Weigh In Wednesday: Weeks 4 & 5

Well I totally forgot to blog last week about my weight loss for week 4.  Probably because I didn't lose anything but gained 1 lb! YIKES  I knew this would more than likely happen because I really was not good about drinking my water or watching what I was eating.   So Week 4 my total weight loss was 5 lbs.

Week 5 I did do better with eating less but still not so great with drinking my water.  But I did LOSS 1 lb! So I made up for the 1 lb I gained back.  My total weight loss for 5 weeks is 6 lbs.  Not the greatest for 5 weeks but better than nothing I say!  I really really need to get better at eating better breakfasts.  I think that is one of my major issues as well.  I do pretty decent for lunch and dinner, but I eat snacks or not so good for you muffins and stuff like that for breakfast.  My goal is to start finding healthier breakfast options and making and eating them! And apparently I need to do this for my daughter too! I just love that my dad works at her school and is friends with her preschool teachers because some of the stories they tell him and in turn he tells me just make my day!  Today (after eating 1 1/2 gogurts and some pop tart minis) she tells her teacher that "my mommy never gives me enough to eat in the morning and I'm always starving!" She really is too comical! And that is what she asks for for breakfast! So maybe I need to start serving her 3 course meals for breakfast as well.  I do honestly think that my daughter will eat us out of house and home.  She could seriously constantly eat all day long and still be hungry!  And she has not one ounce of fat on her! She is all muscle!  I'm not sure what I would do without my baby girl! I just love her so much and she makes our lives so much better!

So here is to  hoping that Week 6 has another loss as well!
Happy Healthy Eating!

Meal Plan Monday: My Meal Plan for the Week of 2/27

This weeks meal plan I just now finished!  I have been a little behind on my meal planning and blogging in general lately.  Hopefully I'll get it together and start being a little more organized!

This week will be a pretty easy week for me cooking wise.  I'm off the hook for 3 nights dinners!

Monday 27th- Gino's East Pizza- They are closing this week and I still have a groupon deal to use there, so cheap, yummy pizza!

Tuesday 28th- Chicken Quesadillas- the chicken is in the crock pot today so I will just have to put it all together and heat it up tomorrow after the gym.

Wednesday 29th- Fish Fry with my parents, brother, sis in law and Uncle!  My Uncle gets us tickets each year to his Church's fish fry! It's pretty funny because they actually have their fish fry at my Church's school!  So Emma will be excited to eat in her gym.

Thursday 1st- Hamburgers on the grill and french fries.  Hopefully the weather is ok.  If not probably BBQ Chicken Sandwiches

Friday 2nd- Dinner with Friends!! I just need to bring a dessert or 2.  Any suggestions??

Saturday 3rd- Enchiladas and possibly having French Toast Bake for Breakfast! Depends on how creative I feel Friday night!

Sunday 4th- Pancakes for Breakfast (made on my new griddle pan!) and my Parents for dinner.

Whats for dinner at your house this week?

Week 6 of 52 Week Organization Challenge

I am a few weeks behind!  Here is the link for week 6. This week was creating a home recycling center and dealing with trash.  An easy but important challenge for me.  We already have a really good system down for our recycling and trash issues.  Our recycling items do not have to be sorted and are just dumped into our big recycling bin, taken to the curb every 2 weeks and is emptied by the recycling man!  We are very aware of things that can be recycled and try to put everything that we can in there.  Even our 5 year old is really good about asking or knowing if something can be recycled and putting it in there as well.  Our recycling bin in the house is something that isn't the cutest but works for what we need it to do!  We use an old, emptied and cleaned plastic kitty litter container! 

Once it gets full, about every other day, we just take it out our back door and empty it into the city provided big recycling bin. This bin sits right around the corner of the kitchen so it makes it super easy for us to recycle!

We have a good system already in place as well for our everyday trash, just an ordinary trash can that Brian empties when it gets full.  With this challenge though I did give the trash can and surrounding area a nice clean!

The next weekly challenge is Coupons!

Meal Plan Monday: My Meal Plan for the Week of 2/20

Today starts another Monday and my poor baby Caden isn't feeling the best.  He is coughing and is very flemmy.  Thankfully his cough is really loose so I'm hoping that means he is almost done with it.  I love that this winter has been nice but I hate what the constant temperature changes does to the kids, and Brian and I. 
Last week we stuck to the meal plan pretty well but we did eat out alot more on the weekend than we typically do.  I'm afraid of what the scale will say on Wednesday.  This past week I have been in a blah mood and my diet has definitely reflected that (as has my motivation to do much of anything creative this last week or so).
Here's this weeks Plan.

Monday 20th: French Toast Bake (Pinterest- Not even counting the points!) This thing looks so yummy and I wanted to make it this weekend but we ended up going to Cracker Barrel for breakfast yesterday (so not complaining about that!)

Tuesday 21st: Tacos

Wednesday 22nd: Ash Wednesday so no Meat- Pasta Bake

Thursday 23rd: Chicken, Potato, Veggie Bake (Kraft Foods) I have had this on the Menu for the last few weeks and I am bound and determined to make this!

Friday 24th: No Meat Friday- Cheese Pizza (unless I get more creative during the week!)

Saturday 25th: Hamburgers (haven't had these all winter and they sound so good!)

What's for dinner at your house this week?

Weigh In Wednesday: Week 3

This past week I lost .5 lbs.  Not the greatest but at least I lost something! So I am down 6 lbs in 3 weeks.  I did have a few challenging days and know I did not drink water like I should be. 

Last Wednesday I just wanted to eat everything in site!  I was just hungry all day long.  Thankfully I was in Chesterton and too lazy to leave the trailer to go out and get junk!  I had only packed my sandwich for lunch, goldfish and some oranges so I couldn't eat too bad.  I did though on the way home have to stop and get gas and got a coffee cake from the gas station, but that really pretty much held me over till supper.  I am sure that I will have many more days like this throughout my weight loss and than my maintaining my weight, but I'm ok with that.  This new healthier eating is a lifestyle that I will have to (and want to) continue with so if there are some days I just want to eat bad stuff, I'll eat some bad stuff!  I'll just have to workout a little harder than to compensate.

So my goals for this week are to drink more water, really watch the extra junk that I am eating because it adds up faster than I realize and continue to work out 3 days a week.

Here's to hoping for more weight loss this week!

Meal Plan Monday: My Meal Plan for the Week of 2/13

I have been really good about meal planning for about a month now and I can already tell that I am saving money!  Plus we are eating better meals and not eating fast food at all, and being organized with food!  Makes me really happy.  Last week I went grocery shopping and only spent $42.xx!  That is like a miracle for me because we usually spend at least $100.00 a week if not more.  Last week though I was really good and only bought what was on my list.  I do realize that every few weeks it will be alot more because I will have to stock up on snacks and stuff like that that has run out.  I'll wait until I can get a good sale on the stuff like that though.

Last week I stayed on track really pretty good.  Thursday we ended up using a gift card we got for Christmas and had Subway after Gym and Dance, but February is $5 foot long month so we all ate for 11.xx (that includes the bag of chips Emma got!)  And Friday I just had a total fail and forgot to put the frozen chicken in the crock pot for my meal until 1 so that definitely was not ready by the time we were hungry.  We ended up having scrambled eggs, toast and grapes.  Everyone ate all gone and it was really good and nice to have something different.  So we had the Chicken on Sat and it was super yummy! Will definitely make that again. 

So here is this weeks plan...

Monday: Deep Dish Pizza (WW 5 pts- this is what got bumped from last week)

Tuesday: Italian Beef Sandwiches (Amanda- 7pts)

Wednesday: Chicken, Potato, Veggie Bake (Pinterest- Kraft Foods)

Thursday: Chili

Friday: Tacos

Saturday: Beef Fajitas

What's for dinner at your house this week?

Weigh In Wednesday: Week 2

Week 2 of WW and working out went pretty good!  I lost another 2 lbs for a total of 5.5 lbs so far!  Saturday Brian, the kids and I went to the gym for the 1st time in probably 4 months for me.  It works out really nice because the kids like to go to "Gym School" (named by Emma's friend Ms. Morgan!) and Brian and I get to work out and shower afterwards while the kids have fun, play and color.  Even with eating a not so healthy meal of Creamy Raviloi and Chicken from Applebees Saturday I still managed to lose!  This week I have worked out on Monday and plan to work out Friday and Saturday as well.  We go to Memorial Health and Lifestyle and its such a nice, clean and great gym.  They have really nice, top of the line equipment, a cool workout monitoring system and awesome classes.  Going somewhere you like makes it alot easier to go too!  The people that work out there are really pretty good too.  There is a good mix of super in shape people and people that are working to get there!  I never go and feel that people are looking at me funny or judging me by how I look or what I can or can't do while I am working out.

This week the meal plan has been going really well and I'm still trying to drink as much water as I can and eat as much fruits and veggies as I can as well.  The one area I need to work on those are sides for our meals.  I am doing good cooking the main meal but really really bad making sides.  We love steamed brocolli and green beans, I just forget to pop them in the microwave for the 8-10 mins!  My goal is to cook better sides!

My motivational marbles just got 8 more moved to the LOST side!  What a great feeling that is to keep moving them over! 

Also if you look to the right side of this post you can see I now have a Weight Loss Ticker!  Each Wednesday I will be updating that as well with what I have lost! 



Week 5 of 52 Week Organization Challenge

Week 5 of the Weekly Chalenge was recipes and cookbooks.  You can find the link to it here.
This was a pretty easy week for me because I have a halfway decent organiztion of this already.  My favorite cookbooks are in a cabinet and I also have a recipe binder that I keep all my favorite recipes that I get other places in. The one area for me that needed to be organized was the printed off recipes.  I don't like to take the time to write a recipe on a card to go into my binder until we have tried it and know we like it.  So I needed a better organizatin for that for sure.  I liked the suggetion on the Challenge site to put them in labeled file folders. I had a nice magazine holder that I decided to use for this.  Right now I'm just putting the recipes that I have in there but i really want to get folders to put the recipes in categories. I will label them as Chicken, Meat, Main Meals, Desserts, Breakfast and Sides (this is the way that my binder is organized as well).  This way when i get a recipe that I may want to try, I can just stick it in the file and be done with it until I'm ready to look for something new to cook!

Right now the recipes I have printed are all together in the magazine holder.

My recipe binder is awesome! I got it a long time ago as a wedding gift.  It's from Hallmark, has labled tabs to put on the tab inserts, plastic sleeves to put in 5x7 recipe cards and some blank sheets to write recipes on.  Before this challenge it wasn't really organized so this weekend I decided to put the recipes in an order.  I decided on making a Chicken, Meat, Main Meal (things that dont really have a meat or chicken in them), Desserts, Breakfast and Sides.  This will make it really easy to find a meal I want to make.

My great now organized binder

Each section has a tabbed divider

It has sleeves to put in recipes that you either write out or print out.



Sneak peak to week 6...Recycling and Trash!

Meal Plan Monday: My Meal Plan for the Week Of 2/6

This weeks Menu

A recap of last weeks meal plan...  I didn't feel like making the stir fry Monday so we had the Calzones.  The Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches Tuesday were really really yummy!  I made a double batch and freezed 1/2 of it into sandwich sized bags so I can take one out for lunches whenever that sounds good!  Wednesday night we went to the hospital to see my new baby niece! Addyson Janell is so sweet and looks like her big sister Abby did! Congrats to Ashley and Doug on another precious little girl!

Baby Addy!

So Wednesday was leftovers night.  Thursday we had the Chicken Stir Fry (which Brian actually made!)Friday we did eat the Oven Hot Dogs and they were pretty good.  I'm not sure if it is something that Brian or I really want again though.  We just like our regular hot dogs!  I think it was the mustard on them that I didn't care for.  Saturday we didn't have the Hamburger Balls because we used a gift card and went to Applebees!  It was very yummy!  So this week's menu is this...


Monday 6th: Spaghetti and Meatballs (8 pts)

Tuesday 7th: French Dip Sandwiches (Amanda and Pinterest 4 pts)

Wednesday 8th: Hamburger Balls (Amanda 10 pts)

Thursday 9th: Crockpot Italian Chicken (Pinterest and looks super good 6 pts)- Very Excited about this one!

Friday 10th: Deep Dish Pizza (5 pts WW)

Saturday 11th: Abby's 4th Birthday Party!!

Sunday 12th: Parents


Whats for dinner at your house this week?

Emma's Bow Holder

A month or so I made a really cute headband holder for Emma out of an oatmeal container so now all her headbands are nice and organized but I had to think of something to organize all her hair clips and cute pony tail holders.  I finally decided to make her a Bow Holder out of an E! 

So I went to my favorite store, Joann Fabric, and got this cute E, the ribbon and the cute buttons!  I was 1st going to paint the E pink but wanted to do something more creative and cuter.  I have seen alot of cute button initials on pinterest so I decided to do that with her E.  The buttons were a cute mixture and would work really well in her room.

I didn't do good taking pictures through out the process because I just wanted to get it done and it was a little time consuming gluing each button on.  But what I did was glued buttons on the outer edge of the E 1st, than took a second layer and angled that on top of the 1st layer and than did a 3rd layer over the 2nd.  Doing it that way covered the whole E and gave it some dimension.  I than took the thicker 1" ribbon and glued it in the middle of the bottom of the E and took the smaller 5/8th" ribbon and put them on both sides of the thicker ribbon.

Up close Picture of the E with the buttons on it

Her Bow holder with some on there.

I am so happy with the way it turned out and it is really nice to get the bows and holders out of our small and cramped bathroom! Plus it adds a cute decoration in Emma's room!



Week 4 of 52 Week Organization Challenge

Week 4 of the Organization Challenge is Organizing the Frig and Freezer.  You can find the link here.
I'm a day late posting this because Emma was sick yesterday and I stayed home with her :(

My refrigerator stays pretty organized most of the time because I have spots for specific items.  This is what each shelf is supposed to hold...The top right hand shelf  holds the Brita Filter Container plus Brian's yogurts.  The left hand side middle shelf  holds the eggs.  The right hand side middle shelf always holds the Crystal Light pitcher and the Milk Jug.  The bottom right hand side shelf always holds the pop.  The bottom right hand drawer always holds the cheese and tortilla shells.  So I feel that my frig is pretty organized, but it definitely needed a good cleaning.  I was a little lazy this week and didn't get around to cleaning the frig.  I was going to do it Monday but I wasn't thinking and went grocery shopping for the week so my frig is chuck full again!  I will clean it this weekend though. The freezer was a mess! Most of the stuff up there really could go down to the big freezer in the basement.

Before

This is my freezer After.  The plastic bin holds the stuff I need for the weeks meals!  More organized and I moved some stuff down to the deep freezer.

Here is the before picture of my basement storage area.  This are holds extra food we have and also the extra cookware we don't use very often and takes too much room in my cabinets upstairs.  I really need to keep this area clean and organized because I had to thrown some food out because it was expired.  I also need to get better that even though its an awesome sale, if we are not going to eat it, do not buy it! 

This is my storage area after!  Looks so much better and I can actually get to the shelf and I organized it with some dollar store totes.  And yes, we have a TON of gold fish crackers! The kids live on those things and they were just 10/10 get the 11th free at Meijer so I did stock up on these!

The pictures below are the before pictures of our deep freezer by the storage area in the basement.  Things were just kind of thrown everywhere and were only sort of organized.

Below is the after pictures of the organization. All the roasts are now on the top shelf, steaks are on the second shelf, the 3rd shelf holds the random items and the bottom shelf has the hamburger and hamburger patties.  The door now holds all the veggies.

Hopefully being more organized with our food storage we will waste less and I will be able to find what I need easier.

A sneak peak for Week 5's Challenge... Recipes and Cookbooks!

Weigh In Wednesday: Week 1

Well my 1st week down on my new diet down and I lost 3.5 lbs! WOO HOO.  Other than peeing all the time because of all the water I have been drinking, it did not go to bad.  Having the meal plan was my saving grace a few nights!  Wednesday I stayed a bit later at my friends picking up Caden and on the way home I so did not want to go home and cook dinner.  Most of the way home I thought of just stopping at McDonald's and getting us all food!  But I thought about my diet, all the hard work I had been putting in the last few days and all the stuff at home to make calzones, I decided to just drive home!  So glad I did because the Calzones were amazing and only took 30 mins total (that includes prep and cooking!)  Brian helped out and had the oven preheated and all the ingredients out!  Having all the ingredients all in one spot on my pantry helped!  We even ate out at Flat Top Stir Fry Saturday and that was ok on my diet!

I also made my Motivational Marbles jar!  Each little marble represents 1/4 lb, so I have 200 in there to represent the 50 lbs that I want to lose.  It was really satisfied dropping those 3.5 lbs worth of marbles in there!  I got the jars at the dollar store.  I like them but they are bigger than I really needed.  I was surprised that the marbles really don't take up much room!  One of the reasons why I decided to do each 1/4 lb.  The stickers and marbles came from JoAnn Fabric (my most favorite store!).  It was fun to make and even funnier moving those marbles over.

14 Marbles moved over! One Jar says "Pounds to Go" and the other jar says "Pounds Lost"

This week our gym membership starts back up so I'm super excited to start back up again.  I think I'll go Friday during the day with Caden, Saturday for either Zumba or Pilates and a little time on the treadmill!  Brian and I also need to figure out a schedule for during the week.  They have child care on Tuesday and Thursday nights so we will definitely go together on Tuesdays but on Thursdays Brian will probably just go with Caden by himself because I'm at Gym and Dance with Emma most of the evening.  Saturday mornings we will definitely both go together too!  Looking forward to going back, I have missed it and am ready to get back into shape!
Here's to next weeks Marble Move!!

Meal Plan Monday: My Meal Plan for the week of 1/30

Last week we did pretty good on our meal plan.  Tuesday night I had a meeting for Heartland at 6 so Brian and the kids were on there own and they ate leftovers.  So the chicken tamale casserole we were supposed to have on Tuesday I made on Friday.  It wasn't to bad, there are a few things I will do different the next time we have it, but everyone liked it so that was good!  Saturday instead of Beef Fajitas we ended up using a free stir fry coupon to Flat Top and had that and it was amazing like always! 

This week's meal plan on my new meal plan board!

The one thing I love about WW is that you can pretty much eat anything you want, you just have to account for the points!  I'm on a diet but it really doesn't feel like it.  Some of the stuff that is on our menu is not the best for you, but when paired up with a free veggie, I can eat it as long as I watch my points for breakfast and lunch.

Monday 30th: Chicken Stir Fry with 1/2 cup Brown Rice (WW- 10 pts)

Tuesday 31st: Crock Pot Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches (Pinterest- 6 pts per Sand)

Wednesday 1st: Calzones (Pinterst- 6 pts) We had these last week too and they were amazing! We wanted them again this week!

Thursday 2nd: Spaghetti and Meatballs (9 pts)

Friday 3rd: Oven Hot Dogs (Amanda/Pinterest- 6 Pts)

Saturday 4th: Hamburger Balls (Amanda- 10 pts)- Amanda made these for me and the kids when Brian was out of town and they were AMAZING!  Can't wait to make them for Brian.

Sunday- Parents

Whats for dinner at your house this week?

Paper File Box

I have this awesome 9 cube black storage piece that I got at Target a few years ago that sits in my living room.  It is super handy in that it holds a bunch of different stuff in canvas totes.  You cant see what is in the totes so you can put whatever you want in them!  But I don't want the whole thing filled up with totes, I like some of the holes open and the 3 on the top shelf hold things that I want to be able to get to easily and wouldn't fit to well in a tote. 


I have been thinking of a way to store all the important papers that I get from Emma's school, magazines and anything else I want.  I looked into getting a nice metal or even plastic file folder that could hold files and I could stick all my stuff in one of those to be nice, neat and organized.  The problems is that they are all too big! The hole is 11x11x11 and most of the file boxes are at least 13x11x11, so obviously they don't fit :( 

My finished product!

On pinterest I have seen a few people talk about decorating cereal boxes or old mailed boxes and I thought that that would work the best for me.  So I got 3 Mail boxes that we had received at work, 1 yard of clearance $4 a yard fabric and got to work!

I first measured out how long I wanted them to be and cut the tops off of them.  I than took packing tape and taped all 3 together.

My pretty $4 a yard fabric!

Because you could see the dark parts of the box thru the fabric, I decided to take some white scrapbook paper I had and mod podge it on the top and 2 sides. I also decided to put paper on the shelves of the box as well.

To get the front edge of the fabric looking nice and not having it continue to fray, I used some Heat Bond hemming tape and my iron to make a hem.

After this i used my mod podge again to glue the fabric onto my box.  I pretty much put it on like you would wrap a present.

And here is the finished product in my 9 cube storage unit! So happy with how it turned out!

Emma's Very 1st Report Card!

Yesterday in our Tuesday folders at Emma's school, there were report cards for the 1st semester in there!!  How excited was I to look at it and see how the teachers feel that Emma is doing in PreK.  And I have to say that I am one proud mommy!! You either got a check mark for "Yes I Can" or an X for "I am learning".  And of course my amazing daughter got all CHECKS!!  It is so awesome to see that they feel she is doing what she needs to in school.  The teacher's comment was "Emma is having a great year!  A pleasure to have in class.  Very nice well adjusted child!"

Each day Emma loves going to school and that just makes me so happy.  When she 1st started in August I just had her in 1/2 day all week because I felt that going all day 5 days a week would be too big of an adjustment from going just Tuesday and Thursdays 9-11:30 at her preschool last year.  Well my hot stuff little girl wanted to go to all day after the 1st week! She wanted to stay with her new friends and wanted to be able to go to lunch there too.  I'm just so proud (but also super sad) at how she is growing up.  She knows so much stuff; its amazing what these little kids can learn!






I am a proud Mommy today!



Weigh In Wednesday

As I talked a little bit about in my Meal Plan Monday post this week, I've gained back some weight I lost last year and am feeling fat again.  Last year Brian and I did Weight Watchers and I also starting going to the gym and working out and lost about 25 lbs!  I got rid of all my FAT (I don't even want to admit the size!) clothes so there would be no going back for me.  With these 10 lbs I gained back my pants are starting to get snug and tight and I'm not ok with that.

I have always felt comfortable with my body and my size but now I want to be healthy!  I want to be able to keep up with my kids busy schedule and not feel tired, I want to wear cuter clothes, and (here is my vainest reason) I don't want to be a Fat Mom anymore.  Losing weight is hard, but since I have had my kids, I have 2 or 3 times lost 20-25 lbs, but the keeping it off is the hardest part for me.  I get super lazy with working out and even lazier cooking good meals for the family.  Its sad, but the kids usually eat better than Brian and I do.  One thing I am proud of (other than my son LOVING poparts) is that I usually make sure they eat healthy, good for you food.  Nutrition at such a young age is so important and I do not want to be the cause of unhealthy eating for them. 

So my goal for my total weight loss is going to be 50 lbs! YIKES that just seems so much, but if i break it down, I'm hoping that this goal will be attainable.    My 1st goal will be 25 lbs.  I hope to have lost this 1st goal weight by the end of May.  That is 4 months, 16 weeks, only 1.56 lbs per week to lose.  Im hoping that I can do this!  This week I have started us back on WW and in the next week or so our gym membership will start again so I HAVE to work out 3-4 times a week.  This will be super hard for me to do with work, cooking, kids, and sleep!  Even if I can just do a Zumba class a few nights a week and than hit the treadmill for even 20 mins each time I'm there I'll be happy.  I'm gonna hold off on weight training until I lose at least 15 lbs. 

Each Wednesday I'll check back in and post about my success from the week before.  I need something to hold me accountable!  I also found this cool idea on pinterset called Motivation Marbles and am going to do this as well.  I'm going to have each marble represent 1/2 lb, so that means I'll have 100 marbles total.  Each Wednesday when I weigh in I'll be moving marbles!

Here is a picture of me right now and below that is a picture of me from the summer I got married.  I honestly dont even know what my weight was than, but I do know it was a heck of a lot less than what I am now! 

I have so much belly fat and my face looks huge!

This is me in 2004, at my reception at home.  Hardly any belly fat, thinner arms and a skinny face. 

This is me at my wedding in 2004 on the beach in OBX!! I wasnt skinny skinny by anymeans but I felt and looked healthy!  This is what Im going to work towards!

Week 3 of 52 Week Organization Challenge

Week 3 of the Organization Challenge was Food Storage, Pantry and Spices.  You can find the link here
During week 2 which was cabinets, I had already organized my pantry cabinet and my spices. 

My spices that i use regularly are in the clear plastic basket that I can pull down easily and get out what I need and put right back in.  I put my cereal in the Snap N Lock containers and so wish I would have spent the $6 each on them long ago.  It is so easy to pour the cereal out of these things and they fit on my shelf perfect! I just got the 3M removable labels that are cute and put what the cereal is and the good till date on it. I was never able to put the cereal in this cabinet before because the boxes would not fit on the shelf.  The containers hold the full box of cereal!  I also have some snacks in this cabinet as well as some cooking ingredients.

My other upstairs food storage is a little built in by the back door which is right around the corner from the kitchen.  This built in was already there when we bought this house and for the 1st year or 2 I had no idea what to do with it.  Then one day I got a bright idea and had hubbie cut out wood and put the shelves in!  Instant canned good storage!  The 1st 2 shelves I decided to keep the ingredients for the weeks meals here so I knew what I had and could find the stuff easily.  I just decided to do that this week and hopefully it works out well for us.

The last food storage area is in my basement.  I have some nice heavy duty shelving units in one of my storage areas for food and extra cookware.  If there is a good sale on stuff or its super cheap after coupons, even if I don't need it that week, I like to stock up on it.  This area is good for that because it stays cool and dry down here so I don't have to worry about any of it getting icky, most of it is canned goods anyways.  I haven't done this area yet, but I'm hoping to get it complete this week when I do the Deep Freezer this week.

I did also organize and clean out my under the sink cabinet.  It was a hot mess before I attacked it!  It had 7 vases in it (which i really only use in the summer and that is only 1!), it had a ton of Meijer plastic bags and things were not very organized.  So I went through and took all the vases downstairs, cleaned out the plastic bags (although I'm still not sure what to do with these, I'll probably just buy one of those fabric bag holders) threw away the old nasty cleaning supplies, and now have a beautiful cleaning product cabinet!

This weeks challenge is the Refrigerator and Freezer!  My frig is pretty good (but could use a good clean) but my freezer is a mess! Cant wait to do this weeks challenge!

Meal Plan Monday: My Meal Plan for the Week of 1/23

About a year ago I went on the Weight Watchers Diet and starting working out some and lost almost 25 lbs.  I was doing good keeping it off until I went back to work this summer and starting going to Chesterton 3 days a week for work.  I put back on 10 lbs! My clothes are now starting to get tighter and uncomfortable again, and I feel so fat lately!  So its definitely time to get back into eating healthier and exercising.  I'm hoping to start doing WW again and next week Ill start working out again.  So my meals from now on will include the WW points.  Some of the meals are not WW recipes, they are my own and I have just calculated the points for them!  I'm allowed 29 points a day and 48 weekly points.  That should not be too difficult.  I need to start drinking a ton more water again.  I got really lazy on drinking water too. 

Monday 23rd-  Pizza Casserole (pinterest) 10 pts

Tuesday 24th- Chicken Tamale Casserole (WW)  7 pts

Wednesday 25th- Calzones (pinterest)  9 pts

Thursday 26th- Cubed Steak and Potatoes in the Crock Pot  8 pts

Friday 27th- Chicken Chili (WW) 5 pts

Saturday 28th- Beef Fajitas (WW) 4 pts

Sunday 29th- Parents

I'm good with dinner ideas, but I'm kinda picky with my breakfast foods and I usually cant eat right when I get up so I eat at work.  If anyone has any good suggestions on quick, easy and filling breakfast ideas send them my way!

And an update on last weeks meal plan and not going out to eat or the grocery store... I was good and did not go to the grocery store!  Monday I ate cereal for dinner because my babysitter took the kids to Chick-fil-a, Wednesday my friend Amanda had us over for dinner and cooked an amazing meal! I did treat the kids to McDonald's on Friday because they were so good for me that week and I was just too tired to think about dinner!

How Many Days is Too Many Days for a Hubbie to be Gone?

Brian rarely travels for his job (he is in customer support for a company that designs and supports shipping and receiving software- he has a fancy title and would probably describe his job a whole lot different, but honestly all I know is he works on the computer and makes decent money doing it!) but it seems like these last 3-4 months he has.  On average he has to go to Atlanta where the company is out of or a client site about 2-3 times a year.  Since November he has gone away 3 times!  The time in November and December were just nice 4-5 day trips and he was home by Friday night.  This time he was gone 10 (TEN) LONG days! 
I know I don't give my hubbie enough credit but he is an AMAZING husband and father.  He does 50% of all the household and kid related stuff (which is alot more than some people's husbands do!)  He works from home so he helps out and takes Caden to the babysitter in the morning while I take Emma to school, he gets Emma at school when she gets off at 2:15 each day, on Tuesdays he is able to leave work early and take Emma to gymnastics, he gives the kids their baths, and does a ton more stuff I'm not even mentioning.  So him leaving last Wed morning and not coming home till late tonight was a huge adjustment for us.  This was the 1st time he had been gone over a weekend. 
My kids were so amazing these days that Brian has been gone, hardly whining, fighting or being really upset that their daddy has been gone what seems like forever.  The 1st few days Brian was gone he worked a ton so we didn't get to talk to him much, but on Sunday we did Skype for the very 1st time and were able to talk to him! It was really neat seeing him and being able to talk to him.  Caden didn't want to let the Ipod Touch go!  Once we put him to bed we had to call Brian back so Emma could have a chance to talk to him! 
I was doing pretty good while Brian was gone, dealing full time with the kids, household chores, my crafty stuff, and the daily snow we have been getting.  But my breaking point was 7 days!  On the 7th day, which was a Wednesday I cried on the way to work!  The stress of him being gone and missing him finally got to me.  Thankfully I have awesome friends and family who have kept my mind off him being gone and kept me sane for those 7 days!  After the good old cry to work, I was feeling better, feeling that I could do these last 3 days without much injury to those I came into contact with. 
So thank you to my Dad who was able to bring Emma home from school each day with him and came out to my car to get Emma in the morning so I didn't have to get Caden out of the car, my mom for watching Caden both Thursday nights while we were at gymnastics and Dance, Amanda for feeding me twice, Amanda for being so helpful with Caden and watching Emma on MLK day, Ferris for being my best friend (even though I didn't stress out on her, she is just always there to talk and that makes a huge difference), my work for being so great about my hours and to all you that are reading my blog and making comments!  Its so nice to know that there are people out there that care for you!

So, How many days is too many days for your hubbie to be gone??

Valentine's Day Felt Wreath

Of course I found this super duper cute idea on Pinterest!  I really don't have too much Valentine's Day decorations, it seems i go right from Halloween to Christmas (which also includes winter stuff) than to nothing really.  So I'm looking for more Valentine's decorations and came across this super cute DIY idea. 

So I went to Joann Fabrics this week and got a foam heart, 3/4 yard of red felt off the bolt and straight pins.  The foam heart was in the floral section and was 4.99 but I had a 50% coupon so it was only 2.50! The 3/4 yrd of felt was 3.50 (this was not on sale, the yd price was 4.99) and a pack of straight pins which were 3.29.  So this DIY project cost about $10.

Once it was all laid out I drew 3" circles using my frisk circle and cut a ton of circles, 172 to be exact!!  I cut all of the felt.

Next I took the circles and folded them in half and than half again. 

Folded in 1/2 once

Folded in 1/2 again- Side View

Folded in 1/2 top view

Than I took a pin and pinned the folded circle from the bottom corner onto the foam heart.  Just keep doing this, making sure to fill in all holes with circles. i did not pin any on the back so that it would lay flat on the wall.

I actually ended up with 54 leftover circles, so if you buy a 1/2 yard of felt you will have enough.  I still just need to buy a white ribbon to pin on the back to hang though, but I'm really really happy with how it turned out!