Zesty Italian Stuffed Bell Peppers

3 bell peppers
1 lb ground beef or turkey
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 1/3 cup french fried onions
2 TBSP hot sauce (optional)
1/2 c uncooked instant rice
1/4 c sliced black olivies (optional)
1 c shredded mozz cheese
2 TBSP italian seasoning

Preheat to 400. Cut peppers in half lengthwise through the stems;discard seeds. Place pepper halves, cut sides up, in shallow 2 quart baking dish; set aside.
Place beef or turkey in microwavable bowl. Microwave in high 5 min or until brown-stirring once. Drain. Stir in spaghetti sauce, 2/3 c of FF onions, hot sauce, rice and olives. Spoon evenly into pepper halves.
COVER, baked 35 mins, uncover and sprinkle with cheese and remaining FF onions.  bake 1 min or until brown.

Serve with salad :) yum!

I LOVE this recipe! Its so fast and easy! Let me know if you want me to post other recipes in my meal plans!! If I know ahead of time I can post pics when I make certain meals!! Have a great week!

Meal Planning and Grocery Savings Jan 31st-Feb 4th

This seems to be a topic people are actually interested in!! I have had some specific questions AND a request for some recipes!! So here we go! Kroger was having their buy 10 and get $5 off mega event this week and most of the items included in the sale I normally use anyway AND I had coupons so I stocked up! This week was the opposite of last week in that I spent MORE than normal because I wanted to stock pile some things I could get cheap! I will put pics below of everything I bought and my total.

Here is this weeks menu

Fettucini with Homemade Alfredo Sauce and Garlic Bread (meal from last week that I didnt end up making)
Taco Salads
Pizza and Garden Salad
Smoked Ham and Turkey Subs with BBQ chips

Where do I get all of my coupons?  I always buy the Sunday paper and get the smartsource and redplum coupon packets out of there. You can go to www.sundaycouponpreview.com and see what coupons will be in this sundays paper and then decide if it might be worth it to buy 2 or 3 papers so you have more than one of the "good" coupons and you can stock up on items you use frequently. You can also print coupons from the internet. A good site is www.couponmom.com.

I know all of the coupon collecting sounds time consuming BUT I have a system! First, I check my grocery ad to see what things are on sale then plan my meals according to that. Then once Ive made my shopping list I go through my coupons and see what on my list I have a coupon for.

3 Rules...

DO NOT be picky about brands!
DO NOT buy something you dont need just because you have a coupon :)
If another brand is cheaper that you DO NOT have a coupon for ...buy that! You DO NOT have to use every coupon you take into the store with you :)

 Frozen Items

Organic Items

I forgot to take pics of my stuff when I got home from the grocery on friday morning SOOO I had to get it all back out today! Other items I bought that I forgot to include in the pics were:

1lb of smoked ham

1lb smoked turkey breast

4 lbs of shredded cheddar cheese

2 lbs colby cheese

My total this week was $108.21 after my coupons and plus card savings. I saved a total of $44.26.  I should be able to purchase a few produce items for next week and thats it! My goal is to keep next weeks bill under $35.00....that might be pushing it though!

WHY?!?! Do you do that?!?!? (insert scrunched up judgemental face here)

I have had alot of people ask me about our decision to cloth diaper. So I thought I would talk about it here :) We were "late" cloth diaperers since we didnt actually commit completely to full time cloth diapering until Mason was 16 months old. The only regret that I have had since then is that we didnt start sooner (like at birth).  Before that we used huggies brand diapers which we had no problems with until he suddenly developed a scary welt/burn on the backs of his legs where the diaper would rub his skin. We tried switching brands, but nothing seemed to work...except when we used the few cloth diapers that I had at home. So after stating my case with lots of facts, charts and graphs I finally had jake on board and I ordered our stash of cloth diapers!

Fact #1: While the initial cost of cloth diapers is high you will save a substantial amount of money in the long run. I will put the ROUGH amounts based on OUR situation below. This is based on huggies brand diapers using 7 diapers per day and spending about $45.00 per month on disposables. Now, if you were to cloth diaper a newborn you would save TONS of money because you would be using about 12 diapers per day!
The approximate cost to use disposable diapers until your child is potty trained is anywhere from $1350.00-$1700.00 depending on the brand and how many diapers your child goes through at a time. 
Here is the break down of what I spent to cloth diaper full time...

Starter Pack (included 18 fuzzibunz cloth diapers, wet bag, diaper sprayer and 12 cloth wipes)...$385.00
Additional wet bag...$15.50
Pail liner...$18.00
5 Additional diapers (purchased so that diaper laundry could be done every 3 days)...$80.00

TOTAL: $498.50

Also, the diapers I purchased are fuzzibunz one size diapers that have replaceable elastic. These diapers will fit babies from 7-40lbs. So I can just replace the elastic and use them all again for our next child AND they are already paid for! yay!

FACT#2: Environmentally friendly :)

FACT #3: I LOVE THEM! They are SO cute!

I purchased the majority of my cloth stuff from kellycloset.com and gogonatural.com. These sites also have TONS of info on getting started! There is also a great collab channel on youtube called ClothDiaperChannel which is a bunch of cloth diapering mommys who post vidoes about their experiences.

So go there if you think I am the only wacko in the world who uses these crazy things!

This is a wet bag if you had no idea what I was talking about...it has a plastic liner on the inside and its where you put the stanky diapers when youre out and about!

Model is wearing Fuzzibunz onesize diaper in Mac N Cheese :)

Meal Planning and Saving at the Grocery

I know that most of you dont care what we are having for dinner! I am keeping this as a record for myself so I can get an accurate grocery budget after a few months. So please feel free to skip this if you want :) I have started planning our meals out for the week in an effort to save money at the grocery store. I grocery shop every Friday and buy everything we will need for the following week. I usually plan 4-5 dinners for the week plus buy items for breakfast and Mason's lunches. The other 2-3 dinners are left overs and we usually eat out once a week as well. I make more than enough food at dinner so that I can pack lunches for the next day. I buy as many organic food items as possible. We are also taking part in a CSA this year where we will get all organic produce every other week from a local farm from May-Nov. I will do a separate post on this later! This week is a little crazy because we have been sick and I didnt get to the store until Sunday.
Here is our Menu for January 25-28

Stuffed Bell peppers and dinner rolls
Sloppy Joes with seasoned veggies
Red Beans and Rice with turkey sausage
Fettucini Alfredo and garlic bread

My grocery bill total this week after store credits and coupons was $57.16. This includes all of the groceries for 1 week breakfast, lunch and dinner. This a lower than normal because I had some items already at home.

Colds, Debt, Taxes and New Schedules OH MY!

Boy has this been a week! I came down with the cold from hell and the MOST ANNOYING cough I have EVER had in my life! I tried every over the counter medicine I could find and NOTHING worked! Finally, after Jake had plowed snow all night and we were both trying to sleep (and my coughing was making that impossible for both of us!) we decided I should probably go to the doctor. Luckily, they got me right in, gave me some antibiotics and codine (my new best friend) and sent me on my way. I was feeling better almost immediately. But then mason got it :( Not the cough, but the rest of the cold. So off to another dr. appt we go! Only to be told that he has a cold! duh! but the good news is everyone seems to be feeling better now!

Our goal this year is to get rid of all unnecessary debt! And I CANNOT wait! We paid off all of our credit card debt last year which was great! I have managed to pay cash for everything this year including ALL of christmas and our annual summer vacation with my parents! Which I am so proud of! But there are still a few annoying things hanging over our heads (mainly business expense things from jake's company) that NEED TO GO! So I have been reading up on debt eliminating plans and I think we are ready to get started! Wish us luck! I am fairly good at sticking to a plan but keeping "you know who" on track can be a challenge!

TAX TIME! I want to say that I am so proud of Jake this year! Since getting our new office set up he has been working diligently on getting his 2010 taxes ready to go to the accountant! usually he is struggling to get everything done about April 10th :) So this is a big deal!

This week I start a new schedule at work. It has its good and bad points. So I am interested to see how it goes. I will be doing 3 12 hr shifts (7p-7a) in a row. So you can see where the good and the bad come in! But it DOES give me an extra day at home with Mason which I LOVE but LESS sleep which I HATE. So we will see how it goes! Have a great week everyone!

My favorite times of the day...

there are two activities during the day that I ALWAYS look forward to...

Naptime...

I always rock my baby to sleep for his afternoon nap. Yes, even though he is over 35lbs and I have to lug him up 15 stairs to his room once he is snoozin. He snuggles up just like when he was my little (9lb 1oz) newborn :)  I LOVE it!

Bathtime...

Jake always gives Mason his bath. Its so much fun to hear them laughing and giggling upstairs!

Mason is becoming quite the little ham. When he figured out I was taking pictures tonight he had to run and get his favorite accessory! Ya know, cuz no one should be caught without their camo hat :)

Ikea

Jake and I decided that we needed to make some changes to the way we handle the paperwork for his business for 2011. So we updated some of our office equipment and software which left us NO room on our old desk since my iMac takes up the majority of the room in our house :) but I dont mind. We had shopped around for an affordable desk that was big enough for everything and came up empty handed. So last weekend we took our first trip to Ikea....oh how my life has changed. I had seen the catalogue and heard all of the hype, but nothing compares to ACTUALLY being there! I was without a doubt OVERWHELMED! I am glad we went with an actual purpose (to find a desk) or I may still be wandering aimlessly through the too cool for school showroom. The experience was kind of like reading a Real Simple magazine. When you are done you feel like your home is an unorganized, poorly decorated slum that you should be embarrassed to admit you live in. But on the other hand, you feel SO INSPIRED! Here is our new office...its not done! But well on its way!

 Curtains! I was accused of making "Jake's" office too girlie :)

This is the 20x20 collage from our Fall Family photo session. Guess where I FINALLY found a frame for it that WASNT $80??? Ikea ...$19.99..score! :) And Tammy, since I know you may read this...Thank you so much for this gorgeous collage! you did a fabulous job on it!! We absolutely LOVE it!

Fall 2010 Family Pictures

At the last minute last fall I decided I wanted to get family pictures done! I do a lot of photography stuff on the side (I would by no stretch of the imagination call myself a professional photographer) but I COULD NOT get a smile out of Mason to save my own life! So luckily our photographer was able to squeeze us in at the last possible minute in November! I think we literally used up the last day of warmth and sunshine of 2010! Here is some of what we got that day...

Welcome!

Hi! I am so glad you stopped by! I have been reading a ton of blogs lately and decided to start our own family blog for 2011. I thought it would be so great to be able to look back after a year and see everything we have done, everywhere we have been and how FAST our little guy is growing up! I hope to post just little everyday things, as well as pictures and other fun stuff! So stop by reguarly! Its gonna be an awesome year!