Jalapeno Cheese Enchiladas

Dinner tonight is going to be a modification meal. I was looking towards making something Mexican but I didn't really have everything that I needed to make enchiladas.

I whipped up something quick using just a few ingredients. If there are more than about 6 ingredients in a recipe, I don't want to cook it. Does that make me lazy? Oh well!

These did turn out yummy if I do say so myself.

Jalapeno Cheese Enchiladas

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 8 oz shredded cheese
• 1/4 c diced onion
• 4 oz canned chopped jalapenos
• 4-6 flour tortillas
• chunky salsa

Blend cream cheese with a mixer until smooth and add onion, jalapenos, and 1/2 of the cheese. Mix until well blended.

Spoon mixture into center of tortilla, roll, and place in a baking dish (seam side down) that has been sprayed with non-stick spray.

Cover the top with salsa and sprinkle remaining cheese on top.

• 

Cover with foil and bake for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

This was quick and easy and can be made with more calories or fewer calories. This is what I had in the pantry so I had a major, "make it work" Tim Gunn moment. I love that man. Wish he could be my personal stylist every day of my life!

Dinner is served!

One small victory at the store...

This morning's trip to Kroger proved to be a big one. A happy one. A great day for all!

Who am I kidding? All? It was just me at the store....but I digress.

Behold....the back of my car, with no more space for extra groceries!

Today, I menu planned for February, cut out about 25 coupons, grabbed the Kroger circular and headed out for another dreaded grocery trip. As I sat in my car, I said a little prayer just to say thank you for the blessing of being able to have groceries for my family and another quick one for sale success.

For a family of four, we usually spend somewhere around $300 a month for groceries. We try to only go out to eat once a week and with three guys in this house...food is huge. Knowing that I can do even better than that, but not really wanting to become an extreme couponer, I clip what I want and do a little matching. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.

Today it worked out. (****Now I am in no way where I would like to be with this, but I am celebrating every victory, no matter how big or small****)

What did I do? The lazy girl's version of couponing.

1. I printed out my coupons from Coupon Surfer
2. I circled the items I needed from the Kroger ad
3. I shopped for the items that were on sale....The Mega Mix and Match sale at Kroger
4. I combined my Kroger card first, with my Mix and Match sale items, with my printed coupons
5. I walked out happy!

Today's shopping trip should have cost me almost $300, but I walked out paying $162.12. This is not stockpiling. This is not 40 tubes of toothpaste, 16 spaghetti sauces, and 24 bottles of gatorade. This is ground beef, chicken, cereal, shampoo, Kid Essentials, fruits, veggies, toiletries, Lunch-ables, yogurt, milk, eggs, butter, hot dogs, sodas, peanut butter, laundry detergent, toilet paper, bread, snacks, Smart Ones meals ( for me, you know, the girl on the go), etc. This is a month's worth of food for us...breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.

That is February's total for groceries. WOO-Flipping-HOO!! That is a personal best for me. My refrigerator and freezer inside the house is full, and the freezer in the garage is full, as well as my pantry.

Blessings....

You make my heart glow Valentines..

When I saw this HERE, I thought to myself...

"Self, this is the greatest thing I have ever seen!"

I love this idea of giving kids a fun Valentine, that is easy to pass out to all the classmates, that is not full of sugar! Who doesn't love glowsticks????!!!!

So here are Caleb and Jansen's classroom Valentines.

Go to her site and download the free printable she so graciously offered, print it out on some card stock, cut it out, and tape a glow bracelet to the back.

I got 100 of these glow bracelets for about $8 and only needed 48 for both of their classes. So I might use them as birthday party favors at the Angry Birds Party...yep, I decided. I WILL use them as party favors!!!! YAY! Dual purpose!!!!!

School update for a kid with Autism

Caleb has had a rough year this year. This year, my oldest child is in the 3rd grade, mainstreamed into a "normal" class. While he is high functioning, and has a definite group of strong skills, he has a list of quirky characteristics and several areas in need of improvement.

At the beginning of the year, he started out in a homeroom class with a teacher he was familiar with and would only be transitioning between that class and one other. Then, a couple of weeks in, the class was dissolved due to low enrollment numbers in the 3rd grade. He was then grouped into one of the three remaining classes to rotate between all three teachers every day. I also started working at the beginning of school as well, which proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

It was frightening and maddening to realize that the regulation we had worked so hard for was slipping through our fingers. Caleb was crying every day, his grades were dropping, his coping skills were nil, he was up all night and I was done. I quit my job, got him started in equine therapy, and started a fairly strict routine at home. He is still not where he was, but at least he is functioning better.

So here is what we are dealing with now:

• inconsistent grades, some high but low in reading
• problem solving skills are nil
• he cannot read a word problem and figure it out
• he still cannot find the main idea of a passage
• he is failing his benchmark tests
• homework is a disaster
• he is inattentive
• he is "in his own bubble"
  
• he is not focus
• he is not following spoken directions
• he is not completing his work

He is also getting conduct marks every day...no joke, every day. Many times 3-4 a day for the last 5 things on the list. This is the problem I have with that. First of all, he should not be penalized for symptoms of his disorder. These are all symptoms of his disorder that he cannot help. We don't even know to what extent he will ever be able to do those things. I am hopeful.

Second of all, at this point in the year, he should be getting less marks, and he is getting more! He comes home very upset because he got marks but often cannot tell me why or in what situation he got them for. Then he is in a bad mood. It is one thing for a typical child to be in a bad mood, but anyone that knows anything about Autism knows that a symptom of this disorder is that one small thing can ruin their day and they are incapable of overcoming it. Classic symptom. Once he gets one mark...it is all downhill from there.

Third of all, this system is not working for him. The purpose of a system like this is to eliminate the undesirable behavior. But this is just not working for Caleb. For me, as a child in school...this would have worked for. I am a people pleaser and would be devastated to get marks. But not Caleb. He has no way of getting attentive, and focused, and out of his bubble.

I have had a conference with all of his teachers, and while I understand the need for him to be engaged and attentive to learn new concepts, it is not a skill he possesses. There has to be another method, or incentive that would help him. I mean, engagement is not his thing. If it was his thing, he wouldn't have Autism.

So I am struggling to find a way to help his teachers help him. We are all in it for the same reason. We all want him to learn and be successful. He is definitely going to need some new accommodations to help him get through this year and years after that. I am definitely concerned that at some point, I may have to homeschool him and I really, really don't want to. Not because I don't have faith in our school system...exactly the opposite, but because he has special needs and they have to be addressed in his learning style.

Oh boy....advocacy is challenging!

Angry Birds Party Favors part 1

Guess what arrived this weekend?????

Yep, you guessed it. The King Pig party favors I ordered off etsy from Bonnie.

Caleb is loving these like nobody's business!

Can't wait to get these arranged in the bins at the party. Go check out Bonnie's etsy page HERE!

Mini Angry Birds buckets....

Target dollar bin strikes again!

Seriously, isn't that section like crack? It lures you in as soon as you walk in with the promise of a cheap high...and it delivers!

I found these little mini buckets in the dollar section for yep, you guessed it, a dollar. They are just the size for the favor buckets for the Angry Birds party and for the table decorations. Both of these are still a work in progress, but making these is the first step!

Now, for all you super artsy moms out there...you would have painted cute little faces on these bins. But let's be real. I was too lazy and impatient to go out and get paint by the time I was done for the day, so let's improvise.

Google search.....print the face on card stock.....cut it out......glue it on.....done!

The red one will be filled with M&M's and the favors will be stuck into them. ( The favors were shipped today!!!!! I am so excited. )

The black one will be made into a table decoration....still mulling some options in my head.

Mark that off the birthday list!

Houston Texans in the Playoffs

What a season! What a team! What fun we had as a family tailgating and going to all the games this season!!!

Well, the season came to a bittersweet end yesterday against the Baltimore Ravens, and now having a day to cool off, I see the amazingly great side of things. We weren't beaten by the Ravens, we were beaten by ourselves. This year we played 2 playoff games... that's 2 more than ever in franchise history. We took away the AFC South Division Championship, although I was praying to win the whole AFC Division. We played with a good majority of our star players injured, we were using our 3rd string quarterback, and we still almost made it. What a great season to watch football! What a painful rollercoaster at the end! What a great season next season will be!

Maybe next year Texans. Changes need to be made, but I love you all the same!