FreezEasy Programs

Y'all, I want to tell you about one of the BEST freezer cooking sites out there, FreezEasy! This site has some amazing monthly meal plans available, or you can also build your own plan based on your family's preferences. The greatest part is that she has something on the site for everyone's dietary needs - from Paleo to Whole Thirty - From Gluten-Free to Dairy Free... she has them all covered. Each recipe will also tell you how to swap out things where it's needed to make them fit your allergy or diet guidelines. You can also go, here, for a FREE Freezer Meal Success Guide.

The greatest part is that once you build your plan, you can immediately print out the shopping list, prep list, and get everything into your freezer within a couple hours of returning from the store! The genuis part of this site is that you can also adjust the size of the recipes to the number of portions you want - so it works great for small or larger families. 

I highly recommend joining this site, and taking advantage of all that freezer cooking can save you on those busy school nights... you can be prepped and ready as sports practices pick up and things get busier as the fall moves on. 

I've used this site for a long time, and have some recipes that have become tried and true family favorites -- the Pollo Asado -- is a GREAT addition to our recipe list. Another couple that we have loved has been the Lasagna Bake, and the Greek Chicken Bake. I'm working through some more of the freezer to Instant Pot meals right now because that is such a convenient way to prep meals rather than having to thaw it out in advance. If you're new to the Instant Pot style of cooking - there are also an Electric Pressure Cooking 101 class and the My Efficient Kitchen class offered as well. 

In addition to the regular freezer plans -- she also has a great resource in the Stork Your Freezer programs for new Moms. I would have LOVED to have been given a shower where people could have filled my freezer full of all sorts of meals for when my babies were born. There are so many ways to work this style of shower, but if I could have left meals for the new mommy while also coming home with some of my own... how GREAT would that be!? My vision for that would be to have people double up on a meal in their plan for the mom-to-be, and then take the rest home... and if every couple of guests chose a different meal plan... even better!

Here are the different meal plans to choose from for Stork Your Freezer Showers:

  
 



Last, but not least, Erin also has a Grocery Budget Makeover program that will rock your world. I've taken the course, and LOVED it. I'm still whittling down our budget, but I can't recommend this program enough to those that need it.

Intentional Bites

I want to tell you about an amazing new planner that is hitting the market very soon! I've got an advanced copy so that I can help get the word out about it. The Intentional Bites Planner is going to be a game changer!

The idea behind this planner is that no two bodies respond to the same things, and we all have our own challenges that we are trying to combat. Erin, the creator of the planner has a great video on the waiting list page that explains her inspiration. With this product, you can work through some planning pages to discover your goals, and then you can track your daily food intake as well as how you are feeling as you make necessary changes to your meals. In addition, you can track your grocery lists and meal plan both weekly and monthly!

I'm filling out my planner this weekend as I begin to uncover my new food goals in relation to my health journey. I am tired of trying every diet out there, no longer am I going to try to live my life around my diet... I'm going to change my eating plan to fit my life. I won't be cutting out entire food groups anymore -- I'll just learn how to work in the things that I want while continuing to work toward my goals.

I've done every diet in the book -- from the cabbage soup diet, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Atkins, and 21 Day Fix containers -- you name it... I've tried it. Some I was set up to fail from the very beginning with the ultra-restrictive nature and burn out... others just weren't good at preparing you for a life after their plan. I once begged for a plan for Christmas and failed it before the end of the first day because I was STARVING... so I ended that day gorging on pizza. I've felt every sort of sting of disappointment. Now it's time to try something completely different.

Does this sound like something you'd like to do too? Get yourself on the waiting list for the Intentional Bites Planner today! Then follow along on our journey to health here... in addition to using the planner - I'm reading the book Intuitive Eating so I'll be working through my overall food demons with that as well. I'll be posting pictures and more about our weekly intentional eating prep-work too!

Minecraft Cake

We decided to brave the world of making our own birthday cake for Tyler's birthday party because we are gluttons for punishment. It truly became one of those "let's make the cake, they said. how hard can bit be, they said..." 

In the end, the birthday boy was thrilled... and it wasn't a Pinterest Fail of epic proportions. 

We started off researching what we needed to make and collecting supplies. We made a 4 layer cake that started with a 12x12x2 inch cake pan... in reality, we cut about 2 inches off of it so it was 10 inches on each side and 8 inches high when it was all said and done.

To make cakes of this size, each layer required a double batch of cake... so for ours, each layer represents 2 cake mixes. We chose to do 2 layers of white and 2 layers of chocolate cake. 

We started making our cake on the Tuesday before the party (Saturday) -- on that day we only made the cakes. We let the cakes rest the night in our cube-shaped cooler that John layered delicately with cooling racks and cake pans.

On Wednesday, we made our butter-cream icing and built the main structure of the cake. We used the Wilton recipe made with shorting (we did the variation for stiff white butter-cream) because we wanted to make sure that the structure of the cake wouldn't be susceptible to falling over if it got to be room temperature while sitting at the party. It took about 3 double batches of icing to cover the entire cake. I used a pastry bag and a cake frosting tip to make this easier on myself. We also chose to dye the frosting brown so that you wouldn't see white if there were any gaps in our fondant pixels. From here, the cake was placed in our outside refrigerator.

On Thursday, we dyed all of our fondants - we ended up with 3 shades, 3 shades of brown, and gray. To cover this entire cake, we used one 5 pound box of Wilton White Decorator Preferred Fondant. John made a template (yes, we would share if asked) in Excel that told us the total number of squares we would need and then we were able to break it down by how many of each shade we would need.

On Friday, we cut out a billion and one fondant pixels. We used a cookie cutter of sorts that allowed us to cut nine 1 inch squares of fondant each time you cut. We had to use some powdered sugar in place of flour while rolling out our pixels. We placed them on sheet trays and then into the fridge for the night. We were a bit worried about the fondant falling off the cake before the party - so we opted to put them on the cake that morning. By the end of the night Friday:

1. We printed our templates and put them on our cookie sheets 
2. We put a layer of wax paper on top (starting with the top layer of the cake)
3. We filled in our pixels and made sure to stick the fondant squares together - start with the top of the cake as that is the last layer you adhere to the cake
4. Repeat with a template for the sides and wax paper
5. As each layer was finished we took the wax paper and layered them all on to one cookie sheet
6. We let the 5 walls chill overnight in our refrigerator

Saturday morning (at like 10:30 -- the party was at 12), we did the final adhering to the sides of the cake. We put our layers of pixels (one side at a time) on the back of a cookie sheet. We gently brushed it with water, and positioned them onto the cake - then we took a fondant smoother to press the sides into the butter-cream on the cake. When you adhere the top, you don't need to brush it with water - and we used an extra cake board so that we could just flip it over onto the top of the cake.

It didn't end up perfectly, but for our very first attempt at cake decorating -- it went pretty well!

Tyler's Aunt, Susan, made the Creeper, Steve, and pig for the top of the cake... he was thrilled with how it turned out. 

If you decide to make one of these on your own, please let us know and we'd be happy to pay our lessons learned forward and help you as much as we can! 

Kitchen Hacks

I am working really hard these days on getting more and more efficient - I've got lots to say on this as I simplify and set up new practical systems within my home. Below you'll find 3 things that I've used to help get me on the right track!



My first main kitchen hack is using the My FreezEasy system for getting meals into my freezer on a regular basis to tame dinner time! There are so many options to choose from within this system. The basic plan puts out 8 new menus a month with several different dietary options to chose from 20 meals, traditional, slow cooker, gluten-free, clean eats,  -- there is also a chicken only, pork chop only, and ground beef only plans. The premium membership allows you to make your own plans from scratch (what I do most often), swap meals from the monthly menus with family favorites, and you get new menus each month. There is also the mobile app that you can use from your phone!

My second hack is the ALL NEW My Efficient Kitchen Class that Erin has developed. Are you stressed out about all the things that are needed from you in the kitchen? Are you ready to tame the witching hour? Want to learn some great time-saving tips from a busy mom of 4 active boys? This is the class for you. 

Here is what you get from your $19 investment:

• 11 Short, But Impactful Lessons so you can watch when you have a few minutes, and absorb all the wisdom and practical tips

• Downloadable Worksheets for the Lessons so you can fully digest the material and make decisions on what to change or tweak next

• Simple Strategies for Purpose-Filled Kitchen so you can get to the dinner table without losing your mind

• Definition of Overwhelm so you can recognize when it’s coming and then push through it

• Clarity on Decision Fatigue and how it affects your brain at the witching hour

• Make the One Step Ahead Concept a Part of Your Daily Routine so you never feel like you’re spinning backward

• In-depth Look at the Greatest Cooking Hacks so you can figure out what will help you best (where you are right now)

• Immediate & Continued Access to the class so you can get started right away and come back to review or refresh at any time

After learning what Erin has to say about Instant Pots (Electric Pressure Cookers) -- you may also want to check out her Electric Pressure Cooking 101 class -- Here is what your $12 investment gets you: 

Journey to Tame the Kitchen

I've been trying to Tame several things within my kitchen since last summer sometime. If you've been around for a while -- you might remember my freezer cooking journey back early last year or the late part of 2015... back then I was planning and making a bunch of recipes and it would take 1 day to shop, another day to prep, and then 12ish hours to make those meals. That system was called Once A Month Meals. It was very time and labor intensive.

 It often left me thinking... there HAS to be a better way to do this. Who has 12 hours to stand in the kitchen -- even if it did speed up the rest of your month's meals. The other issue was that you'd make their recipes to their completion, which often left us eating things that were overdone by the time we reheated them.

That's when I learned about Erin Chase and all of her programs -- and I'm a super fan-girl of everything she does! I found her just about the time she launched My FreezEasy... it's been an amazing -- you literally can make 10 amazing meals in 1 hour! She has preset meal plans for the month - or you can get a membership to be able to swap meals out for ones that your family might like better than the ones on the preplanned menus. Additionally, she now has an app you can use on your phone or iPad too!

She has a plan for most major dietary concerns:

• Traditional Plan
• Gluten Free Plan
• Clean Eats Plan
• Slow Cooker Plan
• 20 Meals Plan
• Zaycon Fresh Plan
• All Chicken Plan
• All Ground Beef Plan
• All Pork Chops Plan 

** The great thing is that every month you get ALL new recipes planned!

With the Premium membership (I have this one) you can go through a database of all the previous recipes and swap out the ones that don't interest you -- or you can even make a plan completely from scratch! I've made two completely from scratch plans and it takes no time at all -- just the time it takes for you to look through the recipes and choose the 5 you want to make! 

Did you get an Instant Pot for Christmas and not really know what to do with it? Yep, Erin has a class coming up to help you get all of the ins and outs of using and cleaning your instant pot. It's on pre-order right now at a very reasonable price -- I'm signed up and can't wait! The start Date for the Electric Pressure Cooking 101 Class is set for January 24th. These classes will be short for your busy life, and you will be able to watch them at your convenience.

Click on this image to make it larger

 Finally, the last thing I wanted to tell you about is something that I did last fall. I took part in Erin's Grocery Budget Makeover Class -- it is a 13 week program that teaches you how to meal plan, and make the most out of your grocery shopping game. She covers couponing, sale cycles, and so much more! She breaks down every part of the grocery shopping experience and teaches you how to get the most bang out of your buck!  Think of this as the Dave Ramsey class for the Grocery Budget! One of the great things about this program is that Erin makes it available to you to retake it or go back over the information if you need a refresher at any time! You really have nothing to lose!

You can combine all three of these different AMAZING services like I have... and I will look for what protein is on sale for the week, and I'll try to make a Freezer Meal Plan based on that protein source and stash those away for all the busy weeknights when Mom feels the need to pull something out of the freezer instead of starting completely from scratch! I call that a Busy Mom WIN!

Tyler's Dinosaur Birthday Party

A little over a week ago, our younger son had his 6th birthday party at our house. Tyler was dead set on having a Star Wars party up until about 3 weeks before his party when he changed to a dinosaur party. John had the best time coming up with names for the food and games for the kids to play. 

  

We've been doing Beachbody for a couple of months - so we kept the food on the lighter side for this party, and I think all of our guests were happy with the result. 

We had: dinosaur print cookies, a veggie-saurus tray, herbivore mix (salad),

 and a fruit-ivore tray

We also had:  bronto burgers, pterodactyl burgers, dino dogs, fire & ice (was a raspberry chipolte dip, and Jurassic crunch (make your own trail mix)

 Lastly we had Prehistoric Punch (Sprite, Ginger Ale, Lime sherbet, and pinapple juice), Caveman Brew (iced tea), and Tricera-Toppings for the burgers

My little man's birthday cake

Some of Tyler's guests eating lunch with him

We had a Dino-dig where each of the kids went home with:

 3 dinosaur skeletons, 3 gems, and some seashells.

We had "Pin the Tail on the Dinosaur" which I bought from Etsy.

True story on this was we were going to get it printed from Fed-Ex Kinkos, but they wanted $50 for printing it -- so we got the poster sized print made at Walgreens for a fraction of the cost. It was like $14 vs the $50 from Kinkos! The item from Etsy came with the tails that you could print and write the kids' names on or we used the option to print their names on them... then I laminated them the night before the party. 

Feed the T-Rex toss

My sister in law - Susan - made the Feed the T-Rex Toss game for us, and our niece - Taylor - sewed the bean bags. The kids had a ball feeding the T-Rex, so it was a big hit!

Dino Egg Relay

We let them have a egg & spoon race in teams - they were hilarious! The winning team got  a prize. 

Party Favor Bags

Each of the kids under 12 got: a pencil & eraser set, a tattoo, a couple of dino print cookies, their dino dig spoils, a plastic dinosaur, 2 hatchable dino eggs, and I think that's all. 

The 12 and over crowd - which were my little brother, little sister, and 2 nieces -- got 2 dino print cookies, and a note from Tyler with $5. We didn't think they'd want the toys... but oddly enough the 3 girls -- did leave with some toys because they wanted them too. 

Next up was gift time! 

He got some AMAZING Star Wars Lego sets, Jurassic World Lego sets, Jurassic World toys, Star Wars books/sticker sets, Dinosaur Toys, a remote controlled B-B8, a Magic School Bus Dinosaur experiment kit, and I'm sure some things I forgot to mention. We are so grateful for everyone that came and shared in the day with our special boy!

Lastly, of course we had to sing and have cake -- it was a great time and we are so blessed to be able to celebrate our little man with all of his favorite friends and family.

New Year, New Me

This year, I've decided to try the Trim Healthy Mama Plan - and totally revamp the way that my family looks at food. For years we have done the no carb thing -- or left off some food group in the hope that we could get healthier. This year, I think I've found the secret that I've been looking for.

It's not about complete elimination of a food group all together, but just changing the way that you combine and fuel your body. This has amazing promise to help not only with trimming our waistlines, but also helping with lessening my chronic illnesses as well! So if you're out there wondering how to help reverse the insulin resistance or diabetes that is plaguing your body... I'm telling you that you owe it to yourself to check this book out and read it with a new outlook on eating.

There is still much to learn from this book in my journey, but we are starting this week with breakfasts and snacks -- then next week we will add in lunches, and finally in week 3 we will add in dinners... somewhere in there we will also add in exercise too.

I sat there over the weekend basically feeling completely overwhelmed by the meal planning aspect of this plan -- mainly because I want to make sure that we have everything we need on hand instead of being caught off-guard and needing to make bad choices just for the sake of serving a meal. When I finally found someone else's guide to starting the plan -- I found my saving grace. I was sitting there dumbfounded over needing to plan all of this out... but then I realized that it was going to be okay to just get one or 2 meals a day planned for this first week.

I'm also working on adding more water to my daily intake. I've cut WAY back on Cokes and Dr. Peppers -- but I want to get them completely gone again like they were at the end of the summer. I've only had one here any there since I quit them in July... but they really aren't good for you so I'd like to get them cut completely. If you're sitting there thinking that you can't possibly live without them -- just know that I was right there with you initially. I didn't think there was a world without having one every other day or so... but I'm here to tell you that I really don't miss them much at all when I'm not on them. I think I had one craving which is where I initially had one, but I really didn't enjoy it like I did before... so trust me there is a world afterwards.

I made this document for meal planning with Trim Healthy Mama -- so I'm going to add the image to this page, but if you find that it is not in a good printable format -- please contact me, and I'd be thrilled to share it with you! 

My other main addition for 2016 so far has been that I'm doing a Bible reading challenge with my family -- my sisters & Dad are on board with me -- and we are reading 3 chapters of the New Testament each day for 90 days -- which will get us from Matthew through Revelations by the end of March. We are only on day 4 -- so please feel free to jump in with us, and let me know that you're reading with us so that I can check in with you from time to time. We are using the Bible Progress app to track our progress -- it's a free Apple app -- but I'd bet there is one for Android phones as well.

My final 2016 goal for now to share with you... is that I'm going to do my level best to be back on this ol' blog of mine as much as possible. Right now my goal is to post at least every weekday, but I'd like to get back to doing it daily as part of my regular routine... so bare with me while I knock the old cob webs off this site, and my fingers... I hope that you'll like where our journey on this page is about to take us, and that you'll jump in to let me know that you're here with us! 

Friday Favorites - School Treats/Lunches

Today we're going to talk about School Treats & Lunches on this 'ol blog. As a homeschooler - I don't have to worry about peanut allergies and such as much as other families do, but we do occasionally have parties and things that we worry about allergies. The truth of it though is that lunches for kids are so easy to get caught in a rut. I know my kids are just picky enough that it's normally the same old thing.

1) The first idea that I love is having a snacking station or lunch making station in your house -- where there are good ideas for your children to choose from and grab on their own. Have several options and allow them to choose for themselves. I've even seen it where they have categories where the kids choose 1 item from section A, 2 from B, and 1 from C... that sort of thing is great for empowering your kids to make their own healthy choices.

2) I also love the idea of using those silicone cupcake liners to help make a bento style lunch with lots of little things combined into one lunch. I've never tried this, but I've even heard when you're at home if you serve a lot of little things in muffin tins -- kids will eat more than they would off of a plate. For this discussion though, I like the idea of them getting a little variety of things - think of the possibilities if you just change out one item everyday. For instance - if you send them with berries, a quesadilla, some crackers, and carrots... if you just change the berries and carrots to celery -- it's a whole different lunch with the same crackers & quesadilla. You get the idea. You could make the same main dish for the lunch and make several of them... then just change out the sides for that week.

3) I love the clothespin butterfly snacks too - which could easily be added to your child's lunch too. I've seen them with grapes, strawberries, goldfish, and cheese... but you could use whatever your child likes. Raisins would be good in this too blueberries, cherry or grape tomatoes, cereal, whatever you can fit in the bag. Use a snack sized bag -- put one item on the left side and one on the right. Then you put a clothespin in the middle and it looks like a butterfly. I've seen the faces just drawn on different color clothespins and antennas added... but I thought these with the pompoms were super cute!

4) I love that there are so many options these days, I mean when we were kids -- you were stuck pretty much with a sandwich, chips, fruit, and a cookie... or some small variation on that. Now parents are much more creative, and you can almost do anything. I wasn't a sack lunch kid very often when I was young, but occasionally - I'd take some soup in a thermos... now you can do that... you could make a big batch of mac & cheese on the weekend and let them take that. You can send them with soup, you can send just about anything and keep it warm these days.

5) The same goes for ways to keep lunches cool. I love the idea of freezing a damp sponge and packing that with your child's lunch to keep things cool... and as it melts, it naturally sucks up the liquid back into itself. I used to freeze my water/juice box/Caprisun to keep my lunches cool. I've also seen some smoothies being added to lunch boxes for the same purpose... it's genius! By the time lunch rolls around -- unless your child is the unlucky ones that have to eat at 10:30 -- it's defrosted and perfect for their meal.

6) I'm all about the freezer cooking these days -- so I also saw this link of recipes you can freeze ahead of time for lunches. I hope that this helps some of you get on top of lunch for the week by prepping it on the weekend. Any of you into the whole food movement over the prepackaged items will love this set of recipes -- it's from the 100 Days of Real Food blog. I've also seen corn dogs made out of mini hot dogs in muffin tins -- those would be a GREAT prep ahead item!

7) For sports teams and school parties -- you just can't go wrong with rainbow fruit cups, fruit cups that are store bought then decorated with the theme, or any of these ideas from pinterest...

- Peanut Free School Lunch Ideas

- Classroom Halloween Party Snack Ideas

- Thankgiving/Fall Classroom Snack Ideas

- Grinch K-Bobs (#4 on the list)

- Christmas Treat Ideas

- Birthday Cake Popcorn

- Creative Team Snacks

- Healthy Team Snacks

- 10 Healthy Snack Ideas for Sports Teams

- More Creative Team Snack Ideas

Remember to check with your school or coaches to find out about any food allergies... it's no fun to be turned away after making something special for the kids... or to be the one that can't participate because of an allergy. 

Next week we will be talking about our Favorite Animated Movies... so start thinking about what your favorites are either new or old.

 

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