Freezer Friday

Usually on Friday this post will be about what I am adding to the freezer or about what I am planning to get into the freezer. But this month I am trying not to add to the freezer but use it up, so here are some of the meals this week we have enjoyed out of the freezer.

Taco Kits - My daughter told me I cheated with dinner on this one as I walked in the house, into the kitchen and 5 minutes later called everyone for dinner. A taco kit has cooked and seasoned ground beef, cheese , and soft taco shells all in there own bags, place all three things in one large zip lock, and freeze. To make place in fridge in morning ( if you remember), at dinner time heat up the meat, chop some lettuce and tomato, pull out the taco sauce and enjoy. Faster and cheaper then fast food.

Honey Chicken - par- grilled chicken breasts , drizzled with honey and brown sugar freeze. To cook add one can of pineapple and heat. Serve with rice.

Chicken Enchiladas   - used the recipe from here with a few changes for the kids taste buds-Grilled Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas , heat in oven and serve.

 Quiche- this I freeze the parts, in a kit goes 2 pie crusts, cheese, taco meat ( this time we used leftover ham and saved the taco meat for another meal). Pull out add eggs and milk and cook.

And tonight we are having quick chicken soup, using grilled cubed chicken, chicken broth, and veggies, all from the freezer.

Here is another site with some other idea's for freezing food for Christmas :Freezer Friday at Thriving Mama

Thrifty Thursday

I found this idea on another blog and thought it a great idea starter for Thursday's blog entries, thrifty ideas that our family uses to make the budget stretch.

Today's thrifty ideas are all about weekday lunches, right now I am making 5 packed lunches and 2 of us eat at home on weekdays. Lunches for the two of us at home Aidan and myself are easy and can be summed up in one word " Leftovers".

The other lunches are packed and require a bit more thought, I used to pack mostly leftovers for my husband for lunches but that wasn't working out well as it never failed the day he had leftovers that needed to be heated he would be on the road. Which meant that instead of his packed lunch he ended up eating out, so now I might send leftovers but mostly he gets the same packed lunch as the kids.

Packing lunches does require some up-front costs, but they are mostly one time purchases that can be done with in budget limits. We also live in a area were allot of kids pack lunches, so it is not un-cool for a middle school or high school child to pack a lunch.

1- Lunches boxes, bags - Every time I go to the thrift store I check out the area were they have the lunch boxes looking for ones in good shape, size that I need, and colors that will work ( the boys really don't like pink lunch boxes). Over time we have enough lunch boxes for everyone and a couple extra for those times lunch boxes get left in school or at work. We used to use brown paper bags but have found that paper bags are best left in the craft closet for puppet making.

2- Food containers-  I bought the sandwich sized containers during back to school sales for 50 cents each, two per lunch that is usually packed. I also have a supply of the small round 1/2 cup size containers, and some larger square containers. I also want to get some hot food containers so I just keep on looking at the thrift store and clearance racks to see if there are any there.

3- Drinks- I used to do the whole juice box thing and if I bought the cheap ones they were mostly sugar, and the all juice ones were costly, so this year I bought them all small metal water bottles. They can choose what to put in them usually water and sometimes juice.

4- Utensils- I buy plastic forks and spoons and the kids know to put them back into the their lunch bags and we wash them and re-use. But if for some reason they get tossed or broken not a big deal.

Next week on Thrifty Thursday what to pack in those lunch boxes.

Eating Out of the Pantry

This month we are eating most of our meals out of the freezer and pantry, for two reasons to use up what we have to make room for the big re-stock shopping in Jan/Feb and to allow the extra food budget funds to be spent on Christmas.

So in order to do this I had to inventory the freezer and pantry to see what we have in the way of food and how was I going to turn what is there into meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I did get the freezer done and made a list of meals, tomorrow I am going through the upstairs pantry as I try to find fun ways to use up all the odds and ends hiding in there. I did do one small for me shopping trip already and it should be all that is needed for food for December except for milk, bread, eggs, a turkey ( Don's request for Christmas dinner )and some Christmas treats.

So the goal this month is to only spend 300 dollars on food and have 200 that I can use for Christmas.

The Season has begun

Christmas in a large family, is fun, loud, and can be done within the limits of a budget.  One of the things that we did was to start traditions that the children look forward to, so that it is not all about will we get as gifts.

We start off our season by the attending our town’s winter parade, then we find time to head out for a tree. We get our tree from a local place that is great experience, you head out to chop down your tree and then your picture is taken and have hot coco and cookies before heading home. We fill the month with Christmas plays, caroling , baking cookies, and making crafts.

On Christmas Eve after church service we come home and have ice cream sundeas with all the different toppings and each child opens a pair of new pj’s, and we have a new family movie to watch that night. Then on Christmas since we are home all day we have a PJ day, yes we eat our Christmas Dinner in our PJ’s something that the kids think is funny.  We use the nice dishes, and have a wonderful dinner while wearing our pj’s. I do ask that they at least brush their teeth and hair.

And what about presents, we have a plan that we try to follow.  When the children were younger and we as parents had yet to learn some important lessons we went overboard. Our budget suffered, my housekeeping suffered (If each kid had 10 gifts that was 50 new things to care for), and the children had a bad case of the gimmies.  Our plan after learning these lessons  is one gift from daddy ( which is the big gift) sometimes it is a toy, usually something useful . In the past it has been cd-players, new bedding, something that we have noticed that the children need, that costs more than the 15 dollar birthday limit.

Then there is the gift from mommy usually something I have made them, or sometimes a fun toy that I am willing to live with. And then there is there box of books, we have a penguin book warehouse sale that I get books for pennies on the dollar each November. The kids also have a stocking that has small gifts that I have bought though out the year.

This plan keeps me from over buying, the house from overflowing, and the children enjoy the season.

Welcome

This is a new blog for me but not the first one I have had two others one on homeschoolblogger but when we sent the children to school I didn't feel that I should continue blogging there, I also have a blog on xanga but felt that it was time for a new platform and the first joint blog with my husband. So that brings us to blogger, and our new blog named What's One More.

That is how we ended up with our 6 children Pat-19 in college, Sarah -17 in high school, Conner 14, and Nolan 12 in middle school and Kathryn 10, and Aidan -4 in elementary. The youngest would get older and I would ask Don " What's one More ?", his answer wasn't always the one I wanted to hear but most of the time we added just one more.

That has also applied to pets we are the owners of 2 dogs, 2 cats, 3 hermit crabs, 8 fish ( I think they wouldn't stay still to be counted), all who have joined our family by one or more children asking what is one more ( insert dog, cat, fish, other small animal). We have also had many other small animals over the years that are no longer with us, we have sadly gotten quite good at pet burials.

The idea of What's One More also applies to friends, there has been many a time when a extra plate has been added to dinner, another sleeping bag added to a bedroom floor, or another friend picked up for church.

This blog is going to be about our daily life here, how do we manage it all, feed them all, stay on the budget ( as much as I dislike What's One More applies more to bills then income ), and not go crazy. Both my husband and I will be writing entries, so please stop by and visit us here on the web.

If you would like to know a bit more about us, check out our xanga blog as I work on adding more here to blogger over the weekend. www.xanga.com/midge8

Owl Study Outline

Owls - 8 weeks long 1x per week about 30-45 mintues

1. Intro to owls - using libaray books and
http://www.abcteach.com/free/r/rc_owls_upperelem.pdf - for the older kids 4th and up
http://www.abcteach.com/free/b/birdnotebook.pdf - the younger kids

2.Food Webs - what they are and make a poster

3. Pellets -( and start the workbook that goes with it)
http://www.pellet.com/view_product.aspx?categoryID=1&subcategoryID=4

4.skelton's - glue to paper

5. more time for skelton's and learn about what the owl ate.

6. Movie - Owl Cam the hidden world ( Netflix)

7. Owl report ( each child will get a different owl and do a short report with 5 facts about there owl)

8. Spare week for catch up if needed

More then one blog and summer plans

It's funny I actually  have 3 blogs right now but they all are about different things. This one I haven't been blogging much on as we really are now after school and summer school at home family and I feel odd blogging here about other things. So I will be sharing some of the things we are doing for education this summer here, while my xanga blog is more about day to day life, and being a stay at home mom. And then my blogspot one is just for my family to cover summer  activites.

So on that note what are your educational plans for the Summer ?

We are doing a hour of math a day, then we also have a craft once a week , plus we are doing a study on Owls, and Astromony oh and a study on the Greeks. I will list how we are going to be doing those later this week end. I really look forward to learning with the kids during the summer, just right dh feels that our small country school is were the kids belong.