Menu Plan Monday 9/29/2008

Go check out http://orgjunkie.com/ for more great menus! Im just loving being this prepared every week!

Mon:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: PB&J
Dinner: Crockpot Italian Chicken and Rice

Tues:
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Mac and cheese
Dinner: Pasta

Wed:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: PB&J
Dinner: Church

Thurs:
Breakfast: Donuts on the run
Lunch: Out
Dinner: Steaks and Potatos

Fri:
Breakfast: French Toast
Lunch: fruit and cheese
Dinner: Homemade Pizza Night

Sat:
Breakfast: Dads breakfast morning
Lunch: Still full from breakfast
Dinner: Salmon and rice

Sun:
Breakfast: Toast and apple butter
Lunch: Chicken Nuggets
Dinner:Pork Filet (which I have never made so have to find a recipe)

Thats are plan for the week! We are home a bit more this week and I am feel rested from our month of chaos so this should be pretty easy!

Why Do I Homeschool

I get asked this question alot, both by other homeschooling moms and non homeschoolers. For us we were brought to homeschooling with a bit of trauma. My oldest, Bethany, has some challenges. School in the first 30 days of 1st grade was horrible. She had headaches, threw up and cried every day. This was not my happy social child... this was a living nightmare with her sanity at stake. My son also at this time who was in Kindergarten was having some issues, within the first 30 days of school the teacher felt hed be held back... that to me was an issue. You cannot know in 30 days that a child is going to fail. We switched to private school in the small town that we had moved from a few years earlier. That was a good fit but the drive proved to be too much... especially when it snowed. So about 4 yrs ago at Christmas break we didnt send the kids back to school. I have loved every minute of it since! Its a job no doubt but its something that we all love. We drift in and out of different homeschooling styles and that works for us. This year the kids are 5th and 3rd grade and we are doing alot of litature work. Last year we did an online curriculum. We have bookshelves upon bookshelves of books and games. We spend cold rainy days curled up reading books and playing games and gorgerous sunny days playing outside. We go to parks for nature, we plant gardens for science, we cook for fractions and we help other to learn about community. We live life every day and feel very blessed to have this life.

Each day is different and a blessing!

Cola Chicken Recipe

I had a request for Cola Chicken so here it is! Enjoy.

1 Large whole chicken
1 Large bottle of BBQ Sauce (or make your own)
1 Med onion
1 Lemon
10oz of Coke

Place chicken in crockpot and pour bbq sauce over. Slice onion and lemon and arrange on and around chicken. Pour the coke over the chicken into the crockpot. (the atual recipe says to cook on low overnight) I place in the slow cooker for 8 to 10 hrs checking it after 6hrs.

I have never tried it but the recipe also says this is great to do with spare ribs too!

Menu Plan Monday Family Edition

For other menus and recipes check out http://orgjunkie.com/, My recipe for Soup is at the bottom!
Last week we had some family emergencies so had pizza out one day and rearranged a few others so some meals will be carried over from last week.

Mon:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: Grilled Cheese and pretzels
Dinner: "Jacob's Mush" ( Browned hamburger with mashed potatoes and corn)

Tues:
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Pb&J's
Dinner: Meatloaf, mashed and corn

Wed:
Breakfast: French toast
Lunch: Different fruits since we had a big breakfast
Dinner: Church

Thurs:
Breakfast: Muffins of some sort
Lunch: Its coop day so kids will pack a lunch
Dinner: Pasta

Fri:
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch: Kids choice sandwhiches
Dinner: Homemade pizza

Sat:
Breakfast: Later in the morning and dads day so you never know!
Lunch: Still stuffed from breakfast
Dinner: Cola Chicken and fried potatoes

Sun:
Breakfast: Donuts after church
Lunch: usually cereal , im a day of rest kinda mom on sundays.
Dinner: Spicy Potato Soup (recipe below)

Spicy potato soup is one of our family faves, sometimes we have ham or turkey sandwhiches with it, most of the time though we just enjoy the soup. My father in law was making this when I met my husband and I have no idea where he got it from. So here it is

Spicy Potato Soup
1lb Ground Beef ( i have used ground turkey too and its just as good)
1 onion ( I use smaller ones, but im not a big onion person)
4 cups water
4 cups cubed potatoes
1t pepper
3 8oz cans of tomato sauce
2t salt( I have totally omitted this and couldnt tell the difference)
half t of hot pepper sauce ( I usually use a t sometimes even a bit more but we like it too make our eyes water sometimes!)

Step 1
Brown your beef and onion

Now is where it can be done a ton of different ways.

When my husband makes it he boils the potatoes just tender, drains then adds the meat mixture and all the rest of the ingredients and lets it simmer either on the stove all day or in the crockpot on low, stirring every now and then either way.

I skip the boiling of the potatoes and either add all the ingredients in the crockpot and cook on high for 4 hours and then warm till we are ready to eat it or I do it on the stove in a large pot and bring all the ingredients to a rapid boil and then let simmer for an hr.

All the different ways are just as yummy! I just have to make sure NOT to use my slow cooker as for some reason this cooks the potatoes too mushy!

Enjoy! (with homemade bread hehe)

Target Fun

Had to make a target run today for goodnight pullups. Browsing the ad I saw that they had 44lb bags of Purina Dog Chow on sale for 20.99 plus you got a 5 dollar gift card. I also had a 2 dollar coupon off a jumbo bag of pullups from a sample off of walmart.com. While I was shopping I found some deals too! So heres my finds of the day!

Transaction 1
Dog food: 20.99 (im not sure what full price is I forgot to look)
Boy book bag 4.48 reg, 17.99
Bratz girl book bag 3.24 reg 14.99
2 Insulated camo lunch boxes, 1 pink 1 blue with thermos attached. 2.99ea reg 11.99
Ajax dish soap 1.79
2 10 packs of folders .25 ea reg 1.00
Total with Tax 39.49
Got 5 dollar gift card.

I used my debit card so got 10 dollars cash back for the next transaction
1 jumbo pack girls s-m girls goodnights 15.49
minus 2.00 coupon
Total with Tax 14.46
Minus 5 dollar gift card
New total 9.46!!!!

WOO HOOO a few dollars less than the smaller bag of pullups!

Total value of Items estimates at 81 dollars ( I didnt look at full price of dog food so guess at about 24 dollars)
Total OPP 49.49

All in all Im pretty impressed

Sleeping Babies

Is there anything more sweet than a sleeping baby? My "babies" are 11 and 9, and while they will always be my pride and joy I miss the baby stuff. Due to a family emergency I am spending the night at my brother and sil's house, caring for their 2 year old. They have a 6 mnth old too but Im not THAT crazy, she is at grandma's! I wore out my nephew, keeping up with the older kids is a job for him! Hubby came and got our kids to take home so its just me and the babe and hes asleep on the livingroom floor, butt in the air and all!!!!! Like I said is anything sweeter than a sleeping baby?

Tips on Tuesday

Sandra over at http://familycorner.blogspot.com/index.html started a new Tues theme that I thought id join called Tips on Tuesday. This a new tip to me so I just thought id share with everyone else!

We did a garden for the first time this year and have an abundance of tomatoes. Im not quite ready to can yet (aka canning?? what me? I dont think so!!) so I wanted to make sure that the tomatoes kept for as long as possible. A long time gardener shared one of her tips.

Store the tomatoes at room temp stem side down. It keeps the fleshy part from bruising and getting mushy when they start to turn.

So far so good for me!

Floating Away

I just cant get over how much rain has fallen here in North Central IL. I heard somewhere yesterday that as of yesterday afternoon the equivalant of 90 billion gallons of water had fallen and we got more rain. Our area got just under 7 inches. North of Chicago got 10 plus inches. Its hard to wrap your head around that much water.

The kids had an art class at the library today, while there it started to pour again. Luckily it didnt last long.

Tomorrow hopefully will bring the sun and the clean up will begin. We were very very blessed and the sump pump did its job.

Menu Plan

I have been reading the menu plan monday over at http://orgjunkie.com/ forever but have never posted since Im a blog newbie! So this week will be the very first time! Here is my Menu for the week of 9/15 thru 9/21

Mon 9/15
Breakfast : Oatmeal
Lunch: Pb&j
Dinner: Meatloaf, mashed potatos and corn

Tues 9/16
Breakfast: Zuccini Bread
Lunch: Mac and Cheese
Dinner: Steaks and baked potatos

Wed 9/17
Breakfast: Oatmeal
Lunch:Pb&J
Dinner: WOW Wed at church so dinner there.

Thurs 9/18
Breakfast: Pancakes
Lunch: Homeschool Coop so will eat out for lunch today
Dinner: Sandwhiches and Soup

Fri 9/19
Breakfast: French Toast
Lunch: Tuna Salad Sandwhiches
Dinner: Homemade Pizza

Sat 9/20
Breakfast: Dads Morning so it will be a suprise
Lunch: Probably nothing dad makes really big breakfast's
Dinner: Oven Fried Chicken with fried potatos and peppers and onions.

Sun 9/21
Breakfast: Donuts
Lunch: Chicken Nuggets and Crackers
Dinner: Potato Soup!

This is all subject to change as the week ebs and flows but this is what the general idea is!

Seriously... I wonder about people.

What drives someone to see a LARGE body of water on the ground and think, I can drive through that! Or how about hey thats alot of MUD, really my big semi can go there and NOT get stuck!

We live in IL, I understand not a hotbed for flooding but really.... why do people think they can BEAT water?????

Rainy Days

We in the heart of IL are getting the remnants of tropical storm gustav. Rain rain rain. Its so peaceful and so nice to see. Although if the sump pump doesnt keep up im sure I will be thinking differently! The rain though has me thinking of fall. It will be so nice when we can open the windows and not worry about things like humidity and pollen counts!

The kids found a hidden stash of movies so today will just be a low key curl up kinda day!

Shopping Yesterday

Our CVS had a coupon in sundays paper that if you transfered a script from any other pharmacy you got a 25 dollar gift card. HELLO free money. I had a list of had to gets. So thats what I did.
25 dollar gift card
2 pk of mens Deodarant 4.99
Denture powder glue (hubby will ONLY use this kind) 5.99
Aleve 20 gel caps 4.99 with a 1 dollar off coupon on the bottle so 3.99
4 cans of Chase and Sanborn coffee BOGO at 3.69 a piece.

So all that and I still have just over 2 dollars left. Since this was stuff we had to get I was excited to get it all for FREE basically!!!

UGHH

So on top of trying to save money. Im trying to lose weight too! Man did I blow it today. I cant even imagine how many calories I have eaten today... I know a whole 8 pk of cinnamon rolls has to be alot though! Oh well.... Starting this minute Im over it. Moving on. Not beating myself up. YA OK. Im awake now. But really Im moving past!

CVS

I keep reading all these blogs on CVS and keep thinking WOW how do they do that. Well in this sundays paper, there was a coupon for a 25 dollar gift card if you transfer a script there. Well either way I have to fill this script so I figured might as well transfer it to CVS. So tomorrow when I pick it up I will get a 25 dollar gift card!! YAY!

Im an Addict

Im totally addicted to freebies and samples! LOVE THEM! Not sure what my mail lady will think when they all start arriving but hey its FREE. I just hop around to blogs and click links, not to shabby.

Getting Started

So Im excited and confused! Im reading blogs on couponing like crazy, maybe too many. I clipped coupons out of this weeks paper today and clipped them all. Thats my first change, in the past I would just clip what maybe down the road sometime I would use. Today I clipped them all. I get that to get the best deal you have to wait and find the great sale to go with the coupon. What I dont get is where everyone I read gets all the coupons. How did everyone start? When you have NO coupons at all, how do you start???? Im sure I will learn! I even looked at the CVS ad today and I NEVER have been there! We shall see how this all works out! I am excited though to get started!

Shopping and Saving

I have been an avid blog reader for a long time. Here and there I have started my own blogs, just to get bored with them. Lately I have been moved to start saving, it seems everywhere God keeps showing me coupons! So today I started using them!!! I had 5 coupons for free items out of a magazine called ALL YOU. I got 25 dollars worth of food for free!!! We stocked up at a local store have a 12/10 sale on alot of items. Grand Total I spent 51 dollars and saved 56 dollars!!! Im so excited!