Letter Reversal Help

This was such a "Duh!" moment for me, but, within about 5 minutes, a problem we had been working on for a couple of weeks, was solved, so I had to share!  Check out Laura's solution for letter reversal over at Come together kids:

AND...as if that were not enough...

Amazing.  It's always the simplest solutions that I love the best!

The 22 Days of Christmas

So, we've gotten started on our little giving project.  Our first days was filled with a few hiccups.  We chose to take a cup of McDonald's coffee to the Salvation Army bell ringer outside of our Wal-Mart.  We dropped Jacob off at school, picked up the coffee and headed to Wal-Mart.  Well, apparently, bell ringers aren't out before 8am on December 1st.  Since McDonald's coffee is ridiculously hot and I needed to run to the ATM anyway, we ran over to the bank and came back around 8:30...still not there.  The boys were pretty determined to sit in the parking lot and wait for that bell ringer to show up. :) I decided that maybe it'd be better to go on home and decide what to do.  Consequently, I drank that coffee and I took another cup later after sunset.

On our second day, we baked Banana Bread for our sweet neighbor who is having surgery in a couple of weeks.
We used day 3 to make several types of home made bath salts and on day 4, we gave one of our elders and his dear wife a bottle of wine.
On day 5, we took a jar of our lavender bath salts to the kiddo's grandma who has a fractured vertebrae (ouch!) and is off of work.

Eat What You Have Days 26-30

Day 26 - We had yet another Thanksgiving dinner on the 26th!

Day 27 - This would have been our monthly Fellowship Meal at church, but, with everybody getting over their coughs, we decided to go ahead and keep our funk to ourselves and eat the food we would ahve prepared at home.  We had Baked Penne.  Basically, I layer pasta, sauce with crumbled Italian sausage, and mozzarella cheese and bake for 30 or so minutes at 375 degrees.

Day 28 - Slow-cooked Tex-Mex Chicken and Beans  I omit the chilies in adobo.  In my opinion, their flavor is a bit overwhelming and they are messy!


Day 29 - Leftover night

Day 30 - Seriously, I've looked over my menu, and I CAN NOT, for the life of me, remember what we had this night.  Way to go out with a bang, huh?

We are semi-continuing the Eat What You Have challenge.  Basically, I am keeping a list of all the meats and pantry items that I have, making my menu from that, and getting creative with ingredients.  I did make my monthly Sam's trip for toilet paper, pasta, juice, fruit, staples, and things of that sort.  Beyond that, I've set a goal of spend less than 50% of our grocery budget for this month.  I'll let you know how we've fared at the end of the month!

The 12 Days of Christmas...that kinda got out of hand (in a good way)

one h ᵉ α r t... one w ᴼ r ℓ ∂, a photo by Just Kimberlee on Flickr.

For the past couple of years, we have been slowly building toward doing a Twelve Days of Christmas sort of deal, wherein we give a small gift to (1) people in our lives who we truly appreciate, but who don't hear it nearly enough, (2) people in thankless jobs, (3) people who have had a rough run of things, or (4) people who look like they could just use a bit of kindness. We have done a few more people each year. I was determined to make that list of 12 this year and...well...it seems to have turned into many more than that.

With the smaller boys getting older and grandparents now asking them what they want for Christmas and their sudden awareness of the Toys R Us Wish Book (harumpf!), I'm becoming more and more displeased with all of the introspection I've been hearing in the getting department around here. So, I've printed up our blank calendar. We have a list of about 22 people (I think we'll take one day per week off). I believe I will try to tie the giving in with our advent calendar (Who are we going to give to today?)



This will all start tomorrow. I've tried to slide a few "easy" ones in there for those days when we are running frantically. (I hope that doesn't sound terrible!) By easy I mean requiring little prep work. For example, we are going to leave some candy canes on windshields at Wal-Mart. We are going to pick up a cup of coffee for the Salvation Army bell ringer - that sort of thing. Some others I've got on the list are having the boys make some drawings and cards and taking them to the nursing home. We are taking cookies to Jacob's football coaches. We are giving a small gift card to a kid who we know has had a rough year. I'll try to list them out like I do my Eat What You Have recipes every few days. Hopefully, I'll have some attitude transformations to share, as well!

Grocery shopping

I've heard lots of different opinions from lots of different people on which grocery store is "best."  I say the one that gives you the best value.  I had a real eye opener this week and it is not the first or second time that this has happened to me.  I had to buy some milk, eggs, juice, fruit, potatoes - those sorts of things this week, along with a few items to make special holiday dishes.  I went through all of the ads, checked prices, gathered coupons, and made my list to take to Wal-Mart for price matching. Eight of the ten items on my price match list were cheaper at Wal-Mart than the other stores' sale prices.

 I don't want to shop at a store that lures me in with loss leaders only to charge me more for everything else.  I don't want to pay more for my groceries for the ambiance and a Starbucks - which is just going to charge you for one cup what you should be paying for a whole can.  I want to spend as little as possible on the products my family needs and use the money left over to save for a family vacation or a new HVAC or a date night.  That's my 2 cents.

Eat What You Have - Days 17-25

It's been over a week now and I'm sitting here wishing I had written all of this out sooner.  I'm sure I'll forget something.  I hope you can forgive me.

Day 17 - Baked Tomato Casserole I did not, in fact, have any mac and cheese reserved, but I went ahead and made some myself.  For those fans of the boxed stuff, because It's "easier" try making it from scratch once and I promise you the difference in flavor is worth the extra few minutes.  I also doubled the recipe and had plenty of leftovers.

Day 18 - Spiral sliced ham, mashed potatoes, Mediterranean-style green beans, and homemade bread.  For the green beans, saute 1/2 diced onion in 1 Tbsp of olive oil.  Add 1 14.5oz can diced tomatoes, 2 cans cut green beans, 2 tsp dried basil,  1-2 cloves minced garlic, and salt & pepper to taste.  Cook until heated through.

Day 19 - Leftovers

Day 20 - Sunday "Eating Out" Day

Day 21 - Date Night - woo hoo!

Day 22 -  Another leftover night

Day 23 - Ham & egg scramblers with potatoes and cheese - peel, cube, boil, and drain 1lb. of potatoes; Heat 1 Tbsp oil on med-high in a large skillet, add potatoes and cook until golden brown.  Add about 1/2lb. cubed or shredded ham and 1dz eggs, stirring to combine; Cook until eggs are cooked through, add 1 to 1 1/2c shredded cheese.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Day 24  - Turkey and fixin's

Day 25 - Bruschetta chicken bake This is a great way to use up Thanksgiving leftovers!

Preschool "Busy Bag" Ideas

I've been trying to look for some ideas to keep the twins engaged while working with Julius during our homeschooling hours.  Coloring just doesn't get it.  It lasts about 15 seconds.  Most of the ideas I've found have come from moms with 1. all girls or 2. no older children.  They just weren't working for us.  I stumbled across a mom at www.littlehandsbigwork.com.  She has LOTS of great stuff for boys and moms with lots o' little ones.  Here are pics of a few ideas we have snagged from her that have bought us some valuable teaching time and made for some very proud little guys!

Sorting by color

They LOVED putting the stickers on the letters!

Can't remember if this was her idea or not! But the boys loved it.

Washers, nails, screws, paper clips, and cut up pipe cleaners in a container with a strong magnet.