Amazing Bread and Peach Slush {Eating, Drinking, and Linking}

Anybody else planning on doing some celebrating later this week for the 4th?! We are gearing up for a big get together with family and friends and you know what that means - food!! Eating and cooking really seem to be the only two things I'm getting done this summer...at least it's enjoyable!

I'm linking up with Christy from Teaching Tales Along the Yellow Brick Road to share a couple recipes I'll be making this week for the celebration. 

Drop everything and make this Cheddard Tailgaiting Bread!! The recipe has been floating around Pinterest for a long time, but I just now got around to trying it and it is fantastic! 

I didn't take any pictures of the bread because I was too busy eating it, but you can click the link above or check it out on this Pinterest board - it's the first pin!

Follow Courtney's board yummy recipes I've made! on Pinterest.

The other recipe doesn't have a picture either - just more proof that it was too good to stop eating long enough to take a picture! 

2 cups sugar

4 oz. lemon juice

2 packs peach jello

1 - 46oz pineapple juice

6 1/2 cups water

ginger ale

 In a large bowl mix together the sugar and jello. Boil 3 cups of water, add to jello and sugar to dissolve. Add remaining 3 1/2 cups of cold water, lemon juice, and pineapple juice. Divide the mixture into 2 gallon-size ziploc freezer bags. Lay flat to freeze. Thaw 2-3 hours before serving. Mash up in the bag and mix the slush with ginger ale - 2 bags of punch to 1 liter of ginger ale. 

What yummy recipes have you tried lately? 

Summertime Saturday Snapshots

One of my favorite hobbies is photography, I just don't have a chance to practice play during the school year like I'd like to. I've taken some time this week to break out the big camera and take some snapshots of our summertime farm life. Warning: There is nothing educational in this post, but if you love animals keep scrolling!

I'm linking up with Miss Nelson for  Saturday Snapshots. 

Charlie is also my photography guinea pig. He's so hard to take a picture of because he's black so he just shows up as a little blob in most pictures! 

Pretty sure Gunner is the most photogenic dog in the whole world. He also poses and he's pretty good at that too. 

This is Sport's I didn't do a thing look. He has to use this one often because he's always doing something! 

The ultimate love-hate relationship. Sport loves the cat and she always tries to get away from him..hrmm...wonder why? 

This happens every evening in our front yard.

Sweat that the horses then try to rub off on us! They're just really big pets. 

My beautiful Nellie. She mostly just gets to hang out and eat...my kinda life. 

This happened last night and they were fantastic. It was hard not to just eat them all! 

The lambs are about 3 weeks old now and they are so much fun to watch. They are super quick and love to run all over the field playing with each other. 

My favorite view in the world! 

Thanks for indulging me and looking at all my little (and big) kiddos. This was fun. Maybe I'll do it again next week. 

Week 2 of Summer Break {Five for Friday}

Happy Day! It's Friday and my sister is here!! 

Time to link up with with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share some randomness from my week. 

Vacation Bible School starts on Sunday!! I'm so excited!! VBS is one of my all time favorite church activities and I'm directing again this year. We're gonna call this the before picture. It really reminds me of my classroom in the summer before I start putting it all together. Stay tuned for more pictures! 

We cut hay this week! If you have the need to cut hay then you know what a relief it is to finally get weather nice enough to cut it and get that stuff put up. We still aren't completely done with the first cutting, but at least we got some of it taken care of. 

It's been a relatively quiet week around here, so I've had some time to relax and enjoy being on break. I've been hanging out near the creek behind our house some. 

Ladybug has been hanging out with me. 

And these guys. I guess you can tell by looking at them that they don't hang out in one spot too long, but I'm enjoying getting to spend some extra time with them! 

I went to a little Mary Kay get together this morning with some teaching friends. It's so nice to get to spend some time with them outside of school! Lots of fun. 

My sister is here!! She just got in this afternoon and I'm so excited to get to spend some time with her this weekend!! Yay for sister time. 

Welcome to Summer Edition {Five for Friday}

This was my first full week of summer!! I wanted to stop in with a few picture updates of what I've been doing this week! 

Head over to Doodle Bugs Teaching and join up! 

Just call me the bag lady. My cousin and I started up a Summer Food Program for our community last year and we kept it going this year. Churches from the area pick a week to sponsor and they provide nonperishable breakfast and lunch items for the week in these grocery bags. The bags are picked up at specific locations on Mondays. This past Monday was the first drop off of the summer! I'm so thankful God has blessed us to continue this ministry! 

Let the summer reading begin!! How could someone have been reading this series since the first book came out 20 years ago?!!? I would've gone crazy by now wanting to know what happened. Thankfully I just started reading a couple years ago, so the wait wasn't too bad. Any Outlander fans out there? 

I decided on a theme for my classroom next year! Aren't these crazy bug by From the Pond adorable??

I'd already been thinking theme and this was on sale Tuesday and I just couldn't pass it up. Good thing I've got a start on it now because I have plenty of work ahead of me with the grade change. 

I also made a little trip to the teacher store to pick out borders to match the bugs. I decided to go with a double border (the blue has polka dots). I plan to use purple, orange, yellow, and pink for accents. I already have a lot of blue and green in my classroom, so I thought it'd be easy to work these in. 

The bestie and I had a little shopping trip to kick off the summer. Isn't she just rockin' that hat?!

She helped me shop for the summer food program (my church sponsors next week). 

We went to Sam's Club, so I had to check out the school supplies. I got 200 laminating pouches for $20.98 and 200 sheet protectors for $9.98. Pretty good deals I thought and that'll get me started on a few other summer projects. 

Ever wonder about color printing at an office supply store? I had all this printed this week. Check back tomorrow for a post all about it! 

What have you been up to this week? 

Summer Bucket List and a $1 Monday Must Have {A Linky}

You're getting double for your money on this post! I'm going to squeeze in two fab linky parties! 

First up is my Summer Bucket List! Since it is the unofficial start to summer (and I'm really wishing mine was already here) I thought I'd link up with A Cupcake for the Teacher.

1. Sewing I have a stack of hand me down jeans just waiting for some TLC and I plan to turn them into a nice big denim quilt! I also have a few other little projects I'd like to do. Isn't it just nice to have time to create?

2. Start a TPT Store. I've got some products in the works, but I've not had enough time to get it all together and open! 

3. Reading. I have a huge list for both professional and personal reading. I'll have to really work hard at narrowing down the professional list! I also plan to reread An Echo in the Bone because the next book in the Outlander series comes out in December!! If you are looking for a great summer read I would highly recommend Diana Galabdon's Outlander series - wow!! {I love those books...just in case all the exclamation points didn't give it away.}

4. My most exciting personal project this summer will be a community-wide summer food program one of my BFFs and I have put together. There will be 9 churches from our community working together to provide food for kids who are in need over the summer. Our first food delivery date will be June 10!! It has been a long labor of love and I'm looking forward to seeing the idea become a reality! 

5. Summer stuff - sitting on the porch, horse shows, catfishing, fires, corn hole...just good 'ole country summer time fun!  

And as I was doing a little organizing today I thought of an idea to share For Must Have Monday with Sabra over at Teaching With a Touch of Twang.

The last few times I've been in the Dollar Tree I've picked up a few of these mesh bags with a zipper and I'm loving them! They are a great size and hold a surprising amount of stuff!

Here it is in action holding my glue gun, the cord, and some extra sticks of glue! I'm loving that I've finally got it all together in one container instead of those sticks rolling around the bottom of my desk drawer! I've got this baby standing up in my desk drawer along with another full of all my supplies to hang things with - magnets, double sided tape, command strips, and packing tape. 

Here is another action shot. This one shows two pouches (red and black) inside hanging file folders. One pouch is holding game pieces for reading and the other has pieces for Social Studies. I'm loving that these will stand up so easily! 

I have a few more of the pouches on standby for my next organizing project. Any ideas on how to use them?