Cake Balls & Other Things

Oh man! These things are SOOOOOO good! And they yield more than a plain 'ol cake cut into slices. I forgot to count, but I think I got about 36 cake balls from one batch.

You'll never want to make a regular cake again....

I don't.

Cake Balls

(Warning: This recipe is easy, but part of it needs to be in the freezer OVERNIGHT, so allow yourself enough time! I always hate it when I start a recipe then realize it takes more than one day....)

Ingredients:
1 box of cake mix (I used Funfetti but you can use any flavor you like)
1 can of frosting (I used vanilla)
1 package of candy making chocolate
sprinkles

Directions:

1. Bake the cake according to the package directions. It doesn't even matter what kind of pan you bake it in because after the next step, you won't even know.

2. Allow cake to cool, then crumble into a large bowl.

3. Add entire can of frosting to crumbled cake. Mix until cake is moist.

4. Use a spoon (or your hands) to form small balls.


5. Place the balls on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer overnight.

6. Melt the candy chocolate (according to the package directions) in a small but deep dish - either a glass pyrex measuring cup or even a coffee mug works too.

7. Dunk the cake ball into the melted chocolate and place back on the cookie sheet. This is the trickiest part of the whole process. I dropped the balls in and used a spoon to roll it around in the chocolate then fish it out.

8. Top with sprinkles (or anything else for that matter) immediately or else the chocolate hardens and nothing sticks. :)

9. Once the chocolate hardens, the cake balls are ready to eat! You could put them back in the freezer if you wish to keep them firm. Just take them out shortly before serving.

The combinations for these are pretty much endless... peanut butter cake and chocolate frosting, carrot cake and cream cheese frosting, red velvet cake and whipped frosting....

MMMMM! I'm going to go eat another one right now! Maybe not. Maybe later.

Hope you're all having a great weekend! We just got back from cleaning out our new house! We didn't buy a house, just renting again, but it's a great little house! It's cute. And blue. And it's a farm. We did lots of vacuuming (the whole house is carpet) and took all the nails and screws out of the walls (they liked to hang things up!). The carpet is getting cleaned professionally sometime next week then we can start moving boxes and furniture over after that. We won't need to do any painting, only spackling? spacking? a few holes leftover from all the nails and a touch up of paint over that and we'll be good to go.

Official move in date is October 1st. I'm excited because the kitchen is HUGE and it's closer to town so that means a shorter drive in the morning for me. (5:45AM wake up time has not been good to me this week....)

Here's one teaser photo. I'll post more some other time.

Okay, two. I can't resist showing you the kitchen! I'm done.

Dad's football team got smoked again last night. Final score: Ashley 47, CCA 14. It's hard to see them lose so much... The game was a blowout but ALMOST my whole family was home!

Amy, Travis, Rachel, Justin

We were just missing Katie. Plus it was Amy's 19th birthday yesterday! Happy Birthday, AMY LEIGH!

Love,

Sarah

Classroom Photos & Football Craziness

This is what my room looked like for Back to School Night on Wednesday. The only difference now is that there is not a giant round table in front of the calendar wall. I don't plan on making any changes for when school starts.

The photos go around the room from left to right. Hopefully that makes sense!

Enjoy! And see how many farm themed things you can pick out!

completed bulletin board in the hallway outside my room

my desk area - I won't be sitting there much!

carpet area with a writing station on the left (the table with a checkered cloth),

author of the month easel, and teaching easel

close up of the poster I put on the easel for Open House Night (for Paul & Britt in NZ!)

Looking at the back wall/corner - the door with the half curtain goes directly into the Kinder room next door

(If you look closely, you can see our superintendent outside cooking hotdogs!)

calendar wall with birthdays & everything!

other half of the North wall -student tables, student work bulletin board, character corner

close up of the "Character Corner" - This is where we will talk about the character trait & habit of mind for each month.

That cupboard holds the books that have a story/moral that exemplifies the trait of the month.

East Wall "Front" of the clasroom -

Daily objectives chart, word wall up high, daily schedule by the door,

and the terribly frail, feeble, old, and worn out whiteboard.

I tried to spruce it up with a certain string of lights around it! :)

In other news, I drove a carload of people (mom, Justin, Mike, & Mike's friend, Johnny) up to Brethren for my brother Travis' high school football game. During football season, we all have a job: My dad's the head coach, Travis is the QB, mom & I take stats, Justin helps with stats & takes pictures, Mike & Johnny are the water boys. We were on the road for 10 minutes when we realized we left the stat book sitting on the counter at my parents house.... so we whipped around and went back for it. Then I had to drive like a maniac to get to the field before game time. We pulled in to the parking lot as they were lined up singing the National Anthem. Oh boy.

We jumped out of the car and ran, literally ran, towards the entrance. Oh yes, and I forgot to say that we were the ones bringing the mini-tapes for the tape recorder so we had to bring that too so the team camera man could film the game. As we ran, mom took the packaging off the tape, we sprinted up the stairs to the press box and burst through door just before the teams took the field! The film guy took the tape, put it in the recorder, we flipped open the stat book & sat down next to the press box coach with the headset just in time!

It was crazy and all done in a giant whirlwind of a last minute rush --- so goes the Thorne family way of life. :)

I love my mom!

missed pitch... unfortunately, this happened a lot

Friday Night Lights, Fence & Crescent Moon

-All football game photos by Justin Thorne

Love,

Sarah

P.S. We lost. 46-8.

Pizza

Friday night I made pizzas for a bunch of hungry boys ---Zach, Jared, and Travis. They had just got done baling and unloading straw at the farm so I fed them when they were done.

meat lovers' supreme: pepperoni, sausage, ham, green pepper

meat lovers': pepperoni, sausage, ham

veggie: green pepper and mushroom

my favorite -- BBQ chicken!: BBQ sauce, chicken, onion

They enjoyed the pizza, oh yeah, and homemade chocolate chip cookies then went their separate ways. Jared had to drive back to GR and Zach took my brother Travis home. Travis fell asleep before they were halfway there. After a 4-way scrimmage that morning and an evening of farm work, I'd be tuckered out too!

Here's a few shots from Travis' scrimmage:

Travis making a run on the QB keeper

Travis looking for the pass

So school is just around the corner and I am not a morning person. This is an unfortunate dilemma because teaching elementary school requires you to get up early every day. It's my job. Ugh. Oh well. I'm thankful for summers off! Anyways, instead of dragging myself through the first few weeks of school because my body is used to sleeping in, I decided to get myself back into the "wake up early" routine last week by going to bed at 11PM and waking up at 7:30AM. That worked fine. My body can handle that. I got up every day without a problem.

Well, this week I moved the bedtime back to 10PM and wake up time to 6:30AM... 10PM bedtime? Check. Get up at 6:30AM? Ummmm, okay, maybe it's more like the "alarm goes off but Sarah doesn't get up" time... I have failed to wake up at 6:30AM the past two mornings. It doesn't help that Zach doesn't have to be anywhere early this week so he wants to just stay in bed and snuggle, plus our bed is SUPER comfortable, plus the cool morning temperature this time of year is perfect for staying in a cozy warm bed with the covers up to my chin. It's really a wonderful time to sleep! However, I've got to get better at it the rest of the week.

Yesterday I didn't go in to my classroom.... I stayed home and made some sweet pickle relish. Which was quite easy. I'm getting in to this "canning" thing. It's so easy and the food lasts much longer. I can't wait to can some peaches in the next few weeks and then make applesauce in the coming months. Fall in Michigan is a wonderful time of year!

Okay. I'm going in to my classroom. It's still quite a wreck. And back to school night is next week. When I meet my students. And they see the classroom. And their parents see the classroom. I've got some work to do!

Love,

Sarah