Stay At Home Moms

Need effective discipline? We have recently begun using the sticker chart system, and it is working wonders. The children will recieve stickers for great behavior... this is above and beyond what is expected.
Once every child has accumulated a number of stickers previously agreed upon, they may then choose a special reward. Our number is set to 10 stickers for each child. This way they will encourage each other to behave as well.
Rewards can be something as simple as going to a playground, choosing a small toy, picking out a movie, choosing a family activity, or any other inexpensive ideas you may come up with.
This has worked wonders for my family.

My four oldest children were subject to the jarred baby foods from the super market. I wonder how much money I wasted on that?
This time around my little one is getting home made baby foods. It's simple, not very time consuming, and so much cheaper!
Of course I still buy the baby rice, oat, or barley cereal, but with the help of the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children, goverment) program, that is not costing me a dime.

I started last week, as the baby is only 5 months old now. He's been on the cereal a few weeks, and last week I bought some apples from the Farmer's Market. I peeled and cored them, diced them up, boiled them, then pureed them in the food processor. I put half in the freezer, and the other half in the refridgerator. He's fed about a tablespoon or so everyday around breakfast time. At feeding time I mix it with a pinch of rice cereal and some warm formula, and feed it to him as is (I won't microwave it to warm it up).

Today I made him some carrots, and he will have them at lunch time. I bought carrots to go with my meals for the week, and had many left over. I'd already peeled them for the meals, so all I had to do was boil them and puree them. Again I froze half, and refridgerated the other half.

I'm currently using mason jars, the kind you'd use for jams and jellies. I've asked on Freecycle.org for some baby food jars from someone who actually buys them. Once I recieve some of them I will boil them to sanitize, then the storage of the foods I make will be much easier.

If you don't already make baby food yourself, now may be the time to begin. It will save so much money, and you'll know exactly where the food is coming from. It's not too time consuming. You do have to cook and boil the fruits and vegetables, but an hour a week is all it takes, and it makes so much that you can store it and never have to do that particular fruit or vegetable again. By the time you run out, the child should be able to feed themselves little chunks of it!