End of the Year Teacher Gift

"No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks"

-- Peter Chbosky

One of my favorite finds on Pinterest  are gifts you can give to teachers and coaches, etc.  I never know what to get them.  My teacher friends all assure me that anything knick-knacks with apples or teaching quotes are really not appreciated.  They want something useful.  And food/gift cards are always appreciated.  I hate just giving gift cards out though.  I feel like absolutely no thought goes into that.  So I try to find fun, yet useful things that the teachers may like and appreciate.

I found this cute idea from Sisters, Sisters.  It's an End of the Year Teacher Gift Idea and you can find it here.

The really nice thing is that it has a free printable tag.  This is awesome for me, because I am not paint or photoshop savvy at all.  So if it's already done, and available, I see no reason to reinvent the wheel.

This is the cute tag.

They were super easy to put together and not expensive.  I got everything at WalMart.  The towels were under $5.00.  Probably the most expensive things were the travel-size sunscreen.  I added a bag of candy to each, and tied them up with matching ribbon that I already had at home.  Less than $10.00 per teacher.  Totally worth it for everything they do for my kids.  And hopefully something that they can use over the summer.

Mr. M (B's teacher) is from New England, so his towel had lobsters on it, as well as his favorite candy, York Peppermint Patties.  Mrs. Y (W's teacher) had a fun tropical floral towel.  As you can see, you can completely personalize these for whomever you give them to.  This one is definitely a keeper for another year!

(From my board "To Teach is to learn twice.")

Eating the Alphabet - E Week

"The Energy of the Mind is the Essence of Life" -- Aristotle

I really had to use my brain this week to come up with E foods.  But what happens when you tell one of your best friends that you are eating the alphabet and are stuck on E week?  And that friend happens to be one of the most creative people you know, and used to work in a preschool?  You get more E foods that you thought possible!  Thank you Lorena for helping us out this week.

Empanadas was on here list, but I already tried those, and although delicious, were not pretty enough that my kids would eat them.  And it's the wrong season for Eggnog.

Eclaires --  B wouldn't touch these the first day.  OMG!  Are you kidding me?  This is a child who asks for, no actually demands, dessert every night.  He passed these up for some ice cream?  W actually ate 2 and then the next night B was willing to try it.  It definitely passed muster for both kids.

Edamame -- My manager actually suggested this one.  None of us liked this.  It tasted......bad.  Can Edamame go bad? Maybe I'll try a different brand in the future.

 

Eggo Waffles - Leggo my Eggo.  These are a breakfast staple in our house.  So even though it's nothing new to us, we ate it a couple of times this week, so thought we would add it to the list.  (They have new seasonal Eggos - S'mores for the summertime!)

Elbow Macaroni -- Well as usual, we had pasta on Wednesday (notice the Price brand pasta for Prince Spaghetti Day - you'll know what I'm talking about if you're from New England.)  Nice simple macaroni and meatballs.  No one came up with this idea - it's amazing what you can find just walking around the grocery store.

Enchiladas - Okay, I had to kind of lie to my kids when they asked what an enchilada is.  I told them that it was a rolled up quesadilla with cheese on top and baked in the over.  (It was a lie of omission - I neglected to mention that they have enchilada sauce on them as well.  Does that count as a lie?)  One look from them and they knew this was not something they would eat.  Once picked apart though, they actually liked the seasoned chicken inside the tortilla.  Yay!  I have a new way I can prepare chicken now!  (And yes, I used a boxed set.  I'm busy and hate cooking.  Don't judge me.)

English Breakfast Tea - A few weeks ago, B saw someone helping themselves to a cup of tea somewhere.  So he decided he was going to try some.  Of course W had to get on board, and now they enjoy a cup of tea a couple of times a week.  English Breakfast sounded perfect for this week.

Eating the Alphabet - D week

"D is such a nice letter.  Each day I like it better."

-- Ernie (from Sesame Street)

Who would have thought that D week would have been so dang difficult.  I have to admit, we started off the week by wimping out.  Hubby brought home Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast.

Delicious!  Delightful!  But not exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted to introduce my kids to new foods. 

I wracked my brain.  I looked at websites.  I looked through cookbooks.  I came up with "dinner," "dips," and "dessert."  Again, not really what I had in mind.  So from my measly pickings, here is what we ended up with.

(I wanted to try a Daikon radish, but had no time to try to get to the Asian market, because I have no idea where else I could possibly come across that. Certainly not at the Giant down the street.)

Dates - Yeah, I don't really like them either, but everyone bravely tried one.

Deviled Eggs - They don't like mustard, so this was a no go.  Of course B who only likes the whites, scooped out the inside so he could eat them plain.

Dolmades - Luckily, my church's annual Greek festival was going on this week, and hubby always gets dolmades. You can get them two different ways. Usually as an appetizer they are stuffed with rice and herbs and served room temperature. As an entree, they can be stuffed with meat and rice and then served hot with an egg-lemon sauce over them. As I mentioned, my kids don't do sauces so we had them try the cold ones. After unwrapping the grape leaf from the rice, they each sampled one grain of rice. Are you kidding me?

Chicken and "Dumplings" -  I cheated and bought a can and then doctored it up with some more chicken and veggies.  However, this one did not go over well.  My kids don't eat anything with a sauce or gravy, so unless it was washed off of the dumplings, they were going to have no part of it.  So I did.  And guess what?  They hated them.  Yeah, because they're horrible!  It's just dough.  Of course it's not going to have any flavor on its own.

I am very sorry to say that the highlight of the week was the Dunkin' Donuts.  And if that wasn't bad enough, the boys got to go to Dairy Queen at the end of the week.  Hopefully we'll have better luck with the Es.