Healthy Branscoms

Easiest and BEST homemade marinara Sauce and Homemade pasta FAIL

2012-02-15T05:00:00.027-06:00

Hi blogger friends! :) I HAVE to share this with you. You will NEVER go back to storebought over priced marinara sauce! I know I won't! Have you ever heard of the book called Clara's Kitchen? She has the cutest Youtube videos too! I just LOVE her cookbook. Here is her recipe. But seriously, buy her book or get it at your library. It is great!

Homemade Marinara Sauce

2 T. olive oil
6 oz tomato paste, homemade or canned
40 oz canned, diced tomatoes, or 5 cups fresh tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 large unpeeled garlic
2 dried bay leaves
2 fresh basil leaves

Put the olive oil, tomato paste, and diced tomatoes in a large pot. Place over medium-high heat.
Add the clove of garlic whole, skin and all. Next add the bay leaves. When the sauce begins to boil, lower the heat to medium-low and add the fresh basil.
Simmer for about 1 hour. (If you decide to add meat to the sauce, you can cook it longer, by another 30 minutes or so.)
Before serving, remove the garlic and bay leaves. Freeze any unused sauce for future meals.

*Clara suggests leaving the whole clove of garlic intact in the sauce until the end of the cooking. This will give you all the flavor of the garlic, and it's easy to remove it before serving the sauce.*

I also tried my first attempt at makign handmade pasta. It was a big epic fail. My son called them snakes. :) I think it would help if I had a pasta machine but I don't. Thank goodness I had some back up noodles aside for a future meal this week that we could use for this. We still ate the ~~snakes~~ pasta but we ate our our noodles too. :) I am going to work on this pasta. :)

Do you make your own pasta sauce? We are on a quest to make everything from scratch as much as possible! :)

Money Matters Monday: Make Menu's

2012-02-13T05:00:00.037-06:00

Good Morning my Monday Money Savers! I hope you had a phenomenal weekend! I hope you relaxed, rested and are ready to go for the week! By now you have made a budget, made a list of your debt, purged your crap (not poop :), and now we are going to make menu's! Yay!!! I love making menu's! AND I love grocery shopping. I know, I am a freak. It dawned on me a few weeks ago as I was walking through the grocery store that I LOVE grocery shopping. I don't know if its that everything is all lined up pretty and calling out to my little OCD heart, or what I love about it but it is just great. SO great that I put WAY too much crap into my cart if I don't have a menu and a list. Then I get into trouble. We have about a $500 a month budget for groceries. That is for ALL of our meals (we pack our lunches), dog food, cleaning supplies, everything. So making menu's are so important to our family.

For the record, I said I liked grocery shopping. I NEVER said I liked carrying it in from the car. Booooooo. Sometimes I bargain with my husband. "Okay honey, will you carry it all to the kitchen and then I will put it all away?" And usually he agrees. I love that guy! My boys are big helpers too.

So, dust off your cookbooks, hit the library and pick up some more and make some menu's! They don't have to be fancy. Heck, we have breakfast for dinner once a week and we love it! We also get creative with leftovers! :) I also LOVE to look on pinterest for ideas! :)

Shop the perimeter of the grocery store and you will save a TON of money. It is so much cheaper. We also shop at Aldi's as much as we can. It is so cheap! And if you buy something and you don't like it, they will give you your money back. I did that once with some biscuits we didn't like.

Buy less options of food. You and your kids do not need 10 different types of cereals, bagels, eggs, waffles, oatmeal, toast, breakfast sandwiches, whatever. You don't NEED all of that!

Go make a menu out of everything out of your fridge, freezer, and pantry. Keep doing that until it is empty! Then only buy what you need for your weekly menu but use up what you already have first. You don't need a ginormous extreme couponing pantry! I think it is so wasteful! And most of that stuff is not healthy. Spend that time you would have spent on couponing on menu planning and then the rest of it playing with your kids! They need you more than you need a creepy pantry that looks like a grocery store in your basement!! Trust me! I know! I used to have a creepy pantry grocery store in my basement. NO more. We ate it all up and I hardly bought any groceries for months while we ate it. Now we just buy what we need and it is SO much more satisfying. I promise! Try it! It is so much less overwhelming.

We also emptied out our deep freeze. We are selling it!!! I asked my financial trainer what her opinion was of having a deep freeze. She told me, "how much did the deep freezer cost?" "How much does it cost to RUN the deep freezer?" So true! Not to mention, what if our deep freezer went out and we didn't know it and we lost hundreds of dollars in food? This has happened to people we know! Plus I know we can buy fresher and better tasting food. We only need the freezer in our kitchen.

Take food with you! Pack a few ziplocks of snacks and put them in your bag. That way if you get tempted to stop and spend money, you won't because you have snacks! :) I love protein bars, and almonds personally but whatever you like. Baggies of carrots and celery is a hit with my kids too. We always fill up our water bottles before we leave the house and throw a few snacks in Mommy's purse. :)

Shop only ONCE a week. Don't waste gas and precious TIME going to the store all of the time! Make that list and stick to it. If you forgot something, improvise and substitute! I do it all of the time! Sometimes things turn out even better when you think outside of the box and improvise.

I also have been making our own oatmeal packets. I will be posting more on that in the future! :)

What ideas do you have on menu and meal planning?

Get Creative with Leftovers!

2012-02-10T05:00:00.015-06:00

Does your family eat leftovers? I want to be nosy here. How much does your family spend at the grocery store? I want to tell you something embarrassing. We used to spend over $1,000 at the grocery store monthly. How wasteful! We began to get creative with leftovers and come up with amazing meals.

I was going to give our leftover ham bone with a TON of meat still left on it to my brother's dog after our Christmas dinner last month. My mom stopped me and said, you know you can boil that with dried beans and make a yummy ham and beans soup? I had NO idea. So that is what we did! Let me tell you how ridiculously cheap this meal was.

.50 for dried beans
.50 for a box of cornbread mix

We also used some leftover salad from the night before. Seriously, we ate a yummy meal for about $1! Even drive thru food which we are completely trying to avoid for health AND money reasons is about $20! And a sit down meal at a restraunt runs us about $45-50. I am so amazed at how wasteful we once were.

What are some of your cheap meal ideas? Do you use up leftovers?

Does Clean have a smell?

2012-02-08T05:00:00.022-06:00

Good morning! :) One of the questions I get a lot is, "what does the basic h2 smell like?" And the answer is...Nothing. Because clean shouldn't have a smell. If you are smelling strong smells while you are cleaning, that is probably additives and harmful toxins added to your already harmful cleaner to make you *think* your home is getting clean. The additives can also be very harmful as well.

I don't mind that the basic h2 doesn't have a smell to it, because it works and really that is all I care about. :) However, I thought it would be fun to mix things up a bit. So I added a few drops of lemon essential oil to my basic h2 spray bottles. And it smells amazing! :) I love that I can switch out the smells too. I can change it to lavendar, Vanilla, anything! :) And I KNOW it is not harmful for my family.

So if you are hesitant, don't be. It works, it is naturally safe and you can add any of your own smells to it! :)

Money Matters Monday: Purge!

2012-02-06T05:00:00.033-06:00

Welcome to Money Matters Monday! I hope you had an amazing weekend! :) I hope you are sticking with me! You WILL see results! Stay diligent and if you are just joining in, you can go back and read the first two posts and get started! (By the way the picture of money is money we made in one weekend selling stuff on craigslist! :) We paid our babysitter with a little bit of the money too. ha!

Today we are going to talk about purging. And I don't mean throwing up. Gross. Ewww.

I mean purging your CRAP! And no, not poop. Eww. Stop being so gross!! haha

I mean all of your things in your house that is weighing you down and making you stressed out. When you walk into your home, do you have furniture that nobody uses and you could sell, or donate? Do it! I dare you! We did. We had furniture in our den and it was NICE. I sold it. Now our den is empty. Don't be skeered. We still have a living room with furniture in it so don't worry, we aren't sitting on the floor. But I had to ask myself, WHY do we need so many couches in ONE house? Wasteful. So I sold them, made some cash and put it towards our debt. You know why? Because for me, being a stay at home Mom and being debt free is WAY more cooler than having so much stuff. Plus its less stuff that I have to clean and maintain. Win win. Honestly, our dog laid on that couch. We hardly ever did. WHY was I holding onto something that could make me money so my DOG could sleep on it. No way. Priorities, people.

So start listing your things on ebay, craigslist or have a yard sale. You should probably talk to your spouse about this before you do this. I got in a bit of a pickle with this one. I love you honey! ;) "It's all for the cause dear!" :) Remember that from the Grinch?

I have a bit of a problem. I LOVE getting rid of things. I LOVE selling things, giving things away, whatever. I love things un-cluttered and it is a constant war I am fighting with my big family in my small house. They LOVE to bring more things home and torture me. I feel SO overwhelmed when I have clutter. It consumes me, bothers me, makes me want to break out in hives, crawl under my desk and cry. Okay probably not that drastic but darn near close. I HATE it. I think clutter makes you fat too. Just sayin'. :) I speak from experience! :)

I was talking to my friend Londa one day about how I want to become debt free and become a stay at home Mom. She said, "Erin, if I could go back and do it all over again, I would sell ALL of my crap to do it." And that really stuck with me. It made me think about stupid materialistic possessions. Are they really that important? Not to me. Being at home with my kids is much more important. Being debt free is freedom.

When you have less things to maintain you have more time to spend on the important things-your family. So start selling your CRAP (not poop, no one wants your poop, fool!) and put all of your money in your envelope we talked about. Then put that money towards your debt. DO NOT go out for pizza. PAY off your debt!

Have a beast of a garage sale! Put some tables up in your garage and begin piling stuff up out there for a few months. I go through closets constantly and send my kids out to the garage with stuff. I take a good full month to purge before our yard sale.

If you don't want to have a yard sale, donate to the goodwill, salvation army, or put your items on freecycle.org. I am a bit of a craigslist addict.

But purge! Learn to live with less Crap! (not poop, but you shouldn't have too much poop. Talk to your doctor if thats a problem for you.)

Have a great week purging! Have a contest in how much money you can make purging and let me know how much you saved! We made $285 in one weekend! Email me and we can post a huge amount of all of the families combined! :)

Homemade Crayon Valentines

2012-02-04T05:00:00.022-06:00

Hey there! It's that time of year again where the stores are filled with CANDY and they want you to buy it to put with your kids valentines so that they can go home with HUGE bags of candy and torture parents. Torture, you say? Yes. Because, do you really want your kids eating that junk? Do YOU get tempted to eat that? I know I do, so I always try to come up with something fun and an alternative for valentines day. This year we decided to make heart crayons to give out with their homemade valentines. We try to make our own. :)

We peeled all of our old and broken down crayons. What else are you going to do with them, right?

Peeling them all was super time consuming but I sat and did it while I was talking with my kids and they were eating breakfast. I ran a screwdriver down the side and then peeled it easily.

I actually found this heart shaped pan on http://www.avon.com/. It is perfect for this! I won't use it for food ever, it is just our crayon pan. :) I plan on doing this as many years as I can because it was fun! :) We baked the crayons for about 15 minutes at 200 degrees, basically until they all melted. Then we let them cool on the counter for a few minutes, then stuck them in the freezer. Within 5-10 minutes we just popped them out of the pan easy. :)

So we will be attaching them to our homemade valentines. There were a few glitter crayons melted in there too and those made some of them sparkly! :) Fun! The kids loved this!

Have you ever done anything like this? What are your Valentines crafts ideas?

Dating your husband

2012-02-02T05:00:00.038-06:00

Thanks Latoya for letting me guest post! :) I love this theme! :)

Hello, my name is Erin and I blog over at healthybranscoms.com. My husband Dusty and I have been married for almost 5 years and been together for 7. Sorry for the crazy picture of us, but it is kind of just like us in a way. I took it with my phone. We have a standing date every 2 weeks to go on a date and I wanted to take a cute picture of us, but on this night we were in such a rush to get out of the house that we just kissed the kids goodbye, and out the door we went! :) But hey, the important thing is that we made it OUT the door, right? :)

I think making it a priority to date your husband is so important. You see, my husband and I didn't do this for a long time and it was hurting us. When we get to go on a date, we really look forward to it. We talk about it all week and it gives us something to look forward to.

Now there are a lot of excuses you can give, "We don't have the money," or "I can't leave my kids with anyone." Make your husband a priority! :) If you really wanted to, you could make it happen. Here are some fun and frugal ideas.

-stay at home. Put the kids to bed, get a $1.50 redbox movie, and curbside to go from Applebee's and relax. Put your laptop and cell phone up and give your husband and the movie your FULL attention.

-swap babysitting with another family. I am sure they would appreciate the swap as well.

-use coupons and strategically plan

-instead of buying each other Christmas and birthday gifts, give each other "dates." You can pre-plan these with gift cards and tuck them aside for your date nights and suprise your spouse on the actual night so it stays a surprise

-sell your junk on ebay or craigslist and use the money to go out

-have lunch dates while your kids are in school

Whatever you decide, it is so important! :) My husband and I love it. On this night we went to Applebee's with a gift card we got from my parents for Christmas. Then we went and walked around a bookstore for awhile and relaxingly browsed books without kids going in all directions. Then we went to the movies. And for us this works because by the end of the week, we are usually exhausted so sitting and watching a movie is super relaxing to us. :)

Do you date your husband? What are some of your date ideas?

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 14 Shredded BBQ Chicken

2012-01-31T05:00:00.017-06:00

I think this was my favorite recipe so far!! :)

Shredded BBQ Chicken

1 1/2 lbs skinned and boned chicken thighs

1 T. olive oil

1 cup ketchup

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 T. Worcestershire sauce

1 T. Cider vinegar

1 T. yellow mustard

1 t. ground red pepper

1/2 t. garlic salt

6 hamburger buns

Brown chicken for 4 minutes on each side of hot oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove from heat, and place in a 4 quart slow cooker.

Combine ketchup and next 6 ingredients. Pour over chicken.

Cover and cook on high 1 hour. Reduce heat to LOW, and cook 5-6 hours. Remove chicken from sauce; shred chicken. Stir shredded chicken into sauce. Spoon mixture evenly onto buns. Makes 6 servings.

Money Matters Monday: Tackle your debt!

2012-01-30T05:00:00.050-06:00

Welcome to our second Money Matters Monday! Today we are going to talk about tackling that debt. And its ugly. And it doesn't matter if your debt is 5,000, 50,000, or more! You HAVE to get control of it or it cripples you, stresses you out and it can even destroy families. I want to set an example for my kids on how to live debt free and not be in debt. If that is the standard we set, then hopefully that will be the standard they will live by as well.

Let's get started!

Make a list of EVERY single debt that you owe. Period. ALL of it. I don't care how ugly it is, get your list. Make it. Tackle it. Let's do this! Get your pen and paper and your statements. Go. I will wait.

Okay, make a list of all of your debts, from the highest to the smallest. You can include your mortgage if you want to but I don't. Not yet. I am tacking student loans right now, because that is all we have. After those are gone, that mortgage is getting a beat down! ;) But do what you have. If you want to list your mortgage, then do it. But I suggest starting small and tackling credit cards, loans, whatever first. List them to the penny! EVERY cent counts!

Make a list of all of your sources of income down to the penny. Including mystery shopping, blog advertising, selling stuff on ebay, your regular income, whatever.

Get your handy budget that we made last week. How are you doing with that? Are you feeling the weight of stress being lifted now that you have a budget and are sticking to it?

Look at your debts. What can you consolidate, or refinance? For example, I refinances our van last year. Then I completely paid it off 6 months later. I still saved several dollars in interest. It was worth it. Saving every cent is important. If you can't respect pennies, those pennies add up to dollars and those dollars add up to hundreds of dollars. And that money you are wasting could be going to your debt dummy! (yep, called you a dummy! Thats what you GET if you are throwing away pennies!) That is why you need to know what your debt and incomes are to the penny! Don't be a dummy! :) haha

After you have established what you can refinance or consolidate, refigure your list if you need to. Some people say to pay off the highest interest first. I know usually that is the smart thing to do, but thats not what I did. For me I wanted to knock out small stuff first so I was motivated to keep going. I did pay off our vehicle first and it was 6k and I had a student loan that was 5k. I went with the vehicle because it was 4% interest and my student loan was 3% interest. THEN I paid off the 5k student loan. Next I have a 15k student loan at 6% interest. I know I probably should have tackled that big student loan first. BUT if I would have tackled it first, I wouldn't have seen results as quicker. By eliminating our vehicle and small student loan I was able to see results and be motivated to continue! :)

After I paid off our vehicle, I took that money that was going to our vehicle payment and began putting that towards the 5k student loan. After I paid off the 5k student loan, I took THAT loan payment and the "vehicle payment" and applied them to the BIG student loan. I also figured out what I was spending on wants and not needs and it was $600 a month!! So I began putting that towards the debt as well monthly. Instead of buying magazines, coffee, entertainment that was not in the budget, I put that money toward our debt.

Get a blank envelope. Begin to put extra cash you come across in there and write on the envelope the amount and where the money came from. It ALL adds up! I would sell a few items on craigslist, ebay and put that money in the envelope, and put that towards our debt as well.

Become the boss of your money! You earned it! You get to be the steward of it and where it goes. Do you know why wealthy people have money? Because they are good stewards of it! Most "real" wealthy people I know are wealthy because they SAVE it. They live well below their means and have no debt. I have a friend that makes over 150k a year. Guess what? She shops at the goodwill for her and her family and budgets and menu plans every meal. She takes amazing vacations. She can do that because she lives super frugal and is debt free! She is a good steward of her money.

Do you want to go on a vacation or fill your closet with clothes as a vacation? New clothes or vacation? Your vacation is in your closet with the tags still on them. Don't buy anymore clothes! :) Wear what you have!

How do you tackle your debt? If you disagree with me, let me know! :) I love new ideas and respect other opinions!

When you link up, please be sure to link up to ONLY your money saving posts and NOT your blog itself! Thanks!

What I am reading...

2012-01-29T05:00:00.035-06:00

Good morning! What are you reading this week? This is one of my favorite things to ask my Aunt Susan and Paula. They are big readers too and they ALWAYS have great recomendations! :) We even swap books, isn't that great? Sometimes it is no fun when you read a book and you LOVE it and you have no one to talk about it with who read it too. Plus I love getting book ideas from my blog friends too! :)

This is a great book so far! As you know, this is our year to become debt free and we are showing our kids how to be wise with money as well.

I can't remember how I stumbled upon this series of books. But I am so glad that I did. My Mom reads them too. They are great.

And this is what I am currently reading...

What are you reading? Any recommendations? I LOVE going to bookstores, finding ideas and then getting them at the library. Is that cheating? :o)

Don't forget tomorrow is Money Matters Monday! You can link up your money saving posts and get out of debt in 2012! :)

Want to look 10-15 years younger?

2012-01-27T05:00:00.078-06:00

These pictures just leave me speechless! That is my Mom and Dad and these are the before and after of my Dad. He began taking the Shaklee vivix in March of 2011. This picture on the left was taken in the spring of 2011 and the picture on the right was taken approximately 6 months later! He looks SO much younger! His skin looks amazing, his hair is growing in thicker and isn't as gray. He looks amazing!

Now let me tell you what is even MORE amazing. He has been a diabetic for probably 15 years now. He has suffered from severe neuropathy in his feet to the point where he wakes up in severe pain in the middle of the night and is unable to sleep through the night. He told me that within a few weeks of taking the vivix he has slept through the night! He said his feet feel so much better and he loves taking it. He is so grateful to get a good nights sleep and not have to be in pain or take pain medication anymore. He looks and feels great! I would say that is worth it!

This is the vivix. I currently have over half of my clients on this anti-aging tonic and they have it on autoship. You take just a teaspoon full a day and it is amazing. I have said on here before that I take the vivix to keep my migraines away. I love it. I have been migraine free for almost a year now. I will NEVER miss a day of taking this. I never want to suffer from a migraine again.

My friend Sharon has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. She takes the vivix, vitalizer, and nutriferon and has eliminated a lot of her medication that caused her to gain weight and have severe mood swings. She now still has a little bit of pain at times but not NEAR as much as she did have. She is able to sleep better, feels better about herself by not gaining any weight and actually is LOSING weight. She said she felt as if the resveratrol in the vivix jump started her metabolism. She has these three items on auto ship and has SAVED money taking these 3 items because she was able to eliminate the medications that were costing even more than these products.

So, I want to know...how do you feel? Do you suffer from migraines? Do you have diabetes? Do you want to get serious about your health this year? Email me if you are serious about getting healthy and making 2012 your year to be healthy and free from illnesses and stress on your body that are completely unneccessary.

Here is the best part...

This label is on ALL shaklee products. Which means if you try ANY Shaklee products and for some reason are NOT happy with it, you get your money back guaranteed. Now tell me, when you get your vitamins that quite possibly are NOT quality vitamins from CVS, walmart, or walgreens, do they give you your money back AFTER you take them for 30 days if you aren't happy with them? I think not. And the markup on them are really high. Did you know that a lot of them aren't even approved or regulated? Buy quality!

So give it a try! :)

Cursive writing not being taught in schools

2012-01-26T05:00:00.001-06:00

I had a surprising discussion with a family member recently. She mentioned that cursive handwriting was not being taught at her children's school. I was so surprised! How can cursive handwriting not be taught? This is so weird to me!

I was relieved when my third grade son Kameron came home and announced he now writes in cursive and loves showing me his work. NOTHING is cuter than a kid's first attempt at cursive. Its so cute!

Maybe I am just old school but I was thinking that it is SO important to be able to read and write cursive! What do you think about this?

I read a lot of articles and one of the main themes was that kids are now texting, emailing and cursive is not needed. What about their signatures? What about our history? I think if they are unable to write it, how can they read it?

To me it is just SO lazy! Another way that the media is getting its hold. I also read that the average American watches 9 hours of tv or computer time a day! UGH! We are making an effort to turn our tv off more and have more quality time with our kids.

What do you think? What is your view on cursive writing? I want to know if you disagree or agree. Should it be taught and do you think it is important?

Meet Katie from Building a House of Love

2012-01-25T05:00:00.001-06:00

Meet Katie from Building a house of love! I just love her blog! :)

How are you meeting your New Year Resolutions?

Remember this post about my New Year Resolutions?

Well…I have found something amazing to help me achieve both of them.

Shaklee

I have desperately wanted to create a healthy household and I am taking steps in the right direction. I firmly believe that changing brands is changing our lives.

I have goals and dreams for my family and I’m going to work hard to get us there! So I decided to start my business with Shaklee.

I don’t know about you but I get SUPER excited to get mail. So I was even more excited to receive my boxes of Shaklee products!

Shaklee- Creating Healthier Lives

Congratulations! It felt so good to read these encouraging messages.

After my helper (Tryp) took out all the new products he went to bed and I went around the house collecting all our old cleaners. I put them in a box and threw them out. They are gone and it feels so good. I now don’t have to worry about Tryp grabbing a Clorox wipe to clean his hands and face instead of a baby wipe. (Yes, this really happened once!)

I have learned so much about how my old products were so bad for us and I had no idea.

Do you ever hesitate cleaning because you are afraid to clean around your kids because of cleaning residues and chemicals they can breathe in while you are cleaning?
How good is a cleaner if it is also a POISON? (Have you ever thought about that? Did you know that real clean has no smell?)
Can you comfortably let your baby crawl across your floor and then put their hands in their mouth without worrying about possible toxins, carcinogens and other harmful chemicals they are placing in their mouths?
I know that now that I’ve switched to Shaklee that I don’t have to worry when Audrey does start crawling!
Shaklee products are naturally safe and proven effective.
Just Some of Shaklee's NO List:

NO Parabens
NO Triclosan
NO Phthalates
NO Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS)
NO Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate (SLES)
NO 1,4-Dioxane
NO Propylene Glycol
NO Volatile Organic Cleaning Compounds (VOCs)
NO Hydrochloric Acid
NO Ammonia
NO Sodium Hydroxide
NO Butyl Cellosolve

NO Formaldehyde
NO Bisphenol-A
NO Petroleum Distillates
NO Toluene
NO Chlorine Bleach
NO MSG
NO Dyes
NO Trans Fats
NO Artificial Sweeteners
NO Toxic Inks
NO Banned Substances

Check out Shaklee’s products! I’m confident you will love them as much as I do!

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 13 Taco Soup

2012-01-24T05:00:00.003-06:00

Hi there! It's Andrea from Maia the Bee and I'm so excited to be sharing Day 13 with you!

It's finally started snowing here in Germany and there's nothing I love more on a cold, snowy night than delicious soup! Add tortilla chips and shredded cheese…and well, that's pretty much a perfect meal!

But wait…all you have to do is toss it into a slow cooker and come back 7 hours later?? Now THAT'S a perfect meal!!

I made Slow Cooker Taco Soup and it's yummy. My husband loved it and has already requested that it be made again! It's simple to make...

I took all of the ingredients and put them into the slow cooker. Diced onion, corn, tomatoes, chili beans, and black beans first. Then I measured out 12 ounces of beer.

Yes, folks. Beer! I was totally skeptical but it turned out delicious!!

Then I mixed in a packet of taco seasoning. Stir is all up and it looks like this:

Next you add the chicken breasts and submerge them. Turn the slow cooker on Low and prepare to smell delicious soup for the next 5 hours!

After 5 hours, remove the chicken and shred it. My chicken was still not cooked through and I was a little nervous, but I shredded it and tossed it back it. It still cooks for 2 more hours - I promise there was no raw chicken in the end!

As an alternative, you could use rotisserie chicken instead. (We LOVE rotisserie chicken in this house!!) I would leave the soup to cook on Low for a few hours and then toss the shredded rotisserie chicken into the mixture just long enough to warm up. I think next time I'll use rotisserie chicken…

After it's cooked for a total of 7 hours on Low, you are ready to eat! We served up yummy bowls of it and enjoyed every bite!

Add shredded Cheddar or Mexican cheese on top and serve with tortilla chips. It's delicious!

Slow Cooker Taco Soup printable recipe can be found HERE.

Thanks, Erin, for letting me share my recipe today! Enjoy!

Money Matters Monday: Make a budget

2012-01-23T05:00:00.093-06:00

Welcome to our first day of Money Matters Monday! Every Monday we will be doing a link up party to your money saving tips. Today we are going to talk about making a budget. First I want to give you a little history. I haven't always been good stewards of our money. Not by far. I know talking about money is taboo to some people. If you don't like it, you don't have to read. :) But if you want to learn to become debt free and manage your money, then welcome aboard! Lets do this! :)

When I was first married at the age of 18, my ex-husband and I made HUGE financial mistakes. HUGE. And what is funny is that a few months ago, when we were switching off the kids we talked about how stupid we were and how much better each of us are doing with each of our family's now. He is remarried and so am I. We recalled some mistakes we made and talked about how far we have come. When we divorced I had 28k in debt that I paid off and he had debt as well. And I am not talking student loans or vehicles. I am talking credit card debt. I was 22 years old, had 2 babies, no college education, a crappy job and 28k in debt. I paid it ALL off in about 2 years. I worked 2 jobs, saved every penny. I have never had credit card debt again since I was about 24. NEVER. I have credit cards too. But I never buy something that I can't pay for that month.

Fast forward to 2012. I have student loan debt and last year we had vehicle debt. I decided I didn't want ANY debt. So I decided to eliminate it. I will admit a very sad and embarrassing fact. Up until December 2010, I had NO idea how much our bills were, how much money we made, I wasn't even sure which bank we used. I was CLUELESS! My poor husband was managing all of our money since we married when I was 25. So for almost 5 years he handled it all. I didn't even look at my pay stub. I just shredded them. I knew he was handling it all and everything was getting paid and direct deposited. In my defense for 3 of those years I was working full time, working at internships and attending school full time along with having kids and a husband. I was SO busy. When I graduated college, my husband decided to go back to school. I felt guilty having him handle everything so I offered to take over. He was skeptical at first but he showed me everything. I was so overwhelmed. It was SO stressful learning all of our bills. But we did it. And we sat down and we made lists of what we could change, what we could pay more on and so on. It was a lot of work, but everyday we are coming farther and farther. It is just amazing how far we have come in the past year. And we have done it together as a team.

So, lets talk about making a budget. You all want to know or you wouldn't have sent me emails. I want to help you! :)

Print out your bank statement, credit card statements, whatever you have. Grab two different colored highlighters. Highlight everything in YELLOW that is a NEED. These are examples of needs:
Mortgage/Rent, food, phone, Insurance, daycare, utilities, medications

Highlight in PINK items that you could have and probably SHOULD have lived without buying. These examples are:
fast food, Starbucks, Magazine subscriptions, gym memberships, cleaning/lawn services, cable/tivo, Entertainment, clothing, gifts, etc. Add these totals up and then pick your jaw up off the floor. Then STOP buying these things! :)

Make a list of all of your needs. I keep all of mine in a composition notebook and I compare them with a program we use called mint.com. I know it sounds like a lot of work but it won't be once you get it under control! It is COSTING you money not to be in control of your money!

Be sure to give yourself and your husband an allowance. I get $60 and my husband gets $80 every month. I just take less because that is all I really need. My husband works on the go all of the time and he likes to get fast food so he uses a little more. I work nights and pack all of my lunches so I don't need it for that. I spend mine on pedicures sometimes. :)

Also set up a budet for dining out. We spend $100 a month on eating out as a family. If we eliminated it completely that would not be realistic. We enjoy going out as a family so we set a realistic budget.

Make a list of bills you can break down to a cheaper way. For example, our trash company was over $90 every 3 months. We switched to a cheaper company for $60. We were paying over $1500 every year in auto insurance. We called around and got the same insurance coverage for HALF of that with a cheaper company. HUGE savings! We also had DVR, expensive cable, and we brought that down to basic cable saving us over $1200 a year! TV is just not worth that. Be patient with this step. It takes time. I worked on this for a few weeks and it was time consuming. Be patient and just continue striving to break bills down. When you start seeing results it is such a good feeling!

Watch your bank statements like a hawk! You should know where EVERY cent of your money is going at all times. If you don't, you are foolish. Let me give you an example. My first husband and I NEVER looked at our bank statements. We realized two YEARS later that AOL was taking $30 a month out of our checking account regularly. We never even HAD AOL. It STILL makes me sick and that was about 10 years ago. Disgusting. Know where every cent is going.

You can manage your budget with a lot of great programs out there. We use mint.com, but you can use quicken, whatever you want. You have to do what is comfortable for you. But know where every cent is going and track this religiously from here on out. It might make you sick at first to realize where money is bleeding out but once you get it under control, the bleeding stops.

How do you budget? Do you have any ideas? Track everything within your budget and you will start seeing results! Cut out the junk and the things you can live without.

You can follow my new page on facebook HERE and get your daily money saving tips and ideas! :) Feel free to post your own too! :)

Link up rules: Link to your Money saving post, NOT your blog. Your link must be about saving money in some way or I will have to delete you! :( Please do not use this to promote your business either. Good luck and enjoy your money saving tips! :)

Upcoming! Money Matters Monday AND a giveaway! :)

2012-01-22T15:51:00.000-06:00

Don't forget tomorrow is my first day of Money Matters Monday! :) You can link up and join in! :) Let's get rid of debt in 2012!

Now for the BEST part! I have a giveaway for you!

Cindy, has offered to host a giveaway on my blog! She is giving away a beautiful ABC apron! :)

Of course if you are anything like me and are messy when you cook and clean, you need an apron! :) She has a super cute blog and apron store! You can get recipes, ideas and aprons from her blog.

To enter this giveaway you must:
-Follow Mimi's Apron's blog HERE
-Like her Facebook page HERE
-Leave a comment telling us what your favorite meal to cook is for your family! :)

That's all! So leave your comments and we will pick a winner by January 26th at midnight! :)

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 12 Spicy Buffalo Dip

2012-01-22T05:00:00.037-06:00

Warning! This is a VERY spicy dip! :) I made it at a party that I had at my house and it was super spicy but yummy! :)

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 lb shredded chicken

1/2 cup hot sauce

1/2 t. cumin

We used celery sticks and chips with it. Yum! :) I liked that I could keep it warm during my party in my crock pot.

EASY Breakfast Casserole

2012-01-21T05:00:00.001-06:00

Good morning! This is out of rotation in our slow cooking schedule but I had to share it because it was SO good! My pictures turned out so bad but I still wanted to share because it was so easy to make and so cheap! We had company coming into town and I had to plan on making breakfast and wanted to come up with something filling and good. I found this recipe that I have had tucked away for almost 5 years and I cannot believe I haven't made it until now. This is going to become a regular at our house.

Easy Breakfast Casserole

1 can crescent rolls
1 dozen eggs
2 c. shredded cheese
1 lb. cooked breakfast meat (sausage, ham, bacon) We used ham because that is what we had on hand and ready.
Salt and Pepper to taste

Grease a 9 x 13 inch casserole dish. Line dish with unbaked crescent rolls. Spread cooked meat evenly over rolls. Pour beaten eggs over meat. Place cheese over layer of eggs. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until firm. Cool 10 minutes before cutting into squares and serve.

Trust me! :) Just make it! Ignore my ugly pics and just see for yourself! :)

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 11 Chili

2012-01-20T05:00:00.001-06:00

I am curious to see what you guys think about chili. I think chili in the crockpot is a no brainer. Just about everyone I know makes their chili in the crock pot. In fact up until this Slow cooker challenge, it was about the ONLY thing I knew how to cook in the crock pot. :) I am expanding my knowledge! ha!

Chili

1 lb ground beef

3/4 cup diced onion

3/4 cup diced celery

3/4 cup diced green pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 (10.75 oz) tomato puree

half a bag of kidney beans prepared ahead of time (these things are a PAIN to cook! But so much better for you)

1/2 T. chili powder

1/2 t. dried parsley

1 t. salt

3/4 t. dried basil

3/4 t. dried oregano

1/4 t. ground black pepper

1/8 t. hot sauce

Brown your ground beef and mix all of your ingredients in your crock pot and cook on low for 8 hours! :) Easiest recipe yet!

What about you? Do you have a chili recipe you recommend? Link up if you do! :) Please link to your post and not your blog. Thanks!

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 10 French Dip Sandwiches

2012-01-19T05:00:00.015-06:00

I am running out of Slow cooker recipes! I need your help! :) Does anyone want to guest post one? Let me know! :)

I will admit, we made this and then put it in the fridge and ended up eating it as leftovers and I think it was better that way. Do you ever do that? We didn't dip ours but we made kind of a Philly Cheese steak instead! :) Yum!

French Dip Sandwiches

3-4 lbs chuck roast, trimmed and cut in half
1/2 cup soy sauce (I use low sodium)
1 beef buillion cube
1 bay leaf
3-4 peppercorns crushed
1 t. rosemary
1 t. dried thyme
1 t. garlic powder
12 french sandwich rolls, split

Place the roast in the slow cooker. Combine the rest of the ingredients and pour over roast. Then add water until roast is almost covered.

Cover and cook on low for 7 hours or until very tender. Remove roast, reserving broth; shred with fork. Place shredded meat in rolls and serve with broth for dipping. Makes 12 servings.

We added some shredded colby jack cheese to ours and it was amazing! :) Even my kids loved it!

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 9 BBQ Ribs

2012-01-18T05:00:00.002-06:00

Good morning! :) Does anyone else love going out to eat and eating ribs or at Famous Daves? Our family LOVES IT! And our kids love it too. Such a fun treat. I have never made ribs before. I tell you, this slow cooker challenge has made me try new things and step out of my comfort zone! :) I love it!

I had a bit of a pity party for myself this week. I made a handful of slow cooker meals that turned out AWFUL. I felt so bad. I hate wasting ingredients. But then I realized, its all about trial and error. And sometimes I make something that doesn't turn out but it gives me an idea of how to tweak it and make it even better next time. Trial and error I guess. I can give myself and A for effort! :)

BBQ Ribs

2 cups ketchup

1 T. Dijon mustard

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 T. worcestershire sauce

1/2 t. cayenne pepper

1 1/2 T. coconut oil or whatever oil you have

4-5 lbs of ribs, fat trimmed

1 cup chopped onion

Combine the ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, worcestershire and cayenne in the 5-7 quart slow cooker. Cover and set on low while you brown the meat.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat.

Add the ribs and brown on all sides. Add the onion and saute until it begins to soften.

Transfer to the slow cooker, stir the sauce to combine. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. Remove the meal from the slow cooker and cover with aluminum foil and let rest for 15 minutes. (Or if you are like us and are in a hurry and hungry, just eat it! :) Sim any fat from the sauce and serve with the ribs.

Serves 4-6

Do you make BBQ ribs or anything else like this? Link up and join! :)

Future link up party on Debt free in 2012!

2012-01-17T05:00:00.007-06:00

After I wrote my getting out of debt post HERE this past week, my inbox has been flooded with emails daily. My husband and I are totally floored. We are so proud of how many people want to get out of debt and make more money to help their families.

We were overwhelmed and completely humbled by the requests for help with other family's budgets that we really want to help others as well. We want to share some of the ways we have been able to get out of debt fast and forever.

So my husband and I sat down and talked about this and one of the things we both agreed on was that getting out of debt and making a budget and trimming expenses was not done overnight. We want to make sure everyone understands that. This was a process that started out daily and we continue to always search for ways to live a more frugal and better lifestyle for our family. It has helped our marriage become closer and reafirmed what we want to acheive for our family and the examples we want to set for our children.

Debt is crippling. It suffocates you and causes so much unneeded stress in our lives. It robs time away from your children and ruins marriages. One of the most common things we read in the emails was "I wish I could just win the lottery and it would take care of our debt." Well, I think you have a better chance of getting struck by lightening then winning the lottery so if you are serious about being debt free, get to work! haha :) Do not even waste a single dollar on a lottery ticket!

So we are going to start a Monday link up party. You can come here and link up your best money making posts with ideas to inspire and share with others. There won't be a set theme, just link up your helpful ideas weekly. We will do a post every week on what we are doing to become debt free in 2012. I encourage you to take our button and place it on your blog and post it in your posts.

We have decided that our goal in 2012 is to become debt free and help as many other families along the way as well!

So, I want to do a Q and A post about finances. Send me your questions by emailing me. I am thinking about doing a vlog Q and A. My first one! :)

So join in! :) We can't wait to hear your ideas! Being frugal and striving to be economical is a constant process and we are so blessed to find new ideas! :) We will do our first Money Matters Monday Link up on January 23rd. Get your posts ready! :)

Have a great day!

Identical Twins: A Shaklee Health Testimonial

2012-01-16T05:00:00.003-06:00

Hey blogger friends! I wanted to share this amazing Shaklee testimonial that is pretty cool!

This picture is a picture of twins at age 4.

This is another picture of them (sorry about the quality) at age 69. One of them used Shaklee products. Can you guess which one?

Here is their story…

Mary and Her Sister are Identical Twins. Mary Anderson from Evansville, Indiana has been a regular user of the entire line of Shaklee products for over 20 years. Mary’s sister rarely uses Shaklee products preferring to use products made by other companies. Even though they were born with the same genetic code, Mary has more energy, feels better, looks younger and is healthier than her non-Shaklee twin sister. Mary has “unbounded energy” at age 69. Mary is very active with her church and does volunteer work. She is President of her local Republican Women’s Organization.

Everyone thinks this mother of 4 and grandmother of 6 teenagers is younger than 69! Mary’s husband is 77 and he uses Shaklee products, too. “No one ever guesses his age, either!”

Isn’t that a great story! That just shows what good health and taking care of what goes into your body can do for you?

If you are interested in good health and taking the best products on the market to supplement your diet, I recommend taking Vitalizer. I take the Vitalizer for women and my husband takes the Vitalizer for men. We love the energy we get from the vitalizer. We also take the Vivix and Nutriferon daily as well.
Right now, when you join my Shaklee Member Team, you will receive a FREE membership with the purchase of Vitalizer. Also if you sign-up for the auto-ship program, you can save an additional 10% off your 15% membership savings.

We all want to be healthy and save money so this is a great deal.

Once you join, we also offer a referral program, where you will receive $25 for every new Shaklee member you refer to my Healthy Branscoms Member Team with a $25 order.

If you refer 3 friends a month, your Vitalizer is FREE!!!

How cool is that?

We all love free and we all want our family/friends to by healthy too!

Homemade Popcorn

2012-01-15T05:00:00.002-06:00

Good morning! I wanted to show you one of my Christmas gifts! My hubby bought me a popcorn maker. I was SO excited to get this and try it out! :) You can find this particular one HERE on amazon. My friend Bonnie recommended it to me and we LOVE it! :)

I read an article HERE on how bad microwave popcorn is for you. I had NO idea! Plus it is so full of chemicals that I can't pronounce. Yuck! What am I putting into my babies bodies? So making this homemade has been so fun and so good for them! I just use a tiny bit of coconut oil, and popcorn seeds and bam! Homemade popcorn, healthy and yum! It takes just a few minutes, there is no burning the popcorn and I KNOW its not harmful. Yes!!!

It is so simple that my kids help me make it and turn the handle. They love watching it pop and it smells amazing!

How do you make popcorn? What do you think about the popcorn microwave controversy? All I know is that I want to be able to pronounce all of the ingredients in our food! :)

What I have been reading...

2012-01-14T05:00:00.005-06:00

Good morning! I thought I would take a break from all of my slow cooking posts. I am a little burnt out! haha One of my favorite things to do is to read! This past year I gave up watching tv. Yeah, pick your jaws up off of the floor. I know, I am weird. I still watch occasional movies with my husband and kids but I just don't watch it. I focus on reading and I work on my blog. And I don't miss it at all! I LOVE reading and it is so relaxing. Except lately I have been reading some really great books and I tend to stay up ALL night reading them and get really tired the next day. I can't help it, they are so good sometimes and I get sucked into my book! :) Anyone else have this problem?

This book was AMAZING. It was one of those books that I really wanted to say to people, "did you read this book?!" Loved it. It was about World War II and an American woman in Paris. AWESOME. Go to your library and get it! :)

I love Jennifer Weiner. This was a great book.

Shanghai Girls is part I of a two part book. LOVED it! It really made me curious about Chinese history. I really recommend these books.

So these books left me floored. Crying. They were so good!

I also got ALL of these books from my library. Depending on the size of your local library you should be able to go online and reserve books so they just sit on a shelf waiting for you when you go in to pick them up. Gone are my days of spending money on books. I get free ones for my kindle and use the library for everything! :)

What are you reading? I am actually starting a bible study this week on the book of Ruth. I am excited. I will have to let you know how that goes! :)

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 8 Old Fashioned Meat Loaf

2012-01-13T05:00:00.032-06:00

Old Fashioned Meat Loaf

2 slices white sandwich bread, torn into pieces
1/4 cup milk
11/2 lbs ground beef
1/2 cup ketchup
1 T. Dijon mustard
2 T. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 t. dried thyme
1 large egg, beaten
1 t. salt
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper

Barbeque Sauce
1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups ketchup
6 dashes tobasco sauce
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Place the bread in a small bowl, pour the milk over the bread, and let soak for 5 minutes. Put the meat in a large mixing bowl and add teh remaining ingredients, including the milk soaked bread. Do not squeeze the moisture out of the bread because the milk actually helps tenderize the meat loaf.

Using clean hands or a large spoon, stir the mixture together until the ingredients are thorougly blended.

Form the mixture into a loaf about 6 inches long and 3 inches wide and tall. Set aside while you mix the sauce ingredients or cover and refrigerate for up to 24 hours.

Stir together all the sauce ingredients in the insert of a 5-7 quart slow cooker and set the meat loaf in the sauce. Spoon some of the sauce over the top of the meat loaf to coat it.

Cook the meat loaf on high for 1 hour. Reduce the heat to low and cook until an instant read thermometer inserted into the center of the meat loaf registers 165 deg, 5-6 hours. Using two long, wide spatulas, remove the meat loaf from the slow cooker, cover with aluminum foil and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

Season the sauce with salt and pepper. Cut the meat loaf into 1/2 inch thick slices with a serrated knife. Serve with some of the sauce.
Serves 6

We really liked this one! :) It was SUCH a busy day for us and to have dinner ready to go was awesome! :)

*This recipe is from Slow Cooker: the best cook book ever by Diane Phillips*

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 7 Slow Cooker Enchiladas

2012-01-12T05:00:00.030-06:00

Slow Cooker Enchiladas

Serves 4

1 lb ground beef

1 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

1 can (16oz) pinto or kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 can (15 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained

1 can (10 oz) rotel

1/3 cup water

1 t. chili powder

1/2 t. ground cumin

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. pepper

1 cup (4 oz) shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 cup (4 oz) shredded Monterey Jack cheese

6 flour tortillas (6 or 7 inches)

In a skillet, cook ground beef, onion, and green pepper over medium heat until beef is no longer pink and vegetables are tender; drain. Add the next eight ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

Combine cheeses. In a 5 qt slow cooker, layer about 3/4 cup beef mixture, one tortilla and about 1/3 cup cheese. Repeat layers. Cover and cook on low for 5-7 hours or until heated through.

**These were SO yummy!! :) I totally messed up my beans. I was playing around making them from scratch and they turned out awful. ha! So we omitted the beans.**

Freedom from Debt

2012-01-11T05:00:00.060-06:00

This is how I feel right now. Seriously. Only that is a man. And I am not a man. Just in case you didn't know.

Let's talk about debt. If you have zero debt then I want to hear about it. That means you are a ROCK STAR in my eyes. It is motivating and powerful to be debt free. In January of 2011, I was in a much different place then I am right now. I was recovering from a horrible month of being in and out of the hospital, suffering from intense migraines and seizures and I also was sitting on:

$27,000 in student loans

$6,000 in a vehicle loan

$6,000 in hospital bills

=$39,000 in debt.

Are you sick to your stomach, yet? I was sick, very sick. I googled healthy supplements looking for a way to make myself better, so that I could be a wife and a mother and get back to work. I missed almost an entire month of work!!! And if you didn't know, I work in law enforcement full time on the night shift.

And in February of 2011 I found Shaklee.

I was looking to get healthy so I could have a life again. I never thought it would impact every other area in my life as well. Within a few weeks on Shaklee supplements I felt a world of a difference. It was insane. I finally was able to take care of my family, I was migraine and seizure free. I was free to be a wife and a mom again. I am so grateful and feel incredibly blessed to be able to take these great supplements and be healthy. I had a ton of energy and I felt so good!

Then it started to take off. People were emailing or asking me how I got better and how I lost weight. When you love things, you naturally talk about them or blog about them and that is what I was doing. It was just natural. I told them I was using Shaklee products and I loved them.

And my income grew! I found myself making extra money and I was able to pay off all of my hospital bills within a few months. Then I thought, what would happen if I paid off my van too? And I did!!! I was amazed! That was already $12,000 in debt! We now have zero car payments!

Then in May of 2011 I had a little breakdown. I was exhausted and I missed my kids. I desperately wanted to be at home with them and not work the night shift anymore. I blogged about that HERE.

Then I started to make goals and get serious. I thought, you know, if I can pay off 6k in medical bills, 6k in vehicle payments, then maybe, just maybe I can pay off my student loans and be able to work from home with my business full time and most importantly be financially independent and DEBT FREE!

And guess what? Now it is January 2012. We are now down to $15,000 in student loans. I have one student loan left. And I plan to have that paid off by this summer!

Now technically we won't be entirely debt free, we still have our mortgage. But I will be working on that too! AND I will be at home with my kids and STILL making an income and NOT working the night shift!!! Can you picture me jumping for joy? Because I am doing it. :)

Now we did use a financial program. And if you want more information on that you can email me and I will tell you what it was. It changed our family. We love it. We followed a simple method and it has been so easy!! And most of it was FREE! Because when you want to get out of debt, the last thing you need is to PAY for more things. That defeats the purpose.

So, I want to know, are you debt free? Do you have a goal to get debt free in 2012? Does your family have a plan to get there? I am passionate about helping families and love living a frugal lifestyle.

Have a wonderful day! :)

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 6 Applesauce

2012-01-10T05:00:00.003-06:00

This smelled AMAZING cooking in my crock pot! It was so yummy! :)

Applesauce

10 cups, cored, and quartered cooking apples (about 12 large)

2 t. ground cinnamon

1/2 t. salt

1/2 cup apple juice

1/8 t. nutmeg

Combine the apples, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and apple juice in the insert of a 5-7 quart slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 8-10 hours. Using an immersion blender or potato masher, puree the applesauce. (Or you can leave it chunky like we did! :)

Let the applesauce cool to room temperature. Store in airtight containers in the refrigerator for up to 1 week or the freezer for up to 3 months.

Makes 10 cups and is perfect for school lunches! :)

*This recipe is from Slow Cooker: the best cook book ever by Diane Phillips*

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 5 Old Fashioned Mac and Cheese

2012-01-09T05:00:00.032-06:00

This was pretty yummy and we once again modified it a little. We decided that this is not a recipe that you want to sit all day because then your noodles get really soggy and we didn't like that. We actually made this at lunch and ate some about an hour after it had been in the slow cooker and it was good. But by dinner it was soggy. So we think this is a great recipe if you are having a family dinner and need something to cook on the side but eat within 2 hours while you have your other dishes cooking on the stove. Not 6-8 hours. It was good though! Oh, and the little brown pieces in the picture are onions! ha! I may have sauted those a little too much. I also cut up 5 lbs of onions and froze some when I made this and I cried my eyes out! UGH! I do NOT like cutting onions so I do it all at once and freeze them so they are ready to go and I can throw them right into dishes as needed.

Old-Fashioned Mac and Cheese

4 T. 1/2 stick unsalted butter

1 small onion or shallot, finely chopped (about 1/4 cup)

3 T. all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cups milk

4 drops Tabasco sauce

5 cups finely shredded mild yellow and sharp white cheddar cheese, plus extra on top

6 cups elbow macaroni, cooked just short of al dente

1/2 cup crushed buttery crackers such as Ritz or Pepperidge Farm Golden Butter Crackers (I skipped this)

Coat the insert of a 5-7 quart slow cooker with butter.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and saute until the onion is softened, about 2 minutes. Stir in the flour, and cook for 2-3 minutes, whisking constantly. Gradually add the broth and milk and bring the sauce to a boil, whisking constantly.

Add the tabasco and remove the sauce from the heat. Add 3 cups of the cheese to the sauce and stir to melt. Spread half of the macaroni in the slow cooker insert and pour half the sauce over the macaroni.

Sprinkle 1 cup of the cheese over the layer. Repeat with the remaining macaroni and sauce and 1 cup of the cheese. Cover and cook for 1-2 hours, until the mac and cheese is bubbling and cooked through. DO NOT OVER COOK!

Sprinkle a little more cheese and the crackers on the top of the mac and cheese. Remove the cover and cook for an additional 30 minutes. Allow the mac and cheese to rest about 10 minutes.

Serve in the cooker set on warm.

Serves 6-8

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 4 Overnight Oatmeal

2012-01-08T05:00:00.041-06:00

This was my favorite thing to make so far in my slow cooker! :)

Once again, I am going to tell you some more embarrassing facts about me. I had NEVER made homemade oatmeal. I bought the little packets. Seriously. I had NO idea where to even go with this and what to put in it. So when I found a slow cooker recipe, I thought, hey, I can do that! :) I modified it a little bit because that is fun but it turned out very yummy and SOOO much healthier than the packet of who knows what is inside. Preservatives and YUCK!

And it turned out so yummy and smelled great! It was a great breakfast to wake up to.

Overnight Oatmeal

3 3/4 cups old fashioned rolled oats
8 cups water
1/2 t. salt
4 T. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 cups milk or cream, warmed for serving (I used milk)
1/4 cup cinnamon sugar for serving
2-3 scoops Energizing Vanilla Soy Protein Powder (I added this!)
a few spoonfuls of blueberries (I added this, not a part of the original recipe)

Coat the insert of a 5-7 quart slow cooker with non-stick cooking spray. I just buttered it with a stick of butter. We ran out of the spray 7 months ago and I never bought anymore. Butter is butter, right?

Combine the oatmeal, water, and salt in the cooker. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 3-4 hours until the oats are creamy. Stir in the butter. (I forgot that part and didn't add extra butter)

Serve with warmed milk and cinnamon and sugar. ( I also added the protein powder and blueberries!)

*This recipe is from Slow Cooker: the best cook book ever by Diane Phillips*

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 3 Beef Stew

2012-01-07T05:00:00.022-06:00

I have another confession to make. Sometimes I am so busy and I am just getting off of work in the morning (I work night shifts) and throwing ingredients into the slow cooker before I go to sleep that I don't always follow directions very well. So sometimes there are ingredients missing. :) ha! But 9 times out of 10 everything still turns out great. So don't be afraid to try new ways or different spices.

Old Fashioned Beef Stew with Vegetables

6 medium Yukon gold or red potatoes, quartered

4 medium carrots, cut into 1 inch lengths

3 medium onions, quartered

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 cup all purpose flour

2-3 lbs beef chuck, fat trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

2 T. olive oil

1 1/2 cups beef broth

2 t. dried thyme leaves

2 cups frozen petite peas, defrosted

2 cups frozen corn, defrosted

Combine the potatoes, carrots, and onions, 1 t. salt, and 1/2 t. pepper in the insert of a 5-7 quart slow cooker, and toss the vegetables to distribute the seasonings.

Add 2 t. salt, 1 t. pepper, and the flour to a large plastic bag and stir to complete. Add the meat to the flour, toss to coat,a nd shake off excess flour.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the meat and brown on all sides. Transfer the meat to slow cooker insert.

Deglaze the skillet with the broth and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Transfer the contents of the skillet to the slow cooker insert and add the thyme. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, utnil the meat is tender.

Add the peas and corn and cook for an additional hour. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

Serves 8.

Did you figure out in the picture which ingredients I forgot? :)

*This recipe is from Slow Cooker: the best cook book ever by Diane Phillips*

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 2 White Chicken Chili

2012-01-06T05:00:00.035-06:00

This was a great slow cooker meal that my family loved. I have a confession to make and it is a little embarrassing. I have NEVER cooked with dried beans before. Other than buying them for crafts for my kids, I have never used them. I considered them craft items up until now. How sad is that? Yes, BIG changes are happening for my family. We are buying thrifty now every chance that we can. And that even means dried beans! No more buying beans in the can or jar when we can get 4x as much dried in the bag and it is healthier too! And we found that we really liked them! I also buy most of our groceries from Aldi's because it is so cheap! :)

White Chicken Chili

3 T. olive oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 medium red pepper, seeded and finely chopped
1 medium green pepper, seeded and finely chopped
4 chipotle chilies in adobo, finley chopped
1 t. ground cumin
1 t. dried oregano
8 cups chicken broth
Four 6-inch corn tortillas, torn into small pieces
Two-14-15 ounce cans small white beans, drained and rinsed
3 cups cooked chicken or turkey
One 16 ounce package frozen corn, defrosted
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro
2 cups finely shredded mild cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese for garnishing
2 cups sour cream for garnishing (we skipped this, I forgot it! :)

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions, bell peppers, chilies, cumin, and oregano and saute until the vegetables are softened, 5-7 minutes.

Transfer the contents of the skillet to the insert of a 5-7 quart slow cooker. Add the broth, tortillas, beans, chicken, and corn.

Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 8-10 hours, utnil the chili is thick and the beans and vegetables are tender. Stir in the cilantro.

Serve each bowl garnished with cheese and sour cream.

Serves 8.

*This recipe is from Slow Cooker: the best cook book ever by Diane Phillips*

Slow Cooker Cooking Day 1 Loaded Potato Soup

2012-01-05T05:00:00.082-06:00

Welcome to day 1 of Slow cooker cooking! :) I hope you enjoy these great meal ideas! :) By the way, anything I post on here, we liked. I tried a lot of different recipes and some just did not make the cut. :)

This recipe made me try something new! :) I love it when that happens. I have NEVER cooked with leeks before. I wasn't even sure which part you ate. The name scared me. They sounded gross. I had to go to youtube and watch a video on how to cut and prepare them. :) Turns out we liked them! They are good for you too. I looked it up! :)

Creamy Loaded Baked Potato Soup

4 T. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

2 medium leeks, finely chopped, using the white and some of the tender green parts

4 large russet potoates, peeled and cut into 1/2 in dice

4 cups chicken broth

1 cup whole milk

2 cups finely shredded sharp cheddar cheese

6 green onions, finely chopped, using the white and some of the tender green parts

8 strips bacon, cooked crisp, drained and crumbled

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 cup sour cream for garnishing

Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the leaks and saute until softened, 2-3 minutes. Transfer teh leeks into the insert of a 5-7 quart slow cooker and add the potatoes and broth. Cover the slow cooker and cook on high for 3 hours or on low for 5-6 hours, until the potatoes are tender. Using an immersion blender, puree the soup, or cook the soup and puree in a blender. (I used my blender).

Reduce the heat to low and add the milk, cheese, green onions, and bacon. Cover the slow cooker and cook for an additional hour. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve the soup garnished with a dollop of sour cream.

Serves 8-10

We try to use organic when we can. :)

There was NOTHING organic about this bacon from Aldi's but it tasted AMAZING! :)

It was a very pretty soup! :)

Audrey garnished it with a cracker! :) It was a very tasty yummy soup! Perfect for a cold day! :)

Have you ever cooked with leeks? Do you have a potato soup recipe?

"Leeks also contain fiber, a nondigestible form of carbohydrate that aids in your digestion and may help prevent certain types of cancer as well as heart disease."

*This recipe is from Slow Cooker: the best cook book ever by Diane Phillips*

Slow Cooker Cooking Tips and Tricks

2012-01-04T05:00:00.109-06:00

Welcome to my Slow Cooker Tips and Tricks marathon! I am going to have 21 days of "Crock Pot" or "Slow Cooking" recipes that my family has tried and liked. I usually just call a Crock pot but I know that Slow Cooker is sometimes used too. My Mom called it a Crock Pot growing up so that is what I always called it. :) And I now use it ALL the time! Usually 2-3 times per week.

Did you know that Crock Pot comes from the term Crock. It was derived from an old English term Crocc which means earthenware pot.

Did anyone else grow up with these models or am I just getting old? :)

Crock pot was introduced in 1971 by the Rival Company. There are so many different types of slow cookers today at various sizes and prices.

They have come a long way. I don't have one with a timer but I wish I did! :)

I borrowed this cook book from a friend of mine at work. I found a lot of great recipes in it! Check your local library because you can often find TONS of recipes and you can make them and not have to pay for cook books. Pay for groceries NOT cook books! :) A lot of the recipes that I am going to share came from this book. I wish it had more pictures though. I am the type of person that will make recipes that have pictures and if there is no picture then I am not likely to make it. I am sad, I know. :)

Here are some important facts to consider when cooking with your slow cooker:

don't fill over 2/3 full. Your food may expand while it cooks and overflow or it won't cook properly because it is too full.
if you are buying a new slow cooker, purchase one that has a removeable liner. You will regret it if you don't, they are so much easier to clean.
keep the lid on as much as possible. Your food looses cooking time every time the lid is off.

There is also a good cooking ratio to think about when you are comparing cooking on the stovetop vs a slow cooker.

Conventional oven/stove top Slow cooker

1/2 hour 1 1/2 hrs on high/3 hrs low

1 hour 3 1/2hrs on high/6-7 low

2 hours 4 1/2 on high/9-10 low

3 hours 5 1/2 on high/10-11 low

It is important to consider what size of slow cooker to buy as well.

4 quart Serves 2-3

5-6 quart Serves 4-6

6-7 quart Serves 6-8

The next thing I LOVE about cooking with a slow cooker is that it saves you TIME and MONEY! :) Here is how:

The slow cooker uses less electricity than a lightbulb. So that means if you leave it on for 8-10 hours you are STILL using less energy then if you heated up your oven or stove. Saves on your gas or electric bill! Did you know that if you leave your crock pot on all day it costs about 10 cents for 8 hours of cooking. It would cost you 19 cents for two hours on the stove and 29 cents for an hour in the oven.
You can use less expensive cuts of meat and produce in season and save money on groceries!
You save TIME! You can always make more money but you CAN'T make more TIME! You can't get that time back with your kids that you missed out on because you were preparing dinner. Play a game with your kids and enjoy them while dinner is preparing itself! Plus when your spouse walks in the door and smells the amazing dinner. Yum! Thats a good thing to come home to!
You save money because lets be honest. If you have dinner ready in the crockpot and it smells AMAZING, are you going to go out to eat still at 5 pm when you see a pizza commercial or some other type of restaurant and are craving fast food? NO! You are going to eat your food that is ready! A crock pot meal could be $3 to prepare or less. A dinner out could be $45+!
You save on your health. You can make some nutritious and amazing meals that are healthy for you and usually you have leftovers that you can eat for lunch for several days. So you can stretch that $3 meal into MANY meals. Amazing.
Saves on cleaning up. You are just cleaning one pot and whatever dishes you eat on. I don't waste my money on those plastic liners you can put in your slow cooker. I am not a huge fan of plastic anyway. Call me old fashioned but you wouldn't cook your food in a garbage bag, would you? The whole idea just weirds me out. I have NEVER had an issue with cleaning my slow cooker. I just take the insert out and put it in the sink with a little bit of soap and warm water and let it soak for awhile, then I just wash it right out.

So does this make you want to go and make something in your crock pot or what? One of my favorite blogs to read is HERE. Stephanie O'Dea made meals in her crockpot every day for a YEAR! I read this pretty religiously back in 2008 and loved her blog. If you have never read it, you need to. She has some great recipes on there.

If YOU have a great crock pot/slow cooker recipe that you would love to share, let me know and I will feature you. Email me and we can talk about that.

Favorite Work Outs and Equipment

2012-01-03T05:00:00.066-06:00

I am working on the confidence to share my weight loss struggles right now. I have been working VERY hard lately to get healthy and stay healthy. I don't want to be the person with excuses but I believe I have one very valid one. My metabolism is shot! I work the night shift and my sleep schedule is awful. I am finding it SO hard to loose weight when I am not sleeping. I wish this was not the case, but it is. I am working very hard but I have been finding it to be an uphill battle. I won't give up though!

I wanted to share what I am using right now to get healthy and what my favorite workouts are and hopefully get ideas from you all as well.

I LOVE my elliptical! I am so fortunate to have it and I love it! I am such a sucker for ellipticals. I think it is the best workout ever. I have the one in this picture and it is just awesome. I can go for an hour or more on it. It is so addicting.

I also LOVE going walking or running on trails or anywhere outside. There is such a freedom in putting on your headphones, plugging in some good pandora on my phone and going walking. And the longer the walk, the better. That good pumped up tired feeling I get is worth it. I also love taking my dog because she gets a great work out too.

I also have been using Cinch products. I love the way they make me feel. I feel full, energetic and healthy when I use these regularly. Even if you don't need to loose weight and you just want to maintain, you can use the cinch. We have a girl on our team who has serious migraines and premenstrual cramps and she can tell a HUGE difference when she runs out of cinch. She feels so much better while using the cinch protein shakes.

This picture makes me want to throw up. Every time I see it, it makes me picture ALL of the fat that I need to use and trust me...it is WAY more than 5 lbs. Can you imagine what THAT pile would look like? It makes me shudder! Yuck! I remember this picture when I am eyeballing a donut. And it makes me re-think that donut!

The Cinch program isn’t just delicious – it’s easy to follow. Just replace two meals with your choice of shakes or meal bars, treat yourself to a snack and afternoon tea and take a metabolism booster with each meal. Add a healthy dinner and your day is complete. Just follow the plan.

So this is the plan that I am doing. I drink shakes when I am home and at work and on the go I eat the meal bars. I LOVE them because they are huge and I feel full eating them. And 9 times out of 10 I even break off a small piece for Audrey too because she always wants what her Momma has. :) I also love the 3 in 1 boost because it keeps me from craving junk and makes it easy to stick to my Cinch plan.

And if you want to try Cinch for FREE, Shaklee has an amazing special right now! If you join as a member and purchase a minimum of $70, you get $100 worth of Cinch FREE! I am so excited to tell you about this because I think getting $100 worth of product to get you healthy is just awesome. Don't miss out! :)

Click HERE to also see another special. You can enjoy 3 months of Cinch and get the 4th month FREE!

After you place order, you will be invited join our online community to help with your success! I want to help you every inch of the way!!

Lets get healthy in 2012! Who is with me and wants to do this?

Read Andrea from Maia the Bee's weight loss success HERE

Christmas Vacation with the boys!

2012-01-02T05:00:00.064-06:00

I know this post is a little late but I have a good reason! :) I was busy enjoying my babies! :) They have been on Christmas vacation from school and I took some time off to play with them and spend time with them. I love these babies! :) This was the day of the boys holiday parties at school. We went to the school auditorium and found Ethan and walked back with him. :) Audrey LOVES Ethan, can you tell?! She calls him "eats." He doesn't mind. I think Ethan is hard for her to say.

This is Ethan at his desk in his classroom during his party. He was so excited! I know when I was little I LOVED classroom parties. I think maybe I still do. ;)

Audrey is not shy. She found herself and empty desk and made herself comfortable. She was ready to party with her brother! :)

Of course she loved trying out other chairs in the room too! :) My kids have the BEST teachers! I love them so much and appreciate how much they do! We are so blessed to have such wonderful teachers!

Ethan loved decorating his cookie and eating it! :) He even shared.

He made Audrey a little plate too. I have the sweetest kids.

Then we went to Kameron's class room for party #2. Audrey LOVED seeing her Kam too.

And this is Zoe, my friend's daughter and Audrey just loves her! They are our neighbors and Audrey was excited to see her too!

He is so handsome! I love my boys!

And they are such good kids! We are so blessed!

As Audrey was coming down off of her sugar high, I am sure she was thinking, "I can't WAIT to go to school someday!"

I can't believe how big Kam is getting! He is such a nice boy too. He loves his sister to pieces too.

And this is Audrey as we drove home. It's rough being a 2-year old. :)

If you have kids in school, did you have a good holiday break? Are you read to send them back, yet? :) I like havnig mine home. :)

A guest post: Getting Organized While Working Fulltime

2012-01-01T21:27:00.000-06:00

It just dawned on me that many think I am organized because I work from home, so I have tons of time. Well honey, you need to know that I had more time when I worked full time in the corporate world. At one point I was working full time for Employment and Insurance Canada, running a picture framing business from my basement, raising my two step-daughters, Oh, and we were building our home in the country while we were living in it.

So if you think you don’t have “time” to be organized.... you need to adjust your thinking. You can't afford the time NOT to be organized. Being organized is what enabled me to juggle all of our commitments, and I still fit in time to sew. I used to TRY to sew one thing each week. Of course that was a bit ambitious at times, but I was always working on something (because I love sewing, that is my hobby.) A friend wanted to know how did I find time to sew?

It is simple, it is the same principle I use for organizing which I teach in my book “21 Steps From Chaos To Calm.”

Because life is busy, and it seems to be getting busier? The computer was supposed to reduce paper and work, but it seems to eat up our time. Have you ever done some research on the computer, and the next thing you are browsing on Amazon? I have to catch myself and get back on track.

“If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” You've probably heard that quote, and I guess that is why I used to be asked to take on extra projects and alterations all of the time. No matter how busy I was, I would say yes and fit it in.

I was asked over and over, how did I do it? Here are some of my Secrets:

1. Get up an hour earlier Monday to Friday

My husband Ken used to work for CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) hosting the morning radio show. He was up at 4 every morning. When he got off work he would go home and have a nap. By the time I got off work, we made supper and then every night we were booked with meetings or aerobic classes. Then to bed early. I found that by getting up earlier, I used that hour as my time. It didn’t take long and getting up at 5 was no problem because I was sleeping better at night. I loved that hour in the morning. I did my sewing one morning, baking another, laundry another and house work. By doing this, we had our weekends free. This is especially helpful in the summer when you want to enjoy the outdoors more. Try it, you will love it.

2. Write everything down

Don’t rely on your memory. Write it down, whatever it is you need to do, and this includes things that are your HOBBY and fun things. Unfortunately I was raised that we couldn’t play until work was done. That actually is something I have to battle with to this day, because work is NEVER done. So I found I was NEVER playing. To overcome my thinking on that, I schedule my hobbies and my play-time on my To Do list - things like sewing, reading a novel, knitting, quilting, or working on photo albums. Whatever projects I want to complete, I write them into my schedule each week.

3. 10-20-30 Minutes To Sew
There is a Sewing book by that title, but I had been applying that to my life long before it had been written. When you work full-time, it was a luxury I never had to devote a whole afternoon or day to a sewing project. So I would work on my project even when I had just ten minutes to spare. I would whip in to my sewing room, sew one or two seams, and back out. That is how I made my clothes, maybe just two seams a day, a little-here-little-there.
I use the same principle to work on organizing. Whenever I have 10, 20 or 30 minutes, I tackle just one stack of papers, or one drawer. You would be surprised how many times in a week you have “little windows” of time. Use them ..... that is your ticket to getting organized and maintaining your organized space. One word of caution though... I do this so much, even if I have two minutes, and it means I get lots done BUT, I cut it too close. Sometimes I am late. I think that is a characteristic of an Organized Person. That is my story... and I am sticking to it!

4. Set a timer
Just like baskets and bins are key in organizing, because they SET LIMITS. You will hear Organizers say, when that bin is full - it is time to purge. We need limits, otherwise we get carried away. The same is true with our time. If you are not careful with your time, you can get carried away in how you spend it or waste it. So, set a timer for yourself before you tackle a project or enjoy some hobby, or play on Facebook. A kitchen timer is great. Or, another idea is start your project fifteen minutes before your favorite TV show. This will encourage you to work on things in small windows of time, and you will quit when your show comes on.

5. Learn To Say No
Lightning will not strike you dead. You are not a bad person to say no. As a matter of fact, we are admonished to be modest. I was known about my love of sewing and was asked to do alterations all of the time. Here I would be fitting in repairing someone else’s underwear, and my projects were getting pushed aside. Then one day I read an article about modesty, and the definition was “an awareness of your limitations as well as chastity.” That was a revelation to me. As a busy person working full-time, I had to start saying no. Unfortunately it was after I suffered a burn-out, and had to take sick time. It was a hard lesson to learn, but your health, whether physical, mental or emotional, is important. No one needs to know the reason, you do not owe them that. You can just politely say “it’s impossible.” Who can argue with “impossible?”

Do whatever it takes to get organized because when you do, you actually Gain more TIME. These are just a few secrets I discovered in my busy life while working full time and running my own businesses. So you see, I am just like you, and I am proof you can get organized while working full time.

I am passionate about helping you succeed. Let’s do this together.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN HOW

Enjoy and don't forget to share before you go....
Elvie Look: Your Professional Organizing Coach who is helping people get organized with her easy tips and suggestions. These systems help the busy mom, businessman or woman, entrepreneur or student learn the keys to organizing in simple, actionable & manageable steps. She teaches how to get organized & maintain your organized space while carrying on your normal busy life. She is the author of "21 Steps From Chaos To Calm" & "One-A-Day Organizing Tips, & "The Relax Without Guilt Video Series."

An AMAZING Weight loss transformation!

2011-12-30T04:05:00.000-06:00

Hi! I'm Andrea from Maia the Bee and I cannot WAIT to share some exciting news with you today!

I'm so glad Erin asked me to guest post today. What I'm about to share with you is my personal weight loss story. I think as Americans we have all had a period of time in our lives when we weren't happy with our weight. My period started with my pregnancy almost 2 years ago when I gained 60 pounds.

Everyone tells you it takes time to lose the weight, your body will come back, give it a year, blah, blah, blah. I heard it all but after 11 months I was still really far off track!

I decided to do something about it I'm so glad I did!

Ok, enough with introductions! Let's get to the good stuff!! :)

Are you ready for 2012?

Many of us end the year by making resolutions and promises to ourselves for the coming year. What about YOU? What do you want to change for 2012?

Raise your hand if "Weight Loss" has made your list of resolutions?

Shaklee is kicking off the year with an incredible opportunity for those of us who are serious about losing weight…and keeping it OFF!

Remember when I told you about our Healthiest Loser Cinch Challenge? Back on November 1st, I started using Shaklee's Cinch products to lose the rest of my pregnancy weight. I was on a roll throughout the month, losing 5 pounds and an entire dress size! Do you know how great that feels?!?! I was able to go through my closet and pull out a bunch of pants that haven't fit in two years. TWO YEARS!!! Just ask my husband…I model my "new" clothes for him everyday! To say I'm thrilled would be a huge understatement!!

Want to see the results so far??

Remember, this is that I looked like in August 2009. I was 138 pounds. My goal is to get back to this size again

This next photo is where I started just a year ago. It was taken at the end of December last year (2010). Maia was born on December 1, 2010 and in this photo, about three weeks later, I still look pregnant. In fact, I wore maternity clothes for about 3 or 4 more months! I was about 185 pounds when this photo was taken (I was up to 204 pounds when Maia was born!!

You can see my face if round, my arms are big and my stomach fills up the entire shirt! To say I was uncomfortable in my own skin would be an understatement. Do you know how depressing it is to have a closet full of clothes but nothing fits! And even worse, is the feeling you get when you try your clothes on and realize just how big you've gotten. I was miserable.

I was losing weight gradually by myself after Maia was born but by July I had hit a plateau. My weight was stuck at 165 pounds and I still couldn't wear most of the clothes I owned. In August I found Shaklee and by November 1st, I was using Cinch.

Today I weigh 159 pounds. I've lost an entire dress size and I can wear almost all of the clothes in my closet now!! I can't tell you how excited I am! The best part is that people are stopping me to tell me how good I look! It's the best feeling!! People are noticing my weight loss and the changes in my body. It's amazing and I can't wait to blast the last few pounds this month!!

Here I am today!!

Here is a side-by-side comparison in the same clothes!

On the left, my "before" from 2009 and on the right, the picture of me today. (On a side note, I'm in desperate need of a tan!! Yikes!!) You can see that I still fill out the shirt a little more than I used to…but I can wear it and look good!! Have I mentioned how excited I am?!?! :)

The holidays have set me back a couple pounds but it has only solidified my resolve to be honest with myself and lose the rest of my weight for good. I've been such a cheater this month but I have a plan to get back on track!

I'm working on getting Maia enrolled in a gym-related childcare program. It's a little more difficult because she needs medical paperwork completed to document her food allergies, but I've gotten the ball rolling. It's the only opportunity I'll have to use a gym - living on a military installation in Germany is NOT convenient! The weather is getting worse here and most outdoor activities with a one year old are out of the question. This program will give me 90 minutes two to four times a week to work out.

So while I'm not yet at my goal weight, I am well on my way! Between my cinch products and some gym time, I plan on making January one heck of a month for weight loss!!

Want to join me?

Remember how I said Shaklee is kicking off the year with an incredible opportunity? I can't wait to tell you about it! HERE IT IS:

From now until March 31, 2012 when you join as a member and purchase $70 worth of products, you'll get the NEW Cinch Sampler Pack for FREE! That's over $100 savings!! What a way to start the new year!!

The Cinch Sampler comes with the following items (valued at over $100!)

An assorted Cinch Snack Bar pack
A box of Pomegranate Cinch Tea
2-week supply of Cinch 3-in-1 Boost
Single sample of Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip and Blueberry Almond Crisp Meal-in-a-Bars
One Chocolate Shake Packet and one Vanilla Shake Packet

Want to maximize your dollar? Purchase Shaklee's Vitalizer multivitamins for $79.25 and get a FREE lifetime membership AND the Cinch Taste Sampler!

How many other times have you spent $70 and been given a $100 gift?? This is unbelievable and will help each of you jump start your weight loss for 2012!

Shaklee is also unveiling a new product called the Cinch Transformation Pack (formerly Cinch Ultra). Each order of the Cinch Transformation Pack ($299.95) contains enough Cinch products to last you an entire month! Not only that, but when you order Cinch Transformation for 3 consecutive months, your 4th month is FREE!

This used to be known as Cinch Ultra, but it was "ultra" confusing to make sure you had enough products! Everything used to be manual but now, Shaklee has everything all set for you! I'm currently in my 3rd month of Cinch Ultra…which means that all of my Cinch products for the month of January are FREE! I'm sooooo excited! What an incredible deal!

Worried you'll be alone in your effort to lose the weight? Order Cinch and join our Online Community where we encourage, support, and cheer each other on as we meet our weight loss goals.

***

Want to learn more about Cinch products and what they can do for you? Join us for a free webinar Monday, January 2nd at 10pm/9pmCentral. The webinar is hosted by my friend and personal trainer, Bonnie Donahue. Register now to reserve a spot and then sign in just a few minutes before it starts on the 2nd. Bonnie will be discussing the Cinch products and showing you her personal weight loss experience.

What a great opportunity to start a New Year with a New YOU! Make 2012 a healthier year for you and your family!

Cheers!

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-28T05:00:00.002-06:00

Merry Christmas! I hope you and your family had amazing and safe holidays. We stayed home, relaxed, ate good food and spent time with family.

The boy's got Nintendo DS's. They love them!

We try to stick with the rule: 1 thing you want, 1 thing you need and 1 thing to read. :) I always get them things that they need this time of year, like socks, underwear and clothes. I am that mean mommy. :)

My parents and my brother came up and brought a little dog who barks along with a story when you read it. The kids loved it! :)

Audrey and I put on our aprons and cooked all morning! :) Yum! :) She loves to help her Momma! :)

Audrey got a few princess dresses and shoes and jewelry.

Koda's birthday is on Christmas eve. We got her groomed. She got a bow, her nails painted and she had a play date with her other doggy friends. :)

Audrey's big present was her princess barbies. In fact, she loves them so much that she sleeps with them! :)

This is Kameron's gifts. He loves his DS!

And Ethan's gifts! :) The kids had fun buying each other small gifts this year too.

This is Audrey's gifts. I got most of it at yard sales and a consignment store. ha! :) Love it!

How was your Holidays? I hope they were wonderful! Thanks for reading my blog! Have a great day! :)

Goodwill Shopping Tips and Tricks

2011-12-27T05:00:00.006-06:00

Our family LOVES to go thrifting and junking and garage sale-ing! :) In fact I often hear things from guests such as, "Oh, that is cute, where did you buy that?" And they are really surprised when I say I got it at the goodwill or a yard sale for 99 cents or less! :) I love bargains!

So I came up with some tips and tricks that I wanted to share with you that we have discovered along the way!

Best time of day to shop: morning. After you drop your kids off at school, make a quick round in your local goodwill. Make it a part of your weekly errands. You will save SO much money.

Best time of week to shop your local goodwill: Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday's. Most people do their donating at the beginning of the week and you want to get there before everything is picked over. People also take their garage sale leftovers there at the beginning of the week. Trust me, you will walk out with way better finds at the beginning of the week. And check out your stores often, it is totally hit or miss.

Don't expect to find everything you need there, right when you need it. It won't happen. It is like finding a needle in a haystack. You have to learn to dig for things and see things "outside of the box." If you see an ugly piece of furniture, check it to see if it is sturdy. Can it be painted? Remember my post HERE? I found a cute shelf at a garage sale and the lady said it "didn't match her house." Don't be afraid to see something of value in something someone else wouldn't have needed. I appreciate things in my house so much more when they have a story to them and are unique rather than just picking it up at the store. There is history and fun!
Best time of year to shop: December, because people are looking for tax write offs and you can find a lot of great and valuable finds in your goodwills. Also at season changes such as end of winter, end of summer, etc. Don't forget after labor day. People are usually purging their homes and getting rid of stuff.
Best days of the month to find new furniture is after the first of the month. Usually people are moving and they drop stuff off they don't need.

Don't buy 10 sweaters because they are 99 cents if you don't need 10 sweaters. Only look for things that you genuinely need! I always have a mental list of what we need or items I am looking for. I try to think long term ahead of time and organize all of the kids clothes as much in advance as I can. I can buy almost an entire wardrobe for each of my kids for probably under $50.

I have heard people call the Goodwill right by my house the "Gucci Goodwill." We have a lot of wealthy neighborhoods near my house. (I live in a normal neighborhood! haha :) But I do love shopping there because it is FULL of brand names. Gymboree, Gap, Children's Place, Nike, etc. I have found some of the best books, clothes, and dvd's there. I don't however worry about locations. I shop at as many as I can, but I do love the one near my house! :)

Watch for the colors! :) This week all of the yellow tagged clothes were 99 cents! I love finding Gymboree and Gap with the sale tags and getting each item for 99 cents.A different color is on sale each week and you have to look for the colors and best quality at the sale color of the week!

Make friends! :) I always smile and am super polite when I go in! No one wants to see mean or crabby customers when they are working. I try to keep my ~~monsters~~ angels under control when I am shopping so that they are on their best behavior. :) I might need the employees to help me with an item or find something. One time this SUPER cute cabbage patch doll didn't have a tag. I had been so nice to the people that they gave it to me for 99 cents. I saw a similar one in a different store a week later for 7.99! :)

Know which discounts you are eligible for! If you are military, a college student or a senior citizen you are eligible for a discount every time you shop! Speaking of college. If you have a goodwill near a college in your town, you will find some of the best stuff at the end of semesters that kids don't want to take home or don't have a place to store.

Lets talk about bugs, bedbugs, cockroaches, whatev. Luggage=super awesome invitation of nasty creatures into your home, along with purses, and small appliances. Furniture-avoid porous pieces of furniture. The previous owners may have dumped it and are combating a bug infestation on their own. Be leery of these items and inspect them all carefully! I personally only like to buy items that I can thoroughly sanitize and clean really good.

I also use lots of hand sanitizer while shopping, especially with my kiddos. :)
What are your Goodwill shopping tips? Do you garage sale or thrift store shop?

*Click HERE for more Goodwill Shopping tips!

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T20:26:00.000-06:00

Merry Christmas! We had quite a fun night here, relaxing at home. We made some homemade gingerbread cookies. They turned out okay. Our frosting was an epic fail though. :( We frosted one and it didn't turn out that great so we left them naked. :)

Let me just admit something here. I do NOT like surprises. I always snuck and found ALL of my presents when I was a kid. Okay, who am I kidding, I still do. :) So I begged my husband to let the kids open one present each tonight. He finally agreed. ;) Ethan got the game bananagrams so we played for awhile and had fun! :) A great game for kids to practice spelling.

I also made a homemade apple pie for the first time ever. :) I hope it came out okay, we will find out tomorrow for Christmas dinner. :)

I hope everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas! :)

Peanut Butter Energy Balls

2011-12-23T05:00:00.019-06:00

I am always on the lookout for healthy snack ideas that I can feed my kiddos that taste good and they will actually eat. I finally found a snack that they LOVE!

Peanut Butter Energy Balls

1 cup oatmeal

1/2 c. rice krispies

1/2 cup energizing vanilla soy protein

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup honey

Melt the peanut butter and honey in a saucepan and add the dry ingredients and stir it. Roll it into balls and store them in the fridge. Makes a yummy and healthy snack.

You can purchase the Energizing Soy Protein HERE.

And because I love her...I wanted to throw in a picture of my little helper! :) She is so sweet! :)

What are your favorite healthy snack ideas?

Menu Planning

2011-12-21T05:00:00.022-06:00

Do you menu plan? If you don't you are probably spending A LOT of money at the grocery store. I know I used to. I would shop and randomly throw things in my cart and my total would sometimes be almost $300! Then I would get home and put things away and think, "What did I just buy?" I would "tell" myself I was stocking up and sometimes use a few coupons even. And I would STILL have no idea what to make for dinner. It was awful.

Then I decided I was just going to eat out of our pantry, freezer, and fridge until everything was gone. And we are about there! :) I have been making meals with the ingredients we already have. And we have kept our grocery bill under $100 a week. And that includes diapers and dog food.

So meal planning has become a family affair! Kam LOVES to help meal plan and pick out recipes. He LOVES going through all of my cook books. He does a great job comparing ingredients to what we already have in the pantry and freezer. He is learning great skills on how to be frugal and thrifty.

What is on your menu? We have also been cooking from scratch! :) I even made the biscuits from scratch for our biscuits and gravy. Our hamburger helper is homemade too! :)

Organize your Life!

2011-12-19T05:00:00.053-06:00

I have had a lot of questions lately about how I stay organized and manage a full time job, a business, and my family. I think the key to staying sane and organized for me is keeping lists. I have to keep lists. If I didn't, I think I would go nuts. :) I have notebooks for specific areas of my life. I have a yellow one for finances, a blue one for my blog, and a green one for my to-do list.
Finances: I keep track of every penny. Literally. It is a little obsessive if you look at my notebook. :) I decided last summer that we would keep of every penny we make and make sure we are managing our money efficiently. My goal is to stay at home so we budget very strictly and do not spend unnecessary money. We focus on paying off all our debt and saving money. We have currently paid off over 14k in debt this year!
Blogging: I keep track of blogging ideas and a schedule for blogging. It also gives me ideas of fun projects to do and a bank of ideas and wish lists that I want to do.
To do list: I keep track of house projects, cleaning projects, and things that need to be done.

This is my organizer. It is color coded too. Are you surprised? :) I budget every minute of my time and usually months in advance. I squeeze every little minute out of my day. I don't watch tv, my only indulgence is reading which I LOVE. :) I get my books from the library. I never buy books anymore. I am not kidding, we literally do NOT spend any money. I am so dedicated to working to be at home with my kids. There is NO room for failure. I have a deadline so we have to follow a strict budget with time AND money.

Pink is for time with my kids being completely focused on them as much as possible. That means my phone is turned off and my computer is shut. I focus on playing with them, talking with them and usually reading with them. We are reading a lot of neat books right now.
Red is for date night. We were doing 2 dates a month but we cut back to 1. We are in serious financial lock down mode! No spending! So we get creative with our date nights and eat cheap and keep within our budget. It is SO important to make that time with your spouse.
Green is for my job and for money! I do have a full time night shift job in the law enforcement field.
Blue is for my business. I schedule time for that as well and sneak in a few hours of work when I can. I often wake up early and work before I have to get my kids. This is the equivilent of you waking up at 4am to work. That is what I do! NO room for failure! :)
I enjoy working my business so it is easy to get carried away but I budget my time so no one feels shorted. My kids get their time, my husband gets my time and I can work knowing that I am giving my all in all of the areas I am needed in.

So this is how I stay organized. How do you stay organized?

My loves...

2011-12-17T05:00:00.014-06:00

I love these babies. I can't help it. Don't you just want to squeeze their little faces and hug them? I do. :)

And we also love our fur baby Koda. She is rotten and destroys things and runs away on occasion but we love her. :) Ethan claims she is his dog. haha

And if you have ever been around a husky you know that they sing. Koda loves to "talk" and "sing" to us. :)

What kind of animals do you have? Are they members of your family like Koda is to us?

Scentsy Giveaway Winner! :)

2011-12-15T10:47:00.000-06:00

Congratulations to Summer Willard! :) You are the Scentsy giveaway winner! :)

Cooking During the Depression

2011-12-15T05:00:00.010-06:00

I stumbled upon these youtube videos about Depression era cooking with Clara Cannucciari and they are SO adorable! You have to check them out! She is the cutest little Grandma! Check out these videos and her book is so good! :)

Healthy Breakfast Ideas

2011-12-13T05:00:00.002-06:00

Does this look like some of your breakfast options that you are currently serving? It was for us. I don't think I actually realized how terrible and harmful these cereals were for my family. We will not be having these for options anymore. I have searched and created healthier options. Baby steps! :) We are really trying to eat cleaner!

I am so sick to my stomach that my kids are 9,8, and 2 and I have been feeding them crap! I feel so bad about that but we are going to make better choices from now on. I want my family to be the healthiest that they can be.

So no more of this! I honestly didn't know where to begin finding better choices. I mean, when you think you are doing a good job just getting your kids to eat breakfast in the first place and then realize it is actually harming them, that is so stressful. I read THIS article on what cereal actually does to you. And to rats. SICK! And then I read THIS about how bad the sugar is for you. I do not want my kids ending up with obesity, diabetes, and other health issues. I feel like I was just setting them up for failure. :(

No more! I am trying to come up with lots of healthy breakfast ideas. I want my family to go out the door in the morning full of brain food that is going to help them succeed! Here are some of my healthy ideas.

Yogurt and fruit
Homemade Muffins with whole wheat flour
Eggs and toast
Protein Shakes and fruit
Homemade oatmeal
Apples and Cheese slices
Peanut Butter Waffles
Freezer Breakfast Burritos

This is what I have so far! I need your help! What are some more ideas so I can keep things mixed up around here and keep my family entertained with the idea of eating healthier and not going back to wanting the junk. Its not easy to make the changes to cleaner eating but we are working on it! :)

Tour of Bethleham

2011-12-11T05:00:00.056-06:00

One of my favorite things to do every year is take a tour of Bethlehem at our church. We love it!

This is Cleo the Camel. She greets us out front and is so pretty and sweet. :) My husband didn't think so. But then again he said he saw a lot of them in Iraq. He says they spit too. Ewww. Cleo is sweet.

So we say hi and the kids are SO excited so we have to get in there!

They can't get their coats hung up fast enough!

There are so many fun things to do! They went fishing...

Audrey caught one ;)

Then we listened to stories about Jesus and learned how they dyed cloth back then to wear...

Isn't she SO cute?!

They loved dressing the part! I love these guys!

You have to watch out for the Romans. They will try to take your money. ;)

They made crafts and shopped with their coins...

Drew hebrew in the sand...

Finally we found the stable..and met some stable buddies.

I am sure these animals are thinking they could get used to this attention and warm church. :)

And finally we found baby Jesus with Mary and Joseph. :)

We love doing the tour of Bethlehem and look forward to it every single year. It is a tradition in our family. :)

Do you have Christmas traditions? What does your family do?

Fun in the Snow!

2011-12-09T05:00:00.018-06:00

We had our first snow of the season...

Audrey thought it was amazing! :) Her brothers were away for the weekend with family so Audrey bundled up and went outside to play in the snow while Daddy snowblowed the driveway and sidewalk. :) She LOVED it!

She even went and took down the bird feeder for Momma so we can put it away for the winter.

She loved it! She loved eating the snow. Every once in awhile she would scoop up a handful and munch away. :)

Have you guys had winter weather yet? Do your kids love the snow too? :)

Stay safe and warm!

Christmas 2011 Home tour

2011-12-07T05:00:00.000-06:00

Welcome to our home! :) Grab a cup of coffee and lets take a tour! :)

Here is our tree. It isn't fancy. We love it this way. It is kid friendly. Sometimes my kids even play with the ornaments. I know. I know. :) But I figure if I let them play with it the first few days, they will leave it alone for the rest of the month. :) All of the ornaments are either passed down from Grandparents or ones the kids have made. :) We love looking at the ornaments and talking about the memories. We have had this tree ever since our first Christmas in our house 5 years ago. We bought it on clearance the year after Christmas sales for $25. It isn't pre-lit and we add our lights ever year but thats okay, I like to change the colors out. This year we have all white! :) I bought the lights all after Christmas sales for .25 a box! :) We have a bunch so we should be good for awhile.

The kids love to dig through the ornaments and play! :)

They love to decorate the tree and I let them do it all! :)

Audrey is so cute! She put an ornament on a little sled and was pulling it around! :) Love that baby!

I hope to pass on ornaments to the kids someday that they had on their tree growing up and put them on their families Christmas trees.

We also dig out the Little People Nativity set. So fun!

We have a special basket of Christmas books

This was the boy's Dad's cookie and milk set for Santa. We use it every year and its great to have a tradition for them from their Dad's side too! :) Sometimes if they go to their Dad's for Christmas, they take it with them to set it out for Santa there too. :)

I have all of my decorations pretty much limited to these totes. I try not to make Christmas overwhelming. This year I made a promise to myself that anything that didn't get used as a decoration was getting donated. A great way to just keep the important stuff and purge the clutter.

We put everything up but waited for the boys to come home and help decorate our tree. :) They love to help and we didn't want them to miss out.

We also love legos at our house. We bought a Lego City advent calendar last year and we got a Lego star wars advent calendar this year. :) The boys look forward to this every day! I would rather buy these for them than the chocolate ones. They do NOT need chocolate! :)

We love to write holiday messages on our chalkboard! This changes daily!

We have a little bit of holiday garland in the kitchen. I try not to go too crazy at Christmas but I love to decorate on the cheap! :)

I bought these stocking hangers at Target last year. NOT on sale believe it or not. :) I wanted something to hang our stockings on and I thought I would use this space to do it. We have a 1500 sq. foot home so we have to be creative with all of our spaces.

I bought these stockings on clearance about 9 years ago. Kameron was just a baby. I bought four of them. Two Santa's and two snowmen and a dog one. I thought "Maybe" I might have four kids someday and wanted them all to match. :) Well we have 3 down, one to go. Can anyone convince my husband that this is a great idea? haha It's all for the stockings! haha

My Mom gave me this nativity scene last year. It was our family's nativity scene from when I was growing up. My parents bought it when we lived in Germany. I think its great to have a nativity scene in your house. Reminds you of what the season is really for! :)

We love our Elf on a shelf. He is pretty fun! :)

And here is our felt Christmas tree. :) These are some of our traditions that we do every year. I hope you enjoyed your tour! :)

What are some of your holiday traditions? What do you like to cook or bake during the holidays?

A felt Christmas tree

2011-12-05T05:00:00.002-06:00

I found a neat idea on Pinterest to make a felt Christmas tree for Audrey and the boys to play with. This was such a fun project to make with my kids.

I picked up all of the supplies at Hobby Lobby for under $10 and I picked up some command strips at Target for $4. So it was a $14 project and we can reuse it every year. Fun!

Handy hubby helped draw the tree for us since I can't draw. :) He did a great job! I traced the letters from the pattern and cut them out as well. Audrey loves her tree! :)

I can't take the credit for this fun project but have to link you to the blog where it came from HERE. Stop by and show her some love! :) Happy tree making!

Scentsy Giveaway!

2011-12-04T17:16:00.000-06:00

Hey there friends! :) Katie from Keeping up with Katie and I met awhile back and both have baby Audrey's. :) Katie is a super sweet teacher from Arkansas and is a Scentsy Independent Consultant. She has graciously offered to give away a scentsy bar in Midnight Fig and a super cute holiday Scentsy warmer! AH-mazing! :)

I haven't smelled this one yet but it looks great! I think it will be on my wish list for Christmas! :)

Here is the super cute warmer called Plum Garland! :) So you have one week to enter my giveaway. I will randomly choose a winner after midnight on December 10th. So here is what you can do to win. One entry per each one, except the last one! :)

-follow Healthy Branscoms on facebook

-follow my blog, Healthy Branscoms

-follow me on twitter

-purchase something from Katie at her store HERE and get 10 extra entries! :)

Good luck! What is your favorite scent? I am always looking for new ones to try out! :)

A toddler buffet!

2011-12-03T05:00:00.031-06:00

Good Morning!

When it is just Audrey and I at home, I love to just keep it simple. I do my Cinch Shakles and Meal bars because its quick and easy and I love to keep Audrey's lunches simple because she usually has a pretty big healthy breakfast and dinner so her lunches are simple. What is that saying...eat breakfast like a King, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper? Well we are doing it a little out of order. :)

So one day when Audrey was playing in my pan cabinet I thought of making her a little bit of all of her favorite snacks! :) She loves cheese, yogurt covered raisins, dried apricots, crackers, and animal cookies. And she gets a little upset if you don't put something in EVERY cup cake part. She likes a little something in every spot. :)

And she loves it! We are watching a Disney movie marathon today so I let her eat in the living room!

She loves her buffet. I love to mix it up and put new things in there each day to keep introducing new fun things to eat. :)

Oh. My. Goodness. Check out this SUPER sweet little lady named Clara. I am LOVING her youtube videos on cooking during the depression. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGX8m8lAzOs&feature=relmfu

A few of my favorite things...winter Holiday style!

2011-12-01T09:39:00.000-06:00

I love this time of year. It reminds me of how much I have to be thankful for considering last year was not a very good year for me and I was sick and in the hospital. I am thankful for good health and family! :) Here are some other things that I love right now!

I love scarves from target! :) I love winter scarves and gloves. I have to leave my house in the middle of the night sometimes and its important to stay warm! :)

I love this coffee creamer! :) It is hard to find good sugar free coffee creamers and this one is SO yummy! :)

I have been obsessed with using my crockpot lately. I LOVE crockpot cooking. There is nothing like coming home at the end of the day to a yummy smelling house and I haven't been slaving away! :) Speaking of which. Start getting your crock pot recipes ready. Next month I am going to do 21 days of crockpot cooking and you can link up! :) I love good crockpot ideas!

This is my favorite skin care products ever! I doubt I will ever use another product again! I actually had some Mary Kay moistureizer product that I used to use and I had I forgot it was in my bag when we went out of town last month and it made my face burn. :( I love that Enfuselle doesn't do that. It also lasts such a long time! I bought mine last February and it still has 3/4 left in it! Now that is frugal! If you want to find it, you can find it HERE.

I LOVE making hot chocolate for my kiddos after they come in from playing outside. :) With marshmallows. :)

Google pic

I also love snuggling on the couch under quilts with my kiddos. :) This is not one of my quilts but it looks so cozy too! :) Makes you want to take a nap! :)

What are some of your favorite things?

Playgrounds and stitches...almost

2011-12-01T05:00:00.007-06:00

My sweet boy Ethan had an accident on the playground last week and had to go to the ER. Poor guy! Audrey and I left the house fast (Audrey was still in her pj's) and we got him checked out. Thankfully he didn't need stitches, just butterfly bandages. But his hoodie is his favorite and I was so sad for him because he was sad it was ruined because it had blood all over it. He would seriously wear that thing like EVERYDAY if I would let him.

This is the damage!

It was pretty bad. Normally I would have just thrown it away because there is NO WAY that tide or shout could get that out. But I really wanted to try to save it. We have been using Shaklee laundry products exclusively since February of this year. I decided to try out Nature Bright with this hoodie. I soaked it in the sink with Nature bright on it and....

It came out!!

Can you believe that???

What are you waiting for? Don't waste money by not saving clothes by using a quality and organic laundry soap! :)

Audrey in the dryer

2011-11-29T05:00:00.035-06:00

This is Audrey and her new friend Aspen! :) They are both 2. She came over for a playdate while her Mom Ashley and I worked. We both are Shaklee Distributors and we get together on Wednesdays with a lot of fun ladies to have breakfast and hang out.

Lets just say Audrey and Aspen are fun spirited girls! haha Audrey climbed into the dryer and Aspen turned it ON!! Thankfully Ashley and I were right there and we got her out really fast but Audrey was SO scared! Poor baby! And luckily my husband and I figured out how to lock the washer AND the dryer from now on so this will not happen again! So scary! I was terrified for a few minutes but then I realized this is totally something that my boys would do. :) She is safe and thats all that matters.

Here is Ashley and Aspen! :) Welcome to our Shaklee family! :) I love having you guys over and watching the girls play! :) Be sure to stop over to Ashley's blog and say hi HERE! :)

Happy 8th Birthday Ethan!

2011-11-27T05:00:00.029-06:00

This picture is my favorite. It is a picture of my Dad and Ethan on his birthday. We had a great day! I took Ethan lunch at school and brought treats to his class. Then my parents came up and my Mom brought him this super yummy cake! She brought it because my oven went out that week! :( That day I ended up buying a new stove and my Dad was super nice and went and picked it up for me! Thanks Dad!

We all went out for yummy burgers and fries and then came home and ate cake. Happy Birthday Ethan! I can't believe you are 8 years old buddy! I love you so much!

This is Ethan with my parents, Kameron, and Ethan. We had such a great night!

Support small businesses

2011-11-26T13:45:00.000-06:00

Hello! Today is Small Business Saturday! :) It reminds us to help hard working Americans who own their own businesses. Don't give all of your money to WalMart and other corporations who aren't Mom's and Dad's raising families with the support of their small business. I think our country has really lost touch with supporting small businesses.

Shop Shaklee for safe, green and healthy products for your family and friends! :)

Homemade Omelettes at home

2011-11-25T05:00:00.014-06:00

My husband is THE best omelet maker! :) I love that guy! He made us all amazing omelets one night and they were amazing!

We had all of these ingredients on hand and the ham was actually turkey ham leftover from a soup. We just used up ingredients that we had in the house. I love to fill mine with veggies. It was so cheap to make these too. If you go out for breakfast at a restaurant you can easily spend $40-50 for a family of 5. We ate at home for under $5. :) I love saving money and eating healthy.

Do you cook your favorite restaurant foods at home? What is your favorite thing to make?

How to clean your dishwasher

2011-11-23T05:00:00.001-06:00

Now look. Before you get your judging panties on and start judging my house based upon these pictures, know that I am NOT the dirty house! I swear! I am NOT! I saw a post somewhere out in blog land about this lady that cleaned her dishwasher. And I thought say whaaaat? Doesn't my soap do that for me? Um, no. Brace yourselves. It's about to get REAL ugly in here. Hold me.

Exhibit A. This is what I found when I cracked that bad boy open with my most professional tool ever. The butter knife. My son's were standing nearby and they shrieked! It. was. disgusting.

And then it got more disgusting. What the heck IS all that? No wait. I don't want to know.

I cleaned and thoroughly sanitized all parts of this with Basic-G-Germicide. And then I may or may not have re-washed my dishes.

And it was hard cleaning out this little hidden door. I actually used the hose on my sink to spray it and I used an old toothbrush to scrub it thoroughly with the basic G. I soaked the lid in the sink for a LONG time and scrubbed it a FEW times. YUCK!!!

Now I bet you are all going to clean your dishwashers now, aren't you? Are you like me and thought, what? We have to clean our dishwashers? Or do you regularly clean yours? This is going on my regular monthly cleaning list of things to do. Oh and by the way, we have owned this dishwasher for FIVE years and never cleaned this. SICK!!!! But now know that if you come over for supper, my dishes have been re-washed! ;)

Fight the Boredom Blues for free as a Family

2011-11-21T05:00:00.001-06:00

I love this article on family activities for free! :) Turn off your tv and play with your kiddos! :)

Fight the Boredom Blues for free as a Family

Article submitted by Kathleen Thomas on behalf of Primrose Schools

Keeping your children emotionally and mentally stimulated without breaking the bank or giving into the lure of television or TV games can be challenging, but it's an important investment in their future. Making sure that your child's brain stays engaged on the weekends or when they are on break from school or educational day care helps to ensure that they will retain more of what they learn, both in school and from day to day activities, along with keeping them more emotionally satisfied.

If we encourage our children from a young age to fill their time with activities of a mentally and emotionally challenging nature they will thrive with them and will be more inclined to ask for other similar opportunities in the future. Doing so does not have to cost a fortune and, in many cases, is completely free.

Regardless of the weather outside, the following ten tips will allow you to chase away the dreaded boredom that all children experience from time to time, while also encouraging them to use their imaginations.

1. Sensory Box: Gather common household items and place them into a box, along with a plastic shovel or other similar child's tool. Then encourage your child to dig through the box, feeling everything as they go, and teach them what each of the items are. For a seasonal Halloween twist you can make it so that they can't see the inside of the box but can only stick their hand inside, allowing you to turn things like grapes into witches eyeballs.

2. Family Story Time: In addition to reading books, encourage your children to let their imaginations go wild by making up a story together. Each person says one sentence, followed by the next person, and the story will continue to grow until everyone in the family is laughing uncontrollably.

3. Game Night: Encourage learning while also building stronger relationships through weekly family game nights. Place an emphasis on games of a more educational nature, such as Scrabble, Hangman or Memory, based on the child's age and development level. Consider making it more fun by ordering pizza or making your child's favorite meal so that family game night becomes their favorite night of the week!

4. Leaf Rubbings: In the Fall, collect leaves on good weather days. Then when it's raining out, your children can create a leaf rubbing by using only two plain sheets of paper and a crayon! Place the leaf on one sheet of paper and then take the second sheet and lay it on top of the leaf. Remove the wrapper from the crayon and have your child rub the side of the crayon on the top sheet of paper, across the leaf. In mere moments they'll have created a fun work of art!

5. Anything Goes Day, With a Twist: Ask your child what they want to do and find a way to make it educational. For example, if they say they want to watch television, tell them the basic history of how the television was invented and how broadcast signals work before turning on their favorite cartoon.

6. Dance Party: If you own a video game system along with a dance game you're a step ahead for this activity, but no worries if you don't, a radio is really all that you need. Let each family member take turns selecting a song and then everyone will dance and sing along to it. This is a great physical activity that will help keep your children active on otherwise blah type days. Memorization of song lyrics is also a great ways to get their brains moving!

7. Photo Day: Have each member of the family who is hold enough to hold a camera or a cell phone take pictures, both of other family members and of the things that are important to them in the house. Then put them all together in one album and discuss the results. This encourages conversation, will teach you new things about your children and will make a great memento years down the line.

8. Seasonal Letter: If your family puts together a letter to go out with holiday cards get your children involved. Have them suggest topics for inclusion and have them decorate the letters and envelopes.

9. Ask Questions Hour: As we all know, children love to ask questions and it helps them learn. Give them free license to ask about anything they want and give them your undivided attention to provide fully formed answers.

10. Create a Musical Instrument: Have each member of the family take a common household item and turn it into an instrument. Then have an improvisational jam session as a family.

Alternating between things like the above and the more typical day to day activities will provide an important outlet for a child's creativity while chasing away what some have dubbed "brain drain." Be sure to get your children involved in brainstorming for other ideas that will most suit their own individual interests and be mindful of keeping activities age and time-length appropriate. Most of all make sure your children have fun to encourage a continual love of imaginative activities!

Better late than never! :)

2011-11-21T02:48:00.000-06:00

I have been majorly busy with travel, work and family! :) But I really wanted to share these cutie patootie babies with you! :) This is my 1930's gangster, sweet skunk, and ninja! :)

Watch out! She will spray you!

I love these babies! :)

Overweight? It may not be your fault...

2011-11-19T05:00:00.001-06:00

Hi everyone! :) Erin from Casa Bella graciously shared this post with me to post which I loved reading since I am doing the Cinch Challenge! :) Yay!

Ok, this is not a person, but I didn't want to offend anyone. I dont think this cat cares too much that he/she has a bit of a weight problem.
Many people assume because someone is overweight, they must eat too much or exercise too little. However, this is not always the case. It is important to look at some of the factors in today's society that may cause or contribute to the extra poundage.
It is true portion sizes are way out of control in a lot of restaurants. People eat out more and more because of their hectic schedules. However, could there be other things that are making us fat? Like GMO's, high fructose corn syrup (yep, the commercial is wrong!) chemicals, growth hormones, pesticides, our own stress.

via

We all have heard by now that many cows are given growth hormones to produces more milk. We know that conventional beef/dairy have these hormones, as well as other antibiotics and maybe other artificial "treatments" to produce a desired effect. If we are feeding these growth hormones to our children and consuming them ourselves, don't you think it could have an effect on our own hormones or growth patterns? After all, many hormonal problems are the root of many weight issues. Ah ha! I am not even touching on the fact that it can cause early reproductive development, or other illnesses and conditions as mild as acne, or as severe as cancer.
It is frustrating. You might think you are eating a healthy lunch, when you sit down to a nice salad and some fruit, when in fact the apple you are consuming is laced with arsenic, or something similar to RAID. Could these be interrupting our basic metabolisms and breaking them down? Could these toxins build up in our systems and prevent us from natural elimination?
What about your platic bottles and cans? BPA, pthalates, and other harmful chemicals used in the lining. They are banned in other countries, why are we allowed to consume them here? They are known endocrine disruptors, producing more estrogen, which can make you fat, or worse, cause cancer.
This is what Dr. Mercola says about diet soda if you drink it.
Diet soda contains the artificial sweetener aspartame, which may contain zero calories but can’t fool your body and brain. When your body detects that you’re consuming something sweet, it expects that it contains calories. Since artificial sweeteners don’t provide calories, they can cause distortions in your biochemistry that may result in weight gain, Dr. Joseph Mercola explains.
Your brain knows the difference between sugar and an artificial sweetener, which tends to increase activity in your brain’s pleasure center even though it provides lower actual satisfaction. This causes your body to crave more artificial sweeteners – as well as real sugar – because your brain is not satisfied at the cellular level by the sugar imposter.
What about sleep? Your sleep patterns affect your cortisol(stress hormone), leptin(absence leads to uncontrolled food intake), and ghrelin levels(hunger hormone), which can cause weight gain.
So, before you criticize someone for being overweight, it could quite possibly be one of these issues rather than lack of self control. If you are overweight and frustrated, consider some of these potential factors.
I hope some of this information might be helpful to those of you that struggle with your weight. If you have more questions, feel free to contact me and ask away! I'll do my best to help you! Perhaps I can make some suggestions to get you on a good path to weight loss.
Have a great night!
Erin

Buying Organic on a Budget

2011-11-17T05:00:00.004-06:00

Hi! I'm Andrea from Maia the Bee. Erin was gracious enough to offer me a spot as a guest blogger while she's out of town and I jumped at the opportunity!

So, eating organic on a budget sounds like a joke, right? How could you possibly fit organics into a budget? Until recently, I didn't think you could.

Let me start at the beginning. We are now a single-income family - I've stopped teaching to stay home with Maia. We're stationed in Germany with the US Army where prices are considerably higher because of the unfavorable exchange rate. (For your reference, right now the exchange rate today is 1 Euro = $1.40 which means that for every Euro you spend, you're actually spending $1.40) Our American grocery store (the Commissary) stocks very few organic foods, so we're left to either eat non-organic, conventional foods we can buy there or go out onto the German economy and pay a lot more. Until recently I thought that eating organic just wasn't economical. Maia already costs us $350 a month for the special formula she has to drink due to her allergies. Now that she's eating real food (and a lot of it!) I make and buy it organic the majority of the time. But then that leaves my husband and me eating primarily conventional, non-organic foods with what's left of our food budget. It's disappointing but I just assumed it wasn't possible for us to afford it for ourselves.

Then I read about the "Dirty Dozen." Have you heard this term? It was coined by the Environmental Working Group back in 2006, but I just learned about it this week. The "Dirty Dozen" are the 12 fruits and vegetables that consistently have the highest levels of pesticide, based on 43,000 tests for pesticides by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. If you ate these 12 fruits and veggies organic, you would cut 90% of your pesticide exposure! Isn't that incredible?!?

Here are the "Dirty Dozen" for 2011:

apples
celery
strawberries
peaches
spinach
nectarines (imported)
grapes (imported)
sweet bell peppers
potatoes
blueberries (domestic)
lettuce
kale/collard greens

They also identified the 15 fruits and vegetables with least amount of pesticides. These are the "Clean Fifteen" for 2011:

onions
sweet corn (although most is GMO, or genetically modified)
pineapples
avocado
asparagus
sweet peas
mangoes
eggplant
cantaloupe (domestic)
kiwi
cabbage
watermelon
sweet potatoes
grapefruit
mushrooms

When shopping for organic foods, look for the USDA seal on the package.

This seal means that it is certified to be at least 95% organic. Of course, you can always shop at the local farmers' market, too. Ask the farmer if he or she uses pesticides or organic farming. A lot of time (three years to be exact!) and money go into getting this seal on a product. Just because your local farmer doesn't have the seal, doesn't mean his or her farming techniques aren't organic. Applying for the seal may be cost prohibitive or the farmer may be in the three year waiting period.

photo credit

I wanted to share the "Dirty Dozen" with you so you could prioritize your organic choices to fit into your budget. Now I know that while buying organic peas and pineapple is a great idea, I can buy the conventional counterparts of those veggies and use the money we save to buy organic fruits and veggies from the "Dirty Dozen" list, instead. Ideally, I would buy everything organic, but it just honestly isn't an option for us right now. At least now I know where I can start to make the most of our limited budget.

Do you buy organic foods? Where do you shop for your organics?

Get the wiggles out!

2011-11-15T03:13:00.002-06:00

I don't know how your kids are but mine have TONS of energy! I have days where they drive me nuts because they are bouncing up the walls! So one day I decided to make them run laps! haha I told them they had to go outside and "get their wiggles out." :) It worked! So now when they are restless, even when it is cold out, I have them play outside, run around and get some fresh air! They grab a soccer ball, their bikes, whatever...

And this works well for Audrey too because she tries to keep up with her brothers and this wears her out too. :)

Why does my husband ALWAYS give me these looks when I take pictures of him?

I love these babies! :) How do you get the wiggles out at your house and wear your kids out? :)

Vegetable Chicken Lasagna

2011-11-13T03:01:00.002-06:00

I made this as a "throw together meal" one night and it came out really good! I literally just used up all of the ingredients that we had on hand. I love cleaning out the pantry! Saves me $$$! :)

Vegetable Chicken Lasagna

24 lasagna noodles

2 cans cream of chicken soup (or make your own HERE)

2 1/2 cups of frozen vegetables

2 cups shredded chicken

2 cups of milk

salt and pepper to taste

shredded taco cheese or whatever cheese you have on hand

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil your noodles. Mix the milk, and soups in a pot and cook until warmed through and mixed. Mix in chicken and vegetables and heat through. Layer the cheese, soup mixture and noodles in a 13 x 9 pan. Cover and bake for 30 minutes! So simple and good! We used taco cheese on accident and it tasted really good! haha use up whats in your pantry! :)

Finances Update!

2011-11-11T03:31:00.005-06:00

I had SO many emails and questions about our finances and how we are doing since we had Mrs. Penny from the Saved Quarter do a budget reconstruction for us. It makes me so sad to think about all of the money we have wasted for YEARS! Right now I am currently working to pay off all of our debt so that I can stay at home with our three kids. If we had been more frugal sooner, we wouldn't even HAVE this debt and I could be at home! So as of now I wanted to update you on our old budget from last May and how much we have improved!

I even got some criticism in emails from people who had LOTS of opinions about our budget and how I shouldn't post that online. I'll let you know when I care. :) I LOVE the criticism. It is what absolutely drives me to strive harder and farther to serve my family. So I welcome any comments or emails! :) I wouldn't be doing better financially if other blogs hadn't posted their savings dirty laundry to inspire ME! If I can do that for someone else, then that is awesome.

So here are our past and updated monthly bills and debt!
BLUE is for positive progress
RED is for negative progress

DEBT
Van $4,377.44 UPDATE: PAID OFF! (+$4,377.44)
Student Loan #1 $18,208.14 UPDATE: $17,539.14 (+$669)
Student Loan #2 $4,433.75 UPDATE: $4,027.42 (+$406.33)

Monthly bills

Mortgage $1250 SAME
Van $350 UPDATE: PAID OFF (+$4,377.44)Student Loan #1 $245.65 UPDATE: SAME
Student Loan #2 $90.53 UPDATE: + $500 + Shaklee income (this will be paid off in February or sooner!)
Daycare $350 SAME
Groceries $800 UPDATE: $400! AND I am packing all our lunches! We plan everything and NO stockpiling! We use all the food up that we have! ($400)
Christmas savings $35 SAME
Gas/electric $185 UPDATE $175 ($10)
Vitamins/Meds: $190.25 UPDATE: $150 NO MORE Migraine MEDS! ($40.25)
ADT: $44.03 UPDATE: $44.30 (we upgraded to a complete revamped new system for FREE!)
Gas for vehicle $150 UPDATE: $200 I lost my carpool, we work different shifts now. :( (-$50)
Husband and I's allowance: $100 each=$200. UPDATE: $160 ($40)
Vehicle reg/insurance: $146 UPDATE: $96.05 (Changed insurance companies!) ($49.95)
Internet/home phone: $82.81 UPDATE: dropped home phone to ooma $3.47 per month ($79.34)
Direct TV: $92.40 UPDATE: ZERO. Dropped and gone. ($92.40)
Cox basic cable/internet: $86.30
Trash $29 per month UPDATE: $21.50 per month ($7.50)
netflix/hulu: $18.62 UPDATE: $8.55 for only basic netflix. My kids love it! ($10.07)
School lunches: $100 UPDATE: ZERO. We pack using the laptop lunch boxes! ($100)
Husbands IRA: $124 UPDATE: $150 (we are saving more!) ($26)
Dining out: $100
verizon $140.17 SAME

$4406.64 is our monthly total!
$5536 is what Penny Saver allotted us. We are really bad about paying ourselves first. So far we are tithing and saving the rest of the amount after the bills are paid. We try to justify the value of every expense we make and it is a daily goal for us to work hard to keep our finances on track. But what a rewarding goal! :) We also save every month whatever is leftover.

I have been decluttering our house and I have been selling a lot of items on craigslist. Instead of spending the cash I make, I put it all in an envelope and I deposit it all towards our debt. EVERY little bit helps! I get free coffee at the gas station by my work since I am in law enforcement (not sure how that works but I am grateful for the free coffee! :) And I feel bad I never pay, so the other day while chatting with the clerk I bought a $1 scratch off lottery ticket and won $14. Guess where that money went? Straight to our debt! :) I am NOT kidding you! We are paying every penny that we can right now! I NEVER buy lottery tickets and probably won't again, but that is just how our debt is going. There is NO room for ANY extra spending right now. We learn to make do or do without! :)

My birthday was last week and I REALLY want a new scarf at Target or Charming Charlies. Nope. I want to be debt FREE way more! :) ANY money I get right now goes towards our debt. I am a little obsessed! :) I just want to be at home taking care of my family. They deserve that and I want to be there for them more than I need to buy a scarf.

We are VERY fortunate that my Shaklee business has taken off so we can pay down our debt in one year instead of two! :)

I showed you HERE how we made most of these changes. They didn't happen overnight. We strive everyday to find ways to be frugal and save money. My income from Shaklee certainly helps and makes most of our household expenses like cleaners, supplements, and beauty products free with my income. I also use my Shaklee income to put on my student loan payment so I can pay them off quicker. I decided to go with my smaller loan first because when I have that gone I can focus more on the bigger loan. I also put the $350 that I would have allotted towards my van towards my loan now.

How do you manage your debt? Do you have any suggestions? Stop over and say hi to Penny from the Saved Quarter! :) Thanks for all your support! :)

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

2011-11-09T05:00:00.036-06:00

My friend Andrea over at Maiathebee posted about these amazing cinnamon rolls and I couldn't wait to try them out! I have been working on cooking everything from scratch that I possibly can to avoid preservatives and other junk in our food. It is just so bad for us and we went from going to get over priced donuts on Sundays or making expensive Grand's cinnamon rolls to this! It is so cheap and easy to make!

My son Kameron took all of the pictures for this post and he did a FANTASTIC job! :) He loved helping to make these! It was fun to make the dough and come back and see that it had doubled in size and it smelled SO good!

Kameron also mixed up the cinnamon sugar mixture and got it ready. Thanks Kameron!

We rolled out the dough, brushed on some butter and spread the cinnamon mixture out evenly. Then we rolled it up, cut them in slices and stuck them in the fridge overnight.

Then the next morning we popped them in the oven for 15 minutes and while they were cooking I mixed up the icing! Yum! Big doughy cinnamon rolls for a fraction of the cost of donuts or Grands and I KNOW what is inside of them! :) I can pronounce every ingredient! ha!

Do you make homemade cinnamon rolls? Stop on over to Maiathebee and find out how! :) Tell her hi!