My stress relief

Baking. It's my thing. It's the thing that makes me feel calm when chaos tries to take over. By chaos  I mean life, kids, and everything else that is my day. 

It's not interesting but it's the thing that speaks to me. 

Joe and I were at the store the other night. Our cart was full of Halloween paraphernalia and baking ingredients. Joe innocently asked why I needed all the ingredients to which I snippily replied " I need them just let me!" I was being a bit dramatic and my husband didn't say another word. I have also used every single ingredient I bought and enjoyed every second of using them.

This is half of my Halloween baking. I forgot to take a picture once everything was done and the cupcakes were frosted.

I made several dozen dark chocolate chip cookies, chocolate mint cookies, flourless cupcakes and gluten free chocolate mint cookies.

I often bake gluten free goodies since I have a daughter with celiac disease and alot of the store bought stuff is terrible. 

What is your thing? What calms you down?

Quick beauty routine

The babies and I were sitting on the couch today watching Big Hero 6 when my homeschooled daughter snapped some pictures.

As you can see in this picture I've got some crazy under eye dark circles going on. I get dark circles from being tired, allergies and genetics so I get triple smacked by these annoying things.

Because of them I have spent who knows how many dollars on under eye cream and concealers. So far, under eye cream has been useless, a big waste of money. But, I have found a concealer that I really like.

Anyway after seeing this picture I had to fix the issue. Here is my daily makeup. It takes less than 10 minutes. It can't take alot of time due to the babies

Mineral concealer duo in cool

HoneyBee Gardens pressed mineral powder in Supernatural

Bare Minerals cheek tint in Charm

Bare Minerals flawless definition volumizing mascara in black

HoneyBee Gardens pencil eyeliner in jet set

I tried putting my makeup on while babies were sitting on my lap. This is water they shook out of sippy cup onto my leg.

This was as far as I got with babies

I finished! Okay, so I didn't get to the hair, I usually sport a pony tail for daycare and by 3pm it's not a perky pony and I don't bother fixing it until the babies leave

Tuesday morning lessons

What I've learned this morning:

Chickens and ducks are escape artists and love to escape as much as possible

It is perfectly acceptable to herd chickens in pjs and rain boots

Chasing chickens is completely worth it and gathering eggs never gets old

Babies are better than chickens 

Babies try to escape too

Babies and tiredness

Friday started off cold and quiet. With sleepy, cuddly babies and lazy chihuahuas. I want to be a morning person. I like the peaceful feeling the early morning brings. A new day for new beginnings and new experiences.
My plans included baking regular and gluten free bread, cutting up extra veggies in the fridge and freezing them. Taking a math placement test that I have been studying for and putting up a baby swing outside.
I did do the test, not well but I did it and I will redo it in month because I am that bad at math. The rest of the day was filled with squealing, giggly babies who love dancing and running. A baby pile with all three babies hugging each other. The rest of my to do list went by the wayside because these moments with these babies that I care for are worth store bought bread and a few rotten veggies.
The babies went home to their families and the race was back on to get kids to work and appointments.
By the end of the day, I was pretty tired. I even went to lengths to convince my daughter who stayed the night with a friend that my foot was broken so I couldn't bring her extra food, a pillow and extra blanket. The bruising on my foot is makeup. It took me way more time to do it then to take her the requested items but it was worth the laugh I got from her

I ended the night with a delicious mug of hot cocoa and dreams of sleeping in

Changes

This year has brought many new changes. My oldest son moved away for college and my oldest daughter got married, had a beautiful DIY wedding and moved away. We found out one of our daughters has celiac disease and the same daughter is also now being home schooled and started teaching an art class once a week in our home. My husband has been putting in a french drain in our basement for the past three months so the house has been cramped from everything that we had to bring upstairs. Even my home daycare has had some changes. To top this off, I have decided that it is time for me to go back to school. To say we are busy is putting it mild.
 It is definitely a new season in our lives and because of all of these changes my blog has received a new name. Named by my daughters with an appropriate name that more fully describes our life than the previous "Just a homemade girl" name.
I like to see pictures on a blog so here are some pictures from the wedding. Photography by
www.kensiem.com

Don't just dream of gardening, start preparing

This is my garden, does your garden look like this too? 

It's hard to imagine that in just a few short months this snow covered barren garden will be full of life, but it's true! So, instead of scowling at your empty garden every time you look out the window, start planning!

What are you going to plant this year? Have you mapped out your garden or your plant placement? Are you using compost, manure, mulch or all of them?

These are things you should be asking yourself.

Now, what you can't see in the picture of my garden is under all that snow is I have covered my garden with chicken and duck manure, compost and straw. So my garden will be ready to plant in the spring and I should get an even better yield than last year because of the added nutrients. If you haven't taken this step, now is a great time!

 I keep my seeds organized so it is easy for me to decide what I want to plant. Fall time is a great time to buy discounted seeds to use for the following spring. I also order from online seed companies such as Baker creek heirloom seed company and Heirloom seeds. If you need to purchase seeds, now is the time as it may take a few or more weeks to receive them.

 I like to plan my garden in a notebook. There are many other methods and printables online but this is my method of choice. This one is from last year. I write what I plant, where I plant it and the date that I plant it so I can keep track of how my plants are growing. I am working on this years but I tend to change my mind when I am actually planting so I try not to write anything in the book until it is planted.We are also putting in another garden so I will have more space to plant 

Last but most important, if you haven't put in a garden space, now is the time. Or, if you are container gardening, now is the time to decide on what you are using and prepare them. 

Here are a few extra pictures just for fun.

 These girls are taking a little break from the freezing cold

Betty White is one of my favorite girls

If you look real close, you will count 8 chickens and 4 ducks

Grocery tip

If you are thinking of freezing your almond milk here is what it will look like when you defrost it. I have to shake it every time I use it because it separates. It still taste fine but the texture is different and to me it looks absolutely disgusting. I am cooking with it but not drinking it. 

It's that time again! My 2 week grocery haul

Well, we made it through our first two weeks of our $400 January grocery budget challenge. We had to get very creative the beginning of this week but overall it's been okay. 

So, this grocery haul cost $220.00 so, I did end up going over. We have ended up feeding our church missionaries three more times than planned so, as long as we make it these next two weeks, I will count it as a success.

In this grocery haul I got more fruit and veggies then last time. It was something we ran low on  during our first 2 weeks so I wanted to make sure we had enough this time. I also found a 7.60 lb block of mozzarella. I paid $2.49 a pound for it making it $18.92. This block will actually last us for a month or so but we use a lot of cheese, especially when we eat a lot of rice and beans. 

I was pretty bummed that Sharp Shopper didn't have any milk alternatives this week so I had to pay $2.98 each for Almond and Cashew milk. 

Also in this haul I got some clearance Christmas chocolate for .50 a bag at Aldi. It is actually some of my very favorite chocolate and they only have it for Christmas and Easter so I got 4 of them. We will use them for family home evening or a movie night.

Not in the picture is 6 loaves of french bread for .60 each and a 50 lb bag of chicken feed.  

Overall, I thought it was a pretty good haul. I did have to adjust my grocery list due to prices and availability but that is how I shop anyway.

I do have to change my menu. This challenge has shown me that we work best with a 1 week menu. No matter how hard I try to keep ingredients around for planned meals, we still end up running out. 

We were blessed by a few people who gave us food. My visiting teacher gave us a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of grape jelly and my brother gave us a bag of rice, a bag of dried beans and 4 cans of beans, tortillas and tortilla chips. These items helped us a lot. It's amazing how much I take these items for granted until I am low on food and then they are such a blessing.

If you are thinking of doing a grocery budget challenge, I encourage you to do it! If only to give you an idea of how much your family really eats and what they will eat when you are low on food.

Oatmeal, a frugal and delicious breakfast

one of my favorite foods is old fashioned rolled oats. I buy 25 lbs at a time because we use it so much.
One good size serving of oatmeal is 1/2 cup of dry oats. So when you add the cup of water it calls for and cook it, it expands into a nice large bowl of oatmeal.
Here's the break down:
My 25 lb bag of rolled oats cost $16 (prices may be different in your area). that is .64 a lb.
At 1/2 cup, there are 250 servings in 25 lbs. that means I pay about 6.4 cents per serving. That is a super cheap and filling breakfast!

I know, oatmeal day in and day out can get boring. But, one of the reasons I love it is because of how versatile it is. Here are some ideas

You can make granola with it and eat the granola with milk or use it to top off a yummy yogurt parfait

 How about overnight oatmeal? I like these because you just pull them from the fridge in the morning and you can eat them hot or cold. Plus, there are so many flavors you can come up with, that it is hard to get bored. This one is very berry and almond milk

You can make baked oatmeal. This is a really great and delicious way to serve oatmeal and like the overnight oatmeal, there are so many yummy ways to make it

Here is one more great way to use your oats. Protein balls! They are great for breakfast or snacking. I usually have these in my freezer, so when we need something quick, we can grab 1 or 2 of these and were good to go

So, next time you are looking for a way to stretch your budget and fill your family's bellies, grab some old fashioned rolled oats!

Grocery budget challenge tip

Did you know, the average family wastes  up to 40% of their food annually? That is the same thing as tossing our hard earned income in the trash.
There are lots of things you can do to avoid wasting food. keep track of what you have in your fridge, freezer and pantry. Don't buy it if your family doesn't like it. If you do buy something you don't usually eat, have a plan for it. If you don't typically buy eggplant and now it is sitting in your fridge, chop it up and toss it in a soup or shred it and put it on homemade pizza.
 Don't throw out your leftovers! If your family complains about eating the same thing two days in a row, make something new with it. Got leftover ham and mashed potatoes from Christmas? Hopefully you froze them! We like to make big sub sandwiches with our Christmas leftovers. We pile our leftovers on french bread (yay clearance french bread!) add lots of cheese, some cranberry honey mustard if you want and bake it in the oven for 10-12 minutes! This is a huge hit in our house. 

Maybe you have lots of leftover chili. Use it for chili cheese fries (homemade or frozen)or chili cheese burritos. I can turn pretty much anything into a burrito and my kids will eat it.

You can always come up with something for leftovers and you will reduce your family's food waste.

Here is an example. I ruined my cupcakes but they made super delicious cake pops! No waste, not even close. These had a brownie texture and the family scarfed these down like they had been on a chocolate fast for a year. 

Leftovers Chili and a side of sweet yummy cornbread!

 As you have probably guessed by now, I am not a photographer. My pictures are real life with all the flaws that come with it. This includes the food I post. This is food I actually eat so, it is probably not going to look professional. With that said, I have a recipe to share.

I call this leftovers chili because, I use leftovers from my fridge and turn it into yummy chili.

Leftovers Chili

1 lb. cooked pinto beans ( I cooked these ahead of time in my trusty crock pot)
3 cups water
2 cups diced tomatoes
1 cup pumpkin puree (leftover from pumpkin muffins )
2 cups corn (I had leftover corn from Christmas that I froze)
2 cups frozen spinach (I like to freeze spinach and while it's frozen crush it up)
1 whole diced onion
2 cups refried beans (leftover from last night's burritos and it works great for thickening)
1 bun length hot dog (I had 1 hot dog leftover from new years eve and I wasn't about to waste it)
2 packs msg-free taco seasoning ( I don't like chili seasoning)
1 Tbs garlic powder
1 Tbs dried onion flakes
2 tsp msg-free seasoning salt
salt to taste
 Mix all the ingredients and cook on medium heat for 30 minutes or so

You can serve this plain or top it with cheese, sourcream, onions and/or even bacon. I served it with my oh so delicious cornbread

My kids love this chili and you can add whatever leftovers you have on hand. It is a great way to use up what you have and to get those extra veggies in your families diet. Oh, and unless I tell my kids, they have no idea there is pumpkin in this chili.

Here is our 2 week meal menu

Here's my two week menu using food from my shopping trip and items

 I already have on hand. We will have the same thing next week as this week. Keep in mind, a menu should be a guideline. Sometimes I change a meal because we are low on an item or because I just feel like making something else. Menus are a good tool to  have though and will help you save time in the long run