Word-ly Thinking

Today I am pleased to be blogging about author Justin Matott. I have previously mentioned that we own many of his books, that I recently had the opportunity to work on his blog and now I get to bring everyone a really fun contest!

Justin has written books for all ages (adults included) but his admittedly goofy self loves to write children’s books. In his latest series he is really focusing on an Anti-Bullying message. He does so in such a fun and lighthearted way kids can’t help but get the message. Please take a minute to read some reviews from kids on his book Go Ask Mom –

Justin is offering an incredible chance to not only win one his books that he will personalize and autograph BUT also the winner could could potentially have their poem published in book 4 AS one written by the main character, Gabriel!!!

Poem? You ask what poem?

Well, my friends that is the challenge for this contest and I know with all the creativity flowing in bloggy land you will ALL rise to this challenge! Enlist your kids, Enlist your Students…Bring it on!

The rules are simple – oh so simple – All you have to do is write a 4 to 8 line poem about a gross food combination...

My own example:

Eggs and pickles
taste buds don't tickle
they give me gas
when they're in my glass

And, don't I wish
there were no fish
in the kitchen sink
cuz, they're also in my drink

There is a little catch…fine print if you would – we are really hoping to reach a ton of readers with this contest – you see Justin Matott is very well known and highly respected in our region but his awesomeness has not spread nationwide as of yet and he REALLY wants to get in front of Ellen DeGeneres and hopefully get to guest interview on her show to help spread the word about Anti-Bullying.

I don’t know Ellen…Do you? I didn’t think so…

So what we are asking is that as a part of the contest you post your entry on Your Blog and link back to mine and to Justin’s then come back here and post the URL for your entry in the comments section.

By doing so we are hoping all of your readers will be enticed to come and join in the fun too…our goal? It is lofty! We want 200 entries – on 200 blogs all across the USofA!

The contest will run for 2 weeks and close on Wednesday May 27th at 10pm MST – Justin will hand pick the winner and we will announce the winner, feature them on all our blogs and send the prize on Friday May 29th!

So get thinking – I know you can do this – I can’t wait to read what you write…

There is NO limit to the number of entries you can post…so each of your children can write, you can write, your significant other can write, heck if your dog can write…let him in on it too!

(on a side note, if you are a teacher and want to get your students involved email me and we will tell what we thought of to help facilitate this)

(great resource rhymezone.com)

What I learned this week is hosted by Jo-Lynn over at Musings of a Housewife

I had me a nice and busy week... In a round about way I was put in touch with Justin Matott - (author extraordinaire) and besides the fact that he has a professional website at http://www.justinmatott.com/ he also has a blog at Justin Matott Snickers - that he has been keeping for quite some time but never quite new what to do with it...and he let ME play with it!

That was so much fun and while we are still fine tuning a few things...we are also putting together a super fabulous, extra fun contest to roll from blog to blog to blog! So if you aren't a subscriber to my blog AND his blog you best get hopping before you miss out!

I also learned how to throw together a pirates costume when you just can't make some of the things you purchased work...OH and how to make a PURPLE beard because lord knows I couldn't find one on the net - I found Orange, I found Green but no purple...

So there you have it...I learned a little, played a little and now I am conniving a little - don't miss the contest it is sure to be super fun for all! Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of ....Words -

It's Chic to be Cheap

I read this article on CNN this afternoon and laughed. I laughed at myself not at the article.

I have never been "IN" so to speak.

I am also not exactly known as being "Cheap" but lately I have been trying really hard to pay closer attention to what I spend and saving money when I can.

It didn't necessarily start because of the "recession" but more out of morbid curiosity. I have always had somethings that I just hated paying full price for because the sales prices were so much cheaper.

1. My daughters OJ $5.39 reg and only $1.99 when on sale
2. My husbands Coffee $12.39 reg and only $5.99 on sale
3. Tide Free HE $12.99 reg and $5.99 when on sale.

All of those are LESS than half price when on sale so I would always stock up and wait! Then a couple weeks ago I stumbled on this blog "Saving our Cents" and many more like it where the coupon queens actually do all the work and tell you where and how to get the deals. I was SHOCKED at what they purchase for near pennies and quite frankly saw it as a challenge.

At first it was fun to save money using their deals but I was NO WHERE near the low prices they were paying and that was OK, except I felt compelled to keep trying.

And this morning, before I read the article that made me laugh at myself, I set out to Walgreens armed with coupons and knowledge from Saving our Cents and here is what I got:

2 - packs of 72 paper plates
2 - boxes of 50 zipper bags (not zip lock brand)
2 - bottles of Dawn Dish Soap
1 - Tube Colgate Advantage Toothpaste
3 - 12 packs of Pepsi products

All of these items are things we use A LOT of (especially the soda)

I spent $6.36 but the best part is Walgreens spit out two register rewards from the machine good as cash towards my next visit totalling $6.50

So, depending on how you look at it, I either got my goodies for free or I spent $6.36 and Made $6.50 to spend next time. And you better believe I won't go back without checking the websites first!

So there you have it. I am becoming Cheap and Chic all at the same time!

Meal Planning Part 3

We are in the final stretch. This last part is a super time and money saver - even if you are not looking to save money - you will.

You have your calendars filled in right? Complete with sides? GOOD!

Now grab that little rotation spreadsheet (4 or 8 weeks) and your notebook again. This time it would helpful to have any recipes near by that you may need. For my 8 week meals I keep recipes that I use in a binder, in a drawer in my kitchen so I don't have to hunt down a cook book or recipe card.

In your notebook label one Page STAPLES and the next pages Week 1, Week 2 and so on.

Take a deep breath, and another - OK you better take one more.

Now. Start with your staples page. Start writing all your needs for the rotation that you can purchase ahead of time that wont spoil, bread crumbs - spaghetti sauce, dressing, butter, pasta, taco shells, spices, oils, jellies etc. Write them down and a quantity for the rotation (Spaghetti Sauce - 8). You can also write the meat you need for the rotation on this list as that can be frozen!

Once you have all the staples done - move on to your weeks. Go to week one and write what you have to buy fresh that week; lettuce, fruit, eggs, dairy etc.(do this for each week) you should find that your week lists are rather short.

DO NOT INCLUDE YOU FAMILY STANDARDS ON THESE LISTS (milk, bread etc) you will add those later.

Now you have 1 long list and 4 to 8 short ones right?

SO here is what you do...On the first shopping day of each 8 week rotation you will shop from your staples list (IN MY CASE THIS INCLUDES MEAT)AND your Week one list. SO this is a "big" shopping trip.

At our house we buy our meat from the meat market near by - 8 weeks at a time - except our chicken comes from Costco. So meats are not on my grocery lists but a separate list.

With week one and the BIG SHOP out of the way - all you do now is look at the fridge (where you hung your calendars)to see what you're eating – Sticky note in hand – I open the pantry and the fridge make sure I have what I need and write down the fresh stuff needed for the week – Add the essentials (milk, OJ, Bread, lunch meat) and I am done. I can fit the list on a sticky note and I am in and out of the store in 20 minutes for 7 weeks.

The bonus in all this? Other than the time saver for rest of your life (ha ha) with your meals posted -there is never any question what is for dinner - everyone can look at the fridge and see it for themselves.

REMEMBER - you can change it anytime if parts don't work well for you, if meals get boring you can add or delete - you can move around scrap night or use it as Out night. YOU HAVE TOTAL CONTROL - the weeks leave room for flexibility. If you take out chicken and don't want to make it tonight sub in scrap night or look at another chicken meal for the week and trade them. If you go out an extra night or don't cook - hold it over to the next week (sub it on the calendar so you don't forget you don't have to buy that) etc etc etc

I hope all of this made some sense? I am not sure how well it reads but I know it works for me. SO GOOD LUCK and email me anytime if you have a question or comment!

Thanks for reading.

Meal Planning part TWO

Now I know that everyone that reads my little blog got straight to work and didn’t start finished their dinner’s list!

So we will move right on to step two. This part is the most aggravating part. It is perhaps the most time consuming and it is also the hardest part for me to explain in type without talking in circles so bare with me and here we go.

Part Two:

If you have Excel you can re-create THIS page on your computer if not you can probably use google docs spreadsheet program and get the same results.

Start filling in your “dinners” only into the above spreadsheet. DO NOT worry about sides or desserts at this point. I used to do a 4 week rotation but I recently switched to 8 weeks and I love it. You can choose which way you want to go.

As you fill in the dinners pay VERY close attention to what comes on Monday following Sunday and place Chicken, Beef etc. meals apart – You don’t want to have Chicken Pot Pie on Sunday and Chicken in Dumplings on Monday for example. You also probably don’t want to have a week of chicken and nothing else.

Mine looks like this - but read below before you start

IMPORTANT: You need to give yourself one SCRAP meal each week. For us this is Veggie night. This meal can be moved to any other night if you forget to defrost your meat or just can’t pull off dinner that night.

IMPORTANT: Remember how you sorted them Easy, Hard and Splurge- You only want one hard and one splurge meal per week! (see mine for example of how it can look)

IMPORTANT: If your family eats out once per week still fill in all the days you can use your scrap meal as an out night. For example – if we go out to eat it is usually on Friday so I put my Veggie night on Fridays each week. Veggie night is baked potatoes, salad and a fruit – so I can sub these into any other meal easily and don’t have to throw anything away if we don’t eat them. It is also very easy to sub veggie night onto another night when I have to. (thus why Veggie night is my scrap night)

IMPORTANT: If your family likes to try new things – you will also use your scrap night for that each week. On your shopping day you can decide to add a meal and take out scrap night or leave scrap night (veggie night in our house).

Are your 4 or 8 week rotations filled in? Ok, then - Now

Print these CALENDAR pages

And start adding your rotation to the actual weeks. USE A PENCIL. Write the dinners at the top of each day. I filled my in for the whole year because I know this works for our family. You can start with 8 weeks or rotate through a few months or the whole year. If you do the whole year…consult your real calendar for vacations etc.

Once you have your dinners filled in on your calendar pages you can break out your SIDES list. Remember when I told you to do dinners that MOST of the family will eat. Well, this is where you can make sure everyone has something they will eat on their plate. As you fill in the sides look at who will eat and who won’t and plan your sides accordingly.

NOTE: my sides rotate with my meals so if we are having steak it is always steak, salad and potatoes (non specific on how I will prepare those potatoes)

NOTE: We don’t do a lot of dessert around here, if you do fill that in after you do your sides. I make a dessert twice per month at the most – so mine don’t make the calendar.

TOMORROW NIGHT:
I will post the grocery planning for the calendars you just made. You can place your calendars in a binder or tack them to the fridge. I like the fridge IN YOUR FACE approach.

Dinner and shopping Part One

First it is SNOWING - I love the snow but this caught me off guard - I swear I checked the weekend weather a few times today and I saw NO snow in the forecast...and yet I can't see my yard, I can't see my driveway and it is frigid cold out! Guess that is why we had 40mph winds today!!

OK OK....I am FINALLY posting my meal/shopping planning plan. On popular demand I must say. I hesitate - what if you don't like it, what if it won't work for you? Well then I am SORRY! But maybe you will be able to use parts of it to simplify your life a little bit!

I am going to do this in a 3 part post over the weekend. Why?? You might ask...because it can be very overwhelming - especially at first. If you are up for the challenge over the weekend you will be done by Sunday Night and ready to shop (though I kind of recommend that you start on the first week of month...(and probably save a fair amount money too)! If you are not ready you can print the posts or bookmark them and come back when you are!

1. Planning family meals

Get yourself a notebook, a spiral will do you well. I prefer the little lined ones (college ruled) cuz you can fit more on a page!

Get yourself a pencil and a sharpener (you will need it) and make sure it has an eraser that works too...non of that black smeary junk it will be frustrating for you.

Now put your notebook and your pencil someplace you can get to quick and jot on fast!

Title one page DINNERS
Title the next page SIDES
Title the next page DESERTS
and finally make a SNACK page (if you want)

Now it is time to put the wheels in motion. You have to write down EVERY dinner that MOST of the family will eat (excluding babies of course) and I mean EVERY dinner soup and sandwiches all the way up to Fillet Mignon.

You have to write down all the sides you ever put with dinners from rolls to veggies and even more complicated sides..

and obviously start jotting down favorite desserts, easy desserts and snacks.

If your family does not eat dessert often that is OK write them down anyway! (we don't eat dessert often in our house but having it down really helps in this process)

Once you feel comfortable with your LISTS ignore the second three and focus on the DINNERS for a while. Turn to a blank page and break them out into sections (beef, pork, chicken, fish, veggie, other)

Now that you have those separated by food type, devise a code (makers or crayons work well) I use colors -
RED = HARD (as in takes more than 30 min to get ready, requires a boat load of ingredients or simply the fam loves it but you hate to make it)

Blue = EASY

Black = SPLURGE (the meals you wont make often because of cost or time commitment)

Now - take a deep breath and wait till tomorrow night for the next step.

NOTE: you will need to think about the list of dinners for a while before you move on to seperating them by type (or you could roll as you go but you are more apt to forget meals that way) - you don't want to think of another one later that will really bum you out.

NOTE 2: if you want the list of "our" dinners here it is - my family is PICKY so our meal list is fairly boring but you mind find some inspiration!

REMEMBER - 2 more parts of this process are pending! Check back tomorrow night for Part 2.

Big News! (at least to me)

****UPDATED*** ***SEE BOTTOM***

I have some news! Some big big news! (no I am not having any more children)

But seriously...I have started a new blog



and with a little help from some friends we are launching what we hope to be one of the best Book Review sites on the web! I read a lot and will be doing most of the reviewing but I have a few young friends (and maybe some older ones too) that will contribute from time to time to help diversify the site and the reviews! I am hoping to post a minimum of 1 review per week and maybe as many as two! So subscribe in your reader, or via email - tell your friends and stop by when you can! I really hope everyone likes the site as much as I have enjoyed launching it!

Also...Jen over at Tatertots and Jello gave me a lovely award today. Many of you know I am HORIBLE at posting awards and memes. For some reason though, this one kind of touched me. I have not been lurking around Jen's blog for too long, but I can tell that she is a wonderful kind hearted person and a fantastic mom. I appreciate her thinking of me as she passed along this award... The rules were simple - I half to put the logo on myblog or post and nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude! I am supposed to also do the following
Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award (already did that).

So here goes - I can't possibly list all the blogs that I love it would take me too long, I could choose to give it to one of my absolute FAVS (Laura you know who you are) but I don't dare do that to her, not now, not ever...so I choose some of my long time favorites and some new ones too:

Bonnie - The Campbell Family
Alicia - The Adams Family
Kasey - The Krape Family
Becky - Life according to Bec
Shelly - Simply Persnickety
Lindsay - The Whitcomb Family
Cheryl - Twinfatuation
Amy - One Moms Memos
Courtney - Mommie Blogs
Kim - It's a dog and pony show

I sure hope I got all those links right...I got a little dizzy trying to do that.

Thanks Jen! And I hope everyone likes the award...

BUT more importantly...don't forget to visit me over at



***UPDATE*** I am so excited to announce that we will launch the reviews complete with a Book Giveaway direct from the author on Monday! STAY TUNED and make sure you subscribe so you won't miss out!

What I learned this week

It's that time again.

What I learned this week Carnival with Musings of a Housewife - I am not sure if I can keep this up - I might have to switch to the first of Tuesday of each month and do a what I learned last month kind of thing - I don't like the pressure, though I know there is really no pressure because no one will notice if I miss except me, but it is pressure non the less.

This week I learned that I will never be a coupon Queen but it does totally rock to try! I just don't know how the pros do it, but I took a swing at this week and got a 4 pack of toilet paper for FREE, and $32 dollars worth of cleaning supplies from Walgreen's for $8.20. Now seriously - why should I pay full price for stuff when I can get it for next to nothing? Why, because I don't have the skills to seek out all the deals, nor the time to organize my life quite that well, nor the space to stockpile all the stuff I would buy! BUT, I will continue to pay attention to what I can because it is fun to see a reciept that you saved 60% on!

This week I also learned that people really are interested in the meal planning/grocery shopping that I do do (do do, seriously, now couldn't I have come up with a better way to say that?) so I am VOWING - to get it on this blog this week, if it kills me - I promise.

Well, their you have it - nothing profoud, nothing funny, nothing really that interesting at all but that is what I learned this week.

Pile of TuTu's

So Poetry Tag was fun but still hoping for most poems!! Also - the sweet treats recipe swap is still open for submissions!

But in the meantime...
How do you spell/write Tutu? Who cares, I had a pile of them in my house this week...helping a little with some repairs before the big show! I have to admit, my job was SUPER easy - tacking the top layer of Tutu tool to the next layer of Tutu tool. Needle in, Needle out, Knot, twist 10 inches, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat - Hey do you remember Peat and Repeat? Oh, What a flashback I just had.

Pete and Repeat went into a store Pete came out and who was left?

Repeat.

Peat and Repeat went into a store Pete came out and who was left?

You get the picture, sorry for the stray...anyway - I like helping when I can and this job was super easy...Much easier than when my mom tackled making entire costumes for me 28 years ago - I will have to hunt down some of these photos for your enjoyment!

Well, here is my pile of Tutu's:

First Smile Box Post?

Will this work? We will see. If not, you won't see because I will take it down! This is just a tester post...if it works great things will in the days to come and I will owe Bonnie a HUGE Thank You for finding it...

Make a Smilebox free ecard

Grumpy Scissors Day

What a wonderful day! Though Hailey has been a bit grumpy! Lauren woke up with a very low fever that faded as the morning went on and she is feeling great! We started the day with showers, sheets and laundry. Aired out the bedrooms, cleaned the bathroom and wiped down all that Lauren has touched (because I am a germaphobe through and through) - then we started a little craft at the kitchen table.

The goal was to let Hailey use the much coveted scissors and yet have something to show for their efforts. So we cut big strips of green paper. Then the girls just had to "snip" them into confetti size pieces to glue onto Shamrocks for St. Patricks day.

Well...Hailey tried:

and tried -


And when all else fails: RIP IT!


Regardless they both had fun - They glued and giggled most of the time! Then they left the table and mom got to clean up. Yeah Me!



After the craft was done and on the counter to dry - we spent the next 45 minutes listening to Hailey ask, and beg, plead to be taken to the park. So eventually we went! Off to the park for us. THE PARK? Wait...Wasn't Lauren just sick. SHHHH. Don't tell her teacher - it turns out she is just playing hooky today. The fever is in fact gone and well, she felt like she was on top of the world - They climbed climby things, slid down slides, played a little in the sand. Hailey even came down the fireman's post (several times in a row - she is strong!) Lauren did the monkey bars high and low and had a blast. We stayed about 45 minutes. I think they had a great time.

Ok, enough is enough for today. For your reference though, if you click on one of the slideshows it will bring you to the Google Picasa Photo Site and you can view all the pictures in that slide show at your own pace and a little larger. If it asks you to sign in you should be able to use the same login and password you do to access the blog and your other google accounts!

If you have ANY trouble post a comment here or e-mail me and we will figure it out together!

Happy surfing and thanks for reading.

First Post

Well here goes nothing! My first attempt at the Family Blog. Since I don't find time to update the website anymore (I know shame shame). Well, anyway, you can shame all you want I will get it done someday.

In the meantime I have a friend that uses this method to stay in touch with family and friends. It may take some learning on my part, but I suppose I should learn now anyway because pretty soon Lauren will blogging and I won't know what she is doing!

So...today is Monday February 25th and we have moved Hailey into the Healthy Zone and Lauren into the Sick Zone. Just a fever so far. A couple sneezes. She is currently sitting on the couch drawing (coming in at 102.8) while I lay here trying to figure out this blog stuff.