Iron Craft Challenge #12: I'm Your Biggest Fan

This was supposed to be up last Tuesday, but we were on vacation.  Better late than never!

For the last Iron Craft Challenge, I made a Superman/Wonder Woman wall hanging for our room (I've since painted the sides in accent colors and I really like how that turned out!).

The boys saw that and wanted one for their room too.  Even though their dad is a Superman fan, the boys actually like Batman and the Joker.  So I wanted to make a Batman themed hanging for their room.  

I did my google image search to find appropriate silhouettes to print.  The hardest to find was a Joker that wasn't too scary or Heath Ledger (he's awesome, but not very black-and-white-printable).  I finally found one, along with Batman and Robin together, and Gotham City. 

I didn't mess around with finding the perfect book page texts this time, because I don't know Batman lore as much, and also because the kids can't read yet...

A little mod podge, a little paint, and voila!  

What a nice pair of superhero pictures!

Menu Plan: June 30-July 5

Some of our garden haul this weekend...

You might notice there's a little bit of overlap here from my last menu plan, which went through July 2.  (Okay, you probably won't notice, because you don't memorize my meal plans, but there is).  That's because I realized we only had a few more days between the end of that plan and our family vacation, so I decided to see if I could stretch what we had to cover the rest of the meals.  My mom also gave me a few fresh items that they weren't going to use before they left their house as well.  It actually was not that hard!  Meals that were already on the plan from last time are in parentheses.

Tuesday, June 30
Breakfast: (Gluten-Free Chocolate Banana Muffins)
Lunch: (Leftover Taco Soup)
Dinner: (Stuffed Peppers)
Snack: (Watermelon)
Snack: (Bean Brownies)

Wednesday, July 1
Breakfast: (Gluten-Free Chocolate Banana Muffins)
Lunch: (Black Bean Burgers, Sweet Potato Fries)
Dinner: Cobb Salads (using lettuce and tomatoes from my mom, plus additional lettuce from our garden), Green Beans from the garden
Snack: (Bananas)
Snack: (Bean Brownies)

Thursday, July 2
Breakfast: (Yogurt and Homemade Granola)
Lunch: Funeral luncheon at church (I'm bringing cake)
Dinner: (Southern Chicken Stew, Biscuits)
Snack: (Apples)
Snack: (Popcorn)

Friday, July 3
Breakfast: Eggs and Toast
Lunch: Pinto Beans, Mexi Rice (I have everything except the red pepper), Cheese
Dinner: Leftovers
Snack: Yogurt
Snack: Canned Fruit

Saturday, July 4
Breakfast: Oatmeal with Canned Pears and Frozen Blueberries
Lunch: Veggie Stir Fry (using peas, corn, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, and celery, which are all in the freezer, plus some beef broth I have saved from the last time I made beef and broccoli)
Dinner: (Oatmeal Pancakes, Cinnamon Apples)
Snack: Canned Fruit
Snack: Energy Bites

Sunday, July 5
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Sandwiches/PB Tortillas (depending on the amount of bread we have left), and Hannah will have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on leftover pancakes
Dinner: Pizza - topped with Sausage and Fajita Veggies from the freezer (my brother and his fiancee will be here so I planned a nicer dinner for them)
Snack: Energy Bites
Snack: Whatever's left

We'll finish with eggs or cereal for breakfast on Monday, and head out, hopefully with a cleared out fridge/freezer, and with all of our grocery budget intact!

Weekly Goals: June 28-July 4

Jonah with his godparents. One of my favorite parts of this week was seeing old friends!

Last Week's Goals:

• Stick to our budget for food and entertainment while traveling.  We did okay.  We chose to make a few extra purchases (bras for me, sunglasses for Jesse) because we were actually around stores that sold them.  But for food and coffee and stuff for the kids, we did great!
• Talk to my parents about food.  We talked about it a little bit, but that's it for now.

This Week's Goals:

• See if I can manage to feed us for July 3-5 without doing any major grocery shopping (except picking up something for next Sunday's dinner since we'll have company).  I have meals planned through July 2, and since there's only a few days between that and our family get-together, I want to see if we can make things stretch.
• Do Iron Craft Challenge #13: Words.  If I can't come up with a project for that, I'm in big trouble...
• Clean out my dish strainer.  It's gross.

Weekly Goals: June 21-27

Elizabeth is now officially a sitter and a crawler.  She has been close to these milestones for quite awhile, and this week she just took off!  

Last Week's Goals:

• Meal plan, make the grocery list, go shopping, and do food prep.  Done!
• Read 2 of the books on my Less Than 100 Pages list.  Done!
• Finish the projects from my paper clutter and craft cupboard lists.  Done!

This Week's Goals:

• Stick to our budget for food and entertainment while traveling.  
• Help my parents clean out their cupboards and come up with a meal plan for some of their pantry goods, if they're interested.

We're going to our synod convention the first half of the week, and then stopping by my parents' house for a few days.  My mom has had a few health issues lately, so I'm hoping to have a conversation about food with her, and offer some suggestions if she's interested.  I'm looking forward to a week filled with family and friends!

Organizing Trouble Spots: Craft Cupboard

Yesterday I posted about paper clutter.  Today it's all about the craft cupboard!  This was another area I wanted to tackle for I Heart Organizing's Wait-No-More Challenge.

Let's start with the before and after shot:

It's still crowded, but more things are contained, and pretty much everything has a spot of its own, which is super important for kids ages 5, 4, and 2 to be putting things away.

So before.  Big problems were the bottom two shelves.  That third shelf is actually not a true "before" picture, since I added the boxes before I took the photo.  Just picture a really messy pile there instead...

One thing that works is that the top shelf is "Mom's shelf" and they know they can't have anything up there without asking.  It's still a cluttered mess, unfortunately, but I wanted to post anyways.  I need some sort of bins for holding the different art supplies up there, and I haven't gotten them yet.

The second shelf now has a white baby wipes bin on the left for smaller notepads that were getting lost with all the bigger ones.  The glue is all in one green container now, the crayons and markers each have a bin, and the pens are all back in the pen cup.

I had several of these Bob's Red Mill flour boxes from my big box of baking supplies I got a few months ago, so I used those to corral notebooks/drawing pads, coloring books, and sticker books.  This way the kids can grab what they want and put it back.

They weren't the prettiest things to look at though, so I covered them with pretty blue floral shelf liner.  That also brings some uniformity to the bins, and even though it's a busy pattern, it makes the whole thing look less busy to me because it's more streamlined.

And then the bottom shelf.  It's supposed to be paper on the right, projects on the left.  The "projects" were really just everything they didn't want to put away or recycle.  Most of that went into the recycling bin, although they each picked a few things they forgot were in there to save.

Here's after:

(Sorry for the terrible lighting - this is in a corner of the living room without much natural light).  More boxes covered in shelf liner!  Again with the uniformity...Now the box on the right has all the construction paper organized by color, so they can grab what they want instead of telling me we're out of something when we actually aren't.  And the box on the left has scraps for when they don't need a whole piece of paper.  We're going to find a different spot for any projects they want to save, and really limit them.

I also condensed the stickers to one green baby wipes container.  I went through and cut down the big sheets into smaller pieces (and got rid of the ones where all but one sticker were gone).

This is probably my favorite shot of the whole project.  These two shelves just look so awesome now!

This is a project I've been meaning to do for awhile, so I'm glad this challenge motivated me to get it done!  We keep tweaking this corner to find what works, and I think with this we might finally have a system that works.

Organizing Trouble Spots: Paper Clutter

I mentioned in my most recent Weekly Goals post that I was participating in I Heart Organizing's Wait-No-More Organizing Challenge.  I had two areas to focus on.  The first is paper clutter.  Papers end up everywhere...  

On the footstool...

On the desk...

On our "appliance island" in the dining room...

On what used to be our garden table inside...

Even on top of the fruit dish on the dining room table. (Go Twins! But boo clutter!)

I had that lovely tray in the first photo, so I decided to use that to corral all of the "I need to deal with this, but not right this minute" papers.  Invitations, medical papers to file, stuff for the church newsletter, plus the cords for my camera and Kindle.  All in one spot instead of several across the house.

The other paper problem I wanted to deal with was the paper under the printer table.  We have a ream of unused white paper still in its packaging, which is fine.  But the other random papers under there are from the kids' school work, mail, and so on that are only used on one side.  I slide these in the printer when I'm printing off coupons or recipes, since the backside doesn't matter.  But they get messed around without being contained.

Enter the shoebox!  I covered a shoebox with some pretty shelf liner, and contained that paper mess!  I would like to eventually get one for the regular printer paper as well, but someone will have to go shoe shopping first...

Finally, the one part of the paper clutter chaos that was already working for us:

If you ignore the mess in front of it, the three-tier filing system with my purple budget notebook, along with file folders for "Bills to Pay", "Scan", "Shred", and a few other specific file folders, is working really nicely.  Everything there has a spot, and it's all organized until I can get to it (I like to do a bunch of scanning and shredding at once instead of bit by bit).  At least one organizing system works!  Now here's hoping the rest of that paper clutter can be contained...

Stay tuned tomorrow for the craft cupboard (and you might see some more of that pretty blue shelf liner)...

Menu Plan: June 16-July 2

Our most recent Sunday dinner included smothered chicken (chicken breast with mushrooms, onions, and mozzarella on top), garlic butter rice, pan seared broccoli from our garden, and a few snap peas from the garden as well.

The hardest part of having a garden, at least for me, is coming up with ways to use some of the produce immediately.  The stuff I can save, and use later on, is great!  The stuff that I need to use within a couple days sometimes stumps me, especially when I have the meals all set.  But I'm trying to be better about moving things around and using the stuff as we get it.  Good practice for if we ever get a CSA too (although with a garden this size, we certainly don't need one).

This time around I had to plan ahead a little bit, because we have a trip in the middle of the meal plan.  Not only did I want to lower costs for that trip by bringing most of our snacks and one of our meals, but I also wanted to have most of the meal prep done for when we get back.  I'll have laundry and life to catch up on, so who wants to spend extra time shopping and in the kitchen?  I think I managed to come up with a plan that will work.

Tuesday, June 16
Breakfast: Apple Cinnamon Oat Cakes (gluten free version)
Lunch: Spinach Pesto Quinoa Bowl using this pesto recipe
Dinner: Toscana Soup, Breadsticks
Snack #1: Bananas
Snack #2: Energy Bites

Wednesday, June 17
Breakfast: Gluten Free Peanut Butter Banana Oat Muffins
Lunch: Leftover Toscana Soup and Soup from the Freezer, Leftover Breadsticks
Dinner: Turkey BLT Salads
Snack #1: Popcorn
Snack #2: Pears

Thursday, June 18

Breakfast: Yogurt and Homemade Granola
Lunch: Italian Sausage with Peppers, Onions, and Mushrooms over Rice
Dinner: Turkey BLT Salads
Snack #1: Muffins
Snack #2: Pears

Friday, June 19

Breakfast: Squash Hash and Eggs
Lunch: Leftover Italian Sausage and Rice
Dinner: Homemade Pizza topped with Ham, Mushrooms, Black Olives, Spinach, Peppers, and Onions
Snack #1: Muffins
Snack #2: Yogurt

Saturday, June 20

Breakfast: Oatmeal with Pears and Frozen Blueberries
Lunch: Baked Potatoes with Ham, Broccoli, Peppers, Onions, and Mozzarella
Dinner: Mexi Rice topped with Fajita Peppers and Onions, Black Olives, and Cheese
Snack #1: Apples
Snack #2: Energy Bites

Sunday, June 21 (we leave after lunch to go to our synod convention)

Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Sandwiches, Fruit
Dinner: Sloppy Joe Mix, Rolls, Chips, Apples (I'm making the sloppy joe mix and rolls ahead of time and freezing them, so they'll thaw along the way for our trip, and we'll eat them at the hotel)
Snack #1: Anything left that needs to be eaten (energy bites, fruit, etc.)
Snack #2: Squeeze applesauce (I bought a big pack of these and a big pack of fruit cups for while we're on the road)

Monday, June 22

Breakfast: Hotel
Lunch: Eat Out
Dinner: Eat Out
Snack #1: Fruit Cups
Snack #2: Yogurt and Homemade Granola (I'm bringing granola from home and we'll buy yogurt there)

Tuesday, June 23

Breakfast: Hotel
Lunch: Eat Out
Dinner: Eat Out
Snack #1: Trail Mix (bringing from home)
Snack #2: Fruit Cups

Wednesday, June 24

Breakfast: Hotel
Lunch: me and the kids at my brother's house, Jesse is using a Chipotle gift card I got using MyPoints
Dinner: Eat Out
Snack #1: Applesauce
Snack #2: Yogurt and Homemade Granola

Thursday, June 25 (synod convention finishes up Wednesday night, and then we're heading to my parents' for a couple days)

Breakfast: Hotel
Lunch: at my parents' house
Dinner: at my parents' house
Snack #1: Applesauce/Fruit Cups
Snack #2: at my parents' house

Friday, June 26

Breakfast: at my parents' house
Lunch: at my parents' house
Dinner: at my parents' house
Snack #1: at my parents' house
Snack #2: at my parents' house

Saturday, June 27

Breakfast: at my parents' house
Lunch: Hot Dogs, Macaroni and Cheese, Peas
Dinner: Chicken Fajitas with Homemade Tortillas (both already in the freezer)
Snack #1: Applesauce/Fruit Cups
Snack #2: Popcorn

Sunday, June 28

Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
Dinner: Gluten Free Mushroom Broccoli Alfredo
Snack #1: Trail Mix
Snack #2: Apples

Monday, June 29

Breakfast: Eggs and Sweet Potatoes
Lunch: Taco Soup
Dinner: Stuffed Peppers
Snack #1: Bananas
Snack #2: Black Bean Brownies

Tuesday, June 30

Breakfast: Gluten Free Chocolate Banana Muffins
Lunch: Leftover Taco Soup
Dinner: Southern Chicken Stew, Biscuits
Snack #1: Energy Bites
Snack #2: Black Bean Brownies

Wednesday, July 1

Breakfast: Leftover Chocolate Banana Muffins
Lunch: Leftovers from the past few dinners
Dinner: Broccoli Ham Egg Bake
Snack #1: Yogurt
Snack #2: Energy Bites

Thursday, July 2

Breakfast: Yogurt and Homemade Granola
Lunch: Black Bean Burgers, Sweet Potato Fries
Dinner: Oatmeal Pancakes, Cinnamon Apples
Snack #1: Canned Fruit
Snack #2: Popcorn

Weekly Goals: June 14-20

First big news: Jonah lost his tooth!  I had fun playing tooth fairy, and wrote him a little note from "Toothie the Tooth Fairy" to go along with his treat.

This past Thursday was Heartland Days for our town.  Our church had a float and new t-shirts.  Jesse and the boys were part of the candy brigade walking in the parade, and I sat with the girls and chatted with an older woman next to us.  I'm not always good at small talk, but that's one of those things that I'm trying to practice when I can.

I was also really proud of the float, because the artwork you see there was designed by my husband and drawn by me!  I had help with the painting, but it was largely something we created, and I like how it turned out.  This was one of those instances where I knew it wasn't going to turn out perfectly, and I was okay with good enough.  I can't always get past that, so it was nice to have some success there too.  (I guess it was a good week for me to work on some of the character traits I'm lacking in!)

Last Week's Goals:

• Write a guest post for another blog.  Done, but it was rejected, so I might re-work it and post it here anyways.
• Figure out which homeschool curricula to order first and get that ordered. Not done.
• Clean the microwave. Done!
• Send a card and present for my cousin's baby shower.  I got everything together, but I'll have to mail it tomorrow.

Here's some other things that were on my big to do list that I accomplished instead of what I actually chose for this week:

• Organize my Kindle.  Similar to my Pinterest cleanout, I got rid of things I was no longer interested in, and reorganized, including making a "Less Than 100 Pages" list, so when I'm just looking for a quick read, I can start there.
• Filled out two of the organizing sheets in this post, one for paper clutter, and one for the craft cupboard.  I'm looking forward to completing the projects and hopefully sharing them on the blog later this week!  My other two, for the homeschool room, and the upstairs craft room, are longer projects as I look for free (or inexpensive) storage solutions.  Anyone have any free tables/shelving?

This Week's Goals:

• Meal plan, make the grocery list (today), go grocery shopping (Monday), and do the food prep so everything is ready to go for our trip and for when we get back (Tuesday-Thursday).
• Read 2 of the books on my Less Than 100 Pages list.
• Finish the projects from my paper clutter and craft cupboard lists.

Iron Craft Challenge #11: Super Wall Hanging

This week's challenge was paper, and it could be any kind of paper.  I used several, and this project was a mixture of several ideas I've had floating through my mind for awhile now.

The inspiration actually came first from these:

Yep. Price tags from a pajama set and a tshirt.  And then there was a little bit of this:

An old book I have specifically for crafting.  Those, plus an internet photo search, plus a shoebox lid and a bunch of mod podge, equals:

Custom wall art!  So here's where I confess that I am a bit of a geek, and I spent way too long searching for the perfect pages to use for the background.  Superman is printed on a page with a poem about "the man of Kent", and Wonder Woman was supposed to be on an essay entitled "On Truth", which started "What is truth?", but the paper jammed in the printer so she got a poem called "The Defenders" instead.  There's also references to a shooting star falling from the sky and a red and blue dart.

The boys got really excited about this project, so there's a Batman/Robin/The Joker one in the works for them.  Stay tuned...

Weekly Goals: June 7-13

This week we're all about teeth.  Elizabeth's still haven't shown up, but she nom noms on everything.  And yes, we're making that a word now.  Jonah got his first wiggly tooth too, and all I could think was "How is he already old enough for this?!"  I know those moments are just going to keep popping up, but it still catches me by surprise when they do.

Last Week's Goals:

• Do the June church newsletter.  I had to pester Jesse for a couple things, but it got done yesterday afternoon!
• Make the menu plan and prep list, go grocery shopping, and do meal prep.  Done!
• Clear the rest of the non-homeschool stuff out of the homeschool room, see what I have and want out, and hang the big map.  Not done.

This Week's Goals:

• Write a guest post for another blog.
• Figure out which homeschool curricula to order first and get that ordered.
• Clean the microwave!
• Send a card and present for my cousin's baby shower.

Menu Plan: June 2-15

One of the boys' favorite things to do is to play "kitchen", where they each get a baking sheet and various ingredients to mix together.  It's my way of letting them practice and get messy without actually being messy in the kitchen.  Eventually they'll move onto the real thing.

Tuesday, June 2
Breakfast: Eggs, Toast, Canned Peaches
Lunch: Crockpot Baked Potatoes with Ham, Broccoli, and Cheese
Dinner: Cobb Salads
Snack #1: Treat from the grocery store (we got cookies)
Snack #2: Popcorn

Wednesday, June 3
Breakfast: Yogurt and Homemade Granola
Lunch: Turkey Bacon Wraps
Dinner: Cobb Salads
Snack #1: Trail Mix
Snack #2: Pears

Thursday, June 4

Breakfast: Gluten Free version of Whole Wheat Whatever Muffins
Lunch: Turkey Bacon Wraps
Dinner: Chicken, Black Beans, and Mexi Rice
Snack #1: Energy Bites
Snack #2: Bananas

Friday, June 5

Breakfast: Eggs and Fried Potatoes
Lunch: Sandwiches, Apples
Dinner: Leftover Chicken, Black Beans, and Mexi Rice
Snack #1: Yogurt
Snack #2: Apples

Saturday, June 6

Breakfast: Oatmeal with Nutella
Lunch: Black Bean Burgers, Sweet Potato Fries
Dinner: Mini Pepper Nachos with Chicken
Snack #1: Puppy Chow
Snack #2: Canned Fruit

Sunday, June 7

Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Chicken Quesadillas
Dinner: Mexican Beef and Tomato Skewers, Poblano Sweet Potatoes
Snack #1: Puppy Chow
Snack #2: Fruit Salad

Monday, June 8

Breakfast: Eggs, Leftover Poblano Sweet Potatoes
Lunch: Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
Dinner: Ground Turkey and Pinto Bean Tacos
Snack #1: Energy Bites
Snack #2: Fruit Salad

Tuesday, June 9

Breakfast: Ham and Cheese Omelets (I've mastered the two egg omelet, but not three)
Lunch: BLTs, Celery and Peanut Butter Dip
Dinner: Leftover Tacos
Snack #1: Homemade Granola and Craisins
Snack #2: Bananas

Wednesday, June 10

Breakfast: Yogurt and Homemade Granola
Lunch: Chili with Ground Turkey
Dinner: Grill Out Hot Dogs and Brats, Fries
Snack #1: Trail Mix
Snack #2: Pears

Thursday, June 11

Breakfast: Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Lunch: Leftover Chili
Dinner: Oatmeal Pancakes, Cinnamon Apples
Snack #1: Popcorn
Snack #2: Bananas

Friday, June 12

Breakfast: Gluten Free Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
Lunch: Sandwiches, Carrots and Ranch
Dinner: Chicken Bacon Ranch Mushroom Pizza
Snack #1: Energy Bites
Snack #2: Apples

Saturday, June 13

Breakfast: Oatmeal with Pears
Lunch: Egg Salad, Crackers, Canned Fruit
Dinner: Sausage Skillet
Snack #1: Popcorn
Snack #2: 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (these have gotten bumped from the last two menu plans for other treats)

Sunday, June 14

Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: Leftovers
Dinner: Smothered Chicken, Garlic Butter Rice, Corn
Snack #1: Trail Mix
Snack #2: Apples

Monday, June 15

Breakfast: Eggs and Toast
Lunch: Chicken Enchilada Chili
Dinner: Chicken Fried Rice
Snack #1: Peanut Butter Cookies
Snack #2: Canned Fruit

Weekly Goals: June 1-6

This past week, I've been trying to shift Elizabeth's schedule so that her eating times are a little bit more specific (something we've done in the past with the other three kids with great success), and so that she takes two bigger naps instead of three shorter sporadic ones.

And it's gone horribly.

She's still got some digestion/gas issues sometimes, I'm pretty sure the teething is never-ending (because there's no teeth yet), she's almost crawling and it freaks her out.  I'm never quite sure what the problem is, so I have to try to guess to solve it, and for some reason, my motherly intuition is off with this kid.  One night this week she had a choking fit in the middle of the night due to spitting up and/or swallowing a bug?  I'm still not completely sure.  I just know that the sound of a baby gasping at 3am is not something I'd like to repeat.  All this to say, sleep has been a luxury this week.  This too shall pass...probably right about the time we start traveling and mess everything up.

Last Week's Goals:

• Start planning for next year's homeschool curriculum.  Almost done!  I still have two subjects to decide on, and we have to actually order the things we don't have (we'll be doing that over the summer to spread out the costs).  It's nice to have that checked off my list though!  I'll be posting a list of what we're planning on sometime in the next few weeks.
• Figure out a loose meal and snack plan for our trip to Minnesota in a few weeks.  Almost done!  I'm trying to set up dinner plans with a few people still, but I have the rest figured out.
• Cash in points from apps and rewards sites for swimsuit money.  Done and ordered!  I ended up with $63.81 from all of my rewards sites, and my swimsuit cost $74.20 after shipping and tax.  I can handle $11 out of pocket.
• Work on the June church newsletter.  Not done.  It's for the first Sunday of the month, so I technically have this week to finish it.  Better get working!

This Week's Goals:

• Do the June church newsletter.
• Make the June 2-15 menu plan and grocery list (Monday), go shopping (Tuesday), and do meal prep (Tuesday-whenever it gets done).  This is always quite the undertaking, so I really should consider it an achievement whenever I get it done.
• Clear the rest of the non-homeschool stuff out of the homeschool room and see what school stuff I have and want to have out so I can figure out tables/bookshelves/storage and what we're going to need.  And hang the big map of the world.