Menu Planning Monday #2

We've got a tight grocery budget again this payday so I wanted to use what I could find on sale at the grocery store along with using up all the things we have in the house already before buying a lot of new food items. Here is my menu plan for the next couple weeks. Some of these will inevitably end up giving us plenty of leftovers so I have not assigned a specific day to any of them. I like the ability to change my mind on which dinner menu to use based on how much time I have available or if we have guests and such. For breakfasts we will have things like oatmeal, pancakes, breakfast burritos, quesadillas, etc. For lunch we will have things like sopita, sandwiches, wraps, bean burritos, Ramen noodles or other simple things I think up along the way. We usually always have fruit with breakfast and lunch and veggies or salad with dinner.

frozen pizzas
hot dogs, homemade baked beans, rice
tandoori chicken, peas, potatoes and rice, curry cauliflower
pinto beans, greens, rice
Jamaican Style red beans and rice, corn muffins
potato soup, salad
Jambalaya, salad
Italian sausage, with peppers and onions, penne pasta
spaghetti with Italian sausage, broccoli
chicken spaghetti
homemade pizzas

Cleaning Day

In anticipation of getting back into our full time school schedule on Monday I decided to do some serious cleaning today. The main areas of focus were the kitchen and the laundry.

Normally, when I decide to do a day of cleaning, the one area I choose will look great but unfortunately, unless my husband is home to keep an eye on the girls, once they finish their chores, the rest of the house can go downhill really fast. Playing while Mama is busy is hard work after all! :0)

The cool thing is today was not like that at all. For some reason my girls thought it would be fun to help me! They have been working hard right alongside me all day and all I can say is that I am one proud Mama! :0)

Here's my 8 year old organizing the closet in the girls bedroom.


Any my 6 year old tackling Mt. Laundry in the front room.


And my 4 year old organizing the DVD pile under the TV.


I'm so proud of them! Did I say that already? I think I did. :0)

While they were attending to these jobs I was hard at work in the kitchen. I still have a few things to do like really scrub the stove top and put away a couple of piles on the island, but for the most part I'm pretty happy with how it is looking.

I'm especially happy about the sink! I love an empty sink. I rarely if ever see the bottom of mine. In fact I honestly don't recall the last time it was totally empty.


Well, I'm off to handle a few more odds and ends around the house and prep for dinner then I think the girls and I will relax a while and enjoy a movie together. I pray you all are having a blessed day!

No More Nap Time?

A couple days ago I went to put our one year old down for her nap and was very surprised when she just cried and cried. I figured maybe since my husband was at home that day it just upset her routine and I let her get up and have some time with her daddy. The following day we woke up late and my husband was home so I let her skip her nap and then yesterday we were out all day so she missed her nap again. I thought that today she's probably be VERY tired and want to nap longer than usual. However, I was wrong. Not only did she cry (she finally fell asleep after 30 minutes) but she slept only about an hour. I am having a hard time believing that she might be ready to stop her daily afternoon nap. She is only a year and a half old so I would think she'd have at least a year before she would not need to nap every day any more. Maybe I am jumping the gun. I will have to see how she does over the next several days. I may allow her to stay up a little later and wake her up earlier to encourage her to continue her napping because I know she really needs the rest. My baby is growing up too fast!

New Chores System

Chores can be a tricky thing to work out in a household. I am always changing how we do our chores. For the most part we have always just worked together to get things done. My girls help according to their ability. However, that doesn't always work well. My 8 yo will get upset because the 6 and 4 yo are not doing as much as she is. This also often leads to children taking it upon themselves to be "in charge" of their siblings to make sure that things are coming along "fairly". Which always leads to spending more time settling arguments than actually getting the chores done.

I have also tried having a rewards system for chores, however this often leads to children asking if they can earn a reward for things like brushing their teeth or throwing our their garbage. My husband and I feel as if those are not things that they should be rewarded for, but instead they are things that they need to learn to do as training for their adult lives. However, we do like to offer rewards of some sort for other chores as an incentive for them and to make things more fun. How can we find a balance?

This week, since I have been working on the homeschool schedule and charts we will be using for this school year, I decided to re-vamp our chore system. Here is how we will work our chores.

First of all, the girls have two lists on their bedroom wall. One is called the "Morning List" and the other is the "Bedtime List". Those lists are for things that each girl needs to do each day and these are not things that will gain them some kind of reward, but things they just have to do. They are also required to pick up after themselves throughout the day, there is not a reward for doing that. The lists I made look like this:

Morning List

Wake Up and get up
Make Your Bed
Put on glasses
Brush Teeth
Get Dressed
Put away your PJ’s
Put your Pull-Ups in the trash
Put any dirty clothes in the laundry room
Take your water cups to the kitchen
Straighten your room
Straighten your bathroom
Turn off your nightlight


Bedtime List

Brush your teeth
Turn on your night light
Put on PJ’s and Pull-Ups
Put dirty laundry in the laundry room
Get 2 dolls and a book
Get a cup of water
Use the potty
Kiss everyone good night
Say your prayers
Get in bed, under your covers
8 pm is time for lights out and go to sleep!

I made the lists on MS Word and added a cute graphic on top of each list.

The next things we will be doing is a reward system for chores not listed on this list. I made a master list of all of our household chores (daily, weekly and as needed). I will now assign a point value to each chore.

Each of my girls have a sticker chart to keep track of their points. For each point earned they will get one sticker. At the end of the week they will be able to cash those points in for "Daddy Dollars" and "Mommy Money". These "play money" bills that I will design on the computer and print out will be able to be cashed in for various things that the girls enjoy such as picking the movie we watch for a family movie night, a turn on the computer to play games, a chance to choose the family treats when we grocery shop, etc. I will have a list of what I will offer for the Mom Money and my husband will have a list of what he will offer for the Daddy Dollars. We will assign a point value to each of these special things.

We will also have a list of things that the children will be "fined" for if they don't do as they are supposed to such as having a bad attitude towards parents or siblings or leaving a mess for others to clean up or not finishing their school work.

My girls really thrive on these kinds of rewards systems. They love the competitive nature of it as well as the excitement of a fun reward at the end of it all. My husband and I think it is great teaching tool as well.

I can't wait to see how this all works out! We have been doing a sort of trial run of this type of system for the past few days and the house has never been cleaner and the girls are getting along really well with very minimal arguing!

Homeschool Daily Schedule

We have a kind of crazy schedule at our house. What I mean by that is my husband's work schedule changes often so it is very hard to stick to a daily schedule. However, to try to keep as much sanity as possible around here I have come up with what I hope will be a workable schedule for the days that he is at work and the kids and I are at home doing school. This schedule is designed so that we can do this 4 days a week. The other days will be more flexible and we will do things like church, visiting, having friends over, baking, do the girls hair (that can take all day, I'll post about that later), do craft projects, go to the park, field trips, errands, grocery shopping, doctor's appointments, etc... Here is what I have come up with so far. I will post the chore chart and Morning List and Bedtime List another time.

Morning Block (7 am - 10 am)

--Me--

Wake Up
Wash Up/Brush Teeth/Dress/etc.
Prayer Time
Clean Up 1 year old/Dress her
Wake Kids
Help 4 year old dress
Make Bed
Start a load of laundry
Start a load of dishes
Make breakfast
Eat Breakfast/oral Bible Lesson or read-aloud while we eat
Table Clean Up
Dinner/Food prep
Chores (varies by day, see chore chart)

--8 year old--

Morning List (see morning list)
Quiet Reading Time (Bible Devotion)
Breakfast
Table Chores
Daily Chores (varies by day, see chore chart)
Play with or read to 1 year old

--6 year old--

Morning List (see morning list)
Quiet Reading Time (Bible Devotion)
Breakfast
Table Chores
Daily Chores (varies by day, see chore chart)
Play with or read to 1 year old

--4 year old--

Morning List (see morning list)
Quiet Reading Time (Bible Devotion)
Breakfast
Table Chores
Daily Chores (varies by day, see chore chart)
Play with 1 year old

--1 year old--

Wake up/get washed up/dressed
Baby Bible (look at or read to by a sister)
play time
breakfast
"Quiet sitting training" during Bible Study or read-aloud

Morning School Block 11 am - noon

--Me --

Help kids with lessons

8 year old - Copywork or cursive, Spelling, Read To Mama, Language
6 year old - Copywork, Spelling, Read to Mama, Language
4 year old - play with 1 year old, color, blocks, Sunshine Market, books, play kitchen, baby dolls, doll house, etc.
1 year old - play with 4 year old, color, blocks, Sunshine Market, books, play kitchen, baby dolls, doll house, etc.

Lunch - noon- 1pm

me - make lunch, eat lunch/read-aloud during or supervise hands on Bible Lesson while I make lunch
kids - eat, listen to read aloud during lunch or do hands on Bible lesson while I make lunch

Afternoon Block - 1 pm - 5 pm

---Me---

Help kids with lessons
Change laundry load
Blog/email/make grocery list/sort a box/rest/phone calls/sew/etc.
Make dinner if needed or warm up leftovers, make side dish for crock pot meal

---8, 6 and 4 year old---
Math, History, Science
finish up any un-done chores
play time

---1 year old---
nap

Evening Block - 5 pm - 8 pm

--Me--

Make dinner
Wash a load of dishes
Change laundry load
Eat dinner
Table chores
Bathe little ones
Put away some laundry
Talk time with husband when he arrives home from work
read kids a story/family time

---8 year old---
shower
dress for bed
eat dinner
table chores
play time/story time/Daddy time/family time
bedtime list (see bedtime list)

---6 year old---
shower
dress for bed
eat dinner
table chores
play time/story time/Daddy time/family time
bedtime list (see bedtime list)

---4 year old---
bath
dress for bed
eat dinner
table chores
play time/story time/Daddy time/family time
bedtime list (see bedtime list)

---1 year old---
bath
dress for bed
eat dinner
play time/story time/Daddy time/family time
bedtime list (see bedtime list)

Night Time Block 8 pm - 10 pm

--me--

change laundry load
shower/prepare for bed
prep for next school day/check papers
Bible reading
time with husband
go to sleep by 10 pm

---all children---
go to sleep