Menu Plan Monday: Oct. 11th

How are things cookin' at your house? Last week's meals went fairly well here (especially the chicken and dumplings~yum!), although we had some changes.

The biggest change was on Tuesday when I completely forgot to put my 20-Garlic Chicken in the crockpot before I left for the Girl Scout hike. And I do mean completely forgot~I didn't even think about it until we were on our way home from the hike...oops! Luckily P-Dub's Ranch-Style Chicken came to the rescue (we love that!). I'm going to get that Garlic Chicken made yet though, I just have to buy more chicken now because we ate all that I had! Oh~and if you were interested in the hot dog pizzas that I said we were having last Friday and wanted to try them....please don't. I have to just say they were...gross. Sometimes being creative with what's in the fridge doesn't pay off.

Oh, and did I mention that we made kettle corn at home? So yummy! You should try it!

This week's theme: easy, healthy & frugal! Lately I've really been trying to create the majority of our menus from what's already in the pantry. I mean, I always check my pantry first to work whatever I have into my menus, but I've been making a concerted effort to only have to buy very basic necessities for our meals (for example, sandwich bread and sandwich meat, milk and butter...). I'm amazed at how full my pantry was (is!), so I'm continuing to work with what I have.

Monday: Pinto Beans and Cornbread
Tuesday: Tuna Cornbread Cakes with Potatoes and a veggie
Wednesday: Lentils and Rice Soft Tacos (a new meatless recipe!)
Thursday: Goulash (from the freezer)
Friday: Baked Talapia with Baked Potato Fans and mixed veggies
Saturday: Breakfast-for-Dinner (probably eggs, bacon and toast)

So tell me what you're cooking this week! I'd love to hear about it!

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

Making Notebooks

Recently I tried out a new craft idea~and it was SO much fun!! And extremely frugal, too. That's always a bonus, right? So here we go: 1. Take your basic composition notebook (purchased at the back-to-school sales for .99 each). 2. Go to your craft supplies and get your Mod Podge ready, along with a good paintbrush. 3. Look through all those scrapbook papers you've been randomly collecting and choose some. 3. After choosing your paper for the cover of your book and trimming it to fit, start *painting* the cover with the glue. Next, give the back of your paper a good coat of glue, too. (I left the binding uncovered so that I could use a contrasting paper there later on). 4. Glue it on! Remember to smooth out any air bubbles under the paper. 5. Flip the cover open and make a few cuts on the corners so that they will fold over nice and neat, then add a little more glue to the edges of the inside cover and a little more to the paper edges. 6. Fold them over and press...

my blessed life

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