No Spend Feb!

Hey Friends!


So even though I didn't come up with the concept of a no spend month and I'm honestly worried we'll even make it, I had so many of you ask what exactly we were doing so I thought I'd blog it. Besides I think it'll be fun to look back on after the end of the month...


No spend February is exactly as it sounds. Mike and I will not be spending any money outside of our regular bills. We're even taking it as far as not grocery shopping except for milk, eggs, and fresh veggies & fruits.


Since February has a few events that I just couldn't pass up I just planned accordingly. Bought my baby shower gift, my yoga rave ticket and extra wine to take to a V-day party. Hey I think just making it a month without buying a decoration for the house will be a big improvement!


The main reason we're doing this is because coming out of the holidays and buying a house was expensive! Although we've been planning for the move and paid for basically everything in cash, we killed our savings and with Mike's job we can't risk not having 3 month of bills saved up.


Besides home décor and the occasional eating out, our major money over spending comes from groceries. I love to cook and find stuff on pintrest that I just have to make that night so next comes a grocery trip even if I had food for dinner already! So I meal planned for a whole month!


Since I had to do the monthly meal plan for both our home and Mike in the trailer, our grocery budget is higher than if we were living together. I did the crock pot freezer meals again to stock up the trailer.


Here's the tried and approved freezer meals I've used before HERE!


Our goals:


- build savings back up
- pay off the little bit of credit card we used
- pay off home depot credit card (we got an extra 10% off our carpet for opening this)
- figure out a solid grocery budget & stick to it during upcoming months


There ya have it! Not that exciting but it'll be worth it to get a jump start back into our financial peace plan...

1st Freezer Meal Experience

I figured I'd jot this down in case any other linewife is experiencing guilt after no longer being able to cook her man dinner every night. haha okay so honestly I'm over the guilt pretty much but I do feel pretty bad that Mike is going to be working a ton of hours/ days straight and has no one to help me out so I turned to Pintrest!

before

 

I had a few of you ask for how I did this and I'll tell ya right now I'm not creative, I didn't come up with these on my own. I scanned pintrest during afternoon nap time and picked out a few recipes, created a master grocery list and went shopping. I only spent $77 on groceries and all these meals should last Mike til the end of October! It only took me about 2.5 hours and that was with Wes hanging around and eating dinner in between. It was really easy but there's no way I would have done this in the trailer. We ran out of room so we moved stuff to the table outside. It was quite the mess.

helper bees

 

I don't have all the links because I would get sent into one blog and just keep clicking. Here are the links I do have but you can find a ton more just typing in freezer meals :)

Here's the list of freezer meals I did:

• Bean & Cheese Buritos, we made 2 dozen! I added Spanish rice & shredded chicken to beef them up a bit ;)
• Teriyaki Chicken
• Chicken Posole (2 bags)
• BBQ Chicken (2 bags) this was ridiculously easy.Chicken, BBQ sauce, vinegar- BAG!
• Taco soup (2 bags) this was actually mom's recipe and one of Mike's favorite. I just took all ingredients and through them in a bag after browning the ground beef, easy peasy.
• Pumpkin Muffins I actually made 4 batches of these yummy things. Its fall, Wes & Mike both love them and Christopher had a really bad weekend so I took some to him too. Sharing is caring peeps.
• Last but not least a made 3 dozen peanut butter cookies, just a simple recipe that is easy to make!

after, cookies not pictured ;)

 

We ran out of room in the trailer freezer so I actually got to snag a taco soup bag and chicken posole. I'm actually looking at more recipes to do this again but this time I'll get to keep them ;)

teeny, tiny freezer packed with yumminess!

 

So yes it was a little imitating writing everything out but once I got going it was simple. I started with the muffins and cookies so I was constantly rotating those in & out of the oven while I was mixing everything else up. I'm happy my hubs will be eating good out at the trailer park and not living off of pizza rolls, ick.  
 
 

Baby Cakes

Since I've been having so much with mixing fruits and veggies to make different flavors for Wesson, I decided to take it one step forward and figure out solids for him. Wes is now a little over 9 months so I suppose its time to get his little fingers working when it comes to lunch time. He's obsessed with Puffs but I can't really get away with that being a meal.

I searched online and wasn't really liking any of the ideas I was seeing so I decided to mess around with a few things and see what I could come up with. Last week we shared pancakes with Wes and he loved it, of course he liked the syrup the most and that wouldn't be fly on a day to day basis!

Here's the baby (pan)cakes I came up with!

ingredients:

• 2 tbsp pured apples
• 1/2 cup pureed sweet potatoes
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup milk

-mix all together and cook like a pancake. you could probably cook the whole batter up and freeze the cooked ones or do what I do and just cook as we go :) if you try it out lemme know how your baby likes it!

 

squinty eyes just like his mama ;)

Sandy Hook Elementary School

After hearing about the Newtown shooting, like everyone else I've been left with a pit in my stomach and have been clinging a little tighter to my son.  How anyone could even have that horrible thought of hurting children is beyond me. I can't even really write about how horrible I feel for those families who already had presents under their trees, thinking about how excited their child would be to open their gifts, the future plans they had, and all the pain they're all going through. I can't imagine. Those families, especially the parents will be dealing with some assholes mental issues the rest of their life and that's not fair.

Although we don't know those families and friends affected by this tragedy, we can show our support in other ways. The Snowflake project came to my attention from another blog I follow and I think its a great idea! According to this blog the children and staff are not going to be going back to sandy hook, they'll be attending a new school. Which I just think is fabulous. A new school is always scary, so to make it inviting and welcoming they are asking people to make snow flakes of any kind to display in the new school! What a fun idea to do while your babies are still home on break! Here's the
link for more information and the address! I hope you all get inspired to just send one snowflake to help bring a smile to a childs face :)

Mike and I dug out my random craft supplies and brought out our creative side today! Here's what we came up with! :)

Mike working very hard on his one snowflake ;)

yeah, I'm aware my snowflakes look like a 4 year olds project

hope these bring a little smile in CT!

buh bye snowflakes!

Another organization I came across, that is helping out is this facebook group. I found this through a running blog I follow (I know I have too much time on my hands!) They are in the process of making a 5k run to help the families affected by the shooting. Of course the run will be in CT but they are hoping to add a virtual option for us around the US. I have seen other states creating a 5K in different cities so I can only hope where ever we end up, its close by a running city! If not you can bet I'll be out running solo on March 23rd!

Our little blessing working on his bitterbeer face :)

 

I hope these links help you heal, offer support, and if nothing else hug your baby a little closer and say a quick prayer for those affected.

Its a Trailer Park Christmas...

i am so excited to finally share pictures of our trailer again this year! i had fun making christmas crafts (and gifts!) pintrest is such a great invention ;)

this year's december will be a first for me, we will be spending christmas here in Bozeman. just the four of us... i'm not going to lie, i do get a little knot in my stomach thinking of not waking up with christopher at 4 am, but its time for us to start our own tradition. we have a very busy month coming up. i am trying to think realiscally and get in my mind i will probably be doing a few things with just me. we're not sure if mike will be going to 7 10's yet (i'm praying hard they wont... 6 10's is plenty!!) so that only leaves us with one day to fill with christmas joy, give or take a few hours after work. here ya go here's how we'll be spending our december in the trailer park...

• decorate wesson's first christmas tree- we did this before we went home for thanksgiving... i didn't take any pictures though, i know bad mommy. wesson wasn't really into but now he's always reaching for the tree
• holiday parade- we lucked out and get to attend two holiday parades (aren't we lucky!?) cda's of course was last friday and so much fun. wesson really loved watching all the lights and trucks... bozeman's holiday parade is this saturday (unfortunately its at 3 and my dear husband doesn't get off until 6... momma/son day?!)
• bake/decorate gingerbread men- in the past we've done gingerbread houses and although they've always been fun they never taste good and they're typically in the way. so this year we'll be attempting gingerbread men!
• go on a sleigh ride- now next to watching wesson on christmas morning and getting remmi back, this is what i am most excited for in december! well i guess i should say after seeing my parents as well ;) they are coming to visit in a few weeks to babysit so mike and i can take off to big sky for a real, old fashion sleigh ride. its going to be beautiful and romantic, i cannot wait!
• chicken soup for the christmas soul nightly readings- we started this tradition tonight! we read to wesson nightly anyways but to tell the truth we're a little over reading about pokie the puppy and to get into the christmas cheer we decided to switch. i love having us snuggled on the couch without any distractions, its wonderful.
• snow shoeing- i'm really hoping this will a december thing but most likely will turn into a winter event.
• operation christmas shoe box or christmas angel- we all should really practice giving all year long but especially during such a special time. i will fully enjoy shopping for a little girl!
• build a snowman & snow angels- wesson's first!! yay!!
• attend christmas eve service- ideally it would be a candle light service but the chances of wes lasting that late is slim.
• bake christmas goodies to take to the neighbors and crews- i love, love, love baking but come on i do not need the extra calories in the house... spreading christmas cheer!
• polar express night- pintrest idea? you betcha. i love it... popping popcorn, putting hot cocoa in to go mugs, throwing sweats on and grabbing blankets to hit the town and look at lights. can't wait!
• visit santa- we'll see how wesson does but after getting passed around to strangers and putting on quiet the sweet act i think he'll do great. probably stick his tongue out at him, haha.
• visit a live nativity- not sure if bozeman actually has one or not, i heard a rumor.
• watch the classics- of course this has to be on here! buddy the elf, Rudolph, grinch anyone?! you bet my dvr is filling up as i type!

so there we have it....it may seem like a lot but this time of year is so special to me, i really want to start out right with wesson "a family is a little world created by love..."

our whittle tree...

thank you again tyler & aimee... the candles are perfect!

few pintrest ideas! i love my diy glitter candles (old bath & body jars?! heck yes!)

cozy :) just missing Remmi laying by the fire...

chicken soup for the chrismas soul...

aren't they the sweetest?!

my little christmas blessing

FINALLY get to put these out... my favorite gift from my parents last year... personalized santa plate/mug... you can bet santa will be enjoying goodies off these gems...

snow weekend

our area went into storm warning effect late thursday night, giving mike's crew an extra few days to enjoy family time! yes they could have still worked but i'm pretty sure the guys were needing a break from working 6 12s for the last few months. i was not complaining! especially now mike's working the week straight until we leave for home next tuesday night... there's also talk of them working seven days a week until christmas vaca. pros & cons as always with that... guess i won't stress until i know for sure.

we got about 8 to 10 inches of beautiful fluffy snow friday and saturday, we finally got to show off our snazzy new coats! i loved it and may or may not have woken wesson up a little early to take him outside ;) he wasn't too impressed. it made me miss remmi a little more because i know he would have been playing in it with me!

don't mind my awesome pjs

 

the four day weekend defiantly got away from us but man we got a lot done! we got all of our christmas shopping done for family since we don't have a mailing address and it'll cost a pretty penny to ship we're bringing our gifts home, we cleaned, oil changed and put a little love back into our rigs. saturday we had to take the truck in because the four wheel drive wouldn't kick out... turns out its so flipping cold the slush froze on our transfer case! oye. we did get to relax a little bit, well i got a break while mike rolled around the floor with wes while i got a few crafts done, i can't wait to show off my christmas decorations! i'm pretty proud of myself :)

 

 i repainted the cookie sheet to match our sweet new birds picture! i spray painted the canvas than had my artsy husband draw the birds out so i could paint them on! i'm actually very very impressed with how this turned out. i laugh every time i look at it, especially at our cute little fat tweety bird :) we also got our pictures back. i love them all! i wanted to hang a few up but of course picture frames are so heavy so i stole the idea from my linewife pal Astra and modge podged our picture.

i painted this a few weeks back but never shared it... i painted this on canvas also. yes i stole the idea from pintrest but i plan on doing the kids bathroom in blues and whales. love!

and lastly i did another canvas picture and made this little gem for right when you walk in.... i may live in a trailer in a sketch trailer park but damn it i am pretty proud of how when you walk in, it smells like home and feels like home. you all just wait and see what i can do once i get a house! ;)

 

 

on sunday we loaded wes up and braved the 2.5 hour drive to billings to go see our fur baby. i know its only been a week but i won't lie i cried when i saw him! i am soooo ready to have remmi back! i miss my running buddy.... he is doing a great job and is learning fast. we can already tell this was the best thing for him. only four weeks to go!

 

yes marty the trainer sends me pictures through out the week... i love it :)

 

 

 

the way back to bozeman took a little longer because of course you drive a big truck you're expected to help everyone who slides off the road! i was tired and ready to get home but mike got that typical shit eating grin all men get when they get to show off their man skills lol (linewives know the look, the trouble call look!! ;))

 

seriously, he's growing too fast!! proud of our little man!!







Baby Food

happy november ya'll! i have been having so much fun with trying new solid foods with wes that it would be wrong of me not to share. so here ya go mommys and mommys to be :)

here's our november stash of solids... i didn't take a picture of our mixtures though!

 

like most other bloggers i pulled all my resources together and figured out what worked out best for us. i do have a baby bullet that i use to puree all his food but any food processor works.... we would have just used our magic bullet but we use that for salsa making and for making peanut butter so i think for safety its best to separate them!

we started wesson into solids about a month and a half ago and honestly i was really overwhelmed with his reaction thinking he didn't like anything, now i understand he was just getting used to using that tongue of his. now he loves eating any and everything.we buy all of fruits and veggies local if we can, i bought the makings for his november batch for around $20... sooo much cheaper!! he eats solids twice a day. in the morning he has just fruits and some rice cereal and the evening he gets a veggie and a fruit. i just blended everything up, froze in either the baby bullet containers or an ice tray, than put it in a labeled baggie. i didn't put dates because wes goes through everything so quick but frozen foods are good for one month and in the fridge they're good for three days.

for just the simple one fruit/veggie servings i just peeled and chopped whatever food, boiled if needed (carrots, green beans, peas etc) to make them squishy than throw them in the bullet and blend. the baby bullet recipes told me how much water to add but i was finding it was making it too watered down so i just started adding a little bit at a time to find the consistency i liked.

i read a lot of mixing foods and found most people (and my local ped) suggested not mixing until they're 6 months old so we literally just tried mixing last week so i only have a few "recipes"

Rice Cereal & Pears...i made both separate than added more pears than rice in the same bowl.
Peas & Carrots... i boiled both separately than added them both into the bullet (i only made one serving of this to make sure he liked it... he did so its one next months list!)
Banana & apricot... he loved this one!! both bananas and apricots are super easy to mush up on the spot, no prep needed except peeling.

i have a few recipes we're trying soon that i just found on a couple blogs....

apple & carrot
blueberries & quinoa (or brown rice, cereal)... cook qunioa first,a little goes a long ways!

i know these dont seem specific but all resources i've read either didn't come with it or literally came out with a completely different portions. maybe i suck at reading directions... i've had more fun with trial and errors anyways :)

hope everyone had a great Halloween, i know i enjoyed my night and loved seeing all the sweet babies in the first costumes!

 my happy lil fox :)

little pumpkin all tuckered out after cruising the neighborhood!

pumpkin nummies

pumpkin obsessed only slightly describes my cooking lately... some of you have been asking for the few recipes i've found so here ya go :)

pumpkin puppy chow (found this recipe on pintrest :))

ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 12 oz package white baking chips
• 1/2 cup (heaping) peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 9 cups rice chex cereal

directions:

• place powered sugar in a large sealable plasitc bag
• combine baking chips and pb and mircowave until all mixed and creamy
• stir spice into chips/pb. fold into chex and toss to coat
• pour chex into plastic bag and shake to cover with powered sugar!

 

 

pumpkin scones (was given this recipe from a fellow linewife but i did alter a few things to what i had! :))

ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup plus 3 tbl sugar
• 1 tbl baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t nutmeg
• 1/2 t ground ginger
• 6 tbl cold butter (cut into 1 inch cubes)
• 3 tbl milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup pumpkin

directions:

• mix egg, milk, pumpkin set aside
• mix all dry ingredients with mixer
• fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients, mix with hand until all pushed together. flatten on flour surface into rectangle. cut into thirds than X each third for 12 scones.
• bake 375 for 15 minutes
• put on cooling rack until slightly cooled. put glaze over the warm scones so it melts over the sides. put spiced glaze into baggie, snip corner and drizzle over the glazed scones.
• we warmed ours up again to eat! yummy!

glaze:

• 1 cup plus 1 tbl powdered suger
• 1 tbl milk

spiced glaze:

• 1 cup plus 3 tbl powered sugar
• 2 tbl milk
• 1/4 t cinnamon
• 1/8 t nutmeg
• pinch of ginger
• pinch of pumpkin pie spice

 

 

pumpkin pancakes (mike and i have pancake sunday and kinda "perfected" a recipe we found online into what we like... we've tried adding in all sorts of berries, chocolate chips but pumpkin of course is our current fav :))

ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 milk
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup pumpkin

mix all together and cook on stove! :)

also yesterday we took family pictures! this little fox was such a happy trooper the whole time! i am so in love with my boys... even the fur baby who decided to have a party last night while we slept... half a pizza included! grrrr.

homemade salsa!

yup we did it... we made homemade salsa and its honestly the best salsa we've ever had! we still had some pace we wanted to use up first but mike decided to throw it out after eating ours :) we use our salsa for chips & salsa and for our tacos (with our homemade taco seasoning! yah we're pretty "yuppie" now!)

i found the recipe on pintrest (where else!?) we modified it a little just to make it the way we like...we found a veggie stand not even 5 miles from us so we get all of our vegetables and some fruits from there. we got all our salsa stuff plus some of their homemade chips for $7 and that made 3 pint jars and we have a few things left over... cannot beat that!

here's what you'll need this makes one pint jar:

--2 tomatoes
--1 can original Rotel (i don't put rotel in mine i just double the mators, my salsa is basically chopped tomatoes no spice)
--1 lime (roll around first than squeeze juices out into the blender)
--1/2 small onion chopped
--1 garlic clove (peel than smash with spoon)
--1/2 to 1 jalapeno chopped (as you probably guessed i used no jalapeno in mine, ya no thanks... mike put one whole one in his... we seeded his if you like it really hot keep the seeds and if you use the seeds feel free to brag to us! we ate one seed and thought we were going to burn our tongues off!)
-- 1 teaspoon honey
--1/4 teaspoon ground cummin
--1/2 teaspoon salt
--hand full of chopped cilantro

once you have everything prepared throw it all into a blender, my magic bullet is the PERFECT size to make one pint of salsa! i literally pulse for a few seconds i like my salsa chunky. mike chops his up longer...

its really, really rediciously easy. we've decided we actually enjoy doing homemade foods like this together. its fun to figure out how to make it perfect for us... plus we defiantly get our use out of all those left over wedding mason jars!

yummmmmm!! :)

Christmas Time in the Trailer Park

I don't want to hear its not even Thanksgiving yet blah blah I have a valid excuse :) I won't be here basically the month of December and we're not spending Christmas here SO I want to enjoy my tree and snow flakes for longer than a week!

besides we've already gotten snow (before the wind blew it away!) and I know you folks back home are starting to get in the Christmas mood with the first snow this morning so happy holidays!

Above the fireplace...scent in candle: Festival of Trees to make up for the tiny fake tree of course!



Fireplace- we'll be adding stockings as soon as we can put a K or W on a stocking instead of a boring B ;-)



Above the cupboards, yes channel 24 is the Hallmark channel. I've now cried during Christmas Card and currently cried twice during November Christmas- SO sweet!!


TaaaDaaa our ity, bity Christmas tree!



Lazy bones Mike who played Words with Friends while I decorated the tree... so if I'm sucking and you all are kicking my butt- its actually my retarded lineman who hijacked my phone...



I wanted to take close up of our tree... we themed it Wyoming Christmas hehe its all cowboy ornaments.




My "fancy towels" like Mom said Grandma, Mom and myself are probably the only ones who have trained our husbands not to use them, they are our decorative ones ;-)



My favorite part of winter- Flannel sheets! love them :) and course my lazy dog... must be tired of chewing my Toms and trying to take down the tree!



Lastly since decorating for Christmas is suppose to be a family deal so of course I wanted pictures with my boys... as you can see Mike was impatient and irritated cause I took him away from MY phone... Mom said "welcome to marriage!"



And Remmi well he just wanted to eat my braid! this shows his true character...



Well I hope you're all enjoyin the snow back home... we're wishing we could trade this wonderful now 60 mph winds in for some snow :)

its a wonderful life.

it is wonderful but also very, very cold. welcome to winter in Casper, Wyoming. its snowed on us multiple times now while it doesn't last long before the snow blows it away. the average temp is right around 20 degrees, while yesterday the temp was a warm 8 degrees up on Casper Mtn (ten minutes from our park)luckily we've managed to stay warm, well inside the trailer. my morning walks are another story, i've actually picked up jogging again just to stay warm, tired Rem out faster, and get back to my morning cup of hot chocolate next to the fire.



surprisingly we've been pretty busy! Mike is now working 6 9s, weird i know. we never thought we'd say this but we actually don't want to move until after the holidays... this will be our first thanksgiving totally alone. which of course is bittersweet, it'll be interesting to see if i can pull off a thanksgiving dinner in the trailer! Mike is also getting a ton of hot time, if we stay here he should have all of his hot time completed. Christmas present in itself right there! i've been staying busy with my new yoga classes, a few extra classes-i took the shake your bon bon candy class, so fun and next saturday i'm taking a bread making class! i've also been busy with crafting and slowly putting the nursery together... we got a big area rug for back there and we ordered the crib, it should be here in 2 weeks. of course it'll be bare until we come home from Christmas- we sent the bedding set to my parents just in case of a move. I posted the button tree on facebook, i'm so happy with how it turned out! i can't wait to add our baby's name too it :) i finally decided what to do with the other canvas... i'm no artist but i'm pretty impressed with my painting...

this is hanging over the guest bed... i love it because of course we know our baby is God's special blessing to us but i walked down the aisle to this song :)


we also had this big, awkward metal thing in the nursery... it must have been used to hold gas cans, tools, or whatever none baby stuff you keep in a garage.


SO after much chit chatting with fellow crafters we decided to do this...mike was able to pull it off the wall, we spray painted it, bought some foam and covered it in baby print :)


its so nice to finally get into a routine again and finally start feeling like Casper is our home for the time being... although fingers still crossed in Jan we get moved a little closer to home, we'd really like our baby to not be born in Wyoming...


love our little family :)happy monday everyone! oh also today starts week 16 for our little huckleberry... we have another appointment next monday!