In the Kitchen: How to Make Oat Flour

This is really easy and now I never buy oat flour from the store.  I use it to make muffins mostly.


It's so easy, I'm letting my 5 year old daughter make it.


First we wanted to see how the food processor did with grinding it into a soft meal.

It did okay, but it wasn't as fine as I like it.


So I brought out the Magic Bullet and 

we zipped 1 cup of oats 

which turned into 3/4 cup oat flour.

We keep it in an old yogurt container in the fridge, just because I keep all my flours in the fridge.  

Have you tried grinding your own oat flour?  It can save you a ton of money.  Maybe not as much of a timesaver as buying it from the store, but it's cheaper and we always have oatmeal in the pantry.  These smaller canisters are regularly on sale with a coupon for $.50. 


This works for me!


Enjoy!

In the Kitchen: How to Freeze Oven Fried Potatoes

This is my favorite oven cheese fries.  They are low calorie and yummy to boot!  The only problem?  They take a good while to bake off.  So I experimented with the recipe to make it freezer friendly.  

Here's what I did:

Wash your taters

Cut them into wedges

Cover them in water

Dry them off before you put them into the seasoning bag.

Give them a shake in the bag

Arrange the taters on a tin foil lined baking sheet (I always make sure they are situated so that the skin of the potato is on the foil.  It keeps them from sticking so bad to the foil.)

Bake them at 425 degrees F for 20 minutes.  You're only partial cooking these.

Cool and then flash freeze on sheet pan.

Remove from the pan and baggie them up.

To eat them, preheat oven to 425 degrees F and bake for 20 minutes until done.  (I sprayed a little non-stick cooking spray over the tops to help with the browning.)

They were so good!  

This works for me.  I hope you'll give this a try.

Enjoy!

WFMW: How To Remove Ear Wax

I know this sounds gross, but it's part of our life.  So here goes.

My kid's pediatrician told me my daughter's ears were clogged full of wax.  She tried using an ear wax apparatus to remove some of the dark wax, but my daughter was crying in pain.  After coming home, I remembered the ear candles.  Ear candles are usually made of bee's wax and gauze.  Formed into a cone shape, you can light the larger end with a match and place the smaller end into the ear.  It will draw out some of the wax.  We did this a few months ago.  It worked good, but didn't get all of the wax out.  It was pretty hard and compacted.

Then Sissy was having severe ear pain.  She cried for nearly an hour in constant pain.  I could actually see the wax in the ear, so you know it had to be a lot.  Everyone said to just put water in the ear to clean it, but I'm one of those people who doesn't really like to try new things without being guided by someone who had already done it.  

What's a mommy to do?  

Watch youtube.com

I know.

Youtube?

Yes, youtube!

You definitely need to be selective about what you watch, but it helped me find a video about removing ear wax.  

Here's how:

Have the child lay on a pillow. 

Wrap a towel around their neck and face so the liquid doesn't get into their eyes and drip onto their clothing or pillow.

Fill the ear with peroxide (she recommends at least 3% kind).

Allow the peroxide to sit in the hear for 15 minutes.  

Tip the head to drain the peroxide onto the towel.

Fill a small cup with 1/2 warm water and 1/2 peroxide.  Using a syringe (like the ones CVS gives out to administer liquid medicine to your children), fill the ear with the warm liquid.  

Keep filling the syringe and squirting into the ear.  Repeat this process until some "stuff" starts floating out.

Make sure to keep the towel snug against the child's face (my daughter did not like the liquid dripping down her face and neck so we had to keep it tightly around her).  

After about 5-10 minutes of squirting the liquid into the ear, a glob of dark wax should come out.  

It's gross.

Plain and simple.

But, it's necessary and it works!

Drain the rest of the liquid from the ear by tipping the child's head onto the towel.  

I let Sissy's head lay on the towel to finish draining.  She fell asleep within a minute of having this done.  She hasn't complained of any ear pain since. 

It worked for me!  And it's frugal since most of the time you can get peroxide at Walgreens for $.39-.50 a bottle.

Enjoy!

This post has been linked to:
Life as Mom - Frugal Fridays

Q&A: Do you use a Menu Planning System or Program?

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A while back a friend sent me a message on Facebook asking me about menu planning:

Do you use a menu planning system or program?

My answer is: Nope.

Sometimes I think it might be easier to plug the information into a system or program, but I'm way too much of a control freak to allow something or someone to plan our meals.

So how do I plan?

Remember, I'm a couponer first and foremost.  This allows me to stockpile rice, pasta, spaghetti sauce, frozen vegetables, canned green beans (this is my husband's only real vegetable he'll eat and he prefers them in the can), cereal, oatmeal and peanut butter (to name just a few of the basics). 

I stockpile proteins at certain price points:

• Chicken breasts (with skin and bones, I think they are more flavorful) when they are on sale for $.99/lb or less.  I usually purchase 3 or 4 packages (each package normally has 3 large 1lb chicken breasts).  
• Ground beef is rarely on sale, but the best price I've found was at our local Food Depot for $1.49/lb and I purchase 8 lbs.  
• Fish fillets at $2.99/lb, I can find this at Food Lion and Aldi.  
• Pork Chops are indeed rare for us.  Sometimes I check the reduced bin at Food Depot or Kroger.  They'll have it marked down to $1.99/lb or less and I'll get a couple of packages.  
• Pork Roasts are perfectly priced on sale for $.89/lb or less.  
• My goal price for whole chickens is $.79/lb but I've paid $.99/lb when I was in a pinch. 
• When I find Beef Roasts on sale for $1.99/lb, I'll pick one up.

Each month the grocery stores offer these items on sale.  Some things are seasonal, like ground beef, but for the most part, you'll see the prices dip once or twice during the month.  When you've decided what is the best price for you to pay for something, you should stockpile enough to get you through the month.  Most stores cycle prices every 4-6 weeks.  So you'll want to pick up enough at the best price until the next time it's on sale.

I find spending about 30-60 minutes once a month, can reduce the stress of "what's for dinner" throughout the month.  It saves on your budget, i.e. eating out, impulse buying...these can add up. 

The next step is to review what's in your freezer and pantry from the previous month's purchases.  Some find it easy to keep a list of what's in the freezer so things don't get overlooked.  Once you've used that item, mark it off your list.

To make it even easier to plan meals, I specify certain types of meals for specific days of the week.  Printing a calendar helps make this easier for me, but you can use a calendar you keep on your wall or in your purse.  Check the calendar for special occasions, gatherings, date-nights, out of towners and what not.  Mark the calendar so you'll not have to plan meals for those nights.  

Monday - Crock Pot Meal/Chicken

Tuesday - Leftover Meal/Soup

Wednesday - Breakfast for Supper

Thursday - Tex Mex/Bean Night

Friday - Pizza

Saturday - Try a new recipe/Dinner Out

Sunday - Crock Pot Meal/Family Favorites

This changes monthly, but Wednesday and Friday are almost always the same.

I have several cookbooks I reference for new recipes.  I also regularly check food blog carnivals, you can find delicious tried-and-true recipes with detailed instructions on how to prepare the dish.  You can find a list of those carnivals at the bottom of most of my recipe posts.  And of course, I love the Food Network, and often get inspiration from the many chef's recipes.  Sometimes I need to tweak the recipe to feed my family, but it gives you starting place.  

So that's it in a nutshell.  I hope you'll give meal planning a try if you're not already doing so.  I would suggest starting out with a simple weekly plan so you don't feel overwhelmed.  Once you get that down pat, you can try to be a little more adventurous by planning 2 weeks worth of meals.  After that, you'll be ready for monthly planning.  It's really not that hard, in fact, I'll have been planning our monthly meal plan for an entire year come December!  And I can tell you, it's been working for me for a year!

Enjoy!

In the Kitchen: Ice Cream Scoops

You're probably thinking, "Ice Cream Scoops???"  

Yes, I said ice cream scoops.  I have three different sizes.  A large one about 1/4 cup size, two that are about the size of 2 Tablespoons and one small one that is about the size of 1 Tablespoon.

I love ice cream scoops.  I use them for ice cream (duh!) 

but I also use them for other things...

like cookies:

and salmon cakes:

and muffins:

and truffles:

and measuring out equal amounts of soup for the muffin tin for the freezer:

This works for me, what about you?  

Have you repurposed ice cream scoops in your home?

In the Kitchen: Ripe Avocados

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Boy, I love me some avocado.  Diced in a salsa.  Sliced on a burger.  Mashed into guacamole.  

Sometimes you can find them at the grocery store or farmers' market on sale 2 for $1.  The catch?  They're green and hard as rocks.

To help ripen a green avocado, place a banana and the green avocado in a brown lunch bag and keep it on the kitchen counter.  The natural ethylene emitted from the banana will help ripen the avocado in a day or two.  Once it's ripe, you can store it in the refrigerator for several days.

Also, if you are not using the entire avocado, but only need a few slices, you can keep it from browning so badly by leaving the seed intact with the remaining flesh and pop it into the fridge.  Then when you're ready to eat it,  just cut a very thin brown layer away from the avocado and enjoy!   Sometimes squeezing a little lemon or lime juice will help slow down the oxidation but it will brown a little.  Leaving the seed in the avocado reduces the amount of area you'll need to slice away.

This works for me!  

Have you tried this before?

Enjoy!

This post has been linked to:

• Idea Sharin' Wednesday at Women Who Do It All
• Show and Share Wednesday at Just a Girl
• Homemaker Monday
• Kitchen Tip Tuesday at Tammy's Kitchen
• Tip Me Tuesday at Tip Junkie

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Must Haves for Sick Kiddos

Last week, my son contracted the terrible stomach bug.  I've never really had to deal with vomiting before so it was a huge eye-opener and learning experience.

Oh Amanda hosts Top Ten Tuesday each week.  Here's my list of:

10 Must Haves for Sick Kiddos

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1.  Hand washing and hand sanitizer.  I know some people aren't into the hand sanitizer but I like to have it on hand for these kinds of germs.  We don't use it every day, only when we're dealing with sickness.  I prefer to have the kids (and myself included!) wash hands with warm soapy water and then sanitize.  

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2.  Bleach, vinegar, tea tree oil or other disinfectant.  I'm not against the use of bleach.  Some of the bloggers I follow have decided to use tea tree oil as a disinfectant, I think that's wonderful for them.  But bleach works fine for me.  I used vinegar to clean up the aftermath on the hardwood floors since bleach is not recommended.  I also sprayed Lysol on all the door handles, toilet flushing handles, bathroom fixtures and any other low reaching knob my little one might have reached for, just as a precautionary measure.

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3.  Laundry detergent, bleach or vinegar.  I needed to wash a huge stuffed animal, bedding and blankets, so making sure I had detergent was a must.  I normally stockpile these when they are on sale for $.99-$1.50.  Unfortunately, I ran out of bleach last week and haven't been to the grocery store.  However, I did have vinegar and splashed about a cup into the wash with the detergent.

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4.  Bananas.  Bananas are the first of the "B.R.A.T." diet recommended by my mother-in-law.  I'd never heard of this until I married my husband.  But we use when we have stomach issues.

5.  Rice.  Rice is next in the "B.R.A.T." diet.  Make sure it's plain without salt.  Very easy to digest.

6.  Applesauce.  Applesauce is after that.  Thankfully we had a little leftover and my son was anxious to eat a little something the second day of the bug.  It's very soothing on a "rumbly tumbly" (as Pooh would say).

7.  Toast.  Toast is the last part of the diet.  Toasted bread without butter or jelly, just plain.  

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8.  Popsicles/Pedialyte.  Having popsicles in the freezer and Pedialyte in the pantry are definite must-haves when treating a stomach virus.  I didn't have either and thankfully my Momma came to the rescue and brought over two CVS brand Pedialyte (it was on sale too!). 

9.  Free Schedule.  Clear your schedule, no work, no ministry, no school.  They need our undivided attention.  Snuggling seems to make them feel all better anyway :)

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10.  Patience.  Dealing with sickness can be stressful, especially if you have more than one child in the household.  I always fear the sickness will travel among everyone and then re-infect the first child a second time.  Thankfully, with all the precautionary measures I took, no one else got the stomach virus.  Patiently caring for the needs of the sickie will result in less crying, more hugs and a quick recovery.

This is how we deal with sickness and it works for us.  

How about you?  Do you have a tried and true method of treating the sickies in your home? 

In the Kitchen: Egg Shell Retrieval

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Y'all know how much I love to bake and how much we eat Breakfast for Dinner.  

Well, I have to tell you a little secret:  every week I'm fishing out a small piece of egg shell from something, whether it was scrambled eggs or zucchini bread.  I was at work just this morning and dropped half of an egg shell into the batter of blueberry muffins, thankfully retrieval has gotten easier since I've learned this easy tip.  

Don't use your finger to "fish" out the tiny piece of egg shell.  For one thing, it will take you a good 10 minutes to finally get a hold of it.

Instead, using a larger piece of egg shell, dip it in and retrieve that pesky little shell.  It works every time and without much fuss.

Of course, if you never have this problem, don't worry, it will happen one day, and you'll be glad you read about how to solve it.

Enjoy!

"Potty Training"

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I've already written about our potty training details before.  This time around with my son, I'm using a similar approach.  I have to admit I feel a little more prepared for the long-haul.  I'm not expecting him to be potty trained overnight (although I have a friend who was successful in 3 Day Potty Training...go Lilah!).  This time I think I'm prepared for a few set-backs.  

So far, we've been using the potty before bath time.  He has this concept down pat.  However, he isn't being rewarded like my daughter was.  I think I'm going to save those for the "hardcore potty training sessions".  I've heard of a couple of things to help boys use the potty.  

For example:

• Float a Cheerio on the surface of the toilet water and let him "aim" for the Cheerio.  
• Have him go potty when daddy goes potty.  
• When outside playing, let him go behind bushes and trees.  

I personally have not implemented these techniques but figured I'd keep an open-mind.  I learned a long time ago to never say "never".  I hope this works for me, what about you?   

Do you have any tried-and-true methods for potty training little boys?

Any and all suggestions are welcome :)

In the Kitchen: Sun Tea

In the kitchen this week, I should really be writing, "on the back porch", but you'll get the idea.

I don't know about you, but I grew up drinking "sun tea".  Back in the day (around 1983 or so) my Momma had gotten the really cool 1-gallon glass pitcher jars with the drain spout near the bottom.  In the morning, she'd fill the jar with water, dangle in 3 or 4 tea bags, screw the lid on and sit the pitcher on the picnic table in the back yard in full sun.  Within a few hours, the sun had warmed the water and brewed the tea.  She'd add some sugar to sweeten it, because that's what works for us, and we'd drink "sun tea".  I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever!  

Sunday, my daughter and I drove to the Dollar Tree to see what kind of goodies we could get for $1.00.  While there, I saw some small spouted pitchers, perfect for making sun tea.  These were plastic and will probably last about 1 whole week, but I thought the kids would love to see the tea brew by the sun's warmth.  Of course, in true homeschooling fashion, we turned it into a "science experiment" and discussed how the tea was brewed.  You know you're a mommy when you are trying to relive your past with your kids.  Thankfully they loved it!

How about you?  Did you grow up drinking "sun tea"?

This post has been linked to:

• Make it Yourself Monday at Eat From Your Pantry
• Homemaker Monday at 11th Heaven 
• Tuesday's Tips at Couponomic Stimulus Package
• WFMW at We Are That Family
• Wordful Wednesday at Seven Clown Circus
• Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Mom
• Wordless Wednesday at A Lot of Loves
• Wordless Wednesday at Newlyweds Blog 
• Wordless Wednesday at A Daily Dose of Toni 
• You Know Your a Mom When-sDaze at Arizona Mamma

In the Kitchen: How to Freeze Cooked Rice

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Last month during OAMC, I decided to try to par-boil some rice.  I had come up with our monthly meal plan and decided I could make "meal kits" using pre-cooked chicken and pre-cooked rice.  Only thing was, I didn't know if it would work.

Guess what?

It did!

I followed the directions found at eHow.  

After I cooked the rice, I spread it onto a cookie sheet and let it come to room temperature.  Then I bagged it in 2 cup portions and put them into the freezer.  I made up 8 cups of rice for 4 meal kits.  To reheat it, microwave for 3 minutes on high, opening the zip top about an 1" for steam.  Let it sit in the microwave for 1 minute and then it's ready to use.  It was that easy.

I usually use 1-1/2 cups of pre-cooked chicken per recipe, which works out to about 1 large chicken breast.  This helps stretch our protein and combining it with the rice and veggies leaves us feeling full.  

I intended using the kits for Stacy's Southwestern Chicken and Rice (an absolutely delicious and easy meal made even easier using pre-cooked main ingredients) and Chicken Fried Rice (the recipe calls for 6 cups of rice, but since there are only 2 adults and 2 small children in our house right now, I only use 2 cups of rice).  I had to rework the entry of ingredients to the meal, but it still came out tasting like I made everything the same day.  

What a huge time saver!  I can't wait to try this with brown rice.  I had a bunch of bags of free white rice so I'm still working on those, but eventually I'd like to start using all brown rice.  And it's easily disguised in the meals since you are adding seasonings and flavorings.  So my picky hubby will eat it without so much as a second glance!

This works for me and I hope you'll try it soon.  Don't forget OAMC is coming up next week!

Enjoy!

In the Kitchen: Mandoline and Homemade Potato Chips

A couple of weeks ago, I won a giveaway from Sarah at I Blame My Mother for the CSN.com stores.  I was so excited!!!  My daughter had talked about wanting matching aprons, so that's what I got us.  I also had a little money leftover, and needed a new mandoline so I included one in my order.  

I used to own a Pampered Chef model about 14 years ago.  It had a stainless steel blade embedded in molded plastic.  It worked great until the plastic cracked.  They've discontinued it now.  I haven't had one in ages and I'm so excited about this new one.  It has a ceramic blade, alot like this one:

Tonight I made some homemade potato chips and it worked beautifully!  

I think maybe my oil got too hot and toward the end of frying the potato chips, they started getting a little dark.  Oh well, they still tasted fabulous!  I sprinkled them with kosher salt and onion powder.  Just because.  My brain is running wild with all the things I can make now...apple pie, fried apple rings, sweet potato chips, beet chips, potato au gratin...I'm going to be busy!

Do you own a mandoline?  Have you tried the ceramic blade?

Enjoy!

This post has been linked to:

• Make it Yourself Monday at Eat From Your Pantry
• Homemaker Monday at 11th Heaven 
• WFMW at We Are That Family

 


There are Amazon.com links embedded in this post.  If you choose to purchase through the links, I will receive a small compensation from Amazon.com.  Thank you!

In the Kitchen: Lemon Juicer

I'm not really into kitchen gadgets, but I do have quite a few things in my kitchen drawers.  Thankfully, I use everything in the utensil drawer.  One of my favorite kitchen gadgets is my lemon juicer.  I know you've seen these things.

 

You cut the lemon in half and place it in the cup and squeeze the handles to juice the lemon into a measuring cup or bowl.  I saw this for the first time on the Food Network show Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffman.  I actually purchased the one I have at a kitchen outlet store in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina a few years ago.  They had smaller green ones for limes, yellow ones for lemons and larger orange colored ones for oranges.  I decided to buy the yellow one since it seemed more practical to have a medium sized one to do double duty between lemons and limes and it works beautifully!

This works for me.   

Which kind of lemon juicer do you use?

*This post has Amazon.com links embedded.  If you choose to purchase through the links, I'll receive a small commission.  Thank you!

"Pick Your Battles"

I'd have to admit that I used to be a bit of a control freak (and some of my friends would venture to say that I still am in certain areas of my life).  Over time though, I've learned that yielding to another can result in less stress and more happiness.

For example, before I was married, I lived on my own in a little garage apartment attached to an older woman's home.  I had my set up just right.  I knew how I liked to fold my laundry, where I liked to store away my dishes, and so on.  When I got married, my husband had another whole set of rules he followed.  IF the towels were folded, that was a good thing, who cared if they weren't tri-folded?  IF the dishwasher was loaded, who cared if the plates weren't neatly stacked together and the bowls in the proper place?  WELL I DID!  Then I took a step back and realized:

1. at least my husband was helping out around the house
2. the towels weren't tri-folded but the towels were folded
3. the dishwasher may not have been organized the way I liked it but the dishes were clean

I learned it was not necessarily important how it was done, as long as it was done.  So I coined the phrase "pick your battles".  It's so true!  There's less arguing and more happy bantering when I don't nit-pick over every little thing.  At the time, we were both working full-time outside the home, so it took teamwork to get things done around the house.  Now that I'm staying at home with the kids, I do find I have lapsed back into my old ways of reorganizing the dishwasher if he has helped load it.  But I don't say anything.  I think back to the time when we were newlyweds and smile. 

Now that I have children, I've learned this "pick your battles" thing can work for them too.  If my daughter wants to parade around in a princess dress from sun-up to sun-down for 3 days straight, that's fine...at least she's got clothes on.  If my son wants to play in a mud puddle and splash around in the water, that's fine too...he's washable and so are his clothes.  If my daughter wants to have a ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast instead of cereal or french toast sticks, that's okay...at least she's eating something somewhat nutritious.  However, I do draw the line at candy and sweets before lunchtime.  My daughter will ask for a brownie at 7:30 in the morning.  I'll suggest she have an apple or some grapes if she's still hungry, knowing she already had a bowl of cereal with a banana.  The battle of the wills begin, but a compromise is reached when everyone gets a brownie for dessert after supper.

I hope you learn to pick your battles and enjoy the moments you have with your family.  It works for us. 

Do you argue over the little things?

Having a Budget

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"We don't have any extra money."

"I hate being on a budget."

Have you said these things?  Most of us have.  Don't be ashamed, I've said them before too!  Sometimes I say these things and then I realize they are not that important.

We don't need EXTRA money.  We need enough to cover our bills and necessities and that's it.  In fact, that's all that God promised us anyway (Matthew 6:25-33, 1 Timothy 6:8)  And what if you do get a little extra money to put into a savings account for a rainy day?  Well, inevitably, something happens and you have to break the piggy bank to get at the money.  

Budgets are what we need to keep us in line and accountable.  If we didn't have one, we'd be over-spending and be completely overwhelmed with debt.  Look at the government and many others around the world as an example.  I'm just saying...

Going to a cash budget envelope system has really been working for us.  I've been pretty lax this last month, but I've not really been grocery shopping like normal.  (We're trying to eat up what we have on hand so I can thaw out the deep freezer).  Having only a specific amount of money to spend at the store helps me make wise choices when spending that cash.  I look for free food after coupons and sales.  I stockpile what I can when I can.  I take advantage of the freebies offered by the drug stores and roll those store rewards to get the best bang for my buck.

Having a budget can be fun.  I try to view it as a challenge, most of the time.  Like I said, I have been guilty of saying I hate to be on a budget, but in the end it's the best thing for us at this time in our lives.  What's most important is putting God first in our life and being content with what we have.   

Do you struggle with your budget?  

This has been linked to:

• Frugal Friday at Life as Mom

Going Green - Paper Towels

Over the past year, we have tried very hard to use less and less paper towels.  First of all, they can be expensive!  I think the last time I bought paper towels, they were on sale for $4.96 and I used store rewards to get them cheaper (of course!).  At the time, we had already reduced the amount of paper towels we were using in the kitchen and at breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner.  I've since reduced the use of paper towels in our cleaning.

I used to use paper towels to clean the windows, mirrors and shower doors in the bathroom.  Now I use newspaper.  I know it sounds crazy, but it works -- and no streaks!  You need to be careful if you have white trim and walls, because sometimes the soy-based ink might smear on those surfaces while you are cleaning the mirrors and windows.  In the kitchen, we are also using newspaper to absorb oil from fried foods such as bacon, sausage, fried taters and homemade tortilla chips.  

When it comes to eating, we are using cloth napkins.  I haven't actually purchased any cloth napkins.  We're using "recycled" cloth napkins.  I've cut squares from older bath towels that are too thin to do any good after a shower, but are perfectly acceptable to clean up your face and hands.  We also have some thin cloth diapers that were never used for their intended purpose, but rather were used as burp cloths.  We've migrated these from Hunter's drawers to the kitchen drawers.  They are easy to bleach and keep pretty clean (still trying to figure out how to get rid of the spaghetti stains).  I'm hoping to accumulate enough cloth napkins to use during get-togethers and gatherings.

I'm hoping to completely alleviate the purchase of paper towels and what a huge savings that will be!

This works for us.  

Are you thinking about going green in an area of your life?

In the Kitchen: Fruity Pancakes

We usually have breakfast for supper on Wednesday nights.  It's easy, cheap and fast.  I use this recipe for pancakes and it has never failed me.  I hope you'll try it soon. 

I thought I'd share how I add fruit to pancakes.  Some people add chopped fruit to the batter but I find when I do this, the fruit gets mashed and the juices bleed into the batter.  

So this is how I add fruit (or chocolate chips or even cooked, crumbled sausage) to pancakes (you can view the video here):

This works for me.  

Do you add fruit to the batter or to the skillet?

Enjoy!

How to Fix Untucked Dress Shirts

If you have a little boy in your home and you attend religious services of some sort, then you might run into this same problem:

Untucked dress shirts!  It drives me crazy!

We'll have Hunter dressed for the meeting and the next thing you know, he's running through the house screaming and carrying on like almost 2 year old little boys do, and his shirt tails are hanging out of his pants.  When he was a little baby, I used to use this method all the time, but as he got older, it was easier to keep them tucked in.  Now he's like a madman and there's nothing that holds him still.  So we're back to the method.  

Now there are a couple of stores that sell dress shirts with a "onesie" type fastener, but they can be rather expensive. 

So I wanted to share how we keep our little boy's shirt tucked in nice and neatly:

Sheet Straps, or some of you might call them Sheet Suspenders.  

You know what I'm talking about right?  The little contraptions you use in your bedroom to keep your sheets from flipping off the mattress.  You can buy them at Walmart for less than $5 and you can even order them on Amazon.com (so if you have Swagbucks and redeem them for Amazon gift cards, well, they'd be free for you!)

This is what we do:

On the bottom front of the shirt, fasten the sheet straps on each side of the button.

Have the baby lay on his tummy and fasten the sheet straps about a hand's width apart on the backside of the shirt.

And that's it!  Honestly, it's the easiest way I've learned to keep his shirts tucked in.  

He looks so handsome!

It works for us and I hope it helps you too!

This has been linked to:

• Works for Me Wednesday at We Are That Family
• Thrifty Thursday at My Coupon Teacher
• Frugal Friday at Life as Mom