Holly Jolly Happenings...(+ free printable!)

(Get this free printable here!)

The most wonderful time of year is upon us and while I'd love to be back in the blogging saddle more consistently right now, I've been busy with many other things and intentionally spending more time with my family. As you can tell from this and this, my world has been turned upside down since August. Blogging is still a passion of mine, and my plan is to get back to it more often starting in January.

To catch you up, here's what's been going on lately:

1. We are finishing up our first semester ever of homeschooling. My girls are in 6th, 3rd and 1st grade and these last few months have taught me a few things.

• I'm stronger than I thought I was. Doesn't the song say, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?" While I hate the song, I think it might have a little truth to it. The jury's still out. I'll keep you posted, but if you don't hear from me again, forget everything I just said.
• Never say "NEVER". After 38 years of life, I should know better. I have said for years I would never homeschool. The fact is while I do not love everything about it, I like a whole lot about it. However, there are days when I have to remind myself exactly what it is that I like and hope that the next day will be better.

2. Our days in this apartment are numbered and for that I am so thankful! We are building a house and hope to move in next Spring. So, in the meantime, we are learning to share our personal space and looking forward to having a little more of our own space in the near future. It will be worth it! We decorated very simply this year with one of our small trees adorned with the girls' keepsake ornaments, new stockings (because we can't find our old ones - 3/4ths of our belongings are still in boxes), and a lighted wreath above the mantel. On the bright side, it will be easy taking it all down.

3. With my husband's new job (hence the reason we moved to Kentucky), we have more time together as a family. It's been such a blessing! We have explored so many fun places in just this short time of living here. Some of our favorites have been the Cincinnati Art Museum, The Cincinnati History Museum, and the Creation Museum. (Do you detect a theme?) Stay tuned for my review of all of our favorite places in case you plan to visit Northern Kentucky/Cincinnati anytime in the future.

4. I have begun a new adventure in the world of essential oils! I started using essential oils several months ago and have been amazed at how they help me and my family to stay healthy or heal from different things. I plan to post periodically about the oils I love and use most, but if you'd like more info in the meantime, check out my website! www.mydoterra.com/amymccombie  I'm a believer in the power of these natural oils and benefit greatly from using them. Do you use them? If so, what are your favorites and what do you use them for? I'd love to know!

That's about all for now! I'll be back soon, but until next time.... Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

Check out my Pinterest boards for lots of Christmas inspiration!

How to Entertain on a Budget: Food Edition

You might feel a little intimidated by the title Hostess, but as we chatted yesterday, you can see there's no reason to be intimidated. You can take hostessing to any level you wish and still make it very inviting and fun for those you're entertaining. We'll talk about a few aspects of hostessing over the next few days starting today with the issue of food. How can you keep it budget friendly, yet still extra special? Let's see!

• Determine your budget. - If you're like me, you have a weekly grocery budget. Are you going to keep this meal as part of that weekly budget or use your entertainment budget? {If you don't have a budget, check this out. It's a great place to get started.}
• Decide how many guests you want to invite. This will impact your budget, so decide this before you decide the food.
• Now that you know how much you can spend and how many guests to invite, let's figure out what kinds of foods fit into that budget. We're going to explore a few low-cost meals we could have.

Buffet-style meals are fun and easy. They don't require having a large dining room to seat everyone and it's very informal. Here's a list of meal ideas that work well with buffet-style:

• Chili - Make a big pot of chili {feeds several people with one batch}. Put the chili at the beginning of the table with the bowls and then stagger all the toppings after that including cheese, corn chips, sour cream, hot sauce, onions, avacado, etc. and then put the spoons/napkins at the end of the table. Have a separate table or countertop for drinks and dessert. Remember, most friends will offer to bring something to help with the meal. Have them bring their favorite topping or a dessert. A batch of chili can easily be made for $7-8. Double that and it's still pretty feasible for feeding 15-20 people for $1 or less per serving. {My recipe is 1lb ground beef, large can of Bush's chili beans, 1 can red kidney beans, 1 can tomato sauce, 1 packet McCormick chili seasoning.}
• Taco Bar - You provide the meat and hard/soft shells, toppings can be brought by guests or you provide - cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, onions, salsa, taco sauce, beans (black or refried), avacado, etc.
• Nacho Bar - Chips, Meat, Nacho Cheese (try melting Velveeta and adding a can of Rotel), lettuce, black olives, onions, salsa, beans, guacamole, sour cream, etc.
• Hamburger Sliders - Provide the meat and buns. Toppings - tomatoes, onions, blue cheese, sliced cheese, bbq sauce, ketchup, mustard, mayo, crispy onions, guacamole, etc. You can be very creative with this! Sides: chips, dip, fries, salad, or whatever you like best.

Once you've figured out the food. Decide how to make it extra special with those little inexpensive touches. You could do a variety of fun things. I've found a few free printables you can use below. Or be creative and come up with your own!

Use these cute chevron printables for a casual get together. This is a huge list I found by searching on Pinterest.

These banners and buffet cards are perfect for a Halloween get together! Print these here. 

These would be so cute for a Thanksgiving kind of meal - lots of printables here to make it an extra special meal.

These would be great for a holiday get together! Have some people over for coffee and dessert and have a grand time with these adorable FREE printables!

These are all very inexpensive ideas for free printables - just the cost of ink and paper. But they will go a long way in making your meal {informal or formal} memorable for years to come! Go the extra step and add those little details. It makes a big difference!

How do you make your get togethers extra special? Do you have a favorite printable? What is your favorite food to serve guests? I'd love some new ideas!

This is part of my 31 Days of Home Economics series. You can find my whole series at the tab above {Home Economics}.

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Home Management Binder Roundup {Free Printables}

In my quest to bring you relevant and practical posts on my 31 Days of Home Economics journey, I decided to post about something that I need to redo in my home. I did this a few years ago, but since then there have been lots of changes in my household routine and in our schedule I'm going to be updating my home management binder. I wanted to bring you free printables and great sources for this project, but realized there are so many out there already that are great and I don't need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Therefore, I'm going to give you the links for the great ones I have found that I'll be using. I hope these will be helpful to you, too!
{Stop by these blogs and say hey! These people put in a lot of time to make these free printables available for us. I'm very appreciative!}

While looking around I found that Organizing HomeLife did a 31 Days series last year on this very thing - free home management binder printables! I'm very excited to look through all of these and print the ones that apply to me.

Stacy's Savings & Other Stuff has a great selection of free printables that she created. You can also check out her whole series of organizing your life with binders. I can't wait to see all that she has to offer. I plan to look at each one in detail to see what I can use!

Newbee Homeschooler has some colorful home management binder printables that I love. I think the colors make managing my home a little more fun and happy! Check out her stuff!

If you'd like to see the other great ones I've found, check out my Home Management Pinterest board here. I'll be adding more soon! You can follow all of my boards here.

Do you use a home management binder? If so, what are you top pages or sections you can't live without?

This is part of my 31 Days of Home Economics series. You can find the whole series at the tab above called {Home Economics}.

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The Well Managed Home: How to Delegate

This is a topic Hubs and I have been discussing a lot lately. It's a great idea and even a very welcomed idea, but why is it so hard to do? Just this morning, as we were heading out the door for school and work, Hubs and I noticed a few cheerios on the kitchen floor {clear evidence that the girls had poured their own cereal this morning}. He sighed and said, "Ugh, cheerios on the floor again!" {You can tell this is a common occurrence in our house.} So, I said, "Don't worry about it. I'll get it later." Then, he said to me, "Why you? Why not leave it and let them get it when they get home?" On any other day, there's no way I could leave that. It would be bothering me all day, but today I was leaving and wouldn't be here to look at it. So, that's what I did. And guess what is awaiting them when they get home from school? Cheerios on the kitchen floor.
I don't know what stage of life your kids are in, but mine are very capable of doing some big chores and taking care of their own messes. I just have a hard time letting them do it when I know I can do it faster and without whining {well, most of the time}.
So, in my quest to continue learning ways to delegate to my children and become more of a home manager {and not just the housekeeper, cook, seamstress, kisser of boo boos, homework enforcer, taxi driver}, here are a few things I am going to start around here in addition to Family Dinner responsibilites.
The Daily Work Planner Chart. I got this idea from one of my all-time favorite books ever, More Hours in My Day by Emilie Barnes. My copy is an old one, but she has made revisions recently.
The DWPC is perfect for letting each member of the family know what his/her responsibility of the day is. I love this concept and have tried it with other charts and print outs, etc. But I lack consistency. So, here I am clinging to the end of my rope and tired of doing it all myself and I'm starting this today! Well, I'll make my chart today and start it fresh in the morning. My sweet little minions girls are now going to be team players! {They are usually willing to help, it's just their mom who can't get her act together.}
An example chart {from the book} would be like this:

You could just assign the chores from the week to each person and rotate them OR you can make it fun by writing all the chores for the week on a slip of paper and letting each child pick from the jar. Whatever they pick is the job they get. They can't complain, either, because they picked it - it's their own fault. And they get to live with it for a week. {evil laugh} But doing this is teaching them teamwork. They are part of a family unit and we all work together to accomplish the goals of the family. At the end of the week, if everyone has done their job well, reward the family with a trip for ice cream or a picnic or movie night or something. This builds unity and lets them see there is something worth working for.
Some examples of chores to delegate depending on age of children:

• setting the table
• separating laundry
• folding laundry
• vacuuming
• mopping {mine all fight over this one}
• cleaning bathrooms {or even splitting it up and having one do the sink all week, one do the toilet, one do the bathtub.
• dusting
• water plants
• empty trash cans
• wash windows

I know sometimes the weekdays can be crazy {or Cra-Cray, as my 10 yr old says}, but one chore per day seems very doable. If not, make Saturday your big cleaning day. I personally don't prefer that. The house gets messy during the week. I mean, we LIVE here. So, my house needs rescued just about every day. And boy, am I glad you can't see it right now!

Here are some other helpful chore charts/cleaning schedules I found that you might like. Click the link below each one to print.
Daily Cleaning Checklist - I love this one from Real Simple. It's not a deep cleaning list, but one to help you keep your house surface clean. It gives you a plan instead of being overwhelmed by it all.
Fall Cleaning Checklist - Deep clean this Fall with this great checklist! You'll have it done in no time!
Print these free printables to help you keep that cleaning on track.

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Do you clean once a week? Do you delegate or do it all yourself? Have any great tips for me? I could use them!!

This is part of my 31 Days of Home Economics series.  You can find links to the rest of the series here or at the top of this page titled {Home Economics}.

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Never Forget an Item on Your Grocery List + Free Printables

Well, I can't promise that you'll NEVER forget another item at the grocery store, but this grocery shopping technique should help. {If my husband were reading this, he'd laugh because well, let's face it, I haven't been the best shopper lately.} I'm working on it and really trying to get back into the habit of doing one shopping trip per week. It's much easier and there's less stress involved. And we could all use some of that, right?

If you're like me, you shop at the same grocery stores every week. I shop at two sometimes three stores a week. By now, I've been there enough that I know the layout pretty well. So, think through your store's layout and the route you usually take through the store.

I always go to the right when I enter my store. It starts with the Deli > Cheeses & Lunch/Breakfast Meats > Meats > Dairy > Then, I go up and down the aisles inside this perimeter. Cereals/Coffee/Tea > Juice/Baby > Snacks/Condiments > Ethnics > Canned Vegs/Boxed sides > Households > Chips > Drinks > Frozen > Bread > Produce/Floral > Pharmacy. Then, to the checkout! So, when making my list, I write each dept down on paper  in the order in which I'll be going through the store. Then, as I look over each day's menu, I write in items I need right into the category listed. Some stores have a store map at the front of their store or online to help you better plan your shopping experience.

Meal Plan & Shopping List

I also like to have my weekly menu somewhere on the list so that I can remember what I'm having in case I decide at the last minute to change something up depending on a sale item or whathaveyou.

Weekly Meal Planner

Weekly Menu/List

Click the links below each picture to go to the original site and print out the ones you'd like to try! Some of these may not be in the order you'll be walking through your store, but you may find something here that would benefit you and make your shopping trips a little less forgetful.

Do you love to grocery shop? How do you keep from forgetting things? Do you make one shopping trip per week or multiple? I'd love to hear from you!

This is part of my 31 Days of Home Economics series. You can find the other links here or under the tap at the top labelled {Home Economics}.

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The Family Dinner {free printable}

31 Days of Home Economics

Day One: The Family Dinner {+ free printable}

One thing about my childhood that I appreciate so much now is the importance my parents placed on having dinner together as a family every night. We would get home from school around 4 o'clock and do homework. Dad would get home in time for dinner and we all sat down together around our dining room table to enjoy a home cooked meal and fellowship together. It never felt rushed. Mom enjoyed cooking for us and never acted like cooking was a chore to her. Her meals were always planned ahead of time and not just thrown together. It was just one way she showed her love for us. Now that I'm a mom, I realize how intentional my parents were in carving out that time for our family. During family mealtime, we prayed together and recognized that all we have is from the hand of God. We fellowshipped and talked about our days, laughed together, and even played tricks on each other. Like the time we had potato cakes - one plate with onions and one plate without onions for my brother and sister who hated onions. My brother slid one of the onion potato cakes onto the non-onion plates and placed it where he knew my sister would take it. And she did. It was hilarious...until my brother ended up having to eat the very one he tricked her into taking. Family dinners form togetherness and strong bonds of friendship with the people that matter most in your life.

These days, years later, life seems so incredibly busy. It's a struggle to eat together as a family every night because of the type of job my husband has. However, we're trying to be more intentional about this sacred time called family dinner. It's a gift we can give to our girls. Letting them grow up in a home where they know family matters. Even if it means eating a little later in the evening. Being together to enjoy it makes it that much more special.

 

Here are some ways I like to get everyone involved in The Family Dinner.

Let them help.

I have three daughters and they all want to help me cook. Although that isn't always the best idea or most convenient in our size kitchen, I don't want to discourage them from helping. Let them know there are plenty of things to do in order to have a nice family dinner.

In my Food Preparation classes we were placed into groups and within each group we all had responsibilites when doing our labs. We had several kinds of meals to prepare and each one was different. So, we rotated responsibilities. These same 'jobs' can work very well within the family unit, as well. 

Family Dinner - Responsibilities {Click the link to print}

If you assign your children {when they are able to safely perform these duties} these jobs on a rotation, you're teaching them responsibility, teamwork, and all the basic duties of running a kitchen for the family. This will help them as they get older. Everyone needs to participate in meal time! It shouldn't just be Mom's job. This is a work in progress for me. I usually feel like I can do it all quicker with no complaining if I do it by myself, but my kids are old enough to be doing most of these things on their own now. This is a great way for them to contribute to their family team! I'm printing off this list and handing out jobs starting today!

How do you get your kids to help? Do you do it all or is it a family affair?

This is part of my 31 Days of Home Economics series. You can find the entire series here.

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Thoughts from a Seamstress

I saw this on Pinterest...

...and laughed out loud. Why is this so true? Everytime my husband buys pants that are too long or rips a seam, he brings me the clothes to be mended. {Like the time he completely ripped the seam in the seat of his pants after squatting down to pick up a child in the nursery we were manning one Sunday. Absolutely hilarious and one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed!!} I hang them over the chair in my craft room and they stay there until I just can't put it off any longer. In fact, I've got a pair of jeans waiting right now. Hemming and mending are generally an easy process, but for some reason I dread it.

 

Do you feel the same way or is it no big deal to you?

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Measure Twice, Cut Once {Free Children's Sizing Chart}

A lot of times when I sew, I'm not using an official pattern. I will either make my own or just wing it. The only problem with doing that is that I have to figure out the correct sizing - either by measuring my child or googling a specific size and hoping it's right. That can really be time consuming and just plain inconvenient to have to stop what I'm doing and figure out the correct measurement. I figured it was high time I make my own cheat sheet and thought I'd share it with you!

Feel free to click on the image and print it for yourself. Or save it to your computer. You can even share it with others, if you like.

What cheat sheets do you use when sewing?? I'd love to hear about them!

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Shop Amazon - Save Up to 50 on Brother Sewing Machines

More Jam: Eat it or Gift it? {Free Printables}

I apologize for all the jam-related posts, but I am just loving this blackberry jam I made from the tons of wild blackberries my sweet husband picked me a couple of weeks ago. I finished off the individual blackberry cobblers and have been trying to pace myself with the jam. I really don't want to run out of it any time soon! But this evening, my husband went to run some errands for me and when he came home he had another big bag of blackberries picked! There are still hundreds left on the bushes, but they probably won't last much longer.

I've been looking for some cute ways of gifting some of my jam and decided to blog about my favorite findings. Hope you can enjoy these and get your hands on some wild blackberries soon! {Or any other type of berry, for that matter!}

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Hope you can enjoy some fresh, homemade jam in the near future! It's so simple to make and also makes a great gift!

 

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Quotage {Free Printable}

 

Love this little free printable.

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Perfect for your craft room or hobby corner! Can't wait to frame this one.

 

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Subway Art {Free Printables & a Tutorial}

I love subway art. I'm not sure what about it makes me love it, but it's just very pleasing to the eye. The other day, I was browsing around Pinterest {where you can find a lot of examples of subway art} and found this one for Easter. Yes, I said Easter and we're just getting started in March. It's technically not even Spring yet, but I think Easter should be celebrated all year long. So, I printed it out and just happened to have the perfect frame I had bought from Goodwill awhile back to put it in. It is matted, but has no glass. It's perfect!

 Here are some others you might like:

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http://www.redletterwords.com/index.cfm?viewItemsType=1

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My brother made me these for Christmas and I just love them! I'm still waiting for Hubs to hang them up, though. Maybe tomorrow I can get him to do it!

If you'd like to make your own, I found a great tutorial! I'm totally going to give it a try! Can't have too much subway art!