I started a new facebook page- Moms on a Mission. Hope you join me over there!

Being Frugal

For the month of February, I'm participating in pantry challenge at Simply a frugal mom.

So far this month I've spent $145. Saved $55 with Buy one, get one free sale. I'm hoping I wouldnt need to buy groceries for aleast 2 to 3 weeks. I'm trying to stretch out the food we have and trying to not waste any food. I'm quite impressed of what I've done so far. I wanted to share some recipes with you.

Thursday I had some carrots, pineapple, apples and cantaloupe that needed to be used up. So what can you make with those you ask?

I made:

Carrot Pineapple Muffins

Kitchen Sink Muffins So yummy! my favourite muffin

Cantaloupe muffins

Today my husband wanted some chips while watching the pregame show. We had none in the house and I was going to go buy any, so what did I do?

I made tortilla chips. Very yummy with Salsa.

We're having a frugal Superbowl Sunday. We're having things out of our freezer. I didn't go buy anything special just for today. We're have chicken bites, meat balls, chicken strips and I'm making mini pepperoni puffs. All smells so yummy.

What have you been doing to stretch your grogery budget?

Home Management Binder Printables

This week's Challenge is to make a Home Management Binder. I'm going to share a list of great printable that might be good for you to help you make your binder.I love printables!! I love all the bloggers that share wonderful printables for all of us to print. If you use any of these printables, please give the blogger some love.

Here is a long list of printables. Not everyone will be for you. Find one that will best suit your needs.

Calendar:
monthly calendars from yellow mum
Perpetual Birthday calendar from The Project Girl
Weekly kids calendar from Family Fun
Household management schedule from Everything Mom
Weekly planner from Sprik Space

Cleaning:
I love these printable cleaning directions from Starry Sky Ranch
Kid's Chore Chart from Family Fun
Household Checklist from Everything Mom
Weekly Chore schedule from The Project Girl

Meal Planning:
monthly meal plan from Yellow Mums
Food Journal from The Project Girl
Meal planner from The Project Girl
Grocery list from Everything Mom
Weekly meal plan from Everything Mom
Weekly Meal form from buttoned up
Weekly Meal planner from Meal planning Mommies

Fiances:
monthly spending form from buttoned up

To do:
Mom's Latte List from Vale Design
HoneyDew List from Vale Design
Laundry list of to dos from Buttoned up

Medical:
Medicine Checklist from Everything Mom
Contacts:
Important contact numbers from Everything Mom

Blogging:
Weekly Blog calendar from Living Locurto

Babysitter section:
You might want to include these in your binder to have it easy to pull out when a babysitter comes.
House Rules from Everything Mom
Usual Day from Everything Mom
baby's schedule from buttoned up

Misc.:
Holiday planner (lots of printables) from Family Fun
Project Planner from The Project Girl
Gift worksheet from The Project Girl
Work out sheet from The Project Girl
Party Checklist from Everything Mom

Other sites to check out to find tons of printables for your binder:
Organized Home has a huge list of printables.
The Household Planner has a huge list of printables.
Simple Mom has great downloads. I love her Daily Docket.
Mom Agenda has great downloads.
Mom Advice has great downloads.
A Victorious Women has great proverbs household notebook
life... your way has great home management notebook printables, which all can be customized on the computer before you print.
Found this great home notebook. Sorry I don't know who made it. I love the cover pages.

I hope you find some of the printables useful! If so, please leave me a comment. I love reading comments. :) Well off to start making my binder!

Missing Mittens?

Source

Do your children lose their mittens? Do they leave their hats and mittens at school?

Lovable Labels to the rescue!

Our Press n' Stick clothing dots are great to put inside mittens and hats. All labels are washing machine and dryer safe.

In each pack you receive 48 labels. 24 small, 12 medium, 12 large.

Dimensions:

Large - 3.4 cm x 2.5cm (1 3/8" - 1")
Medium - 2.6 cm x 2 cm (1 1/8" - 3/4")
Small - 2.2 cm x 1.6 cm (7/8" - 5/8")

Order some today if you want to solve the missing mittens problem.

Edited to add: Here is a Lovable Label discount for you. Enter agentlove upon checkout and you'll automatically receive 10% off your entire order. Code expires Feb. 28, 2011

New Weekly Challenge

And you can too!

Toni at A Bowl Full of Lemons is starting a new weekly challenge and here is what she says about it:

It will start on Sunday, January 30th. I will post an assignment every Sunday night and we will have the entire week to complete it.


A few examples of assignments will be:


Organizing your craft room
Creating a recipe binder
Organizing your bookshelves
Cleaning out (and organizing) the garage
Making a Home Management Binder
Menu planning
and LOTS more!

Some weeks will be very simple and some may be more challenging. The main goal of the challenge is getting our lives clean & organized and staying that way. We will be spring cleaning together & purging winter clothes together. My hope is that our blogging group will function to inspire each other and help each other get our lives in order.


How it works?


If you are participating in the weekly challenge, you will link up your "blog" for that week. Then everyone can visit each other and see how you are doing. You can post your progress daily, or whenever you get to it! You can share pictures or just blog about how your week is going, how the challenge is going, etc... Hopefully we can all support each other by visiting and commenting on each others blogs, like we have with the 21 day challenge.

If you are ready to join the challenge...

Head over here to grab your button.

Hope to see you guys at the challenge. If so, I'll be cheering you on!

Party Recap

Here I am all prettied up for the party:

Saturday night it started snowing and the roads were getting bad. so I was afraid no was going to be able to make it. Everyone had an half hour to an hour drive. I was afraid it was going to be like my wedding reception again. For my wedding, which was march 2008, we invited 100 people and only 40 were able to make it because of a terrible snow storm. Back to Saturday. Jeremy said they could arrive anytime after 6. so I had to try to keep busy or I am like a kid looking out the window every 5 minutes. The first couple and their 4 kids, showed up at 7pm and the others all came shortly after that. Only 4 out of the 7 couple were able to make it but that was enough. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Everyone crowded around the bar or the dining room table. The kids played nicely (quite surprisingly) and the kids played the air hockey lots. Yay! All the food was eaten and everyone said they felt like a kid in a candy store while trying to decide what to drink. DH has a huge liquor supply. So overall I think it was a great night. I was just happy with myself I was able to pull it off for my husband. He’s been wanting a party for awhile but always too embarrassed of our house.

And there wasn’t much of a mess afterward. Before the party, I ran the dishwasher and unloaded it. so has the night went on, I just put the dirty dishes in there. I think that made a huge difference. Sunday morning went I woke up, I did a bit of straighten up. Other than that, you couldn’t even tell we had a party.

Thank you for all your suport and encouragement. Now I'm going to try really hard to maintain a clean house.

How was your weekend?

tonight is the party!!

Thought I'd show you a quick tour of the house while its clean and spotless before the big party tonight. I don't look pretty in the video, so please ignore me. Sounds weird to watch myself talk.

My house looks clean but my journey isn't complete. Now to try to maintain it is this clean. Thanks for all the encouragement and I hope you continue to support me on my journey!

Now I'm off to take a shower and get all prettied up for tonight.