Questions for you...

Well since today is backward edition of WFMW I have a few questions to ask of my readers.

1. We will be debt free by May of this year and will only be paying rent for our house thereafter. We rent from my in-law's and we get a great deal. We would really like to stay here even though the house is small (a little over 1000 sq ft) and start aggressively saving to build or buy our first home. So my question is how can I make the most of the space I have for living, storage, and with kids? We just recently had our second child and the house only has 2 small bedrooms and 1 bath. I would love to here from some of you who have been in this situation before as well as those who have tips on storage. (We have a lot of baby clothes!!!)
   
2. My 15 month old has a "thing" for her pacifier. And by "thing" I mean she is addicted to it and there is no living with out it for her. I would really like to break her from it before her second birthday. Any tips on how I might accomplish this great task I have before me??

I can't wait to hear from you!!!

WFMW: Handy Little Storage Item

Recently my mom bought me a new red dish drainer for my kitchen counter. Using my old drainer I came up with this handy little storage item for my saucepan lids. I hate digging through the cabinet looking for the matching lid to a pot I am using at the time. This is a great way to keep them accessible!!

November Freezer Cooking/Baking Day

It looks like everyone is cooking up a storm this week!! Crystal at Money Saving Mom and Jessica at Life As Mom are hosting a Freezer cooking/Baking day today and tomorrow. While everyone else is starting their freezer cooking today, I'll begin mine tomorrow and finish Friday. I did my shopping for the month today so my pantry is stocked and ready to go. Here is a list of what I hope to accomplish.

Baking List:

1. Pinto beans for the freezer
2. Refried beans for the freezer
3. Rice for the freezer
4. Waffles for the freezer (x 2)
5. Cooked chicken for the freezer
6. Cooked hamburger meat for the freezer
7. Hamburger patties for the freezer
8. Chocolate chip cookies
9. Heath bar cookies
10. Peanut butter cookies
11. Deviled eggs

Master To-Do List:

Wednesday-

1. Soak beans overnight (Tuesday night)
2. Soak rice overnight (Tuesday night)
3. Put beans in crockpot
4. Put rice in rice cooker
5. Put chicken in crockpot
6. Mix up waffle batter
7. Start baking waffles
8. Fry up hamburger meat
9. Make up hamburger patties and flash freeze
10. Do a quick clean up
11. De-bone chicken and chop up
12. Make refried beans
13. Bag everything up for the freezer
14. Clean up

Friday-

1. Defrost cookie dough in freezer (Thursday night)
2. Boil eggs
3. Mix up chocolate chip cookie and start baking
4. Mix up peanut butter cookies and continue baking
5. Prepare deviled eggs
6. Put everything in airtight containers and clean up

All of Friday's cooking is for Thanksgiving dinner with my family on Saturday.

WFMW: Building a Family Library

Building our family library has and will continue to be a priority for Eric and myself. We plan to homeschool our children in the future and having a large library available to them is important to us. We do try and be frugal by checking out books that we are not sure of from our local library. Then if we decide that the book would be beneficial to our home we search for the best price and purchase it for our home.

This is the bookcase in our living room. We have many more books stored in our nightstands and in cabinets at my husbands office. Hopefully when we build (or buy) our next house we will have a library room set up. That is just a dream of mine though. :-)

This is the bookcase in Olivia's room. She has several more books that are not on this shelf but children's book is definitely where we need to start building up our library.

Here are just a few of the websites we like to purchase books from online.

amazon.com

libraryanded.com

(You have to homeschool or be in ministry at your church to set up an account with them.)

christianbook.com

visionforum.com

WFMW: Laundry Room

We live in a very small rental home at this time but I have to say I love the size of my laundry room/office. The space is very open and has lots of natural light coming in from the many windows. There are tons of cabinets and storage space and a great counter for folding. The only thing that I disliked was the fact that there was no where to hang clothing. My mom and I were talking about this one day last month and she offered me a wonderful hanging rack (pictured above). This works so well for hanging clothes straight out of the dryer (I dislike ironing) and for hanging wet items to dry. Now I have the perfect laundry room and that is what works for me!!

WFMW: Carpet Cleaning Tip

If you have kids and carpet than all of you have to deal with spots. One of the best things I have found for getting up stains is Resolve and a toothbrush. Just spray directly on the stained carpet and scrub for a few minutes with the toothbrush. This almost always gets the spot right up especially if you get to it as soon as the spill/spit up happens. This tip keeps me from having to shampoo my carpets several times a year and it has saved our family tons of money.

WFMW: Home Management Binder

Here is a glimpse of my Home Management Binder. I have been working on it for a few months now and I think I've finally finished for now. I kept things rather plain and simple but plan on adding/changing things later on as I get more ideas. I keep all my loose bible study papers and printed articles in this folder.

I have 5 categories tabbed.

1. 
   
   
   Current Week (Daily schedule, calender for the month, day of the week list)



2. 
   
   
   Menu Planning (Menu for the month, meal ideas list, shopping list)



3. 
   
   
   Cleaning List (A list of cleaning projects for the week, month, yearly)



4. 
   
   
   Finances (Our budget for the month and a bill pay calender)



5. 
   
   
   Projects (Master to-do list, projects ideas for the year)
   
   

This binder helps me to stay organized and gives me something to reference when life gets hectic. This definitely works for me!!

WFMW: Sam's Club Deals

I was picking up a few items at our local Sam's Club today and came across some great deals on fall clothing for kids.

Here are three Carter outfits that my MIL picked up for Olivia. They were $6 each!!



I bought this today for baby boy and also payed $6 for this Carters outfit.



Sam's Club is definitely what Works for Me today.

WFMW: Grocery Store Sale Ads

Every Wednesday we get our local store ads in the mail. Since I do my grocery shopping on Mondays this gives me several days to look through them and match coupons to the sales. Even if the coupons are not that great I can still shop the sales and save a lot on my grocery bill. This is what works for me and my family to help us save money in that area of our budget.

WFMW: Summer Recipes Edition

Everyone is posting their favorite summer recipes over at WeAreThatFamily and I decided to join in too.

No-Cook Banana Pudding

1 big box and 1 small box of vanilla instant pudding (The 5.1oz and 3.4oz)

31/2 to 4 cups milk

1 14oz. can of sweetened condensed milk

1 16oz. Cool Whip

2-4 bananas (Depending on how much you like bananas)

2 packages of vanilla wafers ( My favorite brand is Jackson Old Fashioned)

First add pudding and milk in a large bowl and beat with mixer until you have a good pudding consistency. Then add sweetened condensed milk and cool whip and fold them in with pudding. Choose a large bowl or truffle bowl to layer this into. I start with a layer of vanilla wafers, bananas, then pudding on top and end with a layer of wafers. Chill overnight and enjoy!!

Smore Cake

Use the same amount of pudding, milk, Cool Whip, and sweetened condensed milk as in the recipes above and make another pudding mixture.

You will also need:

2 boxes of graham crackers ( It usually takes a little more than one box)

1 tub of chocolate icing.

Use a 9x13 baking dish and layer alternating graham crackers then pudding till you have used all your pudding. (about three layers) Heat your icing in the microwave till it is thin and runny. Pour it over the top of your layers and chill in the refrigerator overnight. This is a favorite with kids!

My To-Do List or a least what I hope to accomplish....

I so enjoy reading other blogs when you share your to-do list for the day and what you have accomplished. I feel encouraged to see other women working hard to bring order into their homes. So to help me be accountable today I have decided to post a to-do list for myself and see if this works for me.

1. Dust the whole house (done)
2. Windex all the mirrors (done)
3. Fold or hang three loads of clean laundry (done)
4. Vacuum out my window seals (done)
5. Cut up a watermelon, cantaloupe, and strawberries and store in fridge (done)
6. Cook ground turkey for spaghetti tonight (done)
7. Run a few errands: bank, wal-mart, library, and return movie rental (done)
8. Work on lesson for ladies bible study (done)

I'll be back later with progress and maybe a few other things to add to my list.

* I was able to accomplish all the above plus wash all the supper dishes before we left for church. I plan on posting more to-do list in the future.

A Short Little Blogging Break

I have decided to take a bit of a blogging break for the rest of the week. After coming home from vacation this past weekend I have needed a few days to recover (sleep). We just found out that we are expecting baby #2 and I am already starting to feel the morning sickness coming on. We are very excited though and it looks like baby ?? will be here some time in January. Please keep me in your prayers. I spent the first 22 weeks of my last pregnancy dealing with horrible morning sickness and heartburn. One thing that I am trying with this pregnancy is to eat about 6 small meals/snacks a day and try to make sure they are full of protein (nuts, peanut butter crackers, cheese, tuna on crackers, etc...) It seems like it is working for me!! I hope to be back blogging by next week but I may be a little infrequent depending on how sick I become.

WFMW: Google Reader

This has to be one of my favorite things that works for me. I am an avid blog reader and for a busy homemaker and momma it can be time consuming. Google Reader has helped save me so much time and effort and it is another part of my life that is organized. When I sit down at my scheduled time each day it is so nice to open it up and see each new post set up like e-mails ready for me to read. All you have to do is set up a google account, add blog URLs to your subscriptions,(you can type in the URL or copy and paste them) and sit down to enjoy some wonderful reading!!

Works For Me Wednesday is over at WEARETHATFAMILY.COM

WFMW: Daily Chores

A couple of months ago I had in my weekly schedule a specific day for house cleaning. Since Olivia arrived last fall it seemed like cleaning day was my stressful day. Trying to get everything accomplished with a crying baby on my hands just wasn't going to work. So I decided to spread my chores out to individual days of the week.

Daily Chores:

Monday- Grocery Shopping and clutter-free the house

Tuesday- Clean the bathroom

Wednesday- Dust and clean mirrors and windows

Thursday- Mop and Vacuum

Friday- Wash and change sheets

Saturday- Yard work

For more tips check out WFMW at WEARETHATFAMILY.COM.

WFMW: Tae Bo

I have been trying really hard these past few weeks to get the last of this baby weight off and it seemed like all my attempts just weren't working. Exercising is a key part for me in losing weight and walking outside with a young baby just wasn't an option. We have had a few warm days here and there and I did walk those days. I also have a treadmill, but Baby O is crawling now and I just can't stand staring at a wall while I'm walking. So while my husband and I were out this weekend I picked up a Tae Bo DVD and I love it!!! It is a fun, fast paced work-out that tones a lot of your body. I know it is working because I have woken up these past few morning as sore as I have ever been. :-) So if your looking for a wonderful work-out this is what Works For Me.

WFMW: Small Home Ideas??

Today is Backwards Day over at WeareThatFamily. So instead of a tip I will be posting a question for all you fellow bloggers who choose to comment.

This question is for all of you who have or still do live in a small home. What are some ideas or tips on organization and such that has helped you live in an orderly and clutter-free environment while still in a small home?

My husband and I live in a home that is right around 1000 sq ft and we have one child. Right now the only thing we struggle with is very little closet space. The issue is if we continue as we plan to and stay here for several more years while saving to build a house, things could get rather cramped. I would love to hear from you on any ideas you choose to share.

WFMW: Good Search

I have read several blogs that have been promoting Swagbucks search engine lately and so I decided to try it out. A few days later I picked up a brochure about our local children home that told different ways you could help them financially. One of the options was to use Good Search. com as your search engine and pick them as your your charity (or the charity of your choose). Every time you search from then on a penny is donated to them. This definitely Works for Me and my family as a way of giving to those in need.

For more ideas go to We Are That Family.com

WFMW: Simplify your Subscriptions

The past few months I have been intrigued by all the free magazine subscriptions that I have found. Before I knew it my mailbox was full of magazines for this month and the past few months. It seemed like everywhere I looked there was a pile of magazines. So after going through and reading several I decided to minimize them down to the most recent month only and toss the rest. It felt so good to have my magazine rack down to a decent height again. I plan to throw away each issue as soon as the other one comes in the mail. That is what Works For Me.

Check out WE ARE THAT FAMILY.com for more tips.

Works For Me Wednesday.

One of the things that has helped our home be organized is a basket by the door. My mom gave me a small basket for Christmas last year so I set it on the counter by our back door. Now every time we bring in mail, keys, cell phone, or misc. it goes right in the basket to be found (lost keys :-), filed, or put away later.