If you can't stand the heat....do it all at once with the window open in the middle of winter!

First of all OMG!!!!!! I have hit 300 followers! I am beyond excited. When I started this whole journey, I remember thinking I would never even get to 100 followers, and I was amazed when that happened! I never really thought people would care or read what I had to say, so I feel pretty honored to have reached this huge milestone! I thank each and every one of you. I write for you. I keep up with your blogs, I read every comment, and everything you share with me I take to heart. So thank you for being the wonderful readers that you are. You have supported me in ways you don't even know, I have found true friends, and you guys are what keep me going!

So, back to today! I have been a busy little bee since Thursday! I spent Thursday making 11 dinners to freeze, and baking and decorating a cake for my son's birthday. In addition to the rest of the regular chores of the weekend, like taxes and bills and party invites and valentines etc etc, I made my son's first chore chart and allowance jar. I am hoping that we may have found a motivation AGAINST the sibling rivalry finally.......

I have made frozen meals before, and so I pretty much have my plan set, but each time is different since I try new meals from relishrelish.com each time. I prefer to spend the time ONCE and not be so busy during the week, and it is seeming to work well for me!

This time I actually had six different recipes but I had doubled some of our favorites. I actually started at 11:00, and managed to get the cake baked and the tuna casserole made before I had to pick up little man at 12:00. I then spent from 12:30 to 8 p.m. cooking! 
There were humorous moments. There were downright painful moments as I swear my kids were sent from Heaven to be my personal patience testers. There were sweet moments as my little one's cooked right along with me.....even demanding to use the "real meat 'momeeter" to test his corn.

 I think I cleaned all my pots and pans at least once, and at one point, my kitchen looked like this...

 

and my son's kitchen looked like this....

 

But, eventually it was all done, the kitchen was clean....and this is what I was left with!

What you see up there is

4-chili mac

2-beef stuffed twice baked potatoes (plus a few lunches)

1-Grandma's Tuna Casserole

1-Asian Chicken Bowl

1-Chicken and Rice Casserole

2-Bacon wrapped Garlic Chicken (plus lunches)

 And all of this made my freezer look like this......!

 

Now, these aren't my recipes. These are all off of relishrelish.com, but they are very reasonably priced, or you can search for frozen meal recipes. Or better yet, visit Alexis over at Running Away? I'll help you pack!, or Yonca at Yonca is cooking! But this is definitely one of my newest favorite frugal (and mommy) tips. I find myself at the store, or Mcdonald's, less. I spend more time doing things other than cooking because I multi-tasked and cooked all these meals at once

Now the second fun part....The Chore Chart/Allowance Jar.

The chore chart was simple. I just got some straight magnets where one side was sticky from Wal-mart, and a magnetic dry-erase board. I found smiley face stickers at the dollar store, and some white electrical tape from the garage ;). I picked simple chores....Brushing teeth, putting his dishes in sink and wiping the table, picking up toys before nap and before bed, and putting dirty clothes in hamper. I stuck yellow paper on to the sticky side of the magnet and wrote the chore on it, and put it on the left side. I put other yellow paper on smaller magnets and wrote the days of the week, and put it along top, separating the days all the way down with the electrical tape. I put magnets on foam letters to write chore chart. Finally I put different colors of paper on the magnet to avoid extra sticky spots and put the smiley faces on top of this. And this is what I got. 

 

Since he is so little and just starting to get this, we are starting with $1.50 a week. However, this is in the form of 150 pennies that we put in a jar he decorated himself. Each time he is mean to his sister, doesn't listen, or is naughty to the extreme, we will take a penny away. He will ALWAYS have a penny taken away if he is mean to his sister, but the punishment for other things will depend on the offense. The pennies will go into a bag. When he is caught doing something good (for example tonight he FINALLY told me he wanted to go potty), we put a penny back in the jar. At the end of the week, what is in the jar is his.....what is in the bag goes in the Disneyworld fund. So, I cleaned an empty pickle jar, gave him some smiley face stickers, and this is his jar.....

So that has been some of my busy little weekend! What have you been up to? Any recipes that are too good to be believed? (Especially the easy ones ;) )