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!



ART Clipboard Display

Now that Emma is in PreK, she brings home a ton of school work and art work she does in school daily.  So far I just put it in a canvas tote to sort later to see what to save and what I can throw away.  Every once in a while one of the sheets makes it to the frig.  For being 5 she does some cute, fun stuff and I would love a better way to display her art work.  I searched pinterest and found a few different ways to do it.  I was thinking maybe to put string up kind of like a clothes line and display her art on the wall that way, but wanted a more organized way to display it.  I found some people have covered clipboards and figured this would be the best way for me to do it!  Cute and organized.

I bought 6 clip boards and 1/2 yard fabric in 3 fabrics that went together.  I also bought wood letters to spell ART in a cute design, than a paint that would match the fabric.

I gave the ART letters 2 coats of paint called Lemonade.  I am so happy how the color came out, it matches the greenish yellowish color in the fabric almost perfect. 

The next part was the hardest for me, making a template for the clipboard so I could cut my fabric out around the clip part.  I tried to do it myself, than I had to keep going back to the picture of one I found online till it finally clicked how to do it!  I measured the distance from the edges of the board to where i would need to start cutting the middle section out.  I kept measuring and marking each section of the clip board till i got it!  I may be easier to do than all the measuring I did with my ruler but I just couldn't wrap my brain around it!  At least now I have a template in case I ever want to do anymore.

Next I went through and traced this template around my fabric.  I left extra fabric on each side so that I could wrap my fabric around the back and glue it on.  Each 1/2 yard of fabric got me 2 clip boards with some left over. 

As you can see from the picture above, I had to iron the fabrics so they were nice and smooth. Once they were ironed I decided to glue them on with spray adhesive.  I like this stuff because it holds really well and its easy to spray on but I also hate it because it gets my hands all sticky and icky! 1st I layed the fabric on the clip board so it lined up with the clip at the top.  Than I flipped the fabric back to the clip and glued that down than I glued the top.  Last step is to wrap the fabric around the edges and back like you would a present.  A little time consuming but so easy.

And the end project all put together with some of Emma's art work on it!  I LOVE the letters but am not sure if I like how I have them hanging.  I'll give it a few days to see if it grows on me! Any suggestions on how to hang them is appreciated!



Week 2 of 52 Week Organization Challenge

Well Week 2 of the 52 week organization challenge was Kitchen Drawers and Cabinet organization.  This is the link to last weeks challenge.  Don't let just reading the post overwhelm you.  Its a great post but there is alot of information in it and shows how to do it all.  Each night, take 1 or 2 drawers or cabinets and start there! You can do it! This week should go pretty smoothly for me though because over the last month or so I have been slowly making more room in my cabinets and drawers and ridding my kitchen of unused items and items I rarely use.  These items have been going into my basement food storage area.  As you could see from last weeks challenge, my kitchen is super small so I really need to make the most of what I have.  Most of my cooking ware takes up alot of room and that cabinet is always a mess!  That will be my biggest challenge this week.

A few weeks ago, I went through my 2 junk drawers! Can you believe I have 2 junk drawers in a kitchen that has 6 drawers total??  That was not good.  So i threw away alot of stuff, moved alot of Brian's tools back to where they belong and combined them into 1 drawer! So that means that I have 1 drawer fully open! (it is a small drawer though!)  So here is my list of drawers and what is in each!

1.  Silverware drawer-  this drawer is not a very big one and stores all the silverware, including the kids stuff.  I still had Caden's baby baby spoons in there, and as I am done having kids, I got rid of the ones we don't use.  That still left me with a bunch of toddler spoons and forks.  I went thru those as well and limited myself to 5 spoons and 5 forks.  We do the dishes daily so that will keep me good.

2. Utensil drawer-  this drawer holds all the stuff in it that I can not fit into the holder by the stove.
3. My towel drawer- this drawer holds all my kitchen towels and used to have some junk in it as well, but not anymore! Only my towels now!

4. Junk Drawer- Holds some junk!
5. Empty Drawer- Right now just holds some box tops as I don't know what else to put in there!

6. Hot Pads- Holds just my hot pads!

Up next were the cabinets.  Over the weekend I did reorganize the kids cabinet and Tupperware cabinet so those are checked off the list.  The kids cabinet isnt the most organized because they get into it but it holds what we need and no more junk!


My Tupperware is all in a tote in the pull out drawer and the lids are in a tote on the shelf above.



All the kids plates, bowls and some of Caden's food up top.

 I also went through our drink cabinet and got rid of some old plastic cups that we don't really use and take up way to much space. We have entirely too many sippy cups so that cabinet needed to be purged bad! I combined the kids cups with ours and put the cups we use but not everyday in the one next to it


As you can see from last weeks challenge I have Emma's lunch schedule on one cabinet and important papers for her school on the other side.  The basket on the top left shelf holds spices that I do not use very often but wanted to keep in the kitchen.



 The over the frig cabinet really doesn't have much in it because I cant reach it so that was not too bad to do.
I also combined the cereal cabinet with my pantry cabinet so I was able to move my pots and the big pot into a cabinet with a slider!


I went through all this and organized my spices into a basket so I can pull the basket down easily to get what I want.



I do have more pots but they are all in the dishwasher right now!

 
The cabinet that I was not looking forward to doing is the pots and pans! I HATE that cabinet.  Its hard for me to get in and out of that cabinet all the big bulky stuff.  But since I did gain a cabinet by moving the cereal, I think this should work out!  By moving the the pots over to the other cabinet I have more room now and I can easily reach everything in there.

I may put the pots back in here and move the glass bowls to where the pots are at, but haven't decided yet.  Ill give this current set up a week to see how I like it.

The one cabinet that I did not get to was the under the sink cabinet.  That one is pretty bad and I was putting that off for sure.  I am going to do that with week 3 challenge since week 3 is Kitchen Pantry, Spices and Food storage.  Since I did most of that with this weeks challenge I will definitely have time to do that.  See you next week!