My Favorite On The Go Breakfast

My kiddos are fruit eaters…I mean serious fruit eaters.  Both my daughters could seriously down a whole carton of raspberries before we even get home from the store. But I hate to say it fruit can be expensive when not in season and it hurts me to spend 4.00 on a pint of strawberries. We love to have fruit for breakfast and with meals so I have found a great recipe that allows us to have fruit all year long.

My oldest loves to grab one of these on the way to basketball practice or after a long day at the farm. These make great treats to take to the guys in the field as well. My husband can throw one in his lunch bag and eat it on the go whenever he gets a second. It acts as an ice pack as well when frozen. 

Here comes the best part. You just get a big bowl out of your pantry and throw everything into it. I do like to cut my peaches and pineapple a little smaller but other than that throw it all in and stir it up. Feel free to add any extra fruit your family might love that I missed. We usually add some banana or blueberries. If I have any bags of frozen fruit in the freezer that need used up we throw those in as well. 

The key here is get cans of fruit that are in their own juices, none of that heavy syrup stuff. That is for the birds. Include the juice into your bowl for all of those yummy fruit nutrients. I usually freeze these in small plastic cups with lids and then as I am getting ready in the morning pull them out and sit them on the counter. When I am ready to serve breakfast they are the perfect consistency of slushy goodness. 

This usually makes anywhere from 24-32 servings depending on how much fruit you include. That is 24 quick meals or snacks ready to go anytime all for around 10.00 total. 

POYEL: Slowly but surely… Introducing Our Cleaning Routine

Ok so I now it's been awhile, and I have been checking things off my list, I just have been working so hard at checking them off I have forgotten to blog about them! So as my basement is currently in a shambles (we had a water problem, more on that later) we have been isolated to the first floor during our day! Wow do I miss our playroom but in the meantime I have fallen even more in love with my cleaning routine due to the fact that we have our stuff from the basement everywhere and I am not having a panic attack because my house is a mess and I don't know where to begin (can you tell I have felt that way before)…. But after a lot of different failed attempts at a system I have found my answer….

Introducing the Home Routines App I have always admired The Fly Lady (if you aren't sure who she is google her you will be in aww). I felt like she had cleaning down to a science but I could never remember what zone I was in and what I was supposed to do in that zone or heck even where the zone was!  I could have made a really cute printable with the different zones and check off boxes to go with them but then I would have had to find that printable when it was time to clean and that is another problem in itself, but I always have my phone! The Home Routines App comes preloaded with the Fly Lady zones and it only takes 15 - 30 minutes a day! Seriously as the Fly Lady says "You can do ANYTHING for 15 minutes."

So I have created my Morning Routine which includes things like empty dishwasher, make bed, get everyone breakfast (seriously if it wasn't on the list it might not happen), lay out dinner you get the idea. All those small things that need done in the mornings to make my day run more smoothly. I also included a "swish and swipe" task in my morning and evening routine. This reminds me to give a quick wipe off in my bathroom and kitchen so that it is ready to go for the day. Home Routines gives you an example of a morning routine. I just used it as my starting point and then added a few things and deleted some to customize it for me. Included in my morning list is a task "15 minutes in the focus zone", this is where home routines is amazing. It comes with all of The Fly Ladies zones and tasks already included in a list.

Another wonderful built in feature of Home Routines is the reset feature at the end of the day (or end of the week… month… year) you can have all of your routines reset. I created a routine for my quarterly tasks that need to get done as well (see those below) I have it set to remind me after three months of my quarterly tasks and then after a week it resets the list. My morning and evening routine is set to reset each day so that I don't have to go through and tell it to do anything I just wake up and have a new refreshed list in front of me :)

I've included my older version of my cleaning routine to give you an idea of what tasks I do and how often. A lot of the weekly and monthly items are now included in my zone cleaning but the quarterly list is the exact same one I have set up on my app.

I can't even begin to tell you how much my new system has simplified my cleaning routine. In the past i  didn't even know where to begin and after using it for a few months it seems that things are routinely done and I haven't found an inch of dust anywhere since I started :)