and have used it ever since. I just get the light pointers from the toy section at the dollar store and the kids go crazy for them!! 

ABC Order - Plants and Flowers

We are finally making some progress with our alphabetical order skills! :) 

And that is what we have been up to in grade one!! I can't believe there are only 24 school days left in the year! This year has definitely gone by FAST!! 

But I am ssssure looking forward to catching up on some sleep this summer...:) 

The Cookie of the Summer!

I decided I wanted to do some baking over the May long weekend and I was on the hunt to find a new kind of cookie to try. So of course I turned to my bff, PINTEREST for some inspiration. And oh man, did I ever find an amazing recipe! This will be the cookie of the summer in our house for sure!! 

Butter Toffee Cookies

What you need:

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder 

1 1/2 cups skor bits 

Preheat over to 350'

Blend butter and sugar with an electric mixer, until creamy.

Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. 

Add flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Mix well. 

Stir in skor bits. 

Scoop onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. 

Let them cool on the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to cooling rack. 

ENJOY!!! 

These are DELICIOUS!! 

Butter Toffee GOODNESS!!

Not so little anymore...

We celebrated Cody's 23rd Birthday yesterday! It's so hard to believe that my 'baby' brother is 23!!!

 It seems like it was just yesterday that he was this cute lil guy...

Since Cody and I are 5 years apart, I can actually remember when he was born! I remember hoping that my Mom was going to bring home a sweet baby girl from the hospital...however instead it was this big ol' boy! And yes, he was BIG! 12 POUNDS of big!! My poor Mother!! 

After I realized that it was going to be just me and 'the boys' from now on, I settled nicely into being their second mother ha ha! I'm sure they just LOVED that!!  

Cody, Me and Kellen

Like I've said many times before, I feel SO blessed to be so close with my brothers! Cody and I had a different relationship growing up because of our age difference. The only time that we were in the same school was in elementary school, and I had the pleasure of being his 'grade 6 buddy' ha ha! (Poor guy seriously couldn't get away from me! ha!) But we have always had a special bond, and I think I will refer to him as my 'baby' brother until he is 90! He is probably the LOUDEST person I have ever met, and says some of the craziest and funniest things ever!! He is an extremely talented athlete and I am SOO proud of all of his accomplishments so far in life! 

This is how we celebrated Cody's Birthday this year...

Dinner at Sumo Sumo

Brit, Cody, Ma

Then we went back to my parents house for 'cake'...which you can see in the picture is JELLO! BAH! 

Rewind 3 days...

Me: What kind of cake do you want me to make for your b-day?

Cody: I want Jello

Me: What?! 

Cody: I want Jello. Cake is overrated. 

Me: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I make CAKES! A monkey could make you Jello. I will not! 

Sooooo...My Mom made him Jello, because I refused...lol 

Blowing out his invisible candles
on his JELLO!

He said he was gonna win
200 Million...

Kellen gave him a REAL
 manly card...

Brothers!

Me and the boys!

Dad, Cody, Ma

Cody and Brit

Kellen, Cody, Damian, Dad
LOVE all these guys!! 

HAPPY 23rd BIRTHDAY CODY!!

I hope you had a WONDERFUL day and that your year is AMAZING!!

Love your big Sis!

Kels

xoxo 

They said I looked smarter...

That is what my lovely little grade one kiddos told me when I showed up to school last week wearing my new glasses! 'Wow Mrs. Kirchner, you look smarter when you wear those!' HAHA!!! 

Gee...thanks children! But don't I ALWAYS look smart?! Apparently not...

These are my new glasses!

I pretty much LOVE them. And that is saying alot, because I HATE wearing glasses! I am totally a contacts person. Typically the only time I wear my glasses is from my bed, to the bathroom sink to put in my contacts every morning! However now that I have some new 'fancy' glasses that I actually like, I may make a habit of wearing them more! Especially if they make me look so SMART! Ha!

I ordered my glasses from a company called Warby Parker. My husband had read an article about their glasses in his GQ magazine and then checked out their website and was super impressed! They are a really neat company making super nice glasses for a really reasonable price! And because they were in GQ we new they had to be legit. Almost all of their glasses are just $120 and that includes everything! Another thing that I was really impressed with is that they have the 'buy a pair, give a pair' program similar to TOMS shoes. For every pair of glasses that they sell, they give a pair to someone in need! I LOVE it!

So if you are in need of some new glasses or just want to look super smart like ME....
check out the Warby Parker website!! 

What's for dinner? - Balsamic Chicken

I love chicken. I love balsamic vinegar. I love quick. I love easy. 

So when I came across this recipe I knew it would be something that I would LOVE. And I was right! This chicken dish was super easy to make and tasted delish! It was a prefect weeknight meal!! 

Balsamic Chicken

What you need:

4 Chicken breast

5 cloves garlic

1 cup fresh basil

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1/4 water

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 small can sliced black olives

1 cup grape tomatoes

1/2 cup red onion 

Preheat over to 375'. 

Brown the chicken breast in a pan, with about 1 tbsp olive oil.

In a blender place the garlic, basil, olive oil, and water. Blend well.

Place the browned chicken in a baking dish and cover with the basil mixture. 

Top with the mushrooms, tomatoes, onions, and black olives. 

Bake for 35 minutes.

ENJOY!

** I am thinking next time I make this dish I will try adding some feta cheese on top! YUM!*

Brown chicken in olive oil

Prepare mushrooms, onions, tomatoes
and olives.

Blend the basil, garlic,
balsamic vinegar and water.

Cover browned chicken with basil mixture.

Top the chicken with all of the
veggies and bake!

Served with rice! YUM!!

TARGET!

Soooo you may not know this about me...but I am OBSESSED with Target. My best friends know this about me, because they share the obsession with me! But most people, including my husband, do NOT understand it!! Quite frankly, I'm fairly certain Damian thinks I'm NUTS! 

I'm not sure when I fell in love with Target...I'm thinkin' probably all of the summers I spent as a child at my grandparents house in Arizona, and the many trips to Target for toys, clothes, food, etc. 

And then I became an adult. And started planning and going on trips by myself! And no matter where I went,  I always tried to stay somewhere close to a Target. ( ya, ya, so I am crazy!) I just LOVE me some Target!!!

I decided to 'dig' up some ooooold Target photos, just to show you that this is not an obsession that I just acquired! ha ha! 

Me at TARGET! Arizona 2008

This was Jenna's FIRST time EVER at Target!!
 I was honoured to be present for
 this occasion!!! ha!

Me at TARGET Florida 2007
Look at all of the 100 Calorie treats! 

SOOOO you can imagine the sheer EXCITEMENT when I heard that Target was coming to Canada!!! It was about two years ago that they made the announcement, and I actually emailed the press release to my best friend, because I was THAT excited!! (again, yes, crazy!)

Last Tuesday was the BIG opening day of Target here in Sherwood Park. I was SO pumped! The plan was to go on Wednesday to avoided the mayhem, and of course I went with Bailey, who is the only other person on this planet who I think is as NUTSO about Target as me!!

So here is my review of Target Canada...

Ummmm....It sucked!!! :(
I know....devastating. It hurts my heart just a little to even say it, but its SO true. It really was not good!!!
It was not at all like the Targets in the states!! It was pretty junky, not all that cheap, and didn't really sell anything different like they do in the US. Totally disappointing.

HOWEVER...I don't think I have ever gone into a Target and NOT bought something....
so here is a look at our trip...

Bailey's Loot!

My Loot!

Yay! Let's pretend we are satisfied
with Target right now! ha!

Bailey in the Barbie aisle! She is obsessed
 with Barbies. Still! ha! :p 

Our Target trip wasn't a total bust...I did manage to find CHICAGO MIX POPCORN!! This stuff is amazing!!!! I was first introduced to this popcorn at my very first staff meeting at my new school! Everyone was obsessed with it and literally eating it by the handfuls! The only place you could buy it was Costco, until Costco decided to stop selling in about 2 months ago! How sad! Our staff meetings just aren't the same without it!!

 BUT!! NEWSFLASH!!!

TARGET SELLS IT!

Seriously people....go buy some! It is the best.thing.ever!! It is the perfect mix of cheesy and sweet goodness that you have ever eaten. I convinced Bailey to buy a bag on our Target trip, and then she sent me HATE text messages the next day because she couldn't STOP eating it! True story!! 

So I suppose there was SOME good that came out of Target Canada...but don't think for a second that I won't be shopping till I drop at Target in the USA the next time I'm there!!

Which reminds me...I should ask Damian how far our hotel in New York is from the nearest Target!!! HA!