Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Art Supplies, Science Experiment Books – So Many Ideas to Keep the Kid’s Summer Fun and Productive

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Preparing For a Great Summer With Your FamilyIf I let them, my younger boys would whittle away the hours and have little to show for it. They’d dink around, goof off, waste time, and then get bored and pick on each other. My boys are fun and creative, but they still need some sort of structure during their summer days.

This week is our first official week of summer break. June and July will be quite full with church camps, family reunions, swimming, and time with cousins. The month of May is typically our time to play catch up and do some creative learning that we don’t always have time for during our August-April school year. So right now? We’re filling our boys’ days with fun productivity.

You might remember the list I posted a few weeks ago, sharing some fun ideas we plan to use to keep our boys busy:

  • Play card and board games
  • Create more music and videos
  • Play games outside
  • Learn more card tricks
  • Learn more cooking/kitchen skills
  • Get together with friends and cousins
  • Help Dad with home improvement projects
  • Read books (maybe offer a summer reading challenge?)
  • Clean out bedroom, boxing up toys they no longer play with
  • Work through a science experiment book
  • Clean out the basement (who knows what treasures will be discovered!)
  • Learn to make homemade ice cream
  • Swim often and improve water skills (while getting Vitamin D – woot!)

In addition, here are some practical lessons we’re teaching the boys this month:

  • Household chores they haven’t learned yet. Summer break is a great time to focus on teaching cleaning skills like mopping, washing windows, or anything we haven’t taken the time to show them how to do. The boys are, of course, thrilled to learn these skills. :)
  • Outdoor games. The boys received a badminton set for Christmas and can now finally set it up and use it.
  • Music lessons. A couple of my boys have shown interest in learning to play the guitar. I’m going to look into this more seriously this summer.
  • Art. I just found this Darice 80-Piece Deluxe Art Set for just $18.21, and I snatched it up. My boys really do enjoy learning to create art – I just need to take time to sit down with them and work on it.

darice art set

Regarding the science experiment books in the list above, when I mentioned this idea to my boys, they got pretty excited. Now to just find a book that will teach them and be fun. I found the TIME For Kids Big Book of Science Experiments: A step-by-step guide and thought it looked great. Anyone else have good suggestions for this?

time science

What other great ideas do you have for keeping kids learning and productive in the summer?

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Menu Plan for the Week

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Excited as I am for the Meatless Meals Freezer Cooking Challenge, I’ve not done one thing to prepare for it. We’ve been at soccer games all weekend long with not an extra moment to spare in the kitchen. In fact, I’m barely scraping meals together. Sunday lunch today was none other than tuna salad on tortillas (with mixed greens stuffed in), eaten in the five minutes we had between church and a soccer game. Shin guards and cleats were flying, let me tell you.

My goal is to (sleep and) hit the challenge hard on Monday morning, then just do a little at a time throughout the week. Since the plan is to cook for this week’s meals along with making extra for the freezer, you’ll see many of the challenge meals sprinkled throughout my menu plan.

Italian Cream Cheese Chicken

If you need a new easy meal idea, I recommend Italian Cream Cheese Chicken. :)

Sunday, May 4
Strawberry shortcake
Tuna salad on tortillas, mixed greens, sweet peppers, raspberries
Small group – grilled hot dogs and brats, potato salad and other sides people bring

Monday, May 5
Peanut butter pancakes, scrambled eggs, bananas
Bean and cheese burritos, fresh pineapple, sweet peppers
Meatless spaghetti pie (recipe in {Healthy} Make-Ahead Meals and Snacks eBook), tossed salad, green beans

Tuesday, May 6
Crock pot breakfast casserole, creamy orange cooler
Baked mac and cheese cups (recipe in {Healthy} Make-Ahead Meals and Snacks eBook), peas, fruit and kefir smoothies with spinach tossed in
Lasagna casserole, tossed salad, roasted asparagus, honey glazed carrots

Wednesday, May 7
Strawberry cream muffins, fried eggs
Calzones, pineapple mango smoothies, cucumbers with ranch
Italian cream cheese chicken, tossed salad, steamed broccoli and carrots

Thursday, May 8
Oatmeal breakfast bars, raspberries
Hamburger sauerkraut dip with chips, kiwi, blackberries
Orange chicken, baked potatoes, green beans, tossed salad

Friday, May 9
Poptarts, blueberries
Chicken tacos, tomatoes and lettuce, olives, cantaloupe
Chili mac, tossed salad, peas

Saturday, May 10
Cheesy scrambled eggs, pears
Leftovers
Grilled barbeque chicken, creamy coleslaw, cucumbers and carrots with ranch, watermelon

Have you used the grill yet this season?

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The Plan ~ Getting Ready for Freezer Cooking, Week Four – Meatless Meals

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I love meat.  My body doesn’t function well when I go too long (you know, like an entire day and a half) without eating animal protein. Beyond that, sometimes, fish or chicken just isn’t enough. There are days my body needs beef and ain’t nothin’ else gonna cut it. I think this has something to do with my tendency to become anemic and the iron red meat provides. I truly do not feel well when I’m not eating enough beef, and on the contrary, I feel very, very well and much more energetic when I am eating plenty of cow.

Therefore, when some of you suggested that we do a freezer challenge that consisted entirely of meatless meals, I was like, “What? Why would we do that? Don’t you know that meatless meals don’t have any meat in them?”

Then, I (had a hamburger) and realized that these lovely ladies who made the meatless suggestion were actually brilliant. Meatless meals are a huge money saver, and good gravy – it’s not like I need meat at every meal. I just need it at least once every day. Meatless meals rock.  Let’s make some for the freezer, shall we?

350x350_Challenge

We’ve taken a couple weeks off from freezer cooking challenges, and I don’t know about you, but I’m excited to hit it again. We’ve slowly been working our way through the {beef, chicken, and breakfast} meals I put into the freezer during the March/April challenges. The meatless freezer meal ideas I came up with are going to go together quickly and make for some super easy lunches on busy days during the next few weeks.

Here’s what is so great about the freezer cooking I plan to do:  I’ll be making a double batch of each recipe. That way, I can serve one portion of it to my family the very day I make it. Then, I’ll freeze the other portion to pull out another day. Work once, eat twice – it’s my favorite way to get ahead!

Join me!!! I want you to see how easy it is to get ahead in your real food kitchen. You’ll save money, effort, energy, time, and brain power.

Here’s what I’m planning to make, one at a time, during the next few days:

Join Our Meatless Meal Freezer Challenge!

The Grocery List

  • 32 ounces whole grain spaghetti noodles
  • 5 cups whole grain pasta – any shape
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 4 eggs
  • 4 cups (32 ounces) ricotta cheese
  • 1 cup (16 ounces) parmesan cheese
  • 8 cups (64 ounces) spaghetti sauce
  • 4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 6 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
  • 6 cups whole milk
  • 6 cups cooked black or pinto beans (or a combination of both)
  • 2 cups (16 ounces) salsa
  • 16-20 whole wheat tortillas (we like homemade tortillas)
  • 10 cups whole wheat flour
  • 9 teaspoons yeast
  • 3-4 cups pizza sauce (depending on how saucy you want your calzones)
  • veggies, olives, and other fillings for calzones
  • sea salt and pepper

I’ve created a downloadable and printable grocery list for you here:  Freezer Cooking Grocery List Four

 Who’s going to join me?

To help you out if you’re interested in some of the above recipes, the Let’s Do This! eCourse and {Healthy} Make-Ahead Meals and Snacks eBook are discounted to just $5 for the whole package. The recipes included in that package are some that we use all the time at our house to get ahead!

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Honey Glazed Carrots – Only 4 Ingredients

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High Five Recipes 2

If it looks like candy, smells like candy, and tastes like candy – it must be candy, right? Yes. Unless it’s a carrot. Then it’s a vegetable. A really, really delicious vegetable.

When a veggie tastes like candy, costs less than candy, and looks as appealing as candy – you have no more excuses to pull out about why you’re not eating vegetables. I’m not sure if you knew this or not, but carrots are also much more nutritious than candy. Yes, it’s true. That’s why you should choose veggies over candy most of the time.

This leads me to share about one of my new favorite ways to serve veggies. Honey Glazed Carrots take only a few minutes to make – so you can’t use the excuse that “it takes too long to make healthy food.” You don’t have to know a lot about cooking in order to make these, so no excuses there. What else is there? Actually, why are we even still talking about this? Just eat the veggies, for goodness sake. Here, I’ll make it easy for you:

Honey Glazed Carrots

Honey Glazed CarrotsYum

5-6 medium carrots
2 Tablespoons butter
1 Tablespoon honey
sea salt to taste

Peel carrots and cut them into “coins.” Steam them for about five minutes or until they are tender. Remove them from the pan. Melt butter and honey together in the pan until it is runny and well combined. Add the steamed carrots to the butter/honey mixture, tossing to coat. Sprinkle with salt. Serve right away.

This recipe tastes a lot like the honey glazed carrots you get at Cracker Barrel, although this recipe is better in my opinion as it’s not quite as sweet. I mean, if I want something super sweet, I’ll skip the veggies and eat candy. Which of course, I will only do rarely and that just leads us back to our original conversation. Again, why are we still talking about this? Just eat the veggies already.

Honey Glazed Carrots – better than candy in every way possible. Won’t rot your teeth, won’t turn your lips blue, won’t give you a sugar high or crash, won’t freak out your insides.

Serve these carrots with Grilled Barbecue Chicken and a salad, and you’ve got a great tasting, super easy, very nutritious meal.

So now you tell me, what’s your favorite kind of candy? Answer: Honey Glazed Carrots. Now we’re talking.

 Find More High Five Recipes here.

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How Often Do You Eat Cereal? (A Cascadian Farm Coupon, and Homemade Cereal Recipes)

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While our family doesn’t eat cereal very often, I do like to have some on hand for crazy mornings. Most cereal doesn’t offer much in the way of nutrition, but there are a few brands that are at least “better for you.” Cascadian Farm is one of those brands.

Pair it with four other Amazon Prime/Mom subscribe and save items, and you can have big savings delivered to your door. Read more here about how I use Prime/Mom to save big bucks.

cascadian farm cereal

Click here to access your Cascadian Farm Cereal Coupon.

Bear Naked is offering a coupon on many of their products at Amazon. Put this coupon together with Amazon Mom/Prime subscribe and save, and you’ll save 40%. Having this on hand for a quick breakfast or snack may be helpful for busy days.

bear naked

Want to save even more money by making homemade cereal? Here are our favorite recipes:

You’ll find an entire page of Amazon Deals here. I save a lot of money each money ordering from Amazon – and I always try to keep the Amazon Deals page updated with the latest great prices I find!

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23 Great Muffin Recipes + Free Printable Zoo Animals Muffin Toppers

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Now that spring is here, you’ve likely got outings at the park, school parties, trips to the zoo, feel like you live in the zoo. It’s a fun time of year. These printables can be downloaded (for free!), and used however you like.

Attach a toothpick and poke them down into a muffin or cupcake for a fun snack decoration. Attach a popsicle stick and let your kids use them as puppets. If your kids are old enough, let them do a little research on each animal, or on an animal of their choice. Use these as gift tags. What else can you think of to use these for?

Jungle-Animal-Toppers-prev

Yum

Download Zoo Animal Snack Toppers Here

Have fun with these, spread the word, and check out more free printables here. :)

Want some yummy muffin recipes to go with your printables? I added them up and found that I have no less than 23 muffin recipes here at Heavenly Homemakers. I love how versatile just a few ingredients can be!

23 Kid Friendly Muffin Recipes

All of these recipes are kid friendly, and they are made with wholesome ingredients.

What are your favorite muffin recipes? I know the end of the school year is quite hectic for many. How’s yours going so far?

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Don’t Be Afraid To Buy Used Appliances

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There are some items I will not buy used. Such as:

  • Shoes (won’t fit right; not good for the feet)
  • Underwear (self explanatory)
  • Hats (unless I know and love the head it’s been on)
  • Make-Up (although I don’t usually wear it anyway)

I’m sure there are items you would add to the list. Matresses, cribs, car seats – there are many items that are worth buying new. Sometimes, it’s even worth paying more for an item so that you can be sure you’re getting good quality, thus saving money in the long run.

But let me share our family’s experiences with buying used appliances…

Over the weekend, within about one hour, both our washing machine and our dishwasher quit working. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Matt was able to fix the dishwasher himself. But the washing machine? Well, it was many years old, on its last leg, and a bungee cord was the only thing that had kept it from falling apart since June 2012. Matt gave it a good shot, trying to keep it alive just a little bit longer, but in the end, he met me with the question, “You ready to go shopping for a new washing machine?”

So, go shopping we did. We were met at the door of our locally owned appliance store and shown wonderful, beautiful, shiny new washing machines. We were given all the details about their bells and whistles, and were provided with many convincing reasons for why we should buy the top of the line (especially with our four active boys).

They sounded great, actually. But the price tags?  Ouch.  Thankfully we have a line item in our budget for spur of the moment necessity purchases. But did we really need to spend that much on a fancy appliance, or would a less than the best still do the trick for us?

We really wrestled with this. When is it important to buy high quality, and when is it okay to go with a lower quality, lesser price? Ugh, and we really needed to make the decision quickly, as the laundry was piling up at home as we stood in the middle of the forest of washers and dryers. Our heads feeling as though they were in spin cycle. <— Clever, huh? I thought of that one all by myself.

Before looking much harder at the new washing machines, we asked to be taken to the back to see the used appliances they had on hand. This store has come through for us many times with their used items. Remember my used upright freezers?

Ugly though they are, they serve their purpose and sit in our storage room where no one can see them.
We were happy to pay a huge discount because they were used and ugly.
They’ve worked great for years!

One used washing machine really caught our attention. It was everything we really needed, much of what we wanted, and because it was a few years old, it was less than 1/5 of the price of the brand new ones. We asked question after question, we grilled them about what might be wrong with it, we stuck our heads in and looked for whatever people look for when they stick their heads inside a washing machine.

We listened again to the spiel trying to influence us to buy the new washer which was five times more expensive. We went home, we prayed, we looked at all the dirty laundry. We quickly came to the decision that the used washer was really all we needed. Writing the check for that was barely even painful. We got such a great deal! It was delivered and installed the next day.

Introducing, the newest member of the Coppinger Team:

washing machine

A few years old, a couple of scratches, and if you look real close, you’ll see my reflection since I was the one taking the picture. That came free with purchase.

We’ve given this washing machine quite a workout since it arrived, and it’s done great. Did we make the right decision? Oh yes, we definitely did. Even if it only has a few years of life left, we believe the amount of money we saved compared to buying new is still very worth it. And now, we have money left in our budget for any other last minute necessities. (Oh but please, no more appliances for a while.)

What has been your experience with buying used appliances? Is there anything you feel strongly about that should always be bought new?

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Natural Bug Block By MadeOn – Could It Get Any Better?

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You know my very favorite skin care/lotion that I use from MadeOn? (Beesilk Hard Lotion – what would I do without it?)  I just received a package perfect for this summer:  MadeOn Bug Block. Just opening the package and smelling the contents within made me giddy about summer. I can’t believe how good the Bug Block smells. I know Bug Block works because we’ve used it for several summers in a row. Mosquitos, back off. You’re going down.

So check this out:

bug block

It’s Bug Block in a stick form. That means it will be easier than ever to rub onto the skin. I am so excited about this! Our family is well stocked on this and ready for summer. It won’t hurt the skin because it contains only natural ingredients (76 degree naturally refined coconut oil, unbleached beeswax, naturally refined shea butter, essential oils of citronella, cedarwood, and lavender. No deet!).

The best part:  It doubles as a lotion.  Be still my heart.

Take advantage of this to get ready for summer. Mosquitos beware! We’ve got Bug Block.

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Want Free Groceries? Here’s $10 To Spend at iHerb!

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Making the transition from processed foods to whole foods can be a bit overwhelming, especially when you don’t know where to look or what to get. I continue to find wonderful online resources, and many of them offer a little bonus to get you started. iHerb is one of those sources. They give each new customer (who uses my referral code BID487) $10 free credit to use on your first time purchase of $40 or more. Better yet? Shipping is free on all orders over $20. Sweet!

Just last week I placed a $40 order – and this is what I got:

Free Groceries at iHerb

Talk about awesome – and it was delivered right to my door. All of these are ingredients I use all the time, and they are very reasonably priced. I love iHerb. (To be clear, Earthpaste is not an ingredient, it’s a super great toothpaste. No, I do not put toothpaste in my brownies. Okeedokee.)

You’ll need to use my referral code: BID487 to get your free $10 to spend at iHerb. You’ll be so glad you did. Here’s to great savings on wonderful foods!

In case you are interested in the specifics of my order, here’s what I received:

Be sure to check out the pages of super cheap trial products you can add to your cart just for fun. Go grab your free $10 and have fun shopping for great groceries!

Some of the links in this post are my referral links.

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Gratituesday: Spring Formal, Spring Fever, Spring is Here!

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gratituesday[2]

This time of year is super full and super fun. The older the boys get, the busier our days are – especially in the spring (and also in the fall, winter and summer, so really, don’t listen to a thing I’m saying about this time of year being busier).

Speaking of the boys getting older, Asa (16.5 – a junior in high school) went to Spring Formal last weekend. We are so thankful the homeschoolers in this area put together such a wonderful event for our youth. Asa headed off for the evening with some of the greatest kids on this planet. What a blessing it is to have such good friends! Several of them came by afterward to hang out, eat pizza, and watch a movie. After all, why end the evening at midnight when you can stay up until 4 in the morning? We loved it!

asa's spring formal 2014 sm

Asa is back left, just in case you weren’t sure.  :)

There is a lot of excitement at our house this week because we’re hoping to officially wrap up our school year by Wednesday. We still have some books to read, and we’ll tackle some special projects we haven’t had time for, but THIS is the reason we begin our school year the first week of August. Just about the time we all have spring fever, we complete our math and English assignments! It’s been a great year, and the boys are excited to have almost all their subjects completed. Now they are doubling and tripling up on assignments in order to be completely finished in a few days. Can’t wait!

So what have you been up to? When will your school year be finished? Are you planting a garden this spring? We haven’t even started yet, although we do have asparagus and spinach coming up on its own. Awesomeness. :)

Now your turn. Share what you’re thankful for!  Leave a comment on this post letting us know how God is working in your life. If you’ve written a blog post about what you’re thankful for, leave the link in the comments so we can visit your blog to read about it. We love sharing and reading about God’s blessings!

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