Works For Me Wednesday - Save those containers

If you will be hosting Thanksgiving at your house this year start saving your sour cream, cottage cheese and any other container that comes with a lid and is reusable. You can use these containers to send home left overs with guests and/or store your left overs in your fridge. If you send them with others and don't get them back, then you aren't at any real loss.

I have a large bin in my garage that I throw all these containers into and then will load up the dishwasher just before Thanksgiving to wash them all up!

This works for me! Click here for lots of other tips, tricks and recipes!

WFMW - Homemade Fruit Cups

My kids like fruit and we eat a lot of it in our house. I bought some pre-packaged fruit cups for their school lunch and the kids liked them, with one exception - they said they were hard for them to open and when they finally got them open the fruit juice splattered all over them. So I just started cutting up fresh fruit and putting it into small plastic containers, but this takes up so much time everyday. I started playing around with making a bunch of these cups at one time and thanks to the internet got some tips for saving these!

One small watermelon cut up and stored in these containers in the freezer lasted my 3 kiddos about 3 weeks.

Homemade Fruit Cups
-small plastic containers
-Fruit of your choice (Watermelon, other melons, strawberries, blueberries, peaches, etc. - I don't recommend bananas though)

Cut up your fruit and put some in the small plastic container. I put a small piece of masking tape to label what kind of fruit is in each cup. Then place these in the freezer to keep them from spoiling before you are ready to use.

You will want to pull one out the day before you are ready to use it. You can let it still on the counter to thaw. We pack one cup per child or sometimes they like to eat these on the weekends as a snack. They are really handy and not near as expensive as the pre-packaged ones.

This is what Works For Me - click here for more tips and tricks. We Are That Family hosts this great tips and tricks each week!

First-aid kit for the sickies

So with all illness that took over my house the last couple of weeks, we have started this "First Aid Kit for Sickies" This has come in handy in the middle of night or early morning cries "Mom, I don't feel good."

I am not sure about you, but sometimes (often times) when sickness starts to take over the house, Tylenol can end up not getting put back in the medicine cabinet. It might end up on the kitchen counter where it was given out last, or moved to a different bathroom. Sometimes the thermometer can end up in the weirdest places too. This has happened to us so many times. When the sickness took over last time it went like this --first Spirit got sick, then Lefty, pretty soon Lady Bug had it and then Mr. Man got something all together different than any of them!

I have now created the "First Aid Kit for Sickies"!!!

Picture this of a scenario BEFORE the carry-all creation:
Kid wakes up in the middle of the night. I get up with child. Need the thermometer and Tylenol but can't find it. Remember that we have had to use it in the last day or so for another sick child, but now no one remembers where it ended up. So I am looking upstairs while Mr. Man heads downstairs to look. We finally find the thermometer, but still can't find the Tylenol. After about 20 minutes we find the Tylenol. Now that Mr. Man and I have everyone settled back down in bed, we are wide awake from all the commotion of looking for things. An hour or so later, we are able to drift back off to sleep, only to be awoken again and start that chaos over again.

Now picture this AFTER the carry-all creation:
Kid wakes up in the middle of the night. I get up with child and head directly to medicine cabinet to grab "First Aid Kit for Sickies". Easily find thermometer and take kid's temperature. Yep, need to administer Tylenol so grab handy-dandy chart printed in big lettering and easily determine dosage amount. Get child settled back down into bed. Quietly get back into bed and easily fall back to sleep. Catch a few "zzzzzz's" before the next round of cries.

Instead of it being a 1/2 hour (or more) deal, it is roughly 10 minutes or so. Can you scream Time-Saver! Ya, baby!

You can see it is just a simple plastic container with a handle. As of right now, here is what is in my little carry-all kit: thermometer, several medicine dispensing spoons, Tylenol, a cold & cough medicine, some cough drops, a dosage chart I got from my doctor that I enlarged so the print is easier to read in the middle of the night, a small roll of toilet paper (for clean ups or nose blowing), a rag (for cleaning up a possible spill or possibly needing to give someone a cold rag for their head) and I recently added our pediatrician's phone number (typed up and taped to an index card in big lettering so it is easy to see at night!), a small flashlight (needed to see in the dark!), and also some hand sanitizer (for me!).


This carry-all is so easy to grab for those middle of the night cries. It is so easy to tote around, but yet contains everything I might need with a sick kid. When Spirit got sick a couple weeks ago we ended up just keeping the carry-all on his desk because we ended up in there so often during the night checking on his breathing and such. Then when the sickness subsided I stored it back in the medicine closet. I still have other medicines in the closet, but this carry-all contains things I might need with those middle of the night cries.

**FOR A DOSAGE CHART CLICK HERE**

This is what Works For Me - go here to get more tips and tricks and ideas!

WFMW - Cutting and storing onions

This isn't a post on how to cut an onion without tearing up and crying like a baby. I always forget the tips and tricks on that one and I end up bawling like a baby when cutting! BUT, this is, however, how to keep the onion fresher, longer if you cut into it but don't use the whole onion. I don't always use a full onion in my cooking thanks to some finicky little children who don't like onions. Mr. Man and I do (him more so than me) so I will cook with onion, just not as much (so that my kids will eat the meal without a bunch of complaining).

Here is a little trick I learned many years ago from somewhere (not sure where) to cut into the onion starting at the end opposite the roots. This way the roots will help keep the onion fresher longer.

See that stringy end on the right, well that is the rooty end of the onion.

I cut the tip of the onion (opposite of the root) and then peel back the layers.


Cut whatever you want to use of this onion, then wrap tightly and store in the refrigerator until you need to use some more onion. This will keep the onion fresher longer. I don't really know why but it works.

OR, if you don't want to try that, another thing I do sometimes is to just dice up the whole onion and then freeze in a baggie what we don't use (this tip came from SIL!) This way I don't have to worry about wasting any part of the onion. They thaw pretty quickly, so the next time I need a bit of onion I can pull out the baggie from the freezer.

BOTH of these tips work for me!!!

Click HERE for more tips, tricks and helpful ideas!

Making your lists

I am participating in another Works For Me Wednesday tip sharing hosted by We Are THAT Family. Click here for all the wonderful holiday tips being shared.

What works for me is to have a Holiday Notebook. It starts with Thanksgiving planning and runs through Christmas planning. I have used spiral notebooks before, but the last 3 years I have used a small 1" binder.

In January I print off these pages and then I put them in the notebook. As I come across ideas for handmade gifts, or recipes I might want to try out during the holidays then I print them off (or rip out of magazines), 3-hole punch them and stick them in my notebook. I start adding in names in July to our list of who we need to make or buy gifts for (adding in teachers, new co-workers, new babies in the family, etc) and then I can start, little by little, making things or buying things as we can afford to.





This is what works for me!

Re-purposing a stained t-shirt

I'm sure my kids are the only ones that stain their shirts.... yes? no?

So, whether or not you have a stained shirt to work with or not, here is a cute, fun way that I have found to "hide" the stains so the child can still wear the shirt. However, this only works on little girls, I have yet to figure out what design would work for a boy. Any ideas??

First I took the shirt, you can see in this first picture some blue ink stains I couldn't get out.



Then I penciled in a circle in the middle to create the middle of the flower. I then penciled in some petals for the flower (sorry for the bad picture, I am not good at picture taking anyway, but pencil marks on a pink shirt were hard to capture!) Then I cut out the petals (and also cut out the ink stains!).


I have her wear the shirt with a long sleeve underneath. When I first made these my husband said he was afraid I wouldn't be able to wash them. I can assure you I have washed them and they come out just fine. I haven't had them ravel or anything.


The white shirt has 3 smaller flowers (that don't have a circle in the center) and then I put an "L" in the center (for Lady Bug). The pink shirt just has one big flower. With the white one I have had her wear a white shirt underneath, a black one, a purple one, so it really mixes up the outfit a bit. I love it!

I am pleased with these because she is still able to wear the shirt and the stains are gone (or almost anyway!)


Click here for more DIY tips. Click here for more Works For Me Wednesday tips.

WFMW - Homework Box and Art Caddy

It is so hard to get a handle on homework sometimes, but last year we found something that works great us.

First of all, it is so important for the kids to have a nice place to work where they can concentrate. Our kids sit at the kitchen table for now so that I can help them as they need it. Each kid does, however, have a desk in their room if they choose to work there.

The biggest thing that has helped is the "Homework Help Box". We have a plastic tub, it is about the size of a shoebox, to house all necessary items needed to do homework. I was sick and tired of constantly searching for things (usually while I was trying to cook dinner) when it came time to do homework. "Mom. I can't find a pencil." or "Mom, I need a ruler for my homework." or even "Mom, where are my markers? I'm supposed to color a picture for my homework." How should I know where you put YOUR markers??? Ugh.

So, I found this plastic tub we had laying around and I started filling it with important homework helpers, such as pencils, a pencil sharpener, a ruler, pens, markers, crayons, colored pencils, a roll of tape, scissors, a glue stick, and a bottle of Elmer's glue. The boys pull the box out when they are ready to start homework, use any items they need for the homework and then return the box to the shelf we keep it on when they are done. These items may not be removed from the box for any reason other than homework. Period.

The other thing that Works for Me is to have an art caddy. I bought a kitchen utensil turn about thingy (I'm pretty sure that is the official name) and we store art supplies in it. I have crayons, markers, colored pencils, tape, glue, pencils, etc. in this turn about thingy. The kids can sit at the table and share all art items without a fight. They set it in the middle of the table and they can easily turn it as they need something and no one is upset that they can't reach.

SO, the homework box is just for homework time and the art caddy is for doodle time. They do not co-mingle! As items are used up, worn out or otherwise destroyed they are replaced.

This is what Works For Me - go check out We Are THAT Family for more tips and helpful ideas!

WFMW - Gazpacho & Strawberry Pie

I have posted these recipes before, but this week's Works For Me Wednesday posts over at We Are THAT Family is about summer recipes.

One of my favorite summer soups is Gazpacho. The first time I ever tried gazpacho I was hesitant because I felt like soup should be hot, not cold. Cold soup made me wanna gag. But a co-worker of mine made this soup and insisted I try it. I was hooked! This recipe makes quite a bit of soup. I think Gazpacho tastes a lot like salsa with all the tomatoes, veggies and a little bit of spice to it.

Gazpacho

INGREDIENTS:

1 c tomatoes, finely chopped

1/2 c green bell pepper, finely chopped

1/2 c celery, finely chopped

1/2 c cucumber, finely chopped

1/4 onion, finely chopped

1 clove minced garlic

3 Tbls red wine vinegar

2 Tbls olive oil

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 c V-8 juice

1 c spicy V-8 juice

1 Tbls ground cumin

1 Tbls beef bouillon crystals

Mix all ingredients together and chill for at least 2 hours. Remove and let sit for about 30 minutes before serving.

Can top with sliced avocado or sour cream or cheese or all three.

One of my favorite summer dessert recipesis a strawberry pie that has a layer of sweetened cream cheese, a layer of chocolate and then topped with strawberries!

Strawberry Chocolate Pie

INGREDIENTS:

2 c strawberries

1 1/3 c sugar

2 tsp vanilla, separated

16 oz cream cheese, softened

milk

7 oz Hershey bar

1 pastry pie crust

Melt Hershey bar with about 3 Tbls milk over very low heat; stirring occasionally until smooth. Stir in 1 tsp vanilla. Pour into baked pie crust and refrigerate until firm. Soften cream cheese and stir in 1/3 c sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and a small amount of milk. Spread cream cheese over top of chocolate layer. Wash and hull berries, set berries onto a papertowel to dry. Dip berries into sugar and set close together on cream cheese layer. Refrigerate 1 hour before serving.

For more great recipes hop over to We Are THAT Family and see all the options!

Teacher Appreciation

Here in the U.S. there is a full week dedicated to Teacher Appreciation. This year it is May 4-8. At the school where the boys go though, they really just have one big celebration day and they picked May 6th as the date. There will be a breakfast in honor of the teachers and one of the PTO moms (Go Wanydra!!!) was able to convince our school district to buy the staff lunch!!

I always do a little gift of some sort for the teachers. This year I took an idea that I did for "Devotional Diapers" -- NO! I am not giving the teachers diapers! -- I modified this to create this:

"T" is for Teacher - Tea bags covered with some inspirational and humorous quotes to get the teacher through a rough day!

First I Googled "Teacher quotes" and found some really great ones to use.

Then I printed the quotes up on the computer using some different fonts.

The kids covered the boxes with scrapbook paper.

Then glued the quotes onto the tea bags. The tea bags I bought came in a box and were individually wrapped so we glued these to the front of the wrapper and then carefully placed them back in the box.

Then I printed up a label that said:

"T" IS FOR TEACHER
You always quench our thirst for knowledge!
Please enjoy these inspirational tea bags.
When life boils your kettle...make tea!

I am quite pleased with how they turned out and can't wait to give them to the teachers. These were very easy to put together and cost me very little to make. The box of tea was $2.50 and I had scrapbook paper already. My mom was saying that these would also make good co-worker birthday gifts and other great simple gifts.

Below is a list of some of the quotes I used:

There is a reason I need the summer off

You know how to tell when your teacher is ready for vacation? Movie Day!

No matter what your day’s got brewing, get off the pot and grab some tea!

Teaching is the profession that teaches all the other professions.

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater. ~Gail Godwin

A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others.

Good teachers are costly, but bad teachers cost more.

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. ~William Arthur Ward

Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. ~John Cotton Dana

The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book.

There are three good reasons to be a teacher - June, July, and August.

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher. ~Elbert Hubbard

Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task. ~Haim G. Ginott

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. ~Mark Van Doren

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~Henry Adams

What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches. ~Karl Menninger

He who opens a school door, closes a prison. ~Victor Hugo

Teacher appreciation makes the world of education go around. ~Helen Peters

I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well. ~Alexander the Great

It is easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference. ~Tom Brokaw

I would thank you from the bottom of my heart, but for you my heart has no bottom. ~Author Unknown

I can no other answer make, but, thanks, and thanks. ~William Shakespeare

A teacher is a compass that activates the magnets of curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom in the pupils. ~Ever Garrison

No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another. Thank you. ~Author Unknown

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition. ~Jacques Barzun

In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years. ~Jacques Barzun

No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledge this help with gratitude. ~Author Unknown

We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude. ~Cynthia Ozick

Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. ~Voltaire

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind. ~Khalil Gibran

The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings. ~Eric Hoffer

I've seen and met angels wearing the disguise of ordinary people living ordinary lives. ~Tracy Chapman

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. ~William James

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. ~William Arthur Ward

One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. ~Carl Jung

NOW, Go here for more tips and hints and tricks at We Are That Family.

WFMW - Shopping with older kids

I try to NOT have to grocery shop with my boys (8 and 6 years old) because they fight (with me, with each other and with their little sister), they want stuff and beg and whine until I end up irritated at them! (Yes, I have been known to go to the grocery store at 8:30 at night after everyone is in bed to avoid the trip WITH children!!)

Recently though, I have had to take them with me for one reason or another and I found that if I give one of my boys the grocery list to read and the other one a calculator to add up our items, then they are both too busy to beg for junk. Well, ok they manage to sneak in one or two items to beg for, but it sure has been minimized!

ONE problem however, is that once in awhile the "clear" button gets pushed on the calculator and we lose all data! I am trying to stick to our exact grocery budget and not go over so this "data" is critical!! NEVER FEAR THOUGH! I found a solution for this too. Once we add in an item, the child doing the calculating tells me where we stand and I jot it on a piece of paper or I ask the grocery list holder to write it on the bottom of the list. I just scratch out the numbers as we get new numbers in.

This is what works for me! Head over to We Are THAT Family for more helpful tips and ideas.

WFMW - Reading Bingo

I am very fortunate to have kids who love to read books. Both boys are reading above their level and although Lady Bug can't read yet, she loves to be read to. We often will all sit down and each read our own books. The boys are sometimes allowed 20 minutes or so after bedtime to lay in bed to read so they don't really need any encouragement in this area - thankfully!


My neighbor friend, who has two boys ages 12 and 9, was telling me that she has a terrible time getting her boys to read. So for fun I decided to have a Reading Bingo game amongst my two boys, the two boys across the street and one boy next door.


I made up my own BINGO card and in each box named a genre (Adventure, Non-Fiction, Science Fiction, Fiction about an animal, etc.) The Bingo card has 4 boxes across and 4 boxes down. The instructions are typed in at the top and they must complete the book, fill in the title and author and then give a parent a quick "report" of what the book was about. Then the parent must initial the box that the book was completed. When the children have all boxes filled in they can bring it to me for a reward. Every kid will get a reward when the whole paper is completed. (I told the boys when I handed out the cards that if I thought they weren't really reading I would make them write a book report too!)


I haven't yet decided on a reward. I was thinking maybe a $5 gift card to Target or something or maybe a gift card to Dairy Queen. I don't know yet. Originally, when I was going to do this with just my kids, I thought the reward would be a "date night" with just me. But I don't want "date night" with my neighbor boys! I have time to figure it out though!

Head on over to We Are THAT Family for more great tips and helpful hints!

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For the winner of yesterday's giveaway click here

Teaching Kids To Save Money

In 2007 we got each of our kids these handy little banks for Christmas. That following January we started working on saving money. We also set them up with their own savings account at our bank.



For them to earn money:
I have tried several different methods to allow the kids to earn money, the chore chart, a chore tree, a job jar, you name it we probably tried it. But, what we settled in on last year was this: We had a family meeting and explained to the kids that there are certain things that need to get done around the house and as a family we need to work together to get these things accomplished. We also explained that they would no longer be getting paid by the job (for example: making their bed each morning, making sure their rooms are picked up, emptying the trash, etc.) and instead would be paid one set amount per week.



The amount we give as allowance is probably pretty small and lame, but it works for us - we decided to give them half of their age as an allowance (Spirit is 8 so he gets $4.00 each week, Lefty is 6 right now so he gets $3.00 and Lady Bug at 3 years old gets $1.50 each week).

The saving:
We have them put 10% in the slot marked "Store" and 10% goes in the slot marked "Bank" and another 10% goes into the slot marked "Church" then the remainder of their money goes into their wallet for spending.

The "Church" section is often taken to church and placed in the basket, but other times if we see a charity they are interested in we let them donate their money to the cause if they desire to.



We decided to use the part of the bank marked "Store" as a way for the kids to save up for Christmas shopping. When we did this in 2008 the kids ended up with a nice little "pad" for spending on Christmas gifts for each other. It worked so nicely that the kids are even more excited to do this in 2009. They were so excited to be able to spend their own money on each other, it meant so much to them. They got so excited about it and couldn't wait for everyone to open the present "they bought"! [This could work for birthdays too, but our kid' birthdays are in January, February and April so we would have to plan for this so we don't spend it all on Christmas!]



For the part of the bank marked "Bank" we empty that out once every few months or so and deposit it into their savings account (at $0.30 a week it takes a little bit to build it up to be something that is worth depositing!) . It works really nicely though and they look forward to the times we get to make the deposit.



Lefty, my little money manager, actually will sometimes deposit more in his piggy bank than we ask him to and because of this, he had quite a bit more than Spirit did for spending on Christmas presents!



This is what works for me! For other helpful tips go here.