School Lunch Idea’s

LUNCH:

From Jon and Kate plus 8, Kate has a special lunch format:

Five components: Some sort of sandwich of their choice, a yogurt or a cheese stick, something crunchy like crackers or popcorn, a piece of whatever fruit’s in season, and a treat.

Sandwich Thoughts: Cream Cheese roll up, Ham and Cheese, Turkey and cheese, PBJ (where allowed),bagel with cream cheese

Also instead of using “normal bread” can use flatout bread or bagels.

Dairy Choice: yogurt tube or cup or parfait style, cheese sticks or cube’s or slices or shapes.

Crunchy: crackers, popcorn, goldfish, sunchips

Fruit: (my kid’s fav) pineapple, banana’s, grapes, blueberrys, orange, tangerine, or even swap out for a veggie

Desert: Banana Nut bread/muffin, oatmeal cookies, oatmeal choc cookies, or pudding cup.

I would like to add more to my idea’s I would also like to have a lunch menu with pictures to help the kid’s choose some of their food.  I am also thinking things like bento boxes and themed lunch’s would be fun for the kid’s and myself.

Menu Plan Monday

Menu Plan Monday, yep it’s here already.  Last week seemed to have flown by, and now it’s back and I have to plan out more meals.  So here it goes..

M: Chicken Fajita’s(for my house this is pre-made meat from Schwans man, mexican cheese all in tortilla’s)

T:Meat loaf and potatoes (both white and sweet)

W: leftovers/do it yourself

TH:  Burger’s (on the grill of coarse!!) with grilled potatoes

F:  BBQ PIZZA!!!  (we might even have a pizza party!!)

S: cheesy chicken casserole

I am hoping that we follow this plan this week, as to save us money from eating out and also to get some healthier food in my family’s tummy’s.  I tried my best to keep most of this on the grill so that we don’t have to heat up the house. Wish me luck!!

WFMW: End of the year Gifts!

This was my daughters first year of school, preschool.  She is somewhat sad that she will not be going on to kindergarden with most of her classmates and will also miss her teachers.  I decided to help her along with missing her friends she could give all her friends (14) a big brown bag each full of little gifts.

In each bag: muffin tin crayons (more on these soon), ziplock snack size container of glitter play dough, heart shaped bracelet and ring, and some bubbles.  Along with a gift tag which will have H’s phone number and family email address, and an invite for the whole class to meet at a local park mid-summer for a large play date!!

Saying good bye is hard, but hopefully with all these special things it won’t be so bad for H.

Glitter Play dough Recipe

Not ME!! Monday!

Not me Monday is a great way to NOT admit all those things you don’t want the neighbor’s to know about!!

My children always sleep through the night perfectly, my four year old would NEVER wake me up4!! yes 4!! times throughout the night just to tuck her back in cuz she woke up.  In which case this would not make me extremly over tired and cause me to be very cranky no NOT ME!!  Since I wasn’t over tired I would NEVER allow the five month old to push his bottle out of my hand only to spill all over the bedroom floor!  Even if I did do something like that I would certainly run to clean it up immediatly!!  I would not toss a towel on it and hope it collected everything only to find a terrible smell in my room when it was time to go to bed. EWW!!  Furthmore through the day since I was so well rested I would not have an attitude with the world, snapping at my husband and children over little things.  No, Not me, I would NEVER do these things!!!

God willing tomorrow will be a better day!!

Menu Plan Monday

Okay, way overtired and trying to keep the budget in check so here it goes….

Monday: BBQ Beef sandwiches (this is cuz I don’t cook pork) with french fries… hmm should have a veggie but probably not

Tuesday: Steak (took out of freezer tonight) baby roasted potatoes (will come out of freezer tomorrow night) and pea’s and corn

Wendesday: LEFTOVERS

Thursday: Chicken Pot pie (from my freezer cooking two months ago)

Friday: homemade pizza

Saturday: Turkey Dinner (like thanksgiving) turkey, crescents, steamed mixed veggies, mashed potatoes, and pumkin pie

Sunday: NOT IT!!!! lol I will not be cooking so either eating out, ordering out, or eating at family’s house

For plenty of other great menu plan ideas check out OrgJunkie’s MPM

Unseen Separation

Well I like plenty of other American’s have a mood disorder, and every so often it affects my everyday life.  No one around me can tell but emotionally I am simply vacant and unable to take occupants.  I don’t stop loving my husband, children, family, or friends.  I simply just shut down for a few days, my body goes on auto-pilot and no one really knows what is going on with me.  But I do know there is something wrong, sometimes I tell my husband but the poor man has no idea what to do or say to me.  Just for me to share this with anyone is extremely hard because it means I have to reach out to people and for some reason my brain tells me this is not okay.  I often wonder (because there are people who want me to open up to them) what people would say if I told them all this?? I know I wouldn’t know what to say to someone who said all this to me.  Any thoughts???

Menu Plan Monday-family challenge no eating out this week

My dinners for the week will be as follows:

Monday: Sweet and Sour Chicken, veggie stir fry, and rice

Tuesday: Baked Ziti, Sweet Peas, Bread

Wednesday: Nachos

Thursday: BBQ Chicken, Steamed Broccoli, Alfredo

Friday: Turkey, mashed potatoes, steamed carrots and broccoli

Saturday: Popcorn chicken, french fries, and corn

Sunday: Family Birthday Party…. yea!!! I don’t have to cook!! lol

and here are the lunches….

Monday: Hot Dogs

Tuesday: PBJ, fruit, popcorn

Wednesday: leftovers

Thursday: mac and cheese

Friday: Mini Pizzas

Saturday: leftovers

Sunday: PBJ’s

We are not big on eating leftovers so I plan them for lunches as we can pick what we want to go with them or which ones we want. It has been a long while since I did a MPM but really when I don’t plan ahead I find that we end up eating a ton of frozen food, or eating out a lot both of which are not affordable. We need to tighten up our belt straps a bit and find some small ways to save more money. Right now I am trying my very best to not eat out for the whole week, and for our family that is a very big challenge!!

Frugal Fun: Kid’s Bowl Free-ALL SUMMER!!

I was super excited about the kids bowl free program last year, and GREAT NEWS- it’s back again this year.  Registration opens March 23, 2010 and you can sign on the website for them to email you a reminder.  Also last year’s program gave you the ability to add the parents on for the whole summer for about $30 or $35 dollars.  Great family activity to keep everyone having fun and cool in the nice air conditioning!!

My Husband Rocks Friday!!

So before I tell you all about why my husband rocks this Friday first I have to start with an explanation- so you can really get why he rocks.  Two years ago my DH (which does mean dear and not the other word some of you may be thinking) bought me my own laptop so at night we could sit together and watch T.V. and play on our laptops (he already had one he sat on at night) I was hiding out in our room (where the normal computer was at the time) and both because he knew I really wanted a laptop and because he wanted to spend more time with me he bought me a laptop.  I was super excited and happy.  Well about six months later my not knowing better I killed the laptop, I left it sitting on the couch and it got too hot (did I mention it was July!!) and it fried to death.  Shortly after he did buy another laptop to let me use- intending to resell it for extra cash, I broke that one the same way.  At thus point it was explained to me what I was doing to these laptops and I felt terrible I wasted so much money on these machines and I broke them due to carelessness.  So for a while I did without a laptop (mind you we still have the desktop.)  Well this past summer while i was pregnant and he was at his dad’s house his brother got a new laptop and DH brought me home the old one to keep.  He recently mentioned selling my used laptop for extra cash since we didn’t need two, I reluctantly agreed.  So today he sold my laptop, he left for a while do to a computer job and came home with a laptop that he bought brand new just for me!!  As I speak to all of you I am typing away on my new laptop which I solemnly sweat to never set on the couch!!  Hunny I love you— and you ROCK as a husband!!!

Super Saturday? Maybe.

So it’s been a while since ya’ll have heard from me, my house has been sick–countinually. First everyone had this bad cold that turned into upper respiratory infections. Then we all got better, thank GOD, and then we went to a fast food play place to go play and the next day starting with the 2 year old boy we all got the flu. It’s been a week everyone but my DH has caught the flu, my DH came to bed last night and said “oh no, I really don’t feel good.” About 20 minutes later he was in the bathroom loosing his dinner. I feel so bad for him, I can’t do anything to help him other then keep the kids from bugging him. There is a ton of stuff I wanted to do today, so I am left frustrated and confused as to if I should bother. GRR!!! Well either way here is my list:

Clip, toss, organize coupons (I have a small laundry basket full-it’s needs to be used for laundry)
Meijer Shopping (now I get to take all 3 with me!!)
Clean my Office (I have been avoiding this all month)
Freezer Inventory (I really don’t know what’s in there anymore, and I need to make room)
Freezer Cooking Plan’s (which is why I need to make room) Breakfast’s/Chicken/Beef
Blog about my day!!