Menu Plan Sundays

Weekly Menu Plan

Monday- Matthew has business dinner, no cooking!  Yeah! However, it's just me and the boys all night!  Will be a long day, wake up to bedtime all on my own! 

Tuesday- Sour cream and bacon chicken served over rice, california blend

Wednesday- BBQ Chicken, scalloped potatoes, carrots


Thursday- Crock Pot Enchildas, corn

Friday- Shake and Bake Pork Chops, Ranch Potatoes, Green beans

Saturday and Sunday- Wait and see, If I plan something for these days I pretty much hardly ever end up making it, so we will just play it by ear.  If I need to make something I still have ingredients for a few things I haven't made in the last few weeks or a good excuse to go out to eat!

Have a great week!

Still in progress

We finally began working on redoing, or in other words just doing something to our bedroom a few weeks ago.  It's not completed but thought I would give a little peek at what we have been working on.

Here was our room before, white, plain and filled with baby stuff! Yes, nothing special to look at here. I had never put anything on the walls because I knew we were going to paint someday so blank slate it stayed. 

We have now painted the walls. The main wall our bed is on,  is a really deep purple and the other walls are a pretty dark tan, almost brown.  I love, love, love how the paint colors turned out! 

Then after we painted, Matthew began working on making us a headboard. ( we haven't ever had one, the room has always been pretty mismatched) I searched pinterest and the internet and found some headboards I liked and showed the hubs, he then kind of took everything I liked and made his own creation.  I really want a sleigh bed someday(when we buy a whole matching set, I realized this wasn't something we could actually make)  but told him a fabric headboard would be fine since it would match our bedding/ dressers after we paint them.  Well he gave me both, he tried to make it have a sleigh bed feel but also put the fabric panel in the middle.  I love it, he did a great job!  The picture just doesn't do it justice.  The top  and side rails on the headboard are not just flat they have curves and angles.  You can also get a peek of the purple wall in these pictures. 

We have put a few things on the wall, I did a big frame, some uppercase living, and a flower pinterest project that I love but we still need to paint the dressers and decide on a few other decorating things before you can see the whole room! 

Wreath Redo

The other day I changed out the flowers on my wreath to white ones and wow I love it so much more.  The big fluffy flowers are way cuter than the red ones I had on it before. 

Such a quick and easy wreath and I just love it!

Menu Plan Sundays

This Weeks Menu!

Sunday Some family coming over for breakfast for dinner
 (eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, cinnamon rolls, maybe a few pancakes or waffles too we will wait and see)
Monday  Stuffed Green Peppers  (new recipe for the Jones family)

Tuesday  Cheesy chicken with rice/ green beans

Wednesday Monterey chicken, baked potatoes, carrots  (chicken is going to be new for us)

Thursday Lasagna and salad ( I was feeling like lasagna I asked the hubs if I can make it, he said he didn't care but we will see how much he actually eats)

Friday Leftovers

Saturday Will be busy getting ready and doing my first Norwex party, eating out for dinner!

Playroom Updates

When we moved into our house at the end of May, we decided to make one of the rooms on the main floor a playroom.  The room is in a weird spot right at the entry and has double doors, so it really is perfect for a playroom  and it's right off all the main living area spaces so I can always see/hear Noah playing. 

Here is the before picture

 Yes, pretty blah....  I didn't know what to do with all the toys so we basically lined the room with them.  The sad thing is most of the toys that were originally in there are now in the basement.  After birthdays and Christmas we have had to move a lot to the basement and have created another mess down there. 

 Here is the after, still not amazing, but painted, decorated and my attempt at organizing toys.  Pinterest gave me some wonderful ideas for a playroom but in my realistic world, I couldn't spend tons of money on built ins, benches, and shelving, or even lots of cute little bins like I would of liked.  Instead we did buy some cheaper things to help organize the toys, moved the futon from the basement up to give us adults some seating and got a play table for the boys! 

 One pinterest project I did, you can't hardly see the details but the background of the frames is scrapbook paper, then I hot glued closepins to the paper to hold the pictures.  You have to leave the glass off this way and then it's a super easy way to be able to change out your pictures whenever you wish.  Plus I love scrapbook paper, so I loved getting the chance to use some. 

 On another wall, we did an map wall decal and I painted mini chip board letters for the word learn.  I wasn't sure how well these would paint but they did really well!  Cheap and Easy!

For this side of the room we got the bright colored bin organizer, not as cute as cubes with cute pull out bins, but way more practical.  Now the kids can easily get to all the toys and see what is where.  Then we got the book display so we can keep some books in the playroom and the rest in the boys room. 

Here is the other side of the room, we had gotten some cubes and some bigger stackable bins to put the majority of the boys bigger toys.  I also found the magnetic white board at Ikea that is under the window.  Noah loved, loved it at first.  It's kind of worn off lately but he still plays with it.   

 Large chip board betters, that I painted just like the other ones by the map.  These took up a large amount of space on the wall and only cost $10. 

 Thanks again to pinterest for the playroom rules sign.  I found it on there, and then bought the file on Etsy.  I wish it was bigger but it works! 

And that's our playroom.  One more space down but still a lot to go.  We are working on our bedroom now, so am excited to post pictures of that when we get it finished!  

Freezer Organization

Our freezer has always bugged me!   Every week when I put groceries away I always try to straighten it up but never fails it's a mess in a day or two.  Also straightening it didn't make it so I didn't have to dig for something in the back.  Here was our freezer before....

 Here was my inspiration (thank you pinterest).....

Here is what we ended up with, not fancy but functional.  I went to Walmart and found the cheapest little containers I could and got them all for about $10.00.  I was going to make labels but thought to myself  I know what's in each container so I really didn't need to make them that would just be more for looks.  And in all honestly, who really cares what my freezer looks like besides me just thought I would share in case anyone else gets annoyed with their freezer.  I am loving it so far because each bin is for particular things like the top large one is all meat, then there is room for boxes like ice cream or containers of frozen items.  Then on the bottom left, it's potatoes products like hash browns, tator tots, fries, middle is Noah's food (pieroges and nuggets), and on the right is frozen vegetables.  Then I'm always going to have random stuff so that's what I'm using the door for.  The best part is being able to pull each container out and getting right to I want, no more digging!  Yeah! 

Thanks again Pinterest for another great idea to get my home more organized!  I love little projects like this, that to me make a big difference!  

Menu Plan Sundays

This weeks menu

Sunday Italian Beef, mac and cheese, chips

Monday: Pork Tenderloin, Au gratin potatoes, green beans

Tuesday: Fiesta Chicken Casserole ( I ended up not getting the chance to make it last week) corn

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Crock Pot Chicken Stir Fry/ Rice

Friday :Grilled Cheesburger Wraps/ Fries

Saturday: Leftovers or out to eat

Have a great week!

Command Center

My command center is finally finished!  Yeah! 

I would love to say mine looks like the pictures below, but it doesn't.  I had to do this on a limited budget and I needed it to not just look pretty I needed it to actually function for our family.  A lot of ones I found online, were for older kids with boards for each one but with our boys, they really don't have a schedule of their own yet, so maybe someday we will switch to a different layout.  Also the location I had for it to go is in our laundry room, which is right off our kitchen.  It is really the only space that would work and it's small so I had one wall available but everything pretty much has to be flat or close to it.  Our desk area is in the basement and it doesn't make any sense fora command center to be down there away from all the action. 

Love the look of this one, but we definetly don't need 3 dry erase boards with monthly schedules! One will work for us!

 Love how this one is like a command center/ mudroom set up

 Not sure what these boards are made out of or covered with, if it  is fabric or what, but I love all the different patterns mixed to create this space. 

 Very cute one on the side of a pantry or some sort of cabinetry and love all the color and patterns as well!

Love the cute boards for each family member, and the hooks are a good idea but again not ideal for us and our space. 

 I have no words for this besides a dream!  Ahh..

And here is what we now have below, doesn't look so great after looking at all those but hey it works and it's customized to work for our family (or for me because in all honesty lets face it, my boys could care less!)

The top left is our calendar, the right is a frame with our weekly menu and cleaning checklist.  I did customize a weekly menu plan and redid  the cleaning checklist from the previous one I posted.   I will post links for those later in case anyone wants them.  Then on the bottom there are 2 magnetic/dry erase boards, one has holders for bills and mail, then the grocery shopping list, and a holder for writing utensils.  The right is free space to write whatever we need, notes, to do list or anything else we decide we want to use it for. 

Close up of the menu and cleaning checklist, I took a large frame for this, used wrapping paper as a background and then put the plastic/glass in front so that way instead of always printing off new sheets I can just use it as a dry erase board.  Always ready to start over!

 Close up of bottom board

And that's our simple command center, ready to help me keep this house organized and on top of things!

Norwex

I'm excited to announce I'm starting a new venture, I am now a consultant for Norwex.

If you already have heard of Norwex or have their products you already know the products are great!

If you haven't heard of Norwex you will definetly want to learn more. 

The mission of Norwex is to improve quality of life by radically reducing the use of chemicals in personal care and cleaning.

With Norwex products you can clean your home without chemicals while saving time and money!  All Norwex cloths need is water and the results are even better than cleaning with chemicals.  You have to see it to believe it!

Norwex has a variety of different products to clean  and take care of your whole house, including special items for kitchen, baths, dusting, floors, personal care, bath and body, car cleaning, laundering, and dish washing. 

Norwex also has one of the best host/hostess plans in the home party industry!
Host a party and embrace the Norwex mission of improving the quality of life!
This is your opportunity to experience the Norwex lifestyle - amazing products, and healthy and simple solutions to improve your life. What a great opportunity to exchange ideas and make new friends.

If you would like to learn more please don't hesitate to email me at jenjones06@gmail.com
I could go on and on about all of the benefits of using Norwex products and would love to share more information with anyone who is interested.

I now also have a website site up where you can learn more information about the company Norwex itself, browse and order the products, and view some FAQ's. 
https://jenniferjones.norwex.biz

Menu Planning Sundays #2

This week trying 2 new recipes, they seem pretty safe and easy to we will see! 

Monday Foil Packed Chicken 

Tuesday Beef Stew with Rice

Wednesday Ranch House Crock Pot Pork Chops (new recipe for us) and Green Beans

Thursday Leftovers

Friday  Fiesta Chicken Casserole  (new recipe for us) with corn

Saturday  Homemade Pizza

Hope everyone has a great week!
Happy Meal Planning

Pinterest Projects

A few weeks ago I did a few quick little projects ( thanks to pinterest for the ideas, I love it when I acutally do/use what I pin, makes all the time I spend on there not feel worthless)

The first task was detangling the mess that had become of my necklaces. 

I wish I had a before picture of them, it was awful! Awhile ago I bought this jewelry holder thinking it would amazing but everything overlapped and the necklaces were always getting wound and twisted around each other.  It always took me forever to get one out and untangled so half the time I just decided not to wear one.  Well when I saw this idea I had the perfect space.  We have a towel rack over a large bathtub in our master that never gets used.  We don't need the tub and we really don't need the towel bar ( it was just holding a large decorative one that collects dust) so I decided to take it over for my necklaces.  This was simple I just bought 2 packages of shower hooks ( I tried to find something cheaper but couldn't find anything shaped the right way) on sale at Kohls with a 30% coupon and Kohls cash.  The project basically costs me $0.00 and I'm in love.   ( You have to ignore the ugly gold towel bar, right now it's what we have, we haven't got to painting/ switching anything out in the bathrooms yet, hopefully soon though!)

Now it's not the prettiest idea, but hey sometimes in areas that aren't seen all the time, I'm all about function over looks!

 I love wreaths and Etsy has so many cute ideas for wreaths.  Now I wouldn't pay the hefty price tag for them when some of them I could easily make on my own.  I purchased the large grapevine wreath at Hobby Lobby for $5.99 and the white numbers at Walmart for less than $5 and already had the red flowers.  The only thing else I needed was a glue gun.  I did purchase white flowers to put on it but decided I would do red first for Valentine's Day since I had some extra around the house we aren't using.  It didn't really turn out very festive looking so I will probably be switching the flowers out soon but I still love the idea and it was so easy and inexspensive to make.  I have lots more wreath ideas, I just need a season change or some more excuses of why I need to make more.  I have a hydrangea one pinned on my pinterest so that one is next and hopefully I will get to that next week after a trip to Hobby Lobby!

Anyone else have any pinterest projects they are working on? 

I'm getting closer to finishing my command center, and getting ready to do some cabinet and freezer organization, so those posts will be coming soon!