So yesterday I was browsing through the photos my Flickr contacts had uploaded recently, and I came across this one from mypapercrane. The idea for the cake came from all of the rainbow cupcakes that have been posted at the Bake! Bake! Bake! LiveJournal community. I promptly went to LJ community and was in awe of the gorgeous rainbow cupcakes people were making. As most of you who read this will know, I love rainbows. I decided I had to try this out for myself. When Colin went to get groceries today (I stayed home because I was cleaning), I had him pick up cupcake supplies. I spent 2-3 hours today baking these cupcakes.

For my first time doing this, I think they turned out pretty awesome! I made up my cake batter and separated it into seven containers. I added food coloring to each container. My purple turned out kind of weird because I mixed blue and purple. I later found real, plain purple that I used for the frosting. I was worried I had filled the cupcake liners too full, but I had to get each of the seven colors in there. I didn’t want to wait for the cupcakes to cool and then make another dozen, so I just used my new star mini cake pan I bought yesterday and used the remaining cake batter to make little mini star cakes.

A couple of the star tips broke off. The orange star is pretty mangled, but they are still cute and colorful all the same. I was also worried that when I cut a cupcake in half I would get a mixed up mess, but it looks so cool!!

These were so much fun to make! I definitely see myself making more of these in the future! I have lots more pictures on my Flickr account if you’d like to see more rainbow cupcake-ness!

Oh yeah, I got an awesome new quilt for the bed yesterday at Target. It’s so rainbowy! I got matching pillow cases, pillow shams, and a throw pillow too. It definitely brightens up the bedroom!

April has started off rather wet here in Western Kentucky. As I type this, it is pretty much pouring down rain here and thundering. Yucky.

I have been kind of “absent” from the online world for the past several days (maybe even longer?). I’ve just been really busy at work, and when I get home I haven’t much felt like getting online really. The time just seems to fly by these days. Last Friday night I started feeling a little sick, and Saturday I work up and ended up having diarrhea all day (TMI, I know). That whole weekend was pretty much ruined. I was fine by Monday though. It was a 24 hour thing I guess.

This whole week I have been teaching the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders how to use Microsoft PowerPoint. Pretty much none of them have really used it before. I didn’t get a chance to do PowerPoint last year due to all the testing I had to do (way more than I do now). I wanted to make the assignment as easy as possible for everyone. Each grade has to do as many slides as the grade level they are in. (5th grade does 5 slides, 4th grade- 4 slides, 3rd- 3 slides) Except, they all also have to do a title slide in addition to their number of slides. Here’s what each class is working on:

5th Grade: Sense Poetry - Each student had to choose an emotion word (sadness, happiness, jealousy, anger, etc.) and then they had to write a sentence about their emotion word for each of the five senses. For example, if they chose ‘happiness’ they might say, “Happiness tastes like a warm, gooey chocolate chip cookie my grandma made me.”

4th Grade: Fun for all Seasons - For each of the four seasons, they have to write what they like about or like to do during that season. I tried to make this as simple as possible for them because the 4th grade group is the roughest group in the school.

3rd Grade: Favorite Holidays - Each student picks their three favorite holidays and tells why they like that particular holiday.

The kids are really doing great with it and seem to be enjoying it a lot. I did some really pimped up versions of their assignments. I added transitions and sound and cool backgrounds and everything to get them excited about it. My plan worked. They can’t wait to add all of the clipart and things. I’m making them type everything first and making them keep everything boring old black and white until they finish their typing. I can’t wait to see what they all come up with!

I showed 1st and 2nd grade this really cool website I found called Kerpoof. It’s similar to the software we have called KidPix, but this is WAY more user friendly for younger kids. My first graders really struggle with KidPix, but love Kerpoof! It is fun! I created an account on there myself. The best thing is- it is super kid friendly, and there’s no advertising. You can make drawings, pictures, stories, movies, and cards on there. Try it out! It’s fun to make things!

I also found another cool website called Glogster. I haven’t actually tried it out myself yet, but it looks really neat. Basically, you can create digital collages or posters. You can add interactive things to you posters as well, and they have tons of stuff on their site you can add to your creation. It’s pretty nifty! I’ve found a lot of other neat sites while at work this week and last week too, and I’ll share some more later.

I taught Kindergarten how to play Sebran. Sebran is a free game I downloaded. It’s great and has lots of mini-games that make it up. Kids of all ages love this game. There’s math parts (adding, subtracting, multiplying), memory matching games, hangman, and a great set of games called “rain” games where letters or numbers fall down the screen. This is GREAT for helping little ones learn where they keys are at on the keyboard. If you have a small child, I’d recommend this for them. Most of the activities are geared for say K-2, but my older kids love it too.

I am so behind on reading everyone’s blogs! I also haven’t been ab;e to really return comments lately. Sorry! I also owe a few people snail mail letters. Hopefully I can catch up on things next week during my spring break (yay!). I will also be updating my site next week. I need to upgrade to WordPress 2.5 and I think I’m going to be making some changes to the layout and/or adding more content.

Oh, one of the teachers at school was collecting money for Relay for Life. She said our principal agreed that if we we donated $5.00 we could wear jeans all week (this week). I donated right away!

I leave you with this bracelet I made my mom for Easter. I love it! I want to make myself one. It’s made of acrylic and glass beads, silver stars, and sterling silver.