Lasagna Success!

I'm so excited!  Tonight was my first attempt at homemade lasagna.  I have been wanting to try to make it forever.  It seems to be a staple for a lot of people who like to make food ahead- you can cook the meat and veggies ahead or the whole thing.  I was a little nervous about how difficult it would be and the results.  I found a recipe (thanks to the  Life as MOM website) that was not only fairly easy, but includes TWO cups of vegetables!!  The lasagna recipe I used was written by Ann Hodgman and can be found at the Wonder Time website.

It took a little longer to make than I was hoping but I think that, with some practice, I should be able to put it together in under half an hour.  You can also adjust the recipe for which type of meat you want in it (or none at all) and which vegetables you use.  I used whole wheat lasagna noodles and spinach, mushrooms and onions as my vegetables.  Even Josh ate it (except some of the mushrooms- I'll chop them up smaller next time)!

Of course I forgot to take pictures until I had already served out our dinner, but you can still see some of the layering and the browned cheese on top.  A note: I went out to feed the horses while it was baking and that took a little longer than usual due to the cold.  When I came back in, the timer was going off (I don't know for how long), so my cheese is a little more browned than it should be.  Luckily it wasn't "burned" and was just delicious!  I'll definitely be adding this to my favorites list!

We have pictures!

Mike is still doing "computery stuff" to our technology, but he did upload the Disney pictures for me.  Enjoy!

At the entrance to the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House

See that bottle of water?  We bought one & refilled it at water fountains all day.  They will even give you ice in a cup at the restaurants for free.  We had Josh take a drink every time we were in line to make sure he stayed hydrated.  Parents, too.  Sometimes we forget that we are susceptible to the heat, too!

With Donald- wait time: 5 minutes

The GIANT Buzz Lightyear Statue at our hotel. 
Can you see Josh by his foot?  He had as much fun with these as he did at the park!

Surprising Daddy from in between the blocks

Being scared of the dinosaur

Josh "as big as Buzz"

Meeting Mickey & Minnie

This was the only one we waited for, but they played cartoons for the people waiting in line in Toon Town.

Josh & Mike with the castle
Josh is squirming because the sun was in his eyes.

Josh telling Goofy his pirate joke. 
We happened to see Goofy by The Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  We waited about 7 minutes and this is his FAVORITE character!

The castle lit up with "ice" at night

Well, those are the best of our pictures!  For some reason, we didn't get any good pictures of the parades, which Josh loved.  If you go somewhere fun, don't forget your camera so you can look back on these precious and all too quickly gone moments!

What Do You Think?

I have been thinking that, for any tips and such that I come up with to be truly useful, people have to be able to find them.  Unfortunately, since this isn't a regular website (I'm not that far along in my own journey yet), the format is a bot limited.

If you will bear with me while I experiment some with formatting and such, hopefully we'll end up with a page that is practical, helpful and accessible.  I would be more than happy to hear from anyone who has ideas either for setup or for future topics!  And let me know what you think about what I come up with.

Lessons From Disney

OK, I realize that I said I was going to post this almost a week ago.  I was hoping to put some pictures of our trip in this post.  However, my husband has been in the midst of cleaning off and backing up our hard drive and other computery stuff, so I'll have to add them later.

One thing that being a teacher's kid and now a parent is that I see teachable moments everywhere.  Of course, most people are referring to opportunities to teach their children when they say this, but there are plenty of things that we grown-ups can learn, too.  As we get farther into this adventure called parenting, I'm thinking that we should take note of the things we learn so that we can avoid or better handle similar situations in the future.

Last week, we went to Florida to visit my family.  While there, we took our son Josh, who is now four, to Disney World for the first time.  We chose this year for 2 reasons; 1. He is a little more mature this year to handle things like waiting in line (and had some practice at a local theme park over the summer) and 2. Next year we will have a baby to carry around.

Last year, we had taken him to SeaWorld.  We decided to start there because it is more spectator focused (shows and exhibits) and less ride focused.  At three years old, having places to stop and sit and watch something interesting kept him rested enough that he lasted the whole day.  He also wanted to stay and spend the night ;)  Even with SeaWorld, which is not quite as overwhelming and extravagant as Disney, we did not make it to everything he wanted to see in one day.  Luckily, our tickets were part of a special and we were able to come back the next day for free.  The drawback was that we had to drive 2 hours each way to my aunt's house in between since a second day was not in our original plans.

Taking what we learned from SeaWorld and applying it this year helped.  We went ahead and planned for 2 days, knowing that Disney is even bigger with even more stuff than SeaWorld.  Thanks to some of my Disney Fanatic friends, I went online and found a discounted package to stay at one of the Disney resorts.  It really was no more than staying at a regular hotel (we stayed at the All-Star Movies resort for $82).  All of the Disney resorts include free transportation to any of their parks.  Bonus 1: their transportation takes you almost right to the gate- no having to walk miles and search for your car at the end of a long day.  Bonus 2: we didn't feel like we had to squeeze everything into one day, so we were more relaxed weren't rushing our little man from one thing to the next.

As I planned our trip, I saw a couple of interesting things on Disney's website.

Fast Pass
Some of the more popular rides have kiosks for a "Fast Pass".  Your stick your ticket into the kiosk and it gives you a ticket with a one hour time block during which you can come back and skip at least part of the line.  You can only have one fast pass at a time, so we recommend picking one or two favorites or the ones with the longest wait times.  Then you can spend the time until you can use your pass going on some of the rides with shorter lines.  We even went on one of the rides we had a pass for while we waited for our time.

Rider Swap
Some of the rides have an option called Rider Swap.  This is for parents who have one child big enough for a ride and one who isn't.  One parent can wait in line with the child going on the ride, then the second parent can go on the ride with him without waiting in line again.  We will definitely be making use of this the next time we go.


There were some things that we did not find out about on the Disney website:

1.  You can bring your own food and drinks!  We saw many parents breaking out their non-Disney food to snack on with their kids.
2.  You can take the monorail to Downtown Disney which is outside of the parks and has cheaper food prices while still in the Disney theme.
3.  If you get a package with a hotel stay and park visit, you have to go to the hotel to get your park ticket! I was lucky I called their customer service line for something else or we would not have known!


 A few things we learned while there:

1.  If you have a young or rambunctious child, there are two freeplay areas where they can get out some of their energy- there is a playground for kids 5 and under in Toon Town and Tom Sawyer's Island in Frontier Land.  We didn't figure out that these were needed until day 2.  Even though the rides are fun, they are very structured: stand in line here, now sit here and do this.  Young kids (and boys of any age) need some free time to run and explore with no limitations.
2.  Riding the train around the park is a great way to get a kid to rest who is tired but doesn't want a nap.  You can ride it around as many times as you want.  It takes about 20 minutes to circle the park.
3.  Be selective about waiting in line to see characters.  We skipped any that were too long in favor of spending our time doing fun stuff.  We did not get to see Buzz Lightyear, one of Josh's favorites (the line was over an hour) but we saw all of his other favorites- we happened upon Donald and Goofy in unadvertised places with short lines and took advantage.  He even got some extra time with Goofy and relished the moment.
4.  When selecting a souvenir, make sure you think about how you're going to get it home, especially if you are flying!


Most of all, remember to enjoy the moment!
Your kids will not be this young and exuberant for long.  Go at THEIR pace.  Remember that you are there to have fun and this is THEIR time.  Don't worry if they don't get to see everything.  They won't even know it's there unless you tell them.  Just relax and have fun- take some breaks if they need it.  If spending time enjoying your kids is the focus rather than doing everything in the park, you will have a much more enjoyable time.

Don't Get Ahead Of Yourself

As you may know, I am at the end of my contracting office job.  Knowing that I'm on the brink of being able to get to work... to get my life back in order, I have been looking online for some ideas of exactly what and how I want to do that.  I have put links to my favorites in various categories in my sidebar.  My top 3 for useful information on money and home are Money Saving Mom, Life as Mom, and Life...Your Way.  Between them, they have ideas on just about every aspect of life.

They have so many great ideas, that I have been itching to get started.  I said in my last post that I was going to try to attempt "freezer cooking" this weekend as I attempt to plan ahead to save time and money.  However, I forgot one little thing... CHRISTMAS!! 

How in the world could I forget Christmas!?!  Actually, it's not that I forgot Christmas itself (especially with a four year old), but I overlooked how much of my schedule becomes devoted to it this time of year.  Our church has several ways of celebrating the birth of our Savior, and I am involved in most of them, so there is at least one event per week that I need to help with or prepare for until Christmas day.  In addition, my father has decided just this week that he is going to come up for the week before.  There goes all that extra time I thought I'd have.

So, a quick revision to my plan is in order.  Remember that post on Importance and Immediacy?  Well, with visitors coming, having the overall house look good has jumped in both categories and having it well organized has dropped a couple of notches in due date.  Now, instead of going through all of my cabinets and closets to organize, I might be using them to stash stuff until our guests are gone.  After that, it won't matter if the living room looks like a tornado hit it when I pull everything out to sort through it all.

My plans for an organized life are still in place, and I WILL get to them, but you can't JUST plan for the future.  You also have to live right now.  Don't get ahead of yourself and miss today while looking to tomorrow.

Freezer Cooking

One of the things I had planned on doing in order to make sure we are being responsible with our money is to go through my freezer, pantry and cupboards to take inventory and make my meal plans to use up as much as possible, rather than buying new stuff and allowing what we already have to expire.  Anything that's close to it's expiration date already will be taken to a local food pantry where I know it will be used.

I have been looking around online at blogs and websites geared toward parenting, organization and saving money.  Several of them have mentioned "freezer cooking".  FishMama at www.lifeasmom.com uses this method to cook most of her dinners for an ENTIRE MONTH over a week(end)!  Sounds good to me!

You start out by taking inventory of what you have, then use that list to come up with ideas of what you could make with those foods.  Check your local sales circulars and coupons as you are brainstorming for maximum savings.  Then, when you go to the store, you are only buying the missing items, rather than the whole recipe's worth of ingredients.

When you get home, organize your supplies by dish and get cooking!  Not everything has to be a complete dish.  FishMama also freezes parts of meals that are better when fresh.  She has recipes for pizza dough, which can be frozen in balls, then baked fresh and shredded chicken, which she marinates, cooks and shreds, then freezes to add to fresh veggies later. 

Once the cooking is done, divide dishes into single dinner portions and freeze.  All you have to do after that is take out the meal you want to eat the night before so it has time to thaw out before you need it.  Add a side of fresh veggies and you have a quick and healthy meal even on a busy night.

This weekend, we will be doing some holiday preparations like getting our tree (yay!), but I'm hoping to get started on this as well. I'll let you know how it goes.

Also, while visiting my family in Florida, we took Josh to Disney for the first time! I'll post about our "Lessons from Disney" later, but I did want to include a link to a helpful website I just found- who knew?  It's called Disneyfamily.com, but the website address is a little different, so use the link.

Worth the Money

So I am learning that there are some things that are worth investing a little more money in.

Some items, like jewelry, clothing, furniture and carpeting, will last longer if they are made of quality materials.  And while sometimes you can find a competent service person who does not charge as much as their competitors, make sure you check out samples of their past work before you sign them on.   

One drawback to owning a farm is that, if you ever want a break, you have to make sure that there will be someone there to care for the animals when you are gone.  With house pets, they just need to be fed and maybe let out; with horses, there is much more care involved.

When my family and I went on vacation this past week, I left my two working students in charge (paying them for taking care of the horses while we were gone).  They should be pretty familiar with what the horses need and what I expect from them at this point.  Imagine my reaction when I return home to find that the horses in the field have no water and their stalls look like they haven't been cleaned in days!?!

So, from now on, I will be hiring a professional for the horses, if we ever dare to leave again.

However, all this got me thinking... there are some things that you can do yourself, some things you can get help from friends (or students) with and some things that you just need to pay the extra money and have a professional do for you.

Even when you are trying to save money, it is cheaper to have someone do the work correctly the first time than having it done incorrectly (even if all you are paying for is supplies) and then having to have a professional go back and fix it later.  When sizing up a task, be sure to evaluate if it is something you can do yourself (or with a friend) or if it is something better left to those with training & experience.