Freezer Cooking Day 1 & 2

These last two days I have consumed myself into freezer cooking. I'm sick and tired of wasting our money on fast food because I'm too tired to make dinner each night. I wanted to be who I use to be able to be and get supper on the table every night. Now just going out and buying groceries wouldn't do it for me because by the end of the day I'm to exhausted to throw all this together. So I challenged myself. I made a list of 15 suppers. ALL different - no repeats because I honestly get tired of the same meal to often. Then I came up with 5 breakfasts that I could premake or freeze. Here are some photos I got in the mean time of doing all of this. None are great and none yet are of the finished products. I will take a photo of all I made tomorrow in the end of my freezer cooking marathon. Its better to just get one giant photo ;) So I am doing this challenge all by myself, except from the help of 3 little here and there helpers. They get bored with helping and then they forget how boring it is for a few minutes and then come help some more. I just put on my movie on the XBOX in the living room since my kitchen is open and I can see the tv and I just get busy. Towards the end of the day today I did have to make me a detailed list of what was left to do because I couldn't stay concentrated long enough to remember what needed done still. I am actually pretty darn proud of myself! First day I chopped a whole bag of celery and big bag of carrots. A huge bag of onions. Baked up 16 Chicken Breasts, cooked 11.5 lbs. of hamburger meat. I made a Lasagna, enough pizza dough for 6 mini pizzas, Bagged up Taco Meat with onions and seasonings and made Vegetable Beef Stew. I also made Stuff shells for dinner that night. It was suppose to be one of my freezer meals. But by time 4pm came around I was worn out and didn't want to cook anymore and it was the last thing I was working on that needed cleaned up so I decided to make it for dinner. I did get all the chicken chopped up and separated. The next day I made Goulash, Chicken Alfredo, Ranch Chicken and Potatoes, Italian Chicken Sauce that will go over egg noodles, Homemade Spaghetti Sauce with meat and 9 overnight blueberry maple oatmeal. Again 4pm came around. I was worn out and the last thing that needed cleaned up was the Chicken and Dumplings I was working on so that is what we had for dinner :) Tomorrow all I have left to work on are the mini pizzas, Scalloped Potatoes & Ham, Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole, White Chicken Enchiladas, French Toast Sticks, Pancakes, Breakfast Burritos and Breakfast Bowls. Then I can sit back every night while dinners heat up in the oven or crockpot! I am so looking forward to that. Now if I would have recruited some helpers and some babysitters and had lots of energy sure I could have possibly done this in one day but I needed something to keep me busy for a few days anyways :) 

 

My little helpers making the dumplings!

Yes I have 3 crockpots and 2 bread machines. They have their very only special cabinet just for them. I do believe I still need more! Just saying! They get put to work alot around here!

Pancake Art

The children and I spent a few nights practicing wIth our pancake art. It was really fun. There is videos floating out there on how to do it and how to create. If your not in a big hurry to eat watch a video or two and try it out!

Just another day in paradise ;)

Nothing exciting today. We are learning about the way plants make seeds and are structured. We decided to do our art on that today. We learned to draw a daisy. This page taught us how: http://www.homeschooling-ideas.com/draw-a-daisy.html 

We did our best to attempt the same. 

We are also learning greater than and less than, proper and common nouns which I had to take a lesson on myself since its been awhile.

Oh yea! 

No one threw up or ran a fever today! 

Hopefully the germs will go away and stay away.

When you least expect greatness... Let there be greatness!

Last week I wrote Alexander's name on the dry erase board just wanting him to attempt to try to copy what I wrote while I was busy with the older two kiddos. He goes "Look Mommy, I'm spelling my name." I was so surprised and was wondering why I didn't think of that. He was matching the magnet letters up with what I wrote. 

I got Lexie and Alexander to do a little work today. 

They got bored laying around with sick tummies.

Feeling Blessed

As I am cleaning up our school room for the night in order for us to start fresh Monday morning... I set back and realized how blessed our family has been. In starting this journey we had almost nothing to get us ready for homeschooling. It all came together rather quickly with the collecting of items. Some items I collected over the months before even knowing we would be a homeschooling family. A neighbor asked me one day, "Hey do you want all this furniture? We don't want it and are just gonna throw it out." Umm... YEAH! It sat in my garage for months with no idea what to do with it. I can tell you now every single piece is being put to use now. A friend from Church was giving away TONS of books while cleaning out her garage. She was just gonna donate them and I kinda felt bad asking if I could just have them thinking we love books and collect them and are needing some new ones as we keep reading the same ones over and over. Now those books are our curriculum! They are books about Science, Reading, The Book of Mormon, Geography, History, Animals and so on. Then we were given by another church friend vhs tapes of  The Living Scriptures. Those cost tons of money!! I didn't have a vcr but expressed to those I was close to that I needed one and got one within a couple of weeks completely free. That same friend also gave me some books for 5th grade curriculum. And now we were given an extra computer! Two computers in our household is going to help our school days go alot faster with half of our curriculum being online! This room would not have been this filled if it wasn't for those who felt so generous! <3 So THANK YOU!!!

Here are a few photos:

You Never Know

Remember this Don't forget your prayers blog post I did two nights ago? I knew when publishing it that I shouldn't have made a big deal about saying my prayer. That you should pray when you don't want to the most. I know this! I just saw this video on my facebook feed and watched it. Here I am exhausted doing school with the children. They are working on a word search together beside me and I'm checking in on the life going on outside my home. This video completely spoke to me. This is me almost EVERYDAY! With being the Compassionate Service Coordinator Assistant in our church I do alot of things that aren't always brought up to the Relief Society. That is just my nature. I think of things and just do them and don't feel the need to go report it. That is why I was called to this calling. There has been a couple nights I completely forgot about dinner I was suppose to bring to someone. And I promise you this happened. I went to grab the phone search through my email to find the cheapest deal to order pizza for a huge family to feed last minute that I forgot I was responsible for and happened to have called to let them know pizza is on the way and was told "We don't need dinner tonight someone already dropped it off for us." I looked at the schedule of people I set up and wrote down to
make sure I wasn't mistaking that it was my night and there was no
mistake about it. I don't know who that person was that mysteriously dropped off that dinner to the family but no one will ever know how grateful I was in that moment for them! As I sighed relief that I didn't have to spend $50 bucks on pizza because of my absent minded to remember to make a dinner that would be half that price and that a family didn't have to eat dinner late because of my forgetfulness. Everyone knows how much I am randomly watching everyone else's children just because that's how I roll ;) My house is always busy and crazy with other people. At the end of the day I feel so unaccomplished but really I need to take the time to look at the things that I did accomplish that I didn't even plan to that were so much bigger than that list in my head. I admit I shed some tears watching this video!!!

The bonds

Looking back on our time the other night. Monday I believe. Adam got home right before bedtime for the children. He had decided to stay at work to catch up on things and get more organized since this is his last week in the Coppell location. When he got home he mentioned on his ride home from work he realized what little time he was going to get with our children once he got home and he was sad about it. Usually on any other night the kids would play video games with Daddy since they had lots "more" (only by a couple hours) time with him. I felt that video game time wasn't in their cards tonight with Daddy so we headed to the school room. I showed him what they did that day while they were in the room with us and let them talk on to him about their work and show off stuff to him. Then we all sat down together to play a game of Matching the Colored Apples (a game of Alexander's for preschool time). Yes the game was very easy for all of us but it allowed Alexander to show off his skills to Daddy while we all bonded and spent time together. I sat back and watch how organically our bonding time grew in that room over the hour. I felt relieved, proud and happy! I realized not just within that night but a little each day how much I'm enjoying spending more time with my children each day. When I mentioned in previous posts that homeschooling was right for our family and came to us at the perfect time I didn't mention the more personal reasons I felt that way. I feel like yes I do complain about being tired in my blog and about needing a break away from my children and all to myself. But I want everyone to realize this is all very new to me. I was living what I felt was a very selfish life. I would spend hours watching shows, playing on facebook, just doing what I wanted to during the day. I would let my children be entertained by video games and Netflix. Those were their "babysitters" all while their mom was in the other room. Yes if you visit my house on weekends recently this is still the norm. But its their free time to do what they please! But do I feel guilty for allowing them to do these things? Heck no! I feel like I can allow them to do as they please because I spent almost every waking hour with them during the days of the week. While that does sound very exhausting when I see it written out I cant help but to remember how many times daily I randomly have a flash of realizing how much I am enjoying spending this time with them. I am enjoying seeing them grow. Seeing them learn. Seeing what they see through their eyes. I was watching a movie just now on Netflix (today is our off day) and watching in the movie how parents are at a school watching their children in a talent show. I remembered how I would go to their school to do these type of events and how proud I felt in the moments of them showing off what they have learned. Well I now get to see this daily and feel these proud moments daily. It makes me feel so warm inside and confirms that I am doing the right thing for my family. 

Over the last few weeks I would just randomly catch myself staring at my children while I am talking to friends or family and they would look at me weird trying to figure out where my head is and I would say "Look!!! Their getting so big and growing so much and their so beautiful!" I just cant get over how much my children are growing into these young adults. I am so proud of them!

I am admitting something that not many people know. I have only told my husband. But I think a few family members might have sensed it. Over the years I have lost my bond for Dakota and Lexie. I just couldn't relate much to them. I'm more of a baby person. I absolutely love the baby years! Its my favorite. Adam on the other hand loves the age when they can play and joke around. I just dont know what to do with that. I never knew how to play with my children. I just loved to hold and cuddle them and be the one they needed when they were so helpless. Now I find myself loving both stages. I CAN relate now. They still need me just as much but just in different ways. I am creating those bonds with them again. This is just one of the things I have hope for in my homeschooling.

I now get to the end of the day and realized I haven't watched one show. I yes periodically check my facebook through out the day but I don't at all spend even a fourth of the time I use to on there.