Rolled flower headband

Bailey and I were working on presents to fill shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child this week and came up with this cute little headband.  It turned out pretty nice so I thought I would share it with you.  It was very easy to do. 

Cut a long strip of fabric about 2 inches wide.  Fold in half lengthwise so it's now 1 inch wide.  Twist and roll into a flower shape, hot gluing as you go.  Then hot glue the finished flower to a headband of your choice.  I used a cheapie one that came from the Dollar Tree.  I also added two smaller flowers on both sides of the larger flower.  I will be making more of these for sure because they are too cute and so easy.  The entire project takes less than ten minutes which makes it a great instant gratification craft.  Here are the results:

Letter of the Week- J

You know the drill.  Here's the J letter of the week roundup.  Enjoy!

Jaguar J

She loves Baby Jaguar from Go Diego Go!

 Jack-O-Lantern:  

We did this while Daddy was home.  Her favorite parts were scooping out the seeds and putting the candles inside.  So much fun!

 Jellyfish

This is one of my favorite crafts that we have ever done.  She painted a paper bowl and then while it dried, she taped various ribbons and yarn to another bowl.  We punched two holes on top of the painted bowl and threaded a string through it so it could be hung.  Then she put the painted bowl on top of the taped bowl and we stapled them together.  She glued on eyes and viola we were done!  So cute.

 Jellyfish tracing page

Diaper Wreath Tutorial

This weekend I had two baby showers that I was invited to.  I wanted to do something different for these ladies rather than just a regular gift.  After searching the internet for lots of different options I decided on a diaper wreath.  It's different than the diaper cake and something that I thought was easy enough to do two of them in the same day.  Bonus, all the supplies, except the diapers, came from the dollar tree.

Here's what I did.  

Supplies:  

20-30 diapers for each wreath.  I used size 1 diapers.

rubber bands

ribbon of your choice

hot glue

wreath form (I used a twig one from $ tree)

embellishments of your choice

scissors

Instructions:

Start with a diaper laying flat.  Roll tightly starting with the open end down to the closed end.  Also make sure the white part of the diaper is on the outside and showing to give it a neater appearance.  Rubber band in the middle and set aside.  Repeat until all your diapers are rolled.  Cut your ribbon to just fit around each diaper roll.  Hot glue the ribbon together around the diaper.  DO NOT hot glue it to the diaper or you will not be able to use the diapers.  Then put some hot glue on the back of the ribbon and attach it to the wreath.  You may have to hold it there for a minute until the glue starts to dry.  Again DO NOT get glue on the diaper if you plan for the mother to use these diapers.  Continue gluing diapers around the wreath.  I found it helpful to add hot glue in between the ribbons as well to make the wreath more sturdy.  After you are finished, add your choice of embellishments:  bows, flowers, stuffed animals, pacifiers, gift card, etc.  Let your imagination run wild.  I also added some ribbon tied around the back of the wreath so it could be hung.  Hope this was clear.

30 Day Challenge Week 4

This is the last week of the 30 day challenge.  I really can't believe that it's already over.  I will do a summary post later in the week so stay tuned for that.  Let's get down to business and see how this week panned out.  

WHAT I BOUGHT: frozen peas, frozen corn, large bag of baby carrots, whole pineapple, 3 heads broccoli, butternut squash, organic whole milk, soy sauce, black beans, large can of tomatoes, strawberries, eggs, organic spinach, bacon, block of sharp cheddar, jumbo yellow onion, butter, whole grain bread, bananas (2.5 lbs)

WHAT I SPENT:
$48.23
$11.70 prior week's meat purchase
$59.93 TOTAL

Over budget:  $9.93 

BOO!!!  This is the first week I have failed but I have some excuses.  Of course I do!  :)  You can say I failed, and technically I did, but here is my argument to, in my mind, still make it a success.  I still have meat left in the fridge:  a whole chicken and 6 porkchops.  Surely that is $9 worth.  Also, the other prior weeks I was under budget so that makes up for some.  I also went to the store with both kids in a time crunch and we were all hungry!  BIG MISTAKE!  If you are trying to stay within a strict budget, do not take your children with you and under no circumstances go hungry.  You will over buy every time.  I was stressed out and trying to get out of the store because Bailey started throwing a fit because I wouldn't buy her princess yogurt.  UGH!  Stupid kiddie marketing right at their eye level!  It was an ugly scene.  Lastly, I got arrogant and didn't take my calculator this week and tally up purchases as I went.  Doing math in my head while trying to reason with a three year old and keeping a baby happy wasn't the easiest thing to do.  Anyway, there are my excuses.  Take them or leave them.  Trying to be honest here people.

WHAT WE ATE:

Breakfasts:  Eggs, bacon, smoothies, homemade yogurt, homemade whole grain pancakes, fruit

Lunches:  leftovers, salads, grilled cheese, peanut butter

Snacks:  carrots, pineapple, bananas, strawberries, grapes (last week's produce), plantain chips, apples


Baby food:  The only new thing he had was butternut squash.


Dinners: 

 Monday
Mini mexican meatloaf with turnips and turnip greens.  This was a new recipe and I enjoyed it.  They had carrots, onions, garlic, and peppers mixed in and had a spicy mexican kick to them.  Not overpowering but good flavor.  The turnips and greens were from my grandma that she had gotten from a family member.






Tuesday
Dinner at my grandparents'.  My dad was in town and we ordered pizza and had a garden salad to go with it.  I ate WAY too much and LOVED every bit of it.  It had bacon on it!  haha

Wednesday
Pineapple porkchops, fried rice, and roasted broccoli.  This was a great meal that everyone enjoyed every bit of it.  The porkchops had chopped up pineapple, honey, ginger and tamari on them.  The rice was "fried" in coconut oil which is a healthy oil and great for your skin.  And roasted broccoli is my favorite way to cook it.  So easy and tasty.

Thursday
Taco soup.  A simple yummo meal that I will share with you later in the week.  I did it on the stove top but you could also do it in the crockpot and even sub chicken for the beef it you want.  You could probably add more veggies and take out the meat all together if you are vegetarian and it would still be good.  Leftovers are excellent too.

 Friday
Butternut squash soup, salad, and grilled cheese sandwich.  This meal was so so.  Not something I would make regularly but it was a good change of pace from our regular stuff.  Plus it was cheap.  Winter squash is is season and extremely cheap right now.  Eli chowed on some squash too.

Saturday
Salad leftover from a baby shower that I helped with.  Ken and I ate this.  Bailey ate some peanut butter and fruit.










Sunday
Leftovers.  We had a lot.  Soups, salads, and fruit to eat up.

Letter of the Week- I

It was a short week.  We didn't get to everything we wanted, but we still did some really fun stuff.

I is for...

 

Insects:  

I printed off various insect clipart and cut them out.  She dipped a fork in green paint to make grass and then glued on the insects.

 Then we headed outside to discover real insects with our magnifying glass.

 Ice cream:  

This really needs no explanation.  It was just plain good. :)

Iguana

She called her Isa the Iguana like on Dora the Explorer.

30 Day Challenge- Week 3

I don't have pictures of my receipts.  I can't find them.  Sorry folks. 

What I bought

romaine lettuce, baby bella mushrooms, yellow pepper, green pepper, gallon organic milk, cheddar cheese, bacon, purple cabbage, 2 apples, strawberries, natural peanut butter, green olives, black olives, kalamata olives, carrots, red grapes, 7 bananas, frozen strawberries, eggs, garlic bulb

14.77 Goeke produce
23.09 Schnucks
37.86 Total spent
11.70 prior meat purchase
49.56 TOTAL


This week I got a TON of produce and most of it was locally grown, which I love!  I always forget about a little store close to my house, Goeke Produce.  I was reminded by a friend this week that their prices were great so I thought I would check it out.  They were right!  I got probably double this week what I normally get in produce because of the great prices.  Some of my wonderful finds were baby bella mushrooms for .50, 2 peppers for .50, locally grown apples for .89/lb, .29 for garlic.  I would have gotten more but I knew it would be wasted since we were going to be out of town on the weekend.  I'll definitely be going back next week though.  Schnucks also has some good sales this week as well.  Bacon was $2.50, carrots $1.00, olives and natural peanut butter on sale also.  I hardly ever use coupons because they rarely ever have them for produce so I highly depend on sale items to stock my pantry and fridge. 

What we ate

Breakfasts:  pumpkin muffins, eggs, bacon, scratch pancakes, smoothies

Lunches:  leftovers, salads

Snacks:  peanut butter,  strawberries, grapes, cheese, bananas, plantain chips, raisins

Baby food:  avocado, apples, bananas

Dinners:

 Monday
Tacos with homemade whole grain tortillas and homemade taco seasoning, lettuce, salsa, cheese, and avocado.  What's not to like about tacos?  One of my favorite meals!

 Tuesday
Tapenade porkchops, greens and carrots.  I really liked this meal.  Filling, different, and easy.

Wednesday
Quick stir fry with purple cabbage, peppers, mushrooms, cauliflower, chicken from the freezer and garlic and tamari.  It looks unappetizing and it was.  I choked down a plateful, took Ken his to church and he only ate a few bites.  Bailey wouldn't touch it.  We had a punch card for a free Little Ceasar's pizza and picked up one on the way home.  Bad I know. 





Thursday
Leftover porkchops for Ken and me, scratch pancakes and eggs for Bailey


Friday-Sunday
On the road for a wedding.  The only meal we ate at home was breakfast Friday morning.

Tapenade porkchops

This is yet another meal that falls into that cheap, easy, and quick category that I love.  I was headed to Bible study this particular night, started cooking at 5:00pm, got everything in the oven or stovetop within ten minutes, got a shower while it was in the oven, ate dinner, fed the baby, and was headed out the door by a little after 6:00pm.  Not too shabby.  This was a part of my 30 Day Grocery Challenge and I had bought meat in bulk so I had a ton of porkchops in the freezer.  To the intererwebz I went searching for different ways to cook porkchops and found this recipe for tapenade porkchops.  I'm not a huge olive fan but my hubby likes them so I thought we would give it a shot.  Olives happened to be on sale this week so it made the cut for the meal plan.  I was pleasantly surprised with the taste,  and the ease of preparation as well as the fast cook time made this a winner in my book.  The only thing different I did than the original recipe was sub apple cider vinegar and rice vinegar for the balsamic because I didn't have any and didn't have any extra in the budget to buy some.  I also used stone ground mustard instead of dijon, again because it's what I had on hand.  It still tasted great.  This might even work as a freezer meal as well.  If I try it, I'll let you know. This was served with collard greens and honey glazed carrots.


Tapenade porkchops
Adapted from For the Love of Cooking


Tapenade

• 1/2 cup of kalamata olives
• 1/2 cup of green olives with pimentos
• 1/4 cup of black olives
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar (I used cider vinegar and seasoned rice vinegar: still yum)
  

Chop all olives fine.  Add garlic, oil and vinegar.  Stir well to combine and refrigerate.


Porkchops

• 1/2 cup of tapenade  (I used entire mixture because I had more chops)
  
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard (I used stone ground and it was still tasty)
  
• 4 bone in pork chops ( I cooked 6 porkchops)
  
• freshly cracked pepper, to taste

Preheat the broiler to high, with rack in the top position. Line a baking sheet with tin foil to make clean up easier.

Mix the tapenade and mustard in a small bowl. Season the pork chops with freshly cracked pepper, to taste then coat each side of the pork chops with the tapenade evenly and lightly press the mixture onto the chops so it stays in place. Place the pork chops on the baking sheet.

Broil pork chops, until evenly browned for 4 minutes then flip over and cook for another 4 minutes or until the pork chop is cooked through. Remove from the broiler and let the meat rest for at least 5 minutes prior to serving.   Oven times may vary so watch your porkchops closely.

Letter of the Week: H

Here are our H letter of the week crafts and activities.  Hopefully you can take something from these ideas and do them with your kiddos.  It really only takes minimal time out of the day and adds a whole lot of fun!

 Hippo hand puppet

 

 Memory verse decorated with hearts.  Not the cutest but she loved it.  :)

 HAIR!  My favorite of the week.  We watched Tangled and then made some long hair out of yarn that we had on hand.  She danced around admiring her Rapunzel hair forever.  Too much fun!

 Tracing page.  Sorry it's sideways.  :(

House H

30 Day Challenge- Week 2

I'm not gonna lie, this week was hard.  It took an extreme amount of planning, but was still doable.  The upcoming weeks are going to be even more difficult because my pantry and freezer are just about EMPTY except for the meat that I bought last week to last the next three weeks.  Since $11.70 is already spent for the week reflecting the meat purchase, I had $38.30 to spend to total my $50 budget.  Here's what I bought:

Bag of spinach with shredded carrots, 5 bananas, green pepper, red pepper, 2 nectarines, 5 sweet potatoes, organic eggs, bacon, organic milk, pinto beans, red beans, tomatoes with chilis, avocado, mushrooms, string cheese
Total spent:  $36.42.  
Under budget:  $1.88

Breakfasts:  eggs, bacon, sausage (from freezer), yogurt (homemade), fruit, smoothies with fruit from freezer, made from scratch pancakes

Lunches:  leftovers, salads, egg salad

Snacks:  string cheese, bananas, almond butter (pantry), strawberries(left from last week), nectarines, graham crackers (pantry), apples (fridge from few weeks ago), plantain chips (pantry)

Baby food:  apples, bananas, sweet potatoes

Dinners:

 Monday
Sausage(on hand), red pepper, sweet potatoes, onion (pantry), mushroom roasted in the oven with spinach and romaine salad on the side

 Tuesday
Chicken soup with celery (fridge from weeks ago), chicken, spinach with shredded carrots, onions (pantry), small amount of frozen peas (freezer), oregano, s&p.  This was made from a whole chicken that I boiled to get the broth and the meat.

I saved a little broth for a meal later in the week and I saved some chicken for salads later in the week too.




Wednesday:  Church potluck:  I brought a big pot of chili. (not pictured...sorry I was in a big hurry and forgot)   Ingredients:  ground beef, onions (pantry), red beans, pinto beans, tomatoes (pantry), tomatoes with chilis, half green pepper, spices, water

 Thursday
Pork chops with mushrooms and onions, mashed sweet potatoes and sauted frozen green beans(freezer)











Friday:  Ate at my grandparents' and had ham and beans and boiled cabbage

 Saturday:  Food was getting low.  I had planned on eating our leftover chili over some sprouted grain pasta that I had left in our pantry but the chili got left out at church and we forgot it overnight.  I could have cried.  Our pantry and freezer were almost depleted of food.  This is what I came up with.  Burgers from ground beef out of the freezer.  Buns homemade from whole wheat flour, yeast, butter and water that I had in the pantry.  Collard greens from a bag in the freezer and thawed mixed berries from the freezer.






Sunday:  We had a gift certificate for Pironne's, a local pizza joint, so for lunch we had pizza and salad.  Dinner was leftover pizza, salad from home, and Ken had a leftover burger from Saturday.

I'm in trouble

My kids are so sweet together and are already giving me a run for my money.  They love playing together.  Bailey adores making her little brother laugh and Eli is just smitten with his big sister.  I'm sure the next few years are going to bring even more crazy days as they grow and get into more mischief.  Here are some fun pictures from the week.

 Bailey flying Eli like an airplane and Eli LOVING it!

 Jumping on the bed.  One of their most favorite things to do together.

 HUGS

 We all fall down...

 I was hanging up some clean clothes and put Eli in his crib.  I turn around and Bailey had climbed in with him.  They were having a great time.  Oy!

Ummm...don't think you're supposed to sit like this in a bouncer buddy.

 

Look at that face though.  Such a charmer!

30 Day Challenge: Week 1

My 30 day grocery challenge has begun.  This week was a success but definitely required planning.  Usually I just make a meal plan depending on what I feel like eating.  This week I had to go a step further and made my meal plan around what I had in my freezer and pantry already as well as what was on sale at the store.  I also went to the store with $50 cash which helped tremendously.  This week I'm sure will be the easiest of the weeks because I relied heavily on items that I already had.  Now that the week is over my freezer is pretty much empty and I am out of most of my staples like olive oil, salad dressings, etc.  It's going to get interesting the next three weeks.  Here's what I bought and what I spent this week.

BOUGHT:  kale, romaine lettuce, eggs, organic whole milk, mozzarella cheese, bacon, carrots, strawberries, blueberries, garlic, cantaloupe, bananas, diced tomatoes

SPENT:  $29.98
It was actually really funny because I was tallying up my total as I went throught the store.  I thought I had over spent so I started putting stuff back and getting cheaper produce.  For example, I put back the large container of strawberries and got the small instead and a cantaloupe instead because it was cheaper and I thought it would go further.  Then I get to the register and majorly overcompensated because I still had $20.02 to spend. 

 So Friday I went to Sam's and spent the rest of the $20 and then some.  I bought a large container of strawberries, pork chops, ground beef, and 2 whole chickens.  Hang with me non-math majors.  This might get a bit confusing.  I spent $55.13 at Sam's.  I still had $20.02 left to spend for the week so I subtracted that off to leave a total of $35.11.  I plan to make this meat stretch the remainder of the 30 day challenge, so 3 more weeks.  I divided $35.11 by 3(weeks) to reflect this, which is $11.70.  This amount will be automatically docked from the next 3 weeks bills, leaving me with $38.30 to spend in the upcoming weeks.  Ouch!  

WHAT WE ATE


Monday
B:  eggs, bacon, yogurt, leftover pancake (We didn't all eat all of this.  This is what everyone ate)
L:  shrimp stir fry (garbage meal):  All my leftover produce that I was going to have to throw in the garbage I made into a quick stir fry.  I also had about a 1/2 lb frozen wild caught shrimp that I had gotten on sale for 7.99/2lb a few weeks ago. It was originally a $20 bag.  After I stir fried the veg and shrimp, I then added some garlic and wheat free soy sauce.

D:  leftover soup from the weekend
(white chicken chili)
dessert:  almond butter cookies:  experimental and not too great (almond butter, stevia, egg)





Tuesday
B: yogurt with fruit
L: (Ken) leftover white chili; cantaloupe (Tara) spinach salad w/chicken and pine nuts (Bailey) soup, cantaloupe, milk
D:  homemade pizza: Whole wheat dough ball in freezer, homemade sauce from here, peppers, sausage, mushrooms, and spinach







Wednesday
B:  bacon, fruit smoothie
L:  leftover pizza, salad with homemade dressing, egg salad
D:  kale and white bean soup
   White beans were in the freezer from a bag that I had made the week prior when I had white chicken chili.  Broth was from the week prior when I had boiled chicken and bones to make broth. 






Thursday
B fruit smoothies  (Eli had mashed up banana)
L leftover soup; Ken ate with the Joy club @ church
D:  grandparents’  beef stew and Greek salad

Friday
B:  sausage, cantaloupe, eggs  (banana for Eli)
L:  leftover soup
D:  bacon, eggs (no picture)

Saturday
B:  eggs and sausage, yogurt, fruit
L:  church potluck ( I was bad and brought free Little Ceasar's and rice krispy treats since I had all the ingredients and it wouldn't cost me anything)
D:  leftover potluck food

Sunday
B:  breakfast @ church
L:  catered lunch @ church for 45th anniversary of our church
D:  buffalo chicken salads









Snacks: bananas, strawberries, blueberries, almond butter, cheese, graham crackers, cantaloupe 

Letter of the Week: G

Another week here and gone.  It was a bit of a slow week this week because Bailey wasn't feeling the best.  We still had some fun "G" activities to share with you though .  Enjoy!

Girl G

Gorilla in the jungle:  I was really proud of this one because she did most of it completely by herself.  We used a cookie cutter dipped in brown paint for the gorilla. She started to paint it in and then decided she didn't want to.  Then she added trees and grass to make the jungle.  She even used scissors all by herself.  I helped her spell gorilla with foam stick on letters and that's about all I did.  Ignore the random dinosaur in there.  haha  Not sure what that's about. 

 Bible lesson and activity:  Goliath the giant.  We talked about the story and then made our Goliath.  We found 5 stones outside like David did and tried to throw them at Goliath's head.  It was a lot of fun.

Eli showing Goliath who's boss.  It was quite the showdown.

Garden sensory box.  Rice, macaroni, leftover seeds, fake flowers from my wedding, watering can, plastic shovels...hours of fun