Thursday, May 26, 2016

Getting Frugal Part 2

Today I did my first homemade dried fruit. Well not dried fruit I don't guess but it's banana chips. They are super yummy and a big hit with the kids. All I did was slice two bananas into thin slices, dipped in lemon juice, and put on a cookie sheet sprayed with coconut oil nonstick spray. You can use any nonstick spray. We use coconut oil since it has proven health benefits and the other leaves an aftertaste in my mouth after eating the food cooked with it. I baked at 200 degrees for 2 hours, turned them, and baked 1 1/2 more hours. With four kids + my bonus kid for the summer these are eaten on all afternoon and will probably be gone by supper time. This is quite okay. It costed me hardly anything to do these. It was certainly less than a box of cookies that's not healthy anyways or less than a candy bar for 5 kids. There's a little prep time that goes into this but it was minimal. It took me 10 minutes to slice, dip, and get in the oven. 

Going in the oven

This is them after two of the five kids got a hold of them. They won't last long.

My next project will be dried peaches. I will let you all know how that works out and if it's a big hit.

Getting frugal

Being a one income family I am always looking for ways to save money. There are some places that I just refuse to cut corners. Others I don't cut as much as some. I have been buying healthier snacks for the kids and in doing so I have found myself in awe of how expensive these things are. I got on Pinterest to see if I could find ideas of how to do dried fruit myself. This is a favorite amongst the kids in my house. Now some snacks that are healthier are not much more but then there are some that are. I had some bananas going bad yesterday. I had 5 of them. I used 3 for some Honey banana muffins and the other two to make some banana oatmeal cookies. Both were DELISH! The cookies only had four ingredients. Two were optional. The muffins of course we're from scratch so there was a bit more involved but not anything I couldn't grab out of the cabinets. There was NO sugar added to neither and there was no sweetener actually. The ripened bananas and honey sweetened the muffins up and the chocolate chips sweetened the cookies up. Here are some pictures.


Above is the delicious Honey Banana Muffins

The toddler approved! 😬

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Summer break is here!

Summer break has actually been here for about a month for the Gooden children.  I have enjoyed every minute of it.  Well most of it.  There's always moments where I think "what in the world am I doing?"  I'm so not cut out for this.  This is true however with His mercies new each morning, I have hope.  He is with me every day.  He is there to guide me.  Without God's precious, gentle hand guiding me I would not be able to do what I do.  Summer break comes with its challenges.  During the schoolyear we have a full morning of doing school and sometimes that goes into the afternoons.  With summer break going I only require the kids to do Math.  They are doing well with Language Arts so I am not requiring them to do this through the summer.  This usually takes them about 45 minutes to do.  They are usually motivated enough to get on up about 8 and get everything done.  So by 10, there is chaos as to what they should do.  Of course I encourage playing outside, leisure reading, or creative work.  This does not always happen.  It depends on the day.  But if I hear "I'm bored" that drives me nuts.  The older two have actually learned to NOT say that because they know I will put their bored selves to work!  Haha!

I will push through this summer break though and I will enjoy it.  It's wonderful to be able to just be mom to my kids.  I can work on spending some one on one time with each one and finding out what their dreams are.  Not that we don't discuss this during the schoolyear but I'm more focused on this part of their lives during the summer.  We will start back the week after Independence Day and I actually can't wait for that either.  I will enjoy each day up until then with them though.  Life is so precious.  Each child is so precious and special.  They each have such different qualities.  I can't wait to take them to Wild Adventures and other places that I've been dreaming about taking them.  Some of those trips will be in the fall when most children are back in school.

Happy Summer Yall!!!!