Feeding The Fish Sticks

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Extended Family Christmas Gift Exchange

You might remember the post I did last year about our new, extended family gift exchange. It seemed to be the perfect plan for our family and everyone seemed to enjoy it. While I was training for the 10K race last fall, I spent many a brain cell trying to think of a theme for 2013 family gift exchange. When My Man and I were engaged, someone threw us an Around the Clock wedding shower where each guest was assigned a time of day. Their gift had to reflect that time. I borrowed that idea and used the theme of Morning, Noon, Afternoon and Night to assign to the 4 Payne "Kids" for our gift exchange. It was lots of fun trying to come up with a good family gift that would be enjoyed by toddlers to teenagers and parents alike. Here are the gifts that we exchanged.

For BREAKFAST, my little sis gave us homemade granola, homemade cinnamon cocoa mix (both in reusable containers), a Jesus Calling devotional book, flavored coffee and personalized mugs for all 10 of us!

(Sorry these are a little out of order.)

For NIGHT, my older sis got us a funnel cake kit with 2 packs of paper plates, powdered sugar, a Pampered Chef shaker (love that!), Monsters University DVD and a cute bag to reuse.

For AFTERNOON, my SIL got us this great Thirty-One bag (she sells them and they are awesome!) with all the things to have a baking snack of cupcakes, icing, sprinkles, candy toppings, cupcake stencils, baking cups, flavoring, mixed nuts, cupcake decorations and a mini spatula.

I was assigned LUNCH and since I assumed they all had picnic baskets, I found these fold up stools that have a cooler attached to it and straps to carry like a backpack. Inside I had picnic ware of plastic table cloth, utensils, plates and napkins, frisbee, jump rope and bubbles, and ingredients for an Italian meal.

We had lots of fun with our gift exchange and I already told the sisters that next year we will do seasons, since there are 4 of us. That way we can shop clearance items and save more on post-season sales. I was assigned WINTER and got some great sales after Christmas so my shopping is done already.

Thanks sisters for awesome Christmas gifts that we can enjoy as a family! Love them all!

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Balloon Birthday Party on a Budget

Ruth had her first ever friend party when she turned 9.

As much as I love to craft and love a good Pinterest party, I resisted. As I mentioned in our family blog, all the time, effort and money that goes into amazing pinnable parties are really not for the kids, but for the parents. But I do love them and ooh and ahh over them and love to pin them. There are so many great, creative ideas.

When AB was in 4th grade, I threw her a big Webkinz World party. It was awesome, big, expensive (for me) and lots of fun to plan and execute. But when the fun was all over, my sweet daughter looked at me and said, "Mom, thank you so much for everything you did. It was really lots of fun. But next time do you think I could just have a couple friends over instead of a big party?"

As funny as that was to me, it also struck me how important it is to actually keep the Birthday Boy/Girl in mind as we go about planning parties. Had I really thought about the personality of my daughter, I would not have gone out with a loud, fun, crazy party with lots of girls.

So this time I considered the personality of my little Ruth. Loud, fun, crazy....yep, that's her!

Because I didn't want to spend a boo-koo of moolah on this party but wanted it to be fun for her, I decided (with the wonderful help of my professional party planning 7th grader) to do a balloon party. Balloons are fun, bright, colorful and CHEAP!! The more I thought about it, the more ideas we came up with to go with a balloon theme. It's a great idea for boys or girls.

The front door was decorated with a cloud and streamers that we had on hand and a coat hanger form with water balloons blown up with air for a wreath.

I got over the fact that mine didn't look like this one on Pinterest. I was just glad my balloons didn't pop in the 20+ degree weather.

First the girls arrived and we sent them to our bonus room for a craft. I found this one on Pinterest and loved it. We had 11 girls plus siblings. I got compositions notebooks at Dollar Tree, milkshake straws from Etsy and 5 rolls of Duct Tape on sale.

AB made this backdrop in our doorway from plastic table cloths and balloons (Dollar Tree) to do a Photo Booth using dress up clothes. It was lots of fun.

The party favors were the duct tape notebooks, a baggy of candy and animal balloons that my son made from a Dollar Tree kit, plus game prizes.

Decorations were tissue flowers, paper heart rainbows, balloon table cloth, streamers, centerpiece, and paper products and of course lots of balloons...all from Dollar Tree.

After the craft we played a bunch of games using balloons.

1. Fill small balloons with flour and set them on top of your feet which are close together. Waddle like a penguin from one end of the room to the other in relays.

2. Tie a Balloon around your ankle on a string and pop everyone else balloon while saving your own.

3. Relay race to run to the other side of the room, pop a balloon by sitting, stomping, etc. and run back

4. Make a sandwich by going back to back with your friend with a balloon between you and run to the end of the room and back without dropping it.

5. Stand on 4 balloons and a flipped over cookie sheet and stack as many people on the cookie sheet as possible without popping a balloon.

6. Balloon Ping Pong - we used badmitton rackets and played 2 on 2 elimination until 1 was left.

7. Keep your balloon moving and in the air - without letting it hit the ground - elimination.

8. Guess how many Skittles are in the pint jar - winner keeps the jar of candy

After each game I gave the winner a prize, mostly from Dollar Tree, like lip gloss, headbands, stickers, candy, erasers, pencils, etc.

Ideas from Pinterest

Pinterest idea

After the games we went to the kitchen for an ice cream sundae bar. I bought a couple gallons of vanilla ice cream with 3 toppings, whipped cream, cherries, sprinkles and small candy with lemonade to drink.

We opened gifts, took turns in the photo booth and played outside until parents arrived. The party was 2 1/2 hours and perfect timing.

The balloon party was a hit! The girls had lots of fun and it didn't break my budget. Simple and easy!

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Stockpile Low

My stockpile has been dwindling since I have not been couponing. Today I went to CVS to help fill up our stash. Laundry detergent, body wash, deodorant, toothpaste and toothbrushes were all on my list. My total was $112. I handed her my coupons and paid $77 out of pocket. I got $15 ECB back for my next visit. Now that's good savings!

Monday, January 13, 2014

Back to Saving

I haven't used coupons in well over 3 months.

Last night I decided to make a run to Harris Teeter, matching items with a handful of coupons, and grab their B1G1 deals and their B2G3 deals.

I got $300 worth of groceries for only $150! The cash register had an over-ring because the savings was so high! SCORE!

That was enough to get me motivated to start saving again.

Have you checked out HT's big savings this week? Better go before they end. Last day is Tuesday.

They have lots of cuts of meat for B1G1 that I got and the cashier told me their shrimp was B2G3 which had almost $100 in savings. I might need to go back!

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Hot Cocoa

Sometimes I just buy the Hot Chocolate mix packets because they are easy.

But sometimes it's just cheaper and easier to make it homemade.

Have you ever had it homemade? It's yummy.

I just use my recipe from Betty Crocker.

Here it is. Give it a try!

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Lost & Found....The Sequel

You might be wondering how my Lost and Found box turned out.

Well, it worked! And it's still working.

After my box filled up, one Saturday I told the kids it was Clean-out-the-Lost-and-Found-Box Day.

If their items were not claimed and paid for, then they would be donated to Goodwill.

I dumped the box in the middle of the floor and each Fish Stick made their pile of belongings (apparently there were items they weren't ready to pay for but items they didn't want to get rid of).

I made a list of the amount of money they owed to reclaim their things.

Then they were given the option to pay up or work it off.

Some kids opted to pay....the ones who actually have money and don't allow it to burn holes in their pockets.

Others wanted (or needed) to work it off.

I pulled out my trusted Home Management Notebook and pulled up the Paid Chores pages.

I ended up having my garage pressure washed, cleaned and organized and my Lost and Found box emptied all in one Saturday. Everyone was happy. Well, maybe not everyone was happy but I was happy and all Fish Sticks have since been TONS better about keeping their personal belongings picked up! My Lost and Found box has never been so full again.

It's working....try it!!

Paid Chore List

Clean Garage!

New Year's Day Fish Traditions

Cheese ball with crackers

New Year's Day has always been a big cooking day for me. I cook a large variety of our favorite appetizers and of course New Year's Punch. We feast at lunch and supper with our spread of goodies.

Today we've had sickness plaguing us since Christmas. It seems to be the flu. Thankfully not many folks have lost their appetite and the traditional meal was still very much anticipated.