Sorry Excuse for a Mother!

Evidently this week, my daughter's preschool class has been studying bears, reading stories and doing crafts about bears. A handwritten note was sent home on Tuesday asking the parents to please send our child's favorite Teddy Bear to school tomorrow. I set the note aside and made a mental note to remember to find the box of stuffed animals that was recently cleared out of my daughters room to make room for all the new toys she was getting for Christmas. (She's into Baby Dolls right now, so we packed all the old stuffed animals that were just lying around and taking up room in her closet.) Anyway, low and behold, I got busy with loading the dishwasher and doing laundry, helping with homework, fixing dinner, etc... and I forgot about the teddy bear.

After I picked up my daughter from preschool today, she told me about everyone bringing their teddy bears to school for show and tell today and she was the only one who didn't have one. I FELT TERRIBLE!!!! I was angry with myself for forgetting. I can imagine the teacher and her aide thinking what an awful mom I must be, that I didn't even care enough to send my daughter to school with her teddy bear.

When we got home I hugged my daughter and told her that I was sorry for forgetting about her teddy bear and to please forgive me. She hugged me tight and said "That's O.K. Mommy, it was just an accident."
I felt like crying. I told her that I would find her teddy bear so she could take it on Show and Tell Friday so everyone could see that she really did have a teddy bear.

Right now I feel like such a sorry excuse for a mother!

Day 2 - Eat from the Pantry Challenge

Last night we had barbecue chicken breasts with Baked Beans and Caesar Salad.

Items used from the pantry:
1 Can of Bush's Country Style Baked Beans
Finish off 1 bag of Texas Toast Caesar Croutons


I didn't use very many items from the pantry today, but I did use a few more items from the refrigerator that needed to be used up:

1 head of Romaine lettuce left from a 3 pack
3/4 Jar of Grated Parmesan Cheese (only used about 1/4 Cup)
1/2 bottle of Kraft Caesar Dressing left that needs to be finished up
3/4 Bottle of K.C. Masterpiece BBQ Sauce (I only used about 1 Cup of it)

I let the 3 Chicken Breasts that I found in the freezer simmer in BBQ sauce in the Crock Pot for about 5 hours. It was so tender after slow cooking that long.



I also had some leftover cans of pumpkin from Thanksgiving so I decided to make Pumpkin Muffins this morning for breakfast.



I think it is very interesting to see other '"Eat from the Pantry Challenge" Blogs and they have their whole monthly menu already planned out. That would be a logistical nightmare for me. I'm not really a plan ahead person. So I will look tomorrow afternoon to decide what we will have for dinner tomorrow night.

Day 1 - Eat from the Pantry Challenge

As you can see I have a lot of food in my pantry. Tonight we chose to eat Chili with baked potatoes and I made brownies for dessert.















Items used from pantry:
1 Can Bush's Chili Magic
1 Can Diced Tomatoes
1 Can Tomato Sauce
1 Bag of Martha Whites Fudge Brownie's

Right now it is pretty easy to pick something out of the pantry because I have so many things to choose from, but I'm sure I'm going to have to get mighty creative as the days go by.

Eat from the Pantry Challenge!

I am going to attempt an "Eat from the Pantry Challenge" starting tomorrow evening, Jan. 5th. I want to challenge myself to see how little I can spend on groceries this month while using as much as I can from my pantry and freezer. If your pantry is anything like mine it is full of items and I want to use up these items without going to the grocery store for the month of January. I might have to stop by the grocery store for milk, eggs, vegetables and juice for the munchkin, but I'm going to try and refrain from buying anything else. Hopefully this will be a success, we'll see. I will be sharing what we eat from our pantry for the rest of this month or for however long we still have food in the pantry that is uneaten. If you would like to participate in this challenge, you can check out this site for more info.: www.moneysavingmom.com