Menu Plan Monday

This week I will be trying to use up all the food we have in our frig. & freezer. We have a busy week ahead of us, so I am going to make simple meals.

Monday: Shrimp Stir-Fry with Vegetables and Lobster & Crab Raviolis

Tuesday: Taco Salads w/ Southwestern Chicken (the kids have a pizza party at church for Puggles)

Wednesday: Turkey Burgers, Tator Tots and Fresh Fruit

Thursday: Skillet Chicken Parmesan, Garlic Mashed Potatoes & Sauteed Green Beans

Friday: Fish Stick Sandwiches and Mixed Vegetables

Skillet Chicken Parmesan

This is one of my hubby's favorite dishes. It's simple, but delicious! I have made it several different ways depending on what we want for that evening.

This ones for you Carrie! :)

1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
4 bonesless skinless chicken breasts
1/3 cup Italian style bread crumbs
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
2 tablespoons grated Paremsan cheese

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium heat in saucepan. Cook onions and garlic in oil 2 minutes , stirring occasionally. Stir in tomatoes, sugar, salt and pepper. Heat to boiling stirring occasionally. Reduce heat; cover and simmer, stirring occasionally.
2. Between sheets of waxed paper, flatten chicken to 1/4 -inch thickness. In shallow dish, mix bread crumbs and 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese. Dip chicken into egg, then coat with the bread crumb mixture.
3. In skillet, heat remaining oil over medium heat. Cook chicken in oil 10 to 15 minutes, turning once, until no longer pink in center. Pour tomato sauce around chicken in skillet. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over chicken; cover and heat until melted. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese just before serving.

4 servings
Prep Time: 25 minutes

Enjoy!

Noah's 1st Haircut

My sweet little Noah was way overdue for a haircut. I was having a hard time wanting to cut his cute locks of curls. His hair was getting too long and uncontrollable on top making him look like a cartoon character. With his funny sense of humor, I guess they went hand in hand. That is until many people I run into at the grocery store or various other places we don't know would say "she is so adorable" or "she is soooo cute, I just love her hair". This was my indication........it was time for a haircut. Bye bye Mr. crazy hair!



Noah was very excited to get his 1st haircut and he was smiling so big!


The back of his overgrown crazy curly hair.


Mommy cutting a lock of curls to save for his baby book.


Noah wanted to see his hair I cut.

Daddy started cutting his hair with the Flowbee. Noah just sat there real still with a cute little look on his face.

He was being so good during his haircut.

He smiled or made cute little faces the whole time.

All done! His hair turned out cute. Noah isn't my baby anymore......he's turning into a little boy!

The back.

The side view.

Baby Food

I was needing some baby food for Jeremiah now that he's starting solid foods. I have only given him rice cereal with applesauce, so now it's time to move on to another fruit or veggie (he doesn't like rice cereal very much). I gave him oatmeal with bananas tonight and he LOVED it! He ate the whole bowl, plus drank his whole bottle afterwards. He is definitely getting a bigger appetite and starting to fill out a little more. He's still my little squirt!

I was searching around to see what the best price for baby food would be (now that I'm all about coupon shopping and saving money) and I came across this deal that is the best price I have seen so far!

Babies R Us has Earth's Best organic baby food on sale 10 jars for $5. Buy 50 jars of baby food for a total of $25. Use the $5 off $25 Babies R Us coupon + use five $1/10 coupons available here (you will need 2 computers to access 5 coupons). Final cost just $0.30 per jar!

UPDATE: You can also snag a FREE Earth's Best Body Care Travel Kit by Jason by purchasing $15 in Earth's Best Infant food. You can check out all the details and print the rebate form here. Keep in mind that you will have to pay a $1.95 shipping and handling fee.

I ended up buying 4 cases instead of the individual jars because they were wiped out. They didn't have enough for me to buy to get that deal, but I still got a good price. I ended up buying 4 cases (48 jars in total). I got 2 cases of fruit which includes bananas, pears & apples and 2 cases of veggies which are sweet potato, peas & carrots. When you buy 4 cases, you get $5.00 off. I then used my $5 off $25 Babies R Us coupon and my 4 $1.00/10 jars. After all my discounts I paid a total of $19.16 for all 4 cases. That makes it only .39 cents per jar. That still beats any other price out there!

Our Puppet Show

Being home with my boys and running my home daycare is very rewarding. I LOVE it! I'm so grateful that God has called me to do this and I feel very blessed. My daycare kids are awesome and I couldn't have asked for anything better. I'm always trying to find new ideas to make our day fun, creative and a great learning experience for the kids. If you have any great tips or ideas, please send them my way!!! Our puppet show was a hit. The kids absolutely loved it! It's so cute watching 2 & 3 year olds putting on a show and using their imaginations. I had so much fun watching them........and of course taking pictures!



I let the kids create what they wanted there puppet show stage to look like. This is what they came up with.


The kids putting on the puppet show while I was the audience. :)


The boys were having so much fun using their imaginations.


Here are the other two puppets we made this morning. We made 4 in total.

Deals of the Week

I'm excited to share with you some more of my deals I got earlier this week with coupon shopping. I LOVE coupon shopping and I get super excited when I get to go out and see what I can get for my buck! I know........I probably sound a little crazy, but it can be very exciting and addicting all at the same time.

Deal #1 at Target


I got 4 Johnson & Johnson baby bath products for .99 cents each (20 fl. oz.), 1 Aveeno baby lotion for .54 cents, 2 Skintimates shaving creams for .90 cents each, 1 Dove deodorant free, 4 packages of Kotex Panty Liners free plus a negative .06 cents towards my purchase and 1 Simply Vanilla Renuzit Air Freshener free. Between using my mfg. coupons & stacking them with Target coupons, I only spent a total of $6.73 with tax.


Deal #2 at Walgreen's


I got 2 Huggies Baby Wipe tubs for .53 (for both), 4 Oral-B toothbrushes for $2.74 and 2 boxes of Tylenol 8 HR Muscle Aches & Pain for free. My total came to $3.52, but I had $2.00 back in RR (register rewards), so I put that towards my purchase and I only spent $1.52 out of pocket. I had mfg. coupons I used towards the baby wipes, then I stacked them with the Walgreen's $2.00 off in store coupon making these baby wipes almost free (I have gotten a total of 25 tubs all together). Let's just say I'm stalked up for awhile. :) I then had 2 coupons for buy 1 get 1 free for the toothbrushes, in which I was able to find them on clearance for $1.37 each. They had the Tylenol on special buy 1 get 1 free. I had 2 mfg. coupons for $2.00 off, therefore it made both of them free. I love deals like this, especially on products you use on a daily basis!

Deal #3 at CVS (previously known as Long's)


Since CVS is now taking over Long's, they are in the process of switching over and they are clearancing out alot of products to make room for new inventory. Between finding some of these items on clearance, using my mfg. coupons and receiving and using my register rewards, I only spent a total of $8.30 for all these items.

Oh Yeah..........I forgot to mention, my friend found the new Veggie Tales DVD "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" on clearance for $3.99 at CVS. I had her get this for me so I can give it to my boys for Christmas. They will be super excited when they see this! :)

Finger Painting & Fun

Due to the weather being nice lately, we have been doing several outside activities. Finger painting has been one of the boys favorites so far. Not only are they having fun, but It's been a learning experience for them as well. Since they are familiar with their primary colors, I thought it would be fun to teach them about mixing certain colors to see what color it will make as a secondary primary color. They are having a blast with this. Last week, they mixed blue & yellow to make green. Then they did red & yellow to make orange. Now, today they learned mixing red & blue makes purple. This has been such a neat hands on learning experience for them because they have not forgotten any of the colors they have done thus far. They are like little sponges right now and I want learning to be fun!


Preston just started to mix the colors together to see it started turning purple.


He's having fun painting with both his sponge paint brush and his fingers.


He's not leaving any open areas on his paper......he loves painting all of it! :)

Preston's finished artwork that he is so proud of.

We made puppets today. The boys loved it! We plan on making a couple more puppets tomorrow and making a stage to have a puppet show on Thursday. They are looking forward to it!

Menu Plan Monday

Last week I did very good staying on track with my menu planning. In fact, it helped me out so much, I'm going to continue on for the second week now! :) I can't tell you how much easier it made my day knowing what I was making for dinner and my grocery trip was much less time consuming.

Monday: Taco Salads w/ Southwestern Chicken

Tuesday: Meatloaf, Garlic Mashed Potatoes & Corn

Wednesday: Skillet Chicken Parmesan, Garlic Bread Sticks & Mixed Veggies

Thursday: Turkey Burgers, Tator Tots & Fresh Fruit

Friday: Fish Sandwiches & Fresh Fruit

Happy Monday! I hope you all have a very Blessed week! :)

You Can Never Have Enough Books!

My boys just LOVE books! I read to them all the time and they will sit and look at books for hours. I am always on the hunt looking for new books at reasonable prices. I had tons of fun going to many yard sales with some friends this weekend. Look what I found..........BOOKS, lots of BOOKS. And they were such a great price, I couldn't pass them up. I got most of them for .25 cents each (what a steal). I payed $1.00 for the Scholastic Children's Dictionary, which I was very excited to find knowing this would be something I would buy for my kids anyway.

I got 33 books total. I know, that's alot, but I couldn't pass them up. Not at .25 cents each. I was able to get several of Dr. Seuss books which my kids love. I got the Bernstein Bears (my fave when I was a kid), a Veggie Tales & Wall-E book and many many more that the kids will love. It was cute........when I got home from yardsaling, the kids saw the books when I walked thru the door and they had a huge smile from ear to ear. "Mommy, are those books for us?" Preston asked. "Yes Preston, mommy bought these books for you guys". "Wow mommy, thanks for buying these books. Can I see them? Will you read me a book please?" Preston said with much excitement! It was like Christmas in August for the boys. I'm so glad they like books and I hope they will love to read when they get older.







Here are a few more items I picked up for the boys. Preston was in need of a jacket for the winter, so I found a really nice jacket in great shape for $2.00. It's lined with fleece on the inside that you can unzip and take out if you didn't need it. It's almost like you have two jackets in one (a light and a heavy). I was able to find him a pair of Snow Boots for only $2.00. I had such a hard time finding snow boots for Preston last year, so I was very excited when I saw these. I also found 1 outfit, 1 long sleeve shirt and 2 zip up sweaters for baby Jeremiah all with tags on. Brand new Carters clothes for only $1.50 for all 4 items. SWEET! I got some really cool toys the boys have been asking for. It's never too early to Christmas shop. I got Cranky the Crane (from Thomas The Train), Scoop and Muck (from Bob the Builder) all for just $3.00. I found a Bob The Builder hard hat .50 cents, a very large Tonka Truck $1.00, a big diesel truck that carries lots of cars with built in case for $1.00, a huge box of an assortment of cars ranging in many different sizes all for $7.00. It also included a large motorized lightening McQueen car and a Buzz Lightyear action figure that talks. And last, but not least, I got a pretty good size container full of dinosaurs with accessories for $4.00. Now I call this a successful treasure hunt!!!

So.............you better believe I will be out yardsaling next Saturday hoping to find a few more things I'm looking for and maybe, just maybe, I will pick up a few more books! :)

GOT WIPES?

I don't know about you, but I can never have enough baby wipes around here! As a mom of 3 little ones and running a home daycare, I feel like I'm using wipes constantly all day long, so I go through them pretty fast. I was pretty stoked about getting this AWESOME deal! 16 tubs to be exact!! Huggies is my all time favorite brand too!







Soooooooo, are you ready to here about how much I spent for all these? ONLY $9.39! Yes, you read that right! Pretty cool, huh? Now you see why I'm so excited about coupon shopping again. I will explain how I got these so cheap. Walgreens is priced at $2.79 (clovis stores are cheaper for wipes than the fresno locations) and they have an in-ad coupon for $2.00 off now until the 26th. Then if you have any manufacturers coupons to combine with it, you can get this item for free or only pay between .29-.79 cents for each tub.

Coupons are my New Best Friend :)

Just in this past week, I have started coupon shopping again and I have gotten some AMAZING deals! Why spend more money when you can save money?!?!? I would like to share with you all the items I got last night during my late night shopping trip at Walgreens with my friend Laurie. Take a guess of how much I spent? You will be shocked!

I ONLY spent $3.79........and the best part about this is, I got $3.00 back in RR (Register Rewards) to spend on my next purchase at Walgreens. So, basically when I use my RR on my next purchase, I only really spent .79 cents for all these products. Awesome, isn't it? You better believe I will be going back in the next day or so to take advantage of more coupons for items I still need.




I got 2 boxes of Kotex Tampons (18 ct.), 1 box of Kotex panty liners (64 ct.), Soft Soap Body Wash, 1 can of Lindsay Black Olives, 1 Jar of Lindsay Green Olives, 4 Oral-B toothbrushes, 1 Bottle of Ecotrin and 4 packages of Bic Highlighters.

I will post another pic. tomorrow showing you my purchase last week at Walgreens. Once you see this, you will be AMAZED!!!

Meal Plan Monday

Our days can get a little crazy and hectic at times and I'm finding that when dinner time comes around, I'm trying to figure out what to make for dinner and it can be stressful. I have tried in the past to plan our dinners in advance for the week, but only to realize I never usually make it past a week or so. I have decided to try this again! I am setting myself a new goal and I'm going to start making a meal plan every week and see how long I can do this for. My GOAL is to go at least 1 month and hope this makes for a new daily routine to make my life easier and to run more smoothly. It will definitely help with my grocery shopping so I'm not just buying whatever I see and spending unnecessary money. I also plan on doing more coupon shopping to save more money and plan our meals around weekly ads. Now you have it.............you can hold me accountable for this new adventure and see how it goes. I will keep you posted!



Monday: Quick Meal- Turkey Sandwiches, Yogurt and String Cheese

Tuesday: Turkey Burgers, Tator Tots and Cut up Fresh Fruit

Wednesday: Grilled Chicken Salads and Garlic Bread Sticks

Thursday: Leftover Grilled Chicken, Mixed Vegetables, Red Potatoes and Cornbread

Friday: Little Homemade Pizzas (Canadian Bacon & Pineapple/ Mushrooms & Cheese)


Let the food adventure begin! :-)

First Taste

Jeremiah had his 4 month doctors appointment for his physical/shots today. He was such a trooper and smiled through it all. I know my little man is tiny, but I was shocked to find out that he is only in the 1/3 percentile for his age. He eats all the time.......so how can he be so tiny? The doctor thinks he just has a very fast metabolism and he doesn't eat as many calories as what he burns. Therefore, I need to butter him up more. So, the rice cereal begins! Today was his first taste of rice cereal and Nana had the honor of feeding him. Jeremiah wasn't sure what to think at first. He took a couple of bites and then he was done. He didn't seem too excited about this new taste. I know it will take a couple days for him to get used to learning how to eat rice cereal and the process of it, but it was fun to watch him try it for the first time!