Oh productivity!

   This weekend my goal was to get white/wheat bread, english muffins, flatbreads, and flour tortillas made.  As plans go, I ended up sick and Sunday was so exhausted that I got nothing but housework done.  Mondays are our away from home days so Tuesday I played catch up some more and we did "schoolwork".  Toots worked on her numbers, alphabet and following directions, Lisey Bear worked on colors, counting, and matching.  Part of Toots' schoolwork was to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies so we made those late last night, lots of fun and very yummy!
  This morning, I finally got dishes and laundry caught up and got flour tortillas made.  They were a huge hit with the kids and tasted amazing, plus I know what goes into them!  We go through tortillas so fast at our house for burritos, rollups, quesadillas and part of several meals such as tacos, enchiladas, and king ranch casserole so keeping them on hand is my largest issue.  I found that the recipe is for the small tortillas and I really need to triple it to have enough large ones.
   I'm getting ready to put Bub down for a nap and hope to settle the girls down with some quiet time activities so I can get english muffins started and get my bread in the bread machine.  We will see how well it goes.  Thankfully tomorrow is also a stay at home day so I can get a flatbreads and possibly some poptarts done then.    All in all by making this at home with ingredients I always have one hand, I able to save $20-25 on shopping trips, that's a good chunk for me with our $350/month for groceries allotment.  I also made sure to order from www.bountifulbaskets.org this month, that usually holds us over for awhile, whatever we don't use right away, I find out how to freeze and save it.  We have a food saver that has more than paid for itself that makes storing things in the freeze simple and neat.  Almost everything can freeze flat so then we can stack or line up everything to keep it organized and under control.
  At MOPS the other day, a good friend to told us about her Vidalia Chop Wizard and I love the idea of spending less time chopping things up so I'm going to put that on my wishlist for this month so that I'm saving even more time getting things done.
  My to do list for next month includes a trip with the littles to see family so my goal is to get enough things made up and stored away so my love has plenty to eat without him having to eat out or run to the store.  That being said, I have a bunch of freezer meals to put together and hope kids allow me to get them.  Only time will tell.  Any recipes/pictures/cooking experiences are under recipes so please feel free to hop over and see what we've done...You will also be able to find out if I actually got everything made that I need to make today LOL!  Have a great day!  Blessings!

A few diy household items!

 

I typically try to get at least 2-3 loads of laundry done per done when I'm home, with that kind of demand for laundry soap I was beating my head against the wall everytime I had to buy laundry soap!  So I started making it at home, I tried the Duggars recipe that required you to grate laundry soap and discovered I just don't have the time or patience to stand around and grate soap or wait for it to set up overnight.  I tend to procrastinate on making things like this until I just really need them so I wanted something easier.  I found the following recipe and LOVE it, however, I like a thicker consistency and my love tends to use less when it's thicker, something about the thinner it is, the more you feel like you need to use.  That being said, I use this recipe but I use a gallon of water and 3 times the amount of the borax, dawn and washing soda.  You can add scents if you like but I choose not to, one more thing to buy and all that jazz.  I store mine in a large spouted jug from Gain laundry soap that a friend saved for me.  Let me know what you think!
http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2012/02/no-grate-homemade-laundry-soap.html


Also having worked in Childcare for many years, I discovered that you can make baby wipes at home as well, I haven't done it in awhile due to the fact that I just like the thickness of the baby wipes I buy at sams but for those of you that don't mind the recipe is as follows.

1 paper towel roll, cut in half (name brands work best), 2 cups of water, 1 tbsp baby oil, 1 tbsp baby wash.  Mix the water, oil and baby wash together.  Place paper towel in a container that has a lid.  Pour water mix on top of paper towels, making sure to pour into the middle as well.  Let set at least 30 minutes so mixture soaks through the paper towel tube.  After it's set, pull tube out and ta-da!  You have baby wipes!


I have 3 youngsters that tend to stain clothes as well pretty good so I make a homemade oxyclean which consists of 4 cups of water, 2 tbsp hydrogen peroxide and 2 tbsp dawn dish soap.  Stir these together and soak clothes in this overnight.  Sometimes it takes more than one soaking but it works wonderfully!

My love works in a job that typically has his clothes covered in grease and oil, so I've found that chalk takes out grease stains, you just color away and soak and then wash.  I have yet to try this but I've also heard Coke takes oil and fuel out of clothes, makes me wonder what it has in it that makes this happen but who knows!

What have I accomplished with company this week?

Typically with company visiting I get little else done than cooking, cleaning and chasing kids around; however, this week I had two helpers around plus my love.  My wonderful FIL and GrandFIL came for a visit, plus my husband had a two day work week due to holiday, Phoenix Friday and one requested day off.  You see our family lives 3 states away and we rarely see his GF so when he came up for a visit we took time out.  That being said, the kids wanted little to do with me during the visit so I got several things accomplished aside from dishes and laundry!
Yesterday I made homemade Cheezits!  An amazing hit and tasted practically like store boughts- I ran into one slight problem, I think I should've left them in the turned off oven for 30 minutes because they didn't get as hard as they should've but oh well, here's my end result!

Then today I made homemade No Bake Peanut Butter Granola Bars (www.moneysavingmom.com) and froze them to save for later :)  Here's the end result- before I cut them.

It was nice to get some snacks made up and not have all three children clinging to my legs, it was very freeing lol!

How I stay organized...well somewhat

In reality I am a very unorganized person when it comes to my home, put me in a working environment and I'm very particular about where my things go.  At home, I tend to let things go a bit more than I should.  Granted we just moved into a new home in September, so some of our stuff is still packed- mainly stuff that needs to be stored away when our garage is built but it's still neater than our previous house.  It also helps that our basement is not finished yet, when it gets finished, we will have a 6 bedroom, 3 bath home and I can only imagine how I will keep it clean.  My love helps out tremendously, he literally can take an hours time without the kids and I home and when I get back, the home looks wonderful, he's amazing like that!
I wasn't sure where to start so to keep a clean house when we lived in a one bedroom home and it was just myself, my love and Toots but a good friends tuned me into flylady.net and I love it, when I can keep up with it.  Let me set the scene for you...I'm getting all 3 kids loaded into the car to go for a family visit 3 states away.  I've talked my mother who has let me know she may not be home when I get there and to please not mind the mess...anyone who knows my mother, knows that by mess she means that she didn't dust that day or maybe left mail on the table or the end of all ends that there are a few dishes in the sink.  I love my mother with all my heart but she has always had a spotless house and she stayed home with 3 kids until my high school years but I'm still struggling to know how she did it!  Granted my 3 are closer than hers were by just a bit but still!  So when I tell friends please don't mind the mess, I mean, there are dishes out, laundry piles needing folded and TOYS EVERYWHERE!  So flylady helps me stay a bit more on track and I love her short daily missions to declutter your home!

In other areas such as recipes and menu planning I had papers strung throughout the house and could never get it together so I started a Master Book, pictures below.  In my master book, I have my master pantry inventory list, a blank one that helps with making the shopping list and one that is a running inventory so I know what I have on hand at all times.  You may wonder why I need one so I know what I have well...I'm a ketcup queen, I hadn't been keeping an inventory and went to the store, bought my usual 3 bottles of ketcup, along with the rest of my items.  When I arrived home, I unpacked groceries and found that I now had a grand total of 11 bottles of ketchup, far more than I would need for one month!  From then on I made my master list and try very diligently to keep up with it so I don't end up with an abundance of one item and fewer of the ones I use more often.  Also in my Master Book, I have separate tabs for all of my recipes:  Breakfast, Beef, Poultry, Pork, Seafood, Soups, Pasta, Meatless, Sides, Seasonings/Mixes,  Marinades/Condiments, Salads, Breads, Desserts, Snacks, & Menus.  Under each tab I've written recipes that we've liked and use often.  This way when my husband goes to make Apple Pie (and he makes a mean apple pie) he can pull out My Master Book and find the recipe with ease rather than digging through a tiny recipe box or standing there asking himself, "Now which red cookbook is it in?"  Hope this helps, more next time!  Blessings!

How our month looks

I've been adding my menus as well as my recipes that we like and try to use every now and again.  As you may have noticed most of my menus and recipes are simple and inexpensive.  We have a growing family of 5 and everyone likes to eat so I have to make sure we have enough to get us through the month and still stay within my budget.  My budget consists of $550 a month, we live 25 minutes from the nearest town and this budget has to account for groceries, household essentials (Toiletries, cleaning supplies, etc.) as well as my gas for the month.  In order to have enough money left for gas, I have to keep my grocery and households under $350 a month.  It is doable!  I shop at Sam's club and get only items that it makes sense to buy in bulk: frozen chicken breasts (daily chef brand), flour, fresh fruit (usually bananas and grapes-everything else I buy elsewhere), tea bags (Lipton cold brew), once every few months I buy a large bag of shredded cheese either mozzarella or Colby jack and that's it!  That's a typical $40 trip.  Then I move along to the Commissary where I only buy fresh produce that's on sale- it's not always a better deal so I compare prices, I also buy meat here.  There meat is pretty cheap depending on what is the butchers special.  Checkout at under $70 and move along to King Soopers- this is my main shopping place and it takes me FOREVER as I add up everything I spend so I have a grand total before checkout.  I shop ONCE A MONTH and do NOT take kids!  My love watches the kids for me usually a weekday around the 28th.  I refuse to shop on a Saturday or Sunday and will even resort to a late night trip- i.e. after 7pm if I have to.  I usually aim for a total of $200-$225.  That leaves me with $200 in all for gas per month and anything extra I would like to do, usually a McDonald's play date once a month or paying childcare for my MOPS group.  I also make my own snacks and we do simple breakfasts throughout the week.  Weekends we splurge and do muffins, egg breakfast, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, etc.  I buy 6 gallons of whole milk per month and dilute it down, giving me 12 gallons of 2% milk and I freeze it so I'm not running to town to grab milk.  We make our own bread and are getting our garden started this year so this should help as well.  We have wonderful neighbors down the road that sell eggs and I typically buy 4 dozen a month at $2.50/dozen, it's not necessarily cheaper but it's convenient and you can't beat farm fresh eggs.  We also have a wonderful father who butchers a cow for us once a year and so I can save by not buying ground beef which is huge as we use it a lot, however, before he started doing this, I still only spend $30 on beef a month and just divided it up to last us a month.  I have tried to do a sort of couponing but I typically buy generic brands of everything and am not one of those ladies who can spend $40 and come home with a pantry full...maybe someday soon.

Greetings!

Hey all!
Just thought I'd give a quick hello and welcome you to check out my blog.  I've rearranged a few things so if you can't find something, let me know.  Everything is now located under tabs and I'm hoping to get the rest of my menus posted soon.  Hope you all are enjoying your weekend!  Blessings!