Black Friday Success

I forced my sister to help me out while she was visiting. I had a couple things I was aiming to get this Black Friday and needed her help if I was going to be successful in a short amount of time.

We left our house at 5 in the morning and headed over to Joann Fabrics so I could get snuggle flannel for $1.50 a yard and fleece for $2.99 a yard. While waiting in line, I decided I had time to do a run into Babies R'Uz real quick. I had my sister stand in line while I went in and got wet wipe boxes for $5 a piece (usually they have diapers for $10 too but not this year :0( oh well). On my way to the checkout, I passed the clearance racks for clothes and read a nifty sign that said and additional 50% off already marked prices. I was hooked. I quickly scanned through and took cute items that were $4 and under originally and a couple $8 and $10 items. I made a steal, I feel.

I brought that stuff to the car and joined my sister back in line. The doors opened and we decided to forgo a cart since it slows you down and went straight to flannel. I pulled a couple cute things and gave them to my sister and told her to go pull a number and if it's called by the time I get back with fleece, to start getting so many yards of the top 3. I made it back in time and then we ended up getting an earlier number from a husband whose wife wasn't ready to cut yet. Score for us! Once we were done, we headed over to Old Navy to get my kids winter coats for $15 a piece. By 7:30, we were out the door and driving home. I was so impressed with myself for getting everything done in 2 1/2 hours. I couldn't have done it without my sister. I owe her big time!

Gobble Til You Wobble!

I love Thanksgiving and all of it's glorious food. In the past, we have gone up to Jared's grandparents for the holidays, but last year we had it at Jared's family's house.

This year, I wanted my sister to come down again and with her, I thought it'd be fun to invite my brothers from another mother over as well. It was looking pretty grim that the brothers could make it due to old plans already set. I got a call though the week before saying that things have changed and they would love to come join us for Thanksgiving along with a significant other for one of them. I was so excited because I thought it'd be a lot of fun seeing everyone and hanging out. I didn't want to intrude on Jared's mom with all of those extra bodies so I decided to have a home Thanksgiving this year.

To maintain my sanity, I made a list of all of the food I was planning on cooking and just kept checking things off my list as I went. I made a pumpkin and lemon merangue pie the night before. Thanksgiving morning, I put the turkey in and made a chocolate mousse pie (Thanks Keyonna, it was amazing!). I then went through the rest of the steps. One of my "brothers," Jason, told me he was amazed at how calm I was acting. I told him it was because of my list.

The turkey ended up being awesome. It practically "fell" off the turkey in whole breast chunks which made Jared's job of carving it pretty easy. I was a bit disappointed in my brothers though. I thought for sure between them, my husband and his cousin, that we wouldn't end up with a whole lot left for left-overs. Boy was I wrong.

Other food involved was raspberry jello, salad, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade stuffing, Rhodes rolls and rice. I was so stuffed! I had so much fun though and the kids loved the extra love and attention. My other "brother," Brent, and his "friend" helped out with clearing and loading dishes which was greatly appreciated. It was so good to see them again and I had fun eating, talking and playing games with them.

Brent and Jenny

Recharter Shuffle

For Cub Scouts, once a year, the chair person is in charge of rechartering for their group. Our recharter deadline was coming up and I found the process pretty easy. I tried to get as many people as possible to be done their training so we could receive the discount again this next year. The only snag was that I found out that the boys leaving cubs to the troop level and their leaders, weren't included on the recharter for the troop. Feeling bad, I decided to make my life busier by collecting the applications with signatures needed to give to the troop so the boys and their leaders wouldn't get lost. It was a huge headache, but I was glad everything got worked out alright. I now feel very comfortable with the whole process and know what to look out for the coming years.

Leader Specific...Check

Since I started being involved with the Cub Scouts as Chairperson for my calling in church, I have gotten a little busier. The position like all other scout positions, requires training. I finished all of my online training pretty quick, but I still had to go to a physical class for leader specific that was 3 hours long. A last minute training session came up and I decided to take advantage of it. It went from 6-9 at night and I am so glad I got it done and over with. Now, I just have to go to the second hour and a half if I ever change my position to something else. Phew! Now I can get a patch in the mail that says TRAINED on it to put on my uniform.

250 lbs of Wheat!

Since the price of bulk wheat had gone down at the bishop's storehouse, I decided to take advantage of it. I occasionally went down there and picked up bulk bags of red and white wheat for the passed couple months. I finally found out that a ward member was going to have the stake sealer and canner at her house and I got excited to finally get to mylar bagging it all. WIth her help, I went over one day and bagged all 250 lbs. of our wheat for storage thanks to her help. I feel so much better and look forward to next time as well. Thanks Michelle!

Groceries & Menus

We had a class for Relief Society last month called Groceries and Menus. I was asked to talk about my methods for running my groceries and meal plans in my house along with three other women in the ward. I showed everybody my first version pre-picking kid planning. I had a whole lot more variety and a bigger plan set up. Here is a picture of it.

After my kids got pickier on what they eat, I had to revamp my thinking and it resulted in this. I call it "Mom's Menu 2.0."

I made this little beauty recently. I took a sheet of metal and put electrical tape around the edges so I wouldn't hurt myself. I might make it cute with ribbon one of these days. Then, I made labels for days and weeks with scrapbook paper and laminated them. I also made magnetic color coded meals to put on and arrange however, for my 3 or 4 week meal plan for the upcoming month or so.

I am so happy with it. It has been my piece of mind and makes my life a whole lot more simpler. Of course, almost all meals on said version are what I know my kids have eaten or will eat for the most part. Less of a headache for my husband and I at dinner time :0)

I remember my father-in-law seeing my first version and telling me I should sell this method to other women out there. I sure you can make money off of it some how. I'm happy to inform people that my husband is working on an application for this very purpose on the IPhone that blends in your recipes as well as an editable shopping list to cross check with your pantry. It'll be fabulous and we hope to have it done in the months to come.

I told everyone I planned out my meals as follows. Once a week, I make bread for our family. I make a batch of 4 loaves, but use one loaf of dough for a dinner such as pizza, calzones, chicken pillows or navajo tacos. Every Tuesday night is "Taco Tuesday." I got this idea from my mother-in-law. We always have some form of Mexican that night. The rest, I rotate between chicken, pork, steak, beef and miscellaneous meats and meals. This way, I can rotate through my meat source and have enough variety to not get bored or sick of one thing or the other. There were handouts for the night as well and I even learned some new things. Let me know if anyone wants the handouts and I can email them to you. Happy planning!

Trunk-or-Treat or Trick-or-Treat

We carved pumpkins on Halloween which turned out to be fun. Daddy did his own pumpkin, Hayden drew this face for his and Hadley drew marker on hers. I finally carved one of my artificial pumpkins as well. I thought it turned out pretty cute. Here is a picture of them a day or two after Halloween since I wasn't on top of taking pictures day of. Jared's pumpkin's mouth had WWWW across it. Kinda funny.

We had the trunk-or-treat and I think we planned things out pretty good. I fed the kids in advance so we wouldn't have to try and feed them there. It was a good thing too because it was freezing cold out. We got a parking spot in the lot and then went around trunk-or-treating with the kids. Hayden was Anakin Skywalker and Hadley was Snow White. Addison was a Pumpkin, but her hat didn't fit her. Hayden didn't want to be Anakin Skywalker. He was upset because he wanted to be Luke Skywalker. I told him this was the one he pointed to and so this is what he was going to be. To make him happy, we gave him a Darth Vader beanie to wear and glove and then he finally thought it was a cool costume. The sad thing is that the costume I made Hadley, I didn't hem enough and so by the end of the night, Hadley's dress on the bottom was black. You can see in the picture. Very sad.

I promise to take better pictures of them in their costumes and post those after the fact obviously.

Anakin and Snow White (unaltered dress)

My little pumpkin!