What's for Dinner?

I dread this question. I really dislike this question when I have forgotten to thaw the meat, need to go grocery shopping and have a child whining how hungry he is. I don't know about you but I feel like I am constantly thinking about food. I have to plan out a menu, look to see if I have all the ingredients, write the shopping list, drive to the store, pick up the items of the shelf, put them in the cart, take them out of the cart put them on the belt, take the bags and put them in the car, drive home, take the groceries from the car to the kitchen, take the items out of the bag and set them on the counter, take the items from the counter and put them away, take them out later for the meal and use them! I have touched all those items 10 times and haven't even cook anything!

I have kids so I am always watching the time. It's time for breakfast, it's time for snack, it's time for lunch, it's time for snack and now it's time for dinner and I don't have a plan! UGH!!

So I have been working on re-vamping my Household Management Binder (to be reveled soon!) and I knew I need to have a better plan for my dinner menu. I can handle the breakfast and lunch items but dinner needed a plan. I was looking at all the wonderful menu planners out on the web but none of them seem to fit what I was looking for. I was in the mood to scrap so I decided to make my own menu planner. What do you think?

Hot Day Fun!!!

I don't know about where you live but here in IL we need some rain....badly!! With that being said the kids are dying to cool off everyday but we are trying to conserve the water and our water bill!! So thanks to Pinterest (I heart that site) I found a great idea. Water sponge balls!!! They were so easy to make. You just buy some Cello sponges (I bought the package that was 4 to a package), cut them into 4 strips, put 6 strips together (I liked using 2 different colors) and zip tie in the middle. My husband has a great little tool that cuts the zip tie so there is no sharp edge left over and it cuts it clean. I used some dollar store buckets filled with water and put one kid at one end of the yard with a bucket and sponges and the other kid at the other end of the yard with a bucket and sponges. The kids had a blast and got really wet. All we had to do was re-fill their buckets from time to time. We saved on water, money and the kids had a blast!! Thank you Pinterest!

Family Meeting

I am not sure if it is because school is out but my children seem to have forgotten the rules. My husband and I feel like all we have been doing is disciplining and we are tired of hearing each others voices. Trace is now 4 and is in the whiny, screaming when mad, talking back phase. Nathan is in his "I want all the attention and if I don't get it I am going to do bad things to get attention." He also is in the I want to be first all the time,not be nice to my brothers and talking back phase. So we had a family meeting last night and here is what I did. First I took my son's art easel and set it up in our living room with a message on the white board that we would be having a family meeting at 7pm

Let's Remember That Birthday!

Today my youngest son turns 4. I can't believe how fast the time goes by. We have lots of excitement planned out for the day. Over the years I try to write down all the moments and funny things my kids say so I can look back someday and remember. That got me thinking about doing a birthday sheet of questions for the kids. Here is what I came up with.

Strawberry Picking!!!

The kids and I went strawberry picking!!! The strawberries looked great this year. This is the second year I have taken the boys. They really have fun trying to find that perfect strawberry. The great thing about strawberry picking is we get these cute little baskets.

I am already thinking of idea on how I can use these baskets! Maybe for my scrapbooking items, or the boys art items, or maybe in my pantry to hold those lose snacks??? What would you use it for?

Summer Fun and Learning

Well my kids are officially out of school! Time to start our summer fun. This year I have decided to keep things a little more simple. We will of course have our bucket list but our "school" work will be a little more laid back (see our bucket list here). With me in school this summer my time is limited. So I decided to run with a theme each week, read books based on the theme, an arts/craft project, 2 letters of the alphabet a week to practice our writing, one fun activity and maybe a stick from our bucket if it correlates. Here are my themes for the 12 weeks:

Summer Bucket List

The kids and I sat down and made a list of all the thing we want to do this summer and created our summer bucket list. Last year we made a list and checked off the things. This year, thanks to Pinterest I found a great idea with popsicle sticks from The Home Teacher.

Don't forget about those bus drivers!

I wanted to thank Nathans bus driver Kim. She is so sweet,  and always waves at me when she picks up Nate. On the school improvement days when Nathan has AM Kindergarten instead of PM Kindergarten she always makes sure he gets in the house before she pulls away. It also blew my mind that she gave Nathan goodie bags for all the holidays! I never had a bus driver do that when I was younger. So I made her a card and then found this of course on Pinterest!

There are several great printable on this site. Click here for the bus printable. Here is the card I made her. I love it! It started off with just the bus and then my mojo kicked in.

Happy Memorial Day

We have such a great weekend planned out. Tomorrow we are hanging with some great friends of ours to swim and BBQ so I made some quick buckets for the kids. Each bucket cost about $6.00 I have snaps, temporary tattoos, glow sticks, a ring pop, and a pinwheel all wrapped up in a cute bucket. Here is what I started with:

Teacher Gifts

I wanted to find something for my kids teachers that wasn't the typical thank you gift. My husband and I absolutely loved our son's teachers this year! They were wonderful and we wanted them to know it! I found this idea on Pinterest (who doesn't love that site).

So I copied the idea and modified it a bit to add my personal touch. I got most of the items at Walmart and Meijer. Each gift cost about $13.00!! I printed a little note and had the boys sign their name. Here are the supplies I started with.

 

I put it together and thought it needed something refreshing. Water maybe??

Nope....didn't like it. The water was too heavy and I could totally see my boys losing the water bottle and then trying to jam it back in and wreaking the whole gift. While in Meijer grocery shopping I saw these cute little cups....perfect! Here is the final outcome.

All three together

I am happy with the outcome and can't wait to give them to the best teachers!

My One Word - Change (update)

In January I picked one word to be my word for the year. I choose CHANGE. There were several things I wanted to change in my life. One thing I wanted to change was my grade point average. In high school I was for the most part an honor student but always felt I could have done better. After almost 7 months in school I am currently holding a 4.0 GPA!!! Another thing I wanted to change was more "me" time. I have sacrificed for years between family, friends, and life style choices. Now don't hate me when I say this, but I decided to change, and become a little more selfish. I was always trying to help others, and always saying yes to others. This year I took a step back, not that I don't want to help others, or say yes to others, but I think I learned to say "how will this affect you and how will this affect your family." If I found that saying yes meant sacrificing time with my family, or something that I wanted to do on my priority list I have learned to say no. I also wanted to change my diet and exercise. I can say I have made some minor changes but I need some bigger changes to happen there. My relationship with my husband has changed. Changed for the good. I think we have learned to appreciate each other more and we have had some of the best talks. My favorite time is sitting with him on the sofa just talking after we get the kids in bed. We have had so many great talks that I have logged in my memory banks! The biggest change is yet to come (I'm so close to telling).......to be continued!