Step Back and Simplify

If you guys haven't noticed, I've not been near as regular in  my posts as I would like to be.  I have been feeling a little overwhelmed as my husband is becoming less and less of a support at home with some major tests and things that are happening at school.  What's hard too is that he is at the computer a lot, which leaves it difficult for me to put posts on, since the only times my kids are asleep are when he's using the computer.

 

Since my life is getting a little more challenging, I decided there are 3 things that I have to get done every day. 

 

Read my scriptures, exercise, and practice the piano. 

 

These are things that better me, and my self-confidence, and once I manage to get in these three things, my day is a billion times better.  I'm much more capable of fitting in the rest of the things I need to do.  Plus, my patience and tolerance increases with my children and husband.  What's more, it allows me to take a look at what's really important in this life. 

 

I encourage you to figure out what it is you need everyday.  Try and limit it to 3 things (one in the morning, afternoon and night while kids are sleeping preferably).  What are some things you guys can't live without?

Fort Fun

For Easter my parents sent a little package to the kids. It was full of tent supplies, clamps, and head lamps. Such a fun idea. So we grabbed an old sheet and made them a fort. They loved it! The clamps were amazing. The fort could be hooked to anything and it stayed put. I don't know why I didn't think of using clamps before.

So that is my tip to make life easier. Grab some clamps at your local hardware store and make your kids a fort. It may provide you with a few moments of peace and quiet. :)

Dish Out the Compliments

I've been thinking the last couple of days. So, I am really bad at cleaning the kitchen at night. I can't bring myself to do it after I put the kids down and if I don't get dinner cleaned up before the kids go down, it usually waits until the next day. Well, by some miracle, I have had the kitchen cleaned 2 nights in a row!

This may not seem important, but bear with me. So my husband has been very enthusiastic in complimenting me and thanking me for cleaning the kitchen. It kind of makes me embarrassed that it's that big of a deal, but at the same time I am one of those people that is always fishing for compliments. When my husband mentioned that I didn't even have to fish for these, it got me thinking. I kind of wish that I naturally kept our house more clean and that he recognized me for it even if it was the norm.

So here is my thought on something small you can do that can better your marriage. Always look for things to compliment him on. Thank him for working every day. Thank him for taking out the garbage without being asked. Thank him for helping you brush the kids teeth. Thank him for playing with the kids. Thank him for being home in time for you to run to the store without your kids. Thank him for putting his shoes away. These are normal things that should be done anyway. But don't you think your husband would love to help you out more if he was being recognized for the things he was doing? And don't you think you'll be a lot less mad when you are constantly looking for the good to compliment him on? I think this simple act could make a huge impact on a marriage, and it doesn't take money, or time! Just try and turn your thoughts more positively and see how it makes a difference.

Meal Plan Help

So, I've been super lame I know.  And I have excuses, but I won't bore you with them.  Right now, I'm going to give you what is helping me with my Meal Planning. 

 

A little backstory, I am a terrible meal planner.  I have this weird thing where I feel like I have to find all new recipes and it would take me HOURS to plan for just a week.  My poor husband just wants a meal consistently and it wasn't happening.  So we decided to come up with an easier way to meal plan that helps me make decisions easier, and we make some of the same things (which makes my life easier).  Anyway, want to see it?  Here's my "Meal Plan Guideline".

 

Mondays:  Soup Day

Tuesdays:  Crock Pot Meal

Wednesdays:  Salad

Thursdays:  Something New

Fridays:  Homemade Pizza Night

Saturdays:  Monthly Rotation/Favorite Meals

Sundays:  "Mom's Cooking"

 

Guess what, this surprisingly relieved a lot of pressure.  It's not like we're eating the same thing every week, but we can still have some of our favorite meals.  And I catered it to how our week normally looks. 

 

Mondays:  Are sometimes hard to get back in the swing of things, and most of the time soups are easy to make, and something like our Black Bean Soup is quick and easy to make, and we usually have the ingredients on hand.  But, I'm not stuck to making only soups that we have already had, I can maybe branch out, but it makes it easier to find something when I know I'm looking for a soup.

 

Tuesdays:  I teach piano from 3 until 7:30, so I don't have time to make dinner.  But instead of my husband being in charge, I can put something in the crockpot around lunchtime, and then it's ready to eat when my family is ready to eat.  Again, I can make some of our favorite crock pot meals, or I can look for something new, but I have a guideline of something kind of specific to look for.

 

Wednesdays:  You can make this as easy or complicated as you want.  Something I've learned on my quest to good health, is the importance of eating salad more.  But, I feel quite limited if that's all I'm eating every night.  But it's really good for us to have one night a week where we know we're eating salad.  Again, you can throw together whatever ingredients you have in the house, and just eat it with Ranch, or you can find a recipe for salad online.  I have some of my favorites.  By the way, you should try making your own dressing.  It totally changed my attitude about eating salad!

 

Thursdays:  Something new.  This is a good opportunity to go through all those cookbooks you have and actually make some of those recipes you've never tried but kind of wanted to.  I finished making all the recipes out of Our Best Bites first cookbook, and now I'm working on their new one Savoring the Seasons.  This is a great day for me to try one of those!

 

Fridays:  We just started doing movie nights.  And instead of ordering pizza, (because we're poor), we make our own.  I haven't found my perfect pizza crust recipe yet, so I've been going through my pinterest board and each week we try a new recipe for pizza.  And you can make it as healthy or greasy as you want!

 

Saturdays:  This is a day where we can barbecue steaks, make our favorite pulled pork sandwiches, try those veggie burgers, etc.  I usually like to ask my husband what he's in the mood for and we go for that on Saturdays.

 

Sundays:  You know sometimes it's good to go back to your roots.  We don't eat casseroles and such the way my family did growing up.  But Sundays are a great day to bring those back.  Think, lasagna, roasts, Italian Chicken, Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole, etc. 

 

How about you?  What helps you the most when planning your weekly (or monthly) menu?

Nail Polish to the Rescue!

First off I apologize for my lack of posting.  Being a mother of three is a little crazy at times and a lot of things fall by the wayside.  I will try and do better.  But I am not promising much.  Anyway, on with my post.

Normally posts about nail polish are dealing with how to clean up spills.  However, nail polish has become my new best friend.  I use it to paint buttons, zippers, jewelry, etc.  I found this great coat that had gold buttons on it.  Yuck.  So I took my handy dandy nail polish and painted them silver.  Now it looks awesome and I can't wait to wear it.

Nail polish is faster, easier, less messy, and more durable than spray paint.  Not to mention there are about a million colors.  You should use this little trick next time you want to update your look.  You can change fastenings on clothing, bags, jewelry, etc.  You can paint some earrings a new fun color or paint those yucky beads in your favorite necklace a better color.  You could even paint a fun design on a plain purse.  Polka dots anyone? Really the possibilities are endless.  For more of my nail polish projects click here.

Meaningful Birthdays

 

This past week has been kind of our ultimate birthday week.  My son turned 2 on Sunday, and my husband turned 27 on Tuesday.  I am the kind of person that loves traditions and making a celebration out of a birthday (thank you mom!).

 

One thing that I loved that she did was this.  Every odd year we had a friend birthday party, and every even year we had a family party.  I decided this is something I'm going to carry on.  Although, I am kind of changing it to be more like... an official birthday party with favors, games, decorations, etc. on the odd years, and on the even years, we spare the formalities of a birthday party, and spend time doing their favorite things on their day.  And that's what we did for my son this year.

 

Turning 2, he can't really specify exactly what he wants.  But as his mom, I know what he loves.  And he LOVES the Kangaroo Zoo!  So we went for a few hours and just let him run like a crazy boy.  Then, we had some fast food for lunch, then that night, we had a family movie night watching the new movie he got for his birthday (Peter Pan).  To be honest, I still don't know if he knew it was his birthday.  But, it was really important for me to spend time with my son.  I really wanted to focus on him, and not getting everything ready.  And let me tell you, it was so refreshing!  I didn't really cook a thing all day (I saved that for the family party the next day) and I think he loved being able to play with me.  Don't get me wrong, the big parties are fun.  And I think they enjoy that kind of attention, but I think it's just as important to focus on the little things.

 

The other thing I like to do is get up a little earlier and get a nice breakfast going.  This is usually my chance to try some new breakfasts out that my family won't normally eat. 

 

 

But now I want to talk to you about spouses.  Since it's been my husband's birthday, and we don't have a whole lot of resources, I've just been racking my brain for what to do for him that he really wants, instead of just buying him some stuff.  So this was my way of making the day special.  I made him a nice breakfast, and I also made him a lunch to take with him to school (this is something he asks me repeatedly to do, and unfortunately I rarely do it).  Then, I did the best I could to really clean the house.  Honestly, it makes a huge difference.  I know not everyone is as bad at housekeeping as I am, but just take the time to do a little something more.  Then, I hung up some of his hunting/fishing  pictures while he was gone so he would come back to see them.  This is another little project that he's been wanting to have done, that I keep putting off.  Then, I just made sure we had one of his favorite meals for dinner (even though I was working all afternoon).  Yes I got him a few things, but I really think that what makes a birthday special, is you trying to put their priorities first.  This is something we should always strive to do, but it gets really hard to balance it all.  My husband is amazing, and deserves something extra.  And I think it was a nice day (except for maybe the studying all day for finals this week).  It doesn't take money, it's the thought you put into it.  Maybe put all your videos from your camera onto a DVD and watch that with him.  Clean out his car while he's not paying attention for a special surprise when he gets in.  Leave random notes around the house/work.  Give him some space if he wants it.  Things like that to let him know you care about him and understand what it is he wants the most.  It can be pretty memorable.

 

As a recap...these are ways, outside of giving presents, to make their birthdays more memorable.

1.  Special Breakfast

2.  Devote the Day to their favorite things

3.  Alternate years with friend and family party

4.  Do extra little things outside of the daily routine for them

 

How about you?  What are some of your ideas for making your loved ones' birthdays special?

Keeping Track of Your Food

 

I think I've mentioned before that I have a super outdated kitchen.  Again, just be warned about that.  But that's beside the point.  The point of this post is something that I just decided to try doing.  That is actually having a running list of what is inside the fridge and freezer.

 

How many times have you cleaned out your fridge to find food that you totally forgot was in there?  How many times have you not had any idea what to make for dinner, but didn't want to necessarily rummage through your fridge to see if you had some random ingredients?

 

I am kind of a list person.  If you're not, then this method might not work for you.  But, I saw this idea on keeping track of your deep freezer inventory with a dry erase marker on the actual freezer.  Seeing that reminded me of a gift I got for Christmas from my mother-in-law.  She gave me these "Wall Pops" that are vinyl whiteboards that you can stick and unstick to your wall.  I just thought, why don't I stick this to my refrigerator?  And that's what I did. 

 

I know you can't really tell that that's not our fridge, but look at the picture below and you'll see the difference. 

 

So far so good!  Right now the categories I have are

Fridge:

Vegetables

Fruits

Diary

Other

Leftovers

(I'm not really keeping track of condiments since they are in the door)

 

Freezer:

(No subcategories since ours is tiny.  You may want to add categories here)

 

To Buy:

Costco

Everything Else

 

This category is nice right here, because as you are erasing something from your fridge that you need to have on hand, then go ahead and add it to your "to buy" list.  And I always need to keep a Costco list separate.

 

Dishwasher:

I have this thing where I get super annoyed when dishes get left in the sink while the dishwasher is clearly dirty.  That just means someone didn't even check.  This may seem dumb/obvious to you guys, but I really wanted something like this.  So now, everytime I start the dishwasher, I change that to "clean", and whenever I unload it, I mark "dirty".  So it's never a question. 

 

And there you have it.  I really like it a lot, and I'm kind of wanting to put these on the inside of our pantry doors and places like that.  I think it could really come in handy and hopefully save in groceries, or at least prevent from so much food being wasted. 

 

What are some methods that help you keep your food flow actually flow instead of mold??