What's for dinner????

Cheesy Chicken and Rice

Serves: 4-6 Ready in: 30min

I am posting this late in the day for tonights dinner idea, however, you have to try this soon. I was on Facebook today and saw a post on a friends page for this.
The ingredients are

• Any rice you have on hand. (I used Mahatma classic rice pilaf)
• sauteed bell peppers (can add or substitute for diced tomatoes or carrots and peas or even mexican corn)
• 4 - 6 seasoned chicken tenders , cooked in frying pan (I used chicken seasoning but you can use any you like)
• 1/2 - 1 cup shredded mozzerela (can use chedder or pepper jack or any favorite cheese)

Once all ingredents are cooked, mix them together in the frying pan you cooked the chicken in and top with cheese. Cover with a lid for about 2 min. to melt the cheese. Then serve. Oh yummy. I think Wednesday we will have it with the mexican corn.

This is a low fat, healthy meal that doesn't taste like it at all.

Enjoy !

February Couponing

Now that Febuary has pretty much come to an end ( can you believe we are already down 2 months this year!!!!) I wanted to see how well I did in my coupon expenditures. The outcome.....Total we should have spent - $1013 and the total we actually spent was - $415. That is a savings of 59%. Or an average of $103 a week. Plus I still have 5 - $3.00 Dayton coupons for Fry's to redeem in March. Not bad for a family of six. Especially since I am still learning the ins and outs of this whole coupon thing.

My goals for March is to stick to stockpiling Free to 80% savings. To use what we have unless we Need something. To try to keep from impulse coupon buying. To only have spent $250 and to have tithed our full 10%. We only Tithed $250 this month and should have Tithed $300ish. And this was a low income month for us.

Extreme Couponing

So I have been super busy so far this year. One of my main thrills has been coupon shopping. I have dabbled a little in it before but this year I have gotten serious with it. One of my bad habbits is compulsively shopping and now that I have been couponing and have realized how many things you can get for free or close to it I feel like I am having my cake and eating it too. What I mean by that is now I am able to go shopping and get A LOT of stuff that I want and normally wouldn't buy for me because of the price but spend very little. I am also learning to plan ahead (something I have always been horrible at). I am lucky that my husband's mother was an extreme couponer too so he is used to this way of thinking and is very patient with me about it.

Okay so here is my latest shopping trip. I went to Safeway tonight and stocked up on

• 8 - 2 month bounce dryer bars (16 months worth) @ $2.99 each - reg $6.99
• 2 gain dryer sheets and 8 Gain liquid fabric softener (at least another years worth) @ $ .49 each - reg. $5.49 ,
• 5 blistex chap stick (if the kids don't loose them a year worth) @ FREE - reg. $1.59,
• 21 - 4 ct pudding cups ( a total of 84 cups of pudding but I have no idea how long those will last in a family of 3 kids :) ) @ $.67 each - reg. $ 1.39
• 5 boxes of granola bars ( a total of 25 bars and again who knows how long those will last) @ $ .50 each - reg. $3.99
• 6 - 64oz Sunny D juice @ $ .29 each - reg. $1.99
• 8 Loreal kids shampoo ( these should last us about a year) @ $ .89 each - reg. $ 3.79
• 16 pasta sides and rice sides @ $ .38 each - reg. $ 1.89
• 8 - 16 oz Whiskas cat food @ $ .75 - reg. 2.49

I also got some other items but those were my "stocking up" items and the ones I saved the most on. So the grand total that I spent was $118. 88 and my grand total savings was $212.76 . So I should have spent $331.64 but instead I saved 64% on my total order. That makes me happy. Now as you can see I am not one of those people that can go buy $400 worth of groceries and only spen $3.00. I don't know how they do that but I am quite happy with the money I have saved my family. So I like to look at it as I just brought home $212.76 because this is my other job.

I can't wait to see how much we are able to save by the end of this year!!!!

Mommymade clothes

After Christmas it was time to start their New Year Wardrobe. The kids have really liked me making them clothes. Before I made the shirt Tyler is wearing I had made a few outfits for the girls and Tyler came up and asked me "Mommy when are you making me a dress?" How cute is that. I had made him some cute brown cargo pants to match but they turned out way to big. Even after heming them. That's okay. We gave them to Zach.

Faith Anne's pants, Emily's outfit and Tyler's shirt are all mommymade.

Christmas 2010

I was so tired on Christmas that I had plum forgot to take pictures until later that day. I went to bed around 3AM Christmas morning and then the kids got up at a beautiful 4:45AM. Man I was one tired mommy. Anyhow this is my sad collection of Christmas photos. needless to say I am already getting organized for this years Christmas now. That way I can hopefully rest more during december.

Daddy and Faith Annie watching football.

Faith Anne and Bob sleeping before dinner.

Tyler crashed at lunch time wearing his mommymade cowboy vest and chaps. The house was a wreck by the end of present opening but the kids had fun and that's what matters.

Christmas Eve 2010

This Christmas Eve we were going to go to the Candle light service at St. Paul's but Faith Anne had a fever so we decided we should keep our sickness to ourselves and just do the presents and christmas lights. The kids got mommymade pjs and a doll. The were so excited about the gifts. It really make all the work worth it.

Tyler said I want the big pretty green one. Luckily that was his.

Okay I just love that foot. How cute is that? Here I will answer it SO CUTE!!!!!

After opening the pjs the kids had their baths and then we let them open one more gift. Oh btw, the reason there aren't anyother gifts under the tree was because being the procrstinator that I am and with all I was doing I hadn't wrapped any presents until that night and most of them were after the kids went to bed. Never again I say.

Their cute mommymade dollies that fit their personalities. After opening their dolls we loaded up into the preheated car, thank you daddy, and went looking at lights. Then back home to bed so Santa could come, and mommy could have a wrap party all night long and I am not talking
weecky weecky rap party either. lol

Emily sleeping with her new friend.

Christmas crafts with friends

We had the Eastin kids over for a day of Christmas crafts, movies and fun. We had a lot of fun making snowflake candy necklaces, although most of the kids ended up making braceletes due to low attention spans. Then the played out side and then made chocolate coverd pretzels and then movies. We ended the day driving around and looking at Christmas lights and signing Christmas songs.

Left to right: Emily, Faith Anne, Nevaeh, Breanna, Zack and Shannon.

At the table: Zack, Nevaeh, Faith Anne, Breanna, Rebecca, Emily, Tyler and Shannon.

The kids eating threir creation.

The kids posing silly for the camera with their candy jewelry.