A Month Of Meals {October}

October's meal plan is done, we have done our shopping, and I am ready to cook. This month I wanted to do a few recipes I could double and a few I could freeze. I loved last months meal plan and it made my life so much easier and now that Papa gets home earlier I like to have dinner ready when he gets home. I did pretty good keeping up with my September dinner menu except for this last week. Ever since my mama has been sick her friends have been amazing and make them dinner almost every night which equals a lot of leftovers they can't eat so my daddy drops off meals about every other day which made me slack off a little. I also didn't make meatloaf a few weeks ago because my mother in law makes killer meatloaf and brought me some for dinner the night before and there was enough for dinner 2 nights and lunch the next day.

So, what are we having for dinner this month?

Now that it is fall and the weather is changing a bit I wanted to make more "comfort foods". I will be doubling the quiche, roast, calzones, and inside outside ravioli already doubles itself so I will be freezing a portion of this to eat later in the month. The only other thing I changed was instead of buying fresh green beans which would go bad in a month I bought some steam fresh whole green beans because they are just easier and between school, cleaning, cooking, Mckinley and Brent I try to make those little things as easy as possible to keep my sanity. I have already prepped my 2 roasts, my quiches are in the oven and 2 pans of stuffed shells have been prepped with 1 in the fridge for tomorrow and 1 in the freezer just in case I can't make one of my planned meals. That is the best thing about doubling and freezing meals you always have the option to  switch things up in case you don't have time to fix what is on the calendar and you always have at least 1 extra meal on hand.

My Grocery List
2 Prego (I had 1 coupon for a free Prego)
ricotta cheese
cottage cheese
 3 large bags of frozen spinach
2 8 oz. bags of shredded mozzarella (I had a coupon for $1.50 off of 2 bags)
2 frozen pie crusts
1 package of pre cooked (I don't do like cooking bacon)
all natural sour cream
ground turkey
1 large jar of active dry yeast (for doughs and breads)
1 ground turkey (we already had 2 in the freezer)
tomato paste
Worcestershire
eggs (we will have to go back and get 1 more carton since we used them all on breakfast Sunday morning and my quiches)
1 bag of red potatoes
2 containers of cherry tomatoes
whipping cream
steam broccoli
frozen peas and carrots
steam green beans
roast (to split into 2 pieces)
pepperoni
baby carrots (I always get a coupon for 1 free bag woohoo!)

Extras (not for dinner purposes)
spring mix lettuce
Gorgonzola cheese
raspberry and walnut dressing (my lunch salads)
Catalina dressing (my lunch salads)
truvia (my coffee habit)
creamer (my coffee habit)
milk
bananas
baked tostitos
 2 rolls of paper towels
popcorn
popcorn seasoning

I was really hoping to spend even less ($160) than I did  last time and I didn't too bad my first try. I was so proud when the girl scanned all of my coupons and she even kindly rang through my dressing coupon even though we only had 1 dressing and the coupon was for 2. I couldn't believe my eyes when the grand total came up $151!!!!!!! That is less than most people spend on food a week. Now, we will have to go back and pick up milk, bread, lunch meat, fruit, and snacks for the monkey, but that will only be another $50- $75. That means we barely spend $200 a month on groceries which I think is pretty darn good. I am ready to start Novembers calendar and see if I can get under $150. Challenge Accepted! I REALLY need a separate freezer/deep freezer so I can be even crazier and make 2 months of meals! My mama has one at the lake somewhere and has said I can come and get it so we shall see how that goes down.

I am really really trying to be more organized in every aspect in my life whether it be school, my house, Mckinley, my health because it gives me more time to just sit and relax with my little family which is the number one tip top most important thing to me. Now I am off to enjoy my Sunday. perhaps I shall make another cup of coffee before the monkey wakes from her nap.

Gratuitous Mckinley shot!

 Don't judge me for the beer bottles on the table behind her they aren't mine! The boys had a few before we went out last night and they didn't want to keep walking outside to put them in the recycle bin (hippies) because they are LAZY!

Happy Weekend!

Things I Actually Say

It's Toddle Along Tuesday again at Growing Up Geeky and the topic is Things I Actually Say! These are in no certain order and are said at work (With my classroom of 19 4 year olds) and at home

Did you fart?

Get out of the potty?

Who peed on the floor? 

Did you wipe your bottom?

Did you flush the potty?

Get your hands out of your vagina?

Quit spitting milk everywhere? 

Go back to the bathroom and pull your pants up .

(as a friend walks out pants around their ankles)

Get your fingers out of your nose?

Ugh don't eat the booger get a tissue!

Don't touch the dog poo!

Get your hands out of your pants.

Don't put the acorn in your mouth.

Who pooped and didn't flush?

Yes I actually do say these things and most of them are said multiple times a day and almost every single one of these are said everyday over and over and over again. Have I ever told you how much I love my job? There is never a dull moment!

A Year Come And Gone

I was looking back at old photos of Mckinley and it is amazing to see how much she has changed from last September to now.

When did my sweet baby turn into this precious toddler? 

PreK Days

A few weeks back one of my Pinterest ladies asked me if I had a website where I posted all of my classroom ideas I always posted about and I said why yes I have a blog, but i have have never really posted anything from school before, but I guess I should so I can look back and remember all of the fun stuff we do. I mean I don't work my butt off each week for nothing!

The past 3 weeks have been jam packed with crafts and work and I thankfully remember to snap pictures of a few things.
2 Weeks ago we met Ms. A who taught us all about Apples. I didn't take many pictures from this week because no one had asked me to post my classroom ideas yet.We love glyphs in our class and we usually do 1 a week and since we were leaning about apples this week it made sense we would do one on Apples. The students did great cutting all of their pieces out, but some of them had a hard time with the seeds. The directions were: If you have swallowed an apple seed draw 3 seeds on your apple and if you have not swallowed a seed draw 5 seeds. Thankfully we always make extra copies because some of my friends just drew dots ALL over the middle of their apple and some friends made 3 or 5 tiny dots. Luckily I had made an example and they were able to see what the directions meant.

Next the students cut, painted, and created their very own Apple Cores. I sadly was not at school that day because Little Lady was sick with some virus going around, but I think they did a pretty great job!

Our students also tore paper to work on fine motor skills to create an Apple Tree. I thought these would be super cute and easy, but my babies seemed to have a difficult time understanding how to use the different pieces to create their trees. We are working on letting them have some freedom artistically and I don't think they are used to this yet. They are still used to someone telling them exactly where to place each piece, but we will get there with a little time and a little freedom.
 

A few of our jobs which I of course forgot to take pictures of so these are pictures from the sources.

Apple Seed Number Matching

Roll An Apple Tree

Apple Tree Number Matching

Apple Patterns

Next we met Ms. F and her funny feet and she taught us all about The Farm. Surprise surprise we did another Glyph and everyone followed the directions to create their own cow. The udders crack me up!

One of our Jobs this week was for each table to create a different Farm Animal. One table made cows one made horses, one made  sheep, one made  pigs, and one made chickens. I like how each one looks a little different because we let the kiddos do their own thang and didn't hover over them while they were working. I feel like we are always telling them what color things should be and how something should look and so what if their pig doesn't look exactly like my example pig they are using their imaginations.

Another job each student completed was Planting A Pattern. I provided each student with 2 different types of seeds (beans) and since only 1 table a day was completing this project I got to work 1 on 1 with each student as I passed out their "seeds". We talk about patterns regularly because one of my attention grabbers is while I am waiting for my friends to join me on the carpet I will start clapping and patting my knees in a pattern and the students magically start following along. We have talked about AB, ABA, and ABBA, patterns so this simple AB pattern was a cinch! So far this has been one of my favorite things we have done. They turned out so cute and my kiddos did an awesome job completing it on their own.


Each week one of our jobs is to create something that starts with each letter out of the letter (that sounds confusing). Last week we made an Alligator out of the letter A and this week we made a Fox out of the letter F

Our last job was some good ole Pig Shape Graphing(I forgot to snap a picture of a kiddo completed pig). The students colored each shape on the pigs body a specified color then they counted each shape and graphed how many there were. This was very easy for some students and others had a more difficult time with this, but since I was able to work one on one with each I was able to help them count and figure out how many boxes to color. 

Something I am trying to do each week is add some science into our day. My 2 main goals this year were to make Religion and Prayer a key aspect in our class and to add in more science. So far I feel like I am doing pretty good adding in more and more each day while still keeping up with our core lessons. We read a book about magnets and sinking and floating so this week we learned about what is and is not Magnetic. We worked as a class at their tables since we only had 5 big magnets and the children did awesome passing the magnets around the table to see if each thing was magnetic or not. Then they worked on their own cutting out each picture and gluing it onto the magnet if it Was Magnetic and gluing it into the box if it Was Not Magnetic. I made my own worksheet from the printable at Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge This was really fun and the kiddos did awesome following directions and figuring out what was and wasn't magnetic.

Now we are caught up with our past few weeks in the classroom and we can get on with what we did this week.
 We met Mr. X and learned about being different and being healthy. Mr. X taught us all about our bodies, our 5 senses, and our teeth.

We used Toothbrushes (magic erasers hot glued on giant popsicle sticks which were the genius idea from Mrs. Cathy) to brush these yucky yellow teeth to beautiful healthy white teeth.

We rolled a dice and placed that many Teeth (marshmallows) in the mouth. Not sure why this came out so blurry.

Cut out healthy and unhealthy pictures from magizines to glue onto healthy white and unhealthy yellow teeth.

Sequenced toothbrushes from smallest to largest. This was my own creation so no link to Pinterest. So yes I do come up with some of my own ideas. I have one for next week I am pretty psyched about. Let's just way it has to do with camping and position words

Made X-rays out of X's

Took X-rays of our hands

And used those super cute Toothbrushes created by Mrs. Cathy to clean these yucky unhealthy teeth which my kiddos dubbed the cow teeth.

So as you can see we have been pretty busy down the hall in 4K. We are all ready for next week and meeting our new friend Ms. Y. She will teach us all about camping! Get ready for some bear hunting and a little tent time. 

Sibu Beauty

About a month ago I was contacted by Sibu Beauty asking if I would like to try one of their products and what woman has ever turned down a new product? Now I am not a person who is up on the "latest" trend and I have been know to use the same products for years (hello apricot facial scrub), but after checking out the Sibu Beauty website and learning about their products I was really excited to try their  Sea Buckthorn Balancing Facial Cleanser.

Before I tell you about my experience with Sibu I must tell you I am currently not applying it where one would usually apply this product. I did begin using it on my face, but it has ended up somewhere else and no it is not a no no dirty place so get your minds out of the gutter. I have what is called Keratosis Pilaris on the upper backs of my arms and annoyingly it is much worse on the right arm than the left and even more annoyingly there is no cure for this. It isn't harmful in any way it is just annoying. I am always trying different products for this and nothing has seemed to work except for proactive, but I refuse to pay for that stuff anymore because I don't have acne and I am not going to spend tons of money for something that no one else can see. Needless to say when I received my Sibu facial cleanser I not only tried it on my face, but I gave it a whirl on my arms. I am kicking myself that I didn't take a few before pictures even though noon else would probably notice a difference, but I swear this stuff works.I don't know if it is the ingredients or the little micro scrubbers, but the bumps on my arms have drastically diminished and my arm isn't as red as before. I don't know if it is the ingredients or the micro scrubbers that help, but whatever it is I love it.

Now don't worry I have also been using a little bit on my face and it actually works there too. It cleared up a blemish in 2 days with no lasting impressions whatsoever. So basically it works magic anywhere and everywhere you use it.

One last thing that really make me like this product and this company is the fact that they are Cruelty Free, USDA Organic, and they are part of the Sustainable Forest Initiative. If you know me you know if something helps the environment then I am a fan.

I highly recommend this product to anyone who is looking for something new to try on your face and or body because it works and because I like what this company does. It isn't everyday you get a good product and a environmentally conscious company all rolled into one.