Kinder Graduation

My kinder class (including my very own Andelynn Grace!!!) graduated last Thursday evening. We have had a yearly jungle them, so graduation had to go along with that!!! I found the perfect rhymes for the students to memorize (Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae) and the perfect song "Animales."
                                              
I lost my mind and decided I wanted to make keepsake masks as my gift to the students for graduation. My fantastic aide helped come up with the patterns and I cut out pieces of felt and sewed them all together. We had lions, zebras, giraffes, gazelles, crocodiles, and tigers. The gazelles ended up being my personal favorite :) Some of my kinders were fascinated by my sewing machine. They just sat there and watched me sew rather than coloring/playing during their free time!!!

We had a lot of fun decorating the school library for the graduation. My aides did most of the fantastic decorations while I contributed a giant hippo. The students did GREAT!! We had a really good time and they all did a fantastic job with their parts. This has been one SPECTACULAR group of children and I miss them already. Thank goodness it's a small school and I'll see all of them next year :)

Next year is an ocean theme, so we'll see how creative we get with that. I'm already excited!!!

****photos courtesy of www.marshasayer.blospot.com

 Andelynn is the tiger in the zebra dress :)

 Some of the graduates chose to wear our awesome class shirts!!

 el gorila 

Knock off Garcia's Chimichangas

I was craving Mexican food tonight. Not wimpy American Mexican food, but some good ol' jalapeno, loads of cilantro, and burns your whole mouth Mexican food!! What I really wanted was a spicy pork taco from a taco wagon, but we don't have one within a 100 mile radius. My next choice was a chimichanga with white jalapeno sauce from Garcia's. Unfortunately, we don't have one within a 100 mile radius. I was just not into a late night drive with three young children to get my fix, so I decided to get creative!!! I will try to post what I did, but I tend to just throw things together, so I do not guarantee an exact replica :)

**I cheated on the rice- I just used rice-a-roni Spanish rice.

Chimichanga

Meat Mixture

2lb eye of round steak

5 cloves of fresh garlic, minced

olive oil

1 T. flour

salt, pepper, chili powder

fresh salsa (spicy)

2+ Bell Peppers (I used one green and one yellow. Next time I will probably use 3)

large onion

Saute about 5 cloves of freshly minced garlic in a drizzle of olive oil. Add strips of boneless eye of round steak and begin to saute. Sprinkle approximately 1T of flour over meat and stir. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and chili powder. When meat is browned, but not cooked through, add slices of pepper and onion. Add about 3 T. of fresh salsa (cilantro, tomato, jalapeno, bell peppers, onion, lime juice, etc.) to the meat mixture. Cover and allow to steam with its own juices.

White Sauce

1 1/2 T. butter

2 T. flour

3 cups milk

1 container jalapeno dip (in the sour cream section)

salt, pepper

mozzarella cheese (3/4 cup?)

fresh cilantro

Melt butter in a medium sauce pan. Add flour and create a roux. Stir for approximately 30-45 seconds. Add milk and mix well. Add jalapeno dip and heat through while stirring constantly. Season with salt and pepper to taste. After heated through, almost to boiling, grate mozzarella cheese into the mixture. Continue stirring while cheese melts. Add fresh cilantro.

Spoon meat mixture into center of large tortilla and fold like a burrito. You can toast the tortilla first for crispness if desired. Spoon sauce over the top of folded chimichanga and top with fresh, diced tomato and springs of fresh cilantro. Enjoy!!