Kids Wednesday: Planning a Pokemon Party

My son declared that he wanted a Pokemon party for his birthday so I drove right into Pinterest and found way too many ideas. It was overwhelming to say the least so I decided on a plan on what we had time for during the birthday party.

I wanted to make a sign that said Happy Birthday with pokeballs and there are tons of ideas.  I decided to take the easy way out and just do the printed one here.  All you have to do is download and print and I will put holes in them and thread on curling ribbon to hang on the wall.

We looked high and low and found a Pin the Tail on the Pikachu. There is one that is already separated so that it can be printed on papers and put together but my husband has acess to a large format printer so I actually wanted to get one that was one image and enlarge it so I was little sad but I figure that this is probably better for 99% of the people which you can find here.  I actually downloaded the image and made my own!!!  Loved the picture so super happy to find it and use it.

I also thought that it would be really fun to make our own Pokemon cards.  I found this awesome card template here.

We decided that we were going to make pokeballs but had to figure out a plan to make them that won't get them thrown around at the party but that they would still like to use.  I found these and thought that they would be fun but they needs the special plastic ornament which I couldn't find so they were out but still super cool.  You can check out these here.

We decided that it would be fun to use duct tape and frisbees to make them so that the kids would have to use them outside to get the distance but can hold them like a shield which is totally fine by me!!

I found an awesome popcorn container and since we were planning on having popcorn, it seemed like a good idea even though it would take a lot of work on my part (as most of the things would).  They were super colorful and I thought the kids would enjoy them.  Check them out here.

Another fun one is the poke ball designer page because this can be a great station for creativity or copying the basic balls that they know.  If we do some ahead of time then we also have some fun decorations so I think that I am going to have some coloring fun!!  Check out this site to get your own copy.

There is a really cute box that the kids can cut and fold themselves.  It is super easy to print and if we don't do it at the party, I will put it in their bags to bring home to make at home.  If you want to make your own, download it here.

There is another great site with a pokeball and lots of pokemon to put inside it here.  This looks like something that my son would love to have and play with all the time.  I could print it and laminate it to have hours of fun with!!!

 I found a memory game that would also be fun to print and laminate to play with for awhile to come.

There is a interesting maze that you can download here.  I looked every where for coloring pages and dot to dot pictures.  There are lots out there but none that made me really happy.  There are a ton of different downloads and this was a great site for some great resources.

There is another great activity that I wanted to do but wasn't sure if we had time to do it but it seemed like a lot of fun.  It was Pokemon eggs which I would make ahead of time with my son and then each group of kids would have the chance to hatch their own.  Here is the site that made them so if I don't get time to do it at the party, my son and I are totally going to make them!!

I thought that I would get a few activities that got their wiggles out including a little follow the leader with what the Pokemon would do. Super easy to print out and pull out of a hat and we will have it ready if we need.  You can print your own here.

There is this blowing activity where the kids blow through a straw to make the Poke Ball move from the start to the end.  There is an example here but I have also seen it with a ping pong ball so we might try to do this activity.

I hope that you enjoy some of these ideas to have your cheap Pokemon party.  We got clearance cups, plates and napkins in red from Christmas so we had tons of paper goods.  I grabbed a bag of red and white balloons at the Dollar Tree for the decorations and games.  With a little work, we have entertainment and goodies for everyone to do at the party and bring home with them.  I know that I have enjoyed searching around for the best ideas that work on a tight budget!!  I hope that my work has saved you some time!!!  Hope that you have a great time with these ideas for your own children or birthday party.

Leftover Night Turns from Dismal to Exceptional

I actually thought that leftover night would be a punishment...mostly because I hate leftovers.  But it turns out to be one of the best nights in our house.  We get to reuse all the things in the fridge to make new meals.  Some times it is just taking pizza dough that I already shaped and making individual pizzas like we did last night or salsa sloppy joe potatoes with a little leftover meat that isn't enough for a sandwich.

 I grabbed some leftover taco meat and some corn shells that weren't in great shape to use for tacos whether broken or misshapen to make some enchiladas.  There was already an enchilada sauce in the freezer so I got to use.  I got the sharp cheese out of the fridge that I didn't really like and shredded it.  To add flavor and filler, I started using Mahatma Spicy Rice so I got a pouch out of the pantry and cooked that up.  After it was done cooking, I layered it like a lasagna instead of enchiladas which we call enchilada smash in our house.  Super easy leftovers put to a new purpose.

I used up the end of a bag of mozzarella cheese, some ricotta, roll of sausage that needed to cooked and some spaghetti sauce and crushed tomatoes near expiration from the pantry and threw together some lasagna!! It helped to use up everything in the fridge to make into one meal but the pantry was there to back me up as well as some cheese from the freezer because I thought we were out!!

I spent a busy day trying to figure out how many things I could make out of the things we had in the fridge so that I would have a few more meals from the things on hand.  I love when it works out well!!  Plus I got some extra sausage sauce which is either going to be used for pasta night or frozen for another lasagna soon.

Another day I was working on making all of the leftovers into breakfast foods.  I decided to make applesauce, pear sauce and one lonely apple into applesauce bread.  It is a fabulous bread with a strong cinnamon bread that we love and made way better by using the fresh apple.  I put all the apple in the blender to make sure it was all like applesauce texture.

I made some tasty muffins from the super cheap blackberries that I got at Aldi and some yogurt that I got free at the grocery store.  I might have eaten a few too many after making them because they are my very favorite with the wonderful lemon strudel.  These are the blueberry ones that I usually make but the blackberry ones were a yummy treat!

I made some cranberry salad dressing that was amazing!!!  I had the cranberry sauce in the freezer that I made from leftover cranberries and orange juice.  I enjoyed eating lots of salads with this tasty dressing and some homemade croutons from some leftover bread cubes.

Yummy soft rolls made with the milk that was about to be bad in the fridge along with some pancakes for dinner!!  Used up most of the milk and just a few other things around the house because I have a stocked pantry with flour, yeast, my homemade pancake mix and more at hand!!

I am glad that I have had lots of leftovers to work with and get creative with!  There are so many other things that I have in the cupboard and I am going to be working my creative hands on over this Christmas break!!  Another reason why I really need to start canning so that I can fit all the stuff I make because there is no more room in the huge full sized freezer in the basement.  Here is hoping that eating the turkey will make the room I need to bring up my creativity.

What creative stuff do you make when you are running low on food around the house and to use the leftovers that you have??

Thrifty Tuesday (normally Thursday): Getting Back into the Frugal Swing Over the Weekend

I was working 5 days a week for 2 weeks of summer camp and everything else went out the window even though it was only about a 6 hour day, it was all that I could take because I had time to run maybe one errand or do one thing before picking up my son from school.  Sadly, I got behind on everything- housework, cooking, cleaning and anything else!  Everything suffered!!

I spent the monthly grocery budget in the first half of the month and only had $1.12 left in the budget and still more spending to be done.  I decided that I better hunker down and use the things that I had at home well and get back on track.  I only got popcorn made for my son's lunch and was starting to use frozen rolls for my husbands lunch because I was totally out.  I made a batch of fresh rolls which he said were really yummy!!  My encouragement to know that the frozen ones weren't really making the cut because fresh is always better.

On Friday after I was done, I tried to catch up by doing dishes....haha!!  The stack was too large to handle.  I had broken into a sweat with the air conditioning running and had to take a break.  I did a few loads of laundry to get back on track with clothes during the break from dishes.  I did a bunch more and ran the dishwasher.  There were still more when I had to give up and run to the library before picking up my son from school.  I had some books that were due back with no renewals left.  I almost cried when we had late charges this week because I was at the library and didn't renew the books!!  I was so disappointed in myself that I have to pay $0.90 because I didn't renew them so I returned them instead.  Bonus is that I remembered to pick up the local papers to get the free coupon inserts and I picked up a reserve of a book on CD that my son wants to read so that we can listen to it as a family on our vacation.

We went to the pool on Friday night and then, I made even more making a mess for dinner.  My husband really thinks that we should go back to using paper plates but I am hoping for actually having enough energy to clean up after dinner which I never do!! We went with a mix of leftovers and other items to get dinner on the table.

I slept horribly on Saturday and woke up to my husband saying that he was washing dishes, emptying the dishwasher, and putting things away.  With a bonus cleaning the stove which he said took him 2 1/2 hours.  I continued to wash a few dishes but we had to head out for soccer. We stopped at the library on the way home from the game because they emailed me like 15 minutes after I left on Friday to let me know that one of the books for my son was in!!  I hate that because I go in the afternoon because I know that is when the reserves come in but they stock them at 4:15 after school gets out!!!  Anyway, picked up a few more of the free local newspaper.

After getting all these and hearing from Natalie that Super Doubles was coming, I realized that I better get going on the coupons.  I sorted all of the inserts that I had and then went through and started cutting (way too much cutting so it happened in a few shifts).  I worked pretty hard to get my basket totally cleaned out and ready to go!  Now I have to go through and make a note of the $1 or more coupons that might be great values!!

I came home and made a bigger mess with brownies from a box mix (my husband's favorite), nutella oat breakfast cookies (I am the only one who likes these), and cinnamon rolls (for our fathers day treat).  I did more dishes and finished all the old dishes...sadly, made more that I didn't get done before going to bed. 

My husband made another batch of ice tea!!  We finished all the Lipton tea bags and we are on to the Tetley which is my favorite brand.  Sad thing is that means that we are cutting into the supply and we have not gotten enough sales and coupons recently.  The good news is that I have a fresh pot of tea.

I made a loaf of bread.  Because my son loves peanut butter sandwiches during the summer when he can get them fresh. It also helps because I use them for paninis and other meals.  Fresh bread is hard because it doesn't always stay fresh long enough to use but we use a lot more in the summer.

It was a team effort to make popcorn to get ready for the week.  My husband helped me while I was doing other things in the kitchen. We also then washed the popcorn maker to stick back in the cupboard.  It doesn't get washed every time but I so love it when it is cleaned and put away.

We also made a big batch of brown sugar because we were totally out. We made 4 cups of brown sugar which filled up the brown sugar and emptied the white sugar so I filled that too.  I mixed and shook and got exhausted.  My husband helped and finished the mixing so that my arm could rest.

We had meal of leftovers including buffalo chicken panini, grilled buffalo mac and cheese, rice and other leftovers for Friday night.  On Saturday, my son asked for chicken fries and diced hash browns so I made them for him and me and my husband had a burger.  On Sunday, I made edamame, egg rolls and chicken lo mein stir fry from a bunch of things in the freezer.  YEAH using up what was on hand!! I am glad that I had the flexibility to do that this weekend and use a bunch of things so that they weren't wasted.

While making dinner, I realized that I needed to package and freeze the ground beef that I bought so I took the package and put it in individual bags to make at least 6 meals. Put them in the upstairs freezer but I need to carry them to the deep freeze in the basement.

We also spent some time on Sunday cleaning out the grill and seeing if we could get new parts for it again.  I am so glad that I have a husband that fixes things!!  He headed to Home Depot to pick up the needed parts with gift cards.  He used most of them recently to buy the attic ladder for our garage so I have a feeling that we are going to run out soon.  Buying another one through Swagbucks in July again because we still have tons of things that we need around the house!!  Hoping for a grill that I can work again so that I can at least preheat before he gets home if the occasion calls for it! Here is hoping we can get it cleaned up and working. The other great news is that we both cleaned the inside of it so it should work even better through the summer months.

I was excited to use the weekend to get my act together and clean the house and get everything ready to have a good week.  I am hoping to get lots done this week and follow this super productive weekend but that usually doesn't work out as well as I plan.  Great news is that I have a few days of no working while my son is still in school.  Plans to make blueberry strudel muffins and banana bread for the week.

How are you doing with the beginning of your summer?

Thrifty Thursday: Saving Money with Swagbucks

My goal when I started was to make the daily goals but I quickly realized that this was not something that I couldn't do and maintain a life.  I was up one night really late worried that my last video was going to stop on the computer.  I realized that it was taking away from a good nights sleep just to get a few more points.  I was going to be seeing this symbol in my sleep.

Then, I decided that I would try to get 7 days in a row to get the bonus for that but even that was impossible for me to keep up.  I was unwilling to give up and trying to figure out what I could actually do and still maintain the rest of my life without Swagbucks interfering.

I FINALLY figured out a good balance for me and a way to achieve my goals.  My goal is for one $25 gift card a month because you need to have 2,200 points to get one at the discounted price per month (which just happens to also be the limit).

I have been doing that every month and I earned one gift card which I gave as a gifts for Christmas, Birthdays and more.  I just earn my last one which is going to go with other gift cards to buy our attic ladder from Home Depot.  I know that these might not seem like the most exciting addition but everything that I did was money that would have normally had to come out of our pocket and now with a little work, they didn't have to.

Going forward, I might have the chance to actually use these things for something fun or else save up all the money that I would have spent at these other things and spend it on something fun but I plan on using at least one of the gift cards to put on my Amazon account to increase my Amazon credit to use towards Christmas gifts for my son.  I might get a gift card to take us out to dinner and buy some fun stuff at Target too!!

Here is the great part, I am going to share some of my secrets!!  Okay, they aren't really secrets but I am sharing.  I got an iPhone that we aren't using for phone service...I realize that not everyone has that sitting around but it was perfect me.  I start up the videos playing the morning (if they stopped from the night before) so that I can get at least 10 points from that while I am getting ready and at work.  The great part is if there are bonus then I am already working on that while I am at work.

Then, I got figuring out where all my points came from (in case you don't know how to do this, I just figured it out... go to my SB and there is a drop down where all the points come from).  My lifetime total is just over 9,000.  Here is the breakdown from the website where my points came from:

Searching the Web         65 pts
Shop & Earn Coupons      305 pts
Swagcodes                    16 pts
Other                          810 pts
Answers                      5135 pts
Special Offers                 456 pts
Games                            40 pts
Daily Poll (Bonus SB)    76 pts
Swagbucks TV (on computer)    573 pts
Mobile Watch (on iPhone)           1548 pts
nCrave                                       11 pts

I got over half of my points from doing the surveys which I guess is to be expected because those are the high point hits.  I am so surprised that the mobile watching earned me the next highest points.  They did recently change the rules so hoping that doesn't ruin my chances of making my monthly goals.

If you are interested in starting, please feel free to join my to join my team.  I would love to have more members to work towards making free money with this wonderful tool.

What tips do you have that help you earn your Swagbucks??

Thrifty Thursday: What Have I Been Doing To Save Money??

I feel like I haven't had one of these in awhile and because my son has been sick and we have been stuck at home, I figured that I would write a little post on what I have used up and done frugally recently.  Of course because I haven't planned on doing this so I don't have pictures of anything but I am going to try my best.

I went through the spice cupboard and realized that I wasn't using a lot of spices that I had because I was "saving" them.  I am not really sure what I do that but I tend to save things that don't need to be saved.  My cousin gave me this really nice spice set which I know cost lots of money so I didn't want to waste it.... the only way to waste spices is to not use them!! I used up Forward!, Cinnamon Sugar, Sandwich Sprinkle, Pasta Sprinkle and Brady Street and I am working on the others.  I have enjoyed using them and can't wait to find lots of uses for the Chip and Dip (thinking roasted chicken), Taco Seasoning (thinking oyster crackers), and Chili Powder.

I have been looking for different things through the cupboard and we have this ugly green bin that my husband brought with him from his parents house because that is what he always used.  Although it is a horrible color, it is the most functional thing to keep all of the packets of powders. Do you have anything like this in your cabinets?

I found two packages of Hidden Valley Ranch Dip which I used to make seasoned oyster crackers.  I mixed it with a little of the white cheddar popcorn seasoning which made them a little too tasty.  My husband ended up eating them very quickly!!  I told him to take it easy on the second batch because we didn't have anymore of those seasonings so the next batch it totally going to be nacho cheese with taco seasoning because we have a bunch!!

I found two packets of green onion dip in their from either his mom or sister who brought them for a holiday.  I decided to use them to mix with the butter and olive oil to roast a chicken.  It was very tasty!!  There were two of them and we enjoyed them and saved on using other spices.  After finishing those spices, I found a few other spice mixes that we could use for chickens including the Penzy ones which I have also finished.  I am going use up a few other chicken spices in the cupboard the next few times and hope to make progress in using up all the free spices already available to us.

I also started making my own salad dressing again.  I have the orange vinegar and apricot jelly which made it easy to make except I was making it without measuring (which my husband hates) so I did it to taste.  After eating my first salad and wondering why it was still a little off, I figured out that I didn't put any oil in.  HAHA!!  Well, I made a really healthy dressing with little to no fat.

I have been making lots of baked goods including my husband switches to rolls instead of bread which is nice because they stay fresh longer but strange to not always have bread on hand.  The great news is that we have tons of cubes in the freezer and we are no longer wasting that much because the rolls can also be frozen and easily thawed to make lunches or dinners.  It also gives me something to do with the milk that is past the date which I have that problem frequently.

I have continued to make brown sugar.  It is awesome that I can make it at home whenever I want to because I have the molasses in the cupboard and I am still working on the first container so hoping that it lasts until Aldi starts carrying it again.  Because I just got a lot of sugar, it allowed me to make a big batch of brown sugar.

As always, we have popcorn on hand for snacks all the time.  My son loves popcorn and it is a super healthy and frugal snack.  My husband brought up a new bag of popcorn from the freezer and he commented on how many bags were in there and I told him that I had to stock up because the popcorn is seasonal at Aldi.  The word that I never want to hear like the molasses and the cloves!!  I realize that they can't carry everything all the time but popcorn is not seasonal!!!  We eat it all year round.  How about your family??

I hope that you have had a tasty few weeks with lots of frugal treats.  The main one is that I have been making cinnamon rolls every week for the last few weeks so that we can reheat them and have them for breakfast any day that we want them.  They are starting to have the thrill wear off and I haven't been making frosting so they are a little more boring but I have some cream cheese and powdered sugar that are going to be used soon to make some more frosting for the next few batches.



I used cranberries and orange juice from the freezer to make cranberry sauce which I think turned out pretty well.  I didn't know how easy that was going to be but it was another totally unexpected short cut that I thought would be way more complicated.  Making things at home instead of buying them is lots easier on all fronts and I am glad that I keep testing more recipes for myself.

I made some more chicken broth from the frozen leftover veggie pieces and chicken bones that I had in the freezer.  I am actually running out of leftover veggies because of the amount that I use for making broth.  We are down to the last few whole chickens so I am hoping to have a little time to catch up with making broth in the coming month with new veggies.

Using all the things around the house has made it easier to stretch the budget but it has also made my shopping adventures a little bit more flexible which always gets me to trouble picking up a few extra special treats to add to the cart.  Not necessarily the outcome that we are looking for but hoping that it still works out to lots of savings!!

How have you done recently with using things around the house to save a little money??  Give me some ideas to integrate into my routine this year because I try to add a new thing every year and the only two left on my list is pressure canning and making pasta which I am not sure if I am going to be tackle them with my schedule this year and lack of free time adjusting to working this year.  Can't wait to get your help!!