Growing and Sowing Seeds {of Learning}

I mentioned in my last post that we purchased plants for our patio. I planted/potted everything on Monday. Adding just a little bit of plants and color makes such a difference.

Confederate Jasmine, Endless Summer Hydrangeas and Vincas.

Wroght iron pot trellis that are a nod to New Orleans,
purchased at the LeMoyne Art in the Park Festival.

And our homeowners association gratefully added some plantings around these eyesore utility boxes on the same day. I'm so happy they chose tea olives. I just love the way they smell when they are in bloom.

Now I just need to put some plants on my front porch, which is looking mighty barren. You just scrolled up to look at it, didn't you?

And here's my most beautiful flower. She was in a modeling sort of mood, so I caught some great photos in all of her {now 16-and-a-half-month-old} preciousness.

Couldn't you just eat her up and squeeze those chubby little legs? I want to freeze her in time. I don't want her to get any bigger than this. This age, around 18 months, is my favorite!

The Boy Scouts are adding a community garden in our neighborhood, literally a stones throw from our front door next week {between that street lamp dead center and that big building at the Town Center}. I'm still trying to talk Ben into allowing us to rent a plot, so we can sow our own garden. I know nothing about growing food, but hey, I'm willing to start learning. And I think it would be a great learning/teaching opportunity for the kids, too. I feel so lucky that this is the kind of neighborhood that we live in and I think we should take the opportunity to embark on this adventure.

And speaking of sowing seeds – it's Teacher Appreciation Week! As such, we are appreciating our teachers, those that sow the seeds of learning in our children {that is where I was going with that metaphor} with some homemade treats tomorrow. I'm pretty sure that I'm tardy to the party {who caught the Real Housewives of Atlanta reference there?} on the cake pop phenomenon that is sweeping the nation. I wish I had thought of these ingenious and quite delicious little treats. I'd be a wealthy stay-at-home mama, if so!

I got the inspiration for my Teacher Appreciation cake pops here and then I found a tutorial from the cake pop inventress {I'm quite certain I just made that word up} Bakerella. And here's her basic cake pop recipe that I used.

One thing I failed to read is not to add all of the icing at once. I did this and my dough seemed, well doughy. So I popped it into the fridge and let it firm up a bit and it was much easier to roll into balls after that.

I did add/adjust a few things to her instructions {because I am definitely not Bakerella when it comes to her creations}. First I added Nestle mini-morsels to the middle to simulate apple seeds. I just rolled into balls, cut in half, inserted seeds and smushed {that's a technical term} them together and rolled back into a ball. I put them in the fridge overnight and finished the next day {this is an important step not to skip, because your dough wouldn't be firm enough to dip in chocolate if you tried this without chilling them overnight or at least popping them in the freezer if you are in a hurry}.

I also decided to make them upside down cake pops and use the lollipop sticks as the apple stem, so I dipped them first in milk chocolate.

I didn't have any styrofoam, so I fashioned a drying rack out of my box grater. Perhaps a colander would also work in a pinch.

Bakerella didn't do a great job of demonstrating how to make them look like apples. I tried rolling them a little with my hands in a "V" to make them smaller at the bottom and larger at top. Then I used the end of a lollipop stick to create indentions.

Then I used my finger to smush them down to make the indentions subtle.

Once the sticks were dry-ish, I pushed them into the "top" of the apple.

Melted my red melting chocolate {which can be purchased at Michael's for about $2.50}.

Dipped each one carefully and put them in the fridge to harden. Again helps to work fast when the dough is still chilled. Otherwise, they may fall off the stick and into the chocolate {and then you have to go fishing}. I used a 14 oz bag for about 24 cake pops. I froze the rest of the dough balls {which was about 18} for Jack's birthday party. We will surely be making more {different} cake pops soon. Just know that one bag of melting chocolate will only do about 24 when you go out to buy the chocolate. You need two bags if you are going to dip all of the balls that the Bakerella's recipe makes.

These are starting to look like real candy apples!

I then finished them off by putting them in baggies and tying them with green ribbon {for leaves}.

And attaching the tags. You can get your own FREE printable tags here.

Our amazing teachers will also be receiving apple cinnamon muffins for breakfast tomorrow and hand written notes from Jack & Paige.

If you are a teacher at Little Lambs {or any other school for that matter}, thanks for all you do in helping our children's minds grow and for sowing the seeds of learning. You are all amazing and we really appreciate everything you do!