20 Best Tips

25 Freezer Meal Recipes (or When a Mom Decides to Freeze Meals)

Last spring (and partway through the summer), freezer meals were such a huge lifesaver for me and a few friends. Between swim practice, afternoon co-ops, and just running around, having a chance to sit down and make a really good (and hearty) meal for the family was sometimes hard. But those freezer meals helped so much! Yes, it took a little planning and much of a Saturday with friends, but the result is worth it.

25 freezer meal recipes - variety of chicken, pork, beef, and sausage meals to fill the freezer


 

Many of you have emailed or commented on Instagram and Facebook asking me to share our latest freezer cooking session, and here it is! I fully intended to take lots of pictures, but somehow only managed to get two crummy pictures on my cell phone. That said, our freezer cooking session was very successful and each of us finished with 25 meals packaged and ready to pop in and out of the freezer, as well as two batches of homemade spaghetti sauce (since we were left with a giant bowl of green peppers we forgot to add to another recipe – oops!).

freezer cooking pile before

A few of the recipes we used were ones from our previous freezer cooking sessions (you can read more about our first session here and our second one here).

One thing I will say before much more – prior to starting I was really getting discouraged about how long the process typically takes us. Most times (including this one), we are usually together from 9:30 until about 5. We do take a few breaks to keep our energy going, but for the most part we are working solidly the entire time. On Pinterest I’ve seen so many “50 Freezer Meals in 1 Hour” (I may be exaggerating a wee bit), and it was getting me discouraged because we were going way over the one hour mark!

I definitely recommend these freezer cooking tips (and these as well) before starting to help the process go much more smoothly, but one thing I was reminded of was the bulk of meals that we plan do not typically need more to go along with them. We do have a few ‘dump a few ingredients in the bag’ but my friends and I have tried to pack lots of healthy veggies, meat, and substance in our bags and pans so they are complete meals. I do cook rice ahead of time and freeze that as well to go along with meals, but many of these require little else to be added to them. Besides, our cooking session really resulted in 75 meals altogether – that’s pretty great! (And working with friends is SO much more fun!) One of the families also has two GF members, so we made sure to prep her meals first so there wasn’t any cross contamination or ingredient confusion (you really would be amazed if you saw some of the things that have gluten in them!).

25 Freezer Meal Recipes

freezer cooking prep time

Here’s a peek at all of the meals that we worked on this time around. We try to have a good variety of pork, chicken, beef, and other meats to rotate through so it isn’t all chicken 24/7. Our families so appreciate that!

A Few Timesaving Tips

Here are a few things that we did beforehand to save time the day of our big freezer session:

  • Prepped most of the meats so they were ready. The bulk of the meals do not require the meat to be pre-cooked, but we did need 2 lbs. of shredded pork BBQ, so we threw that in a crockpot the day before and also browned a pound of hamburg for the Tater Tot Casserole.
  • Bought flash-frozen chicken. We picked up the large bags of chicken at Costco from the freezer section and in recipes that called for chicken breasts we just dropped the pre-frozen breasts into the bag or into the foil pan.
  • Labeled all of our bags so they were ready to go. When we cut the larger chunks of meat the next morning (such as pork), we grabbed those bags and dropped the roasts or pieces into each bag as we needed it and then put the bags in the cooler until we were ready to add the remaining ingredients.
  • Pulled out every cooler that existed in our house so we could drop each meal into the cooler as it was finished.
  • BOUGHT AN ELECTRIC CAN OPENER – Praise the Lord for electric can openers. We’ve done three rounds of freezer cooking prior to this and my hand hurt so badly after each of those. Pay the $10 for an electric can opener and smile every time you don’t have to manhandle a lid.

All in all – woo hoo!! My freezer is happily stocked for the upcoming few months, just in time to get through the holiday craziness. I am so very thankful for friends that are willing to spend a Saturday with me and have some cooking/assembling fun!

    FREE Freezer Cooking Labels

FREE freezer cooking labels | homeschoolcreations.net

 

You might be interested in the freezer cooking labels that we’ve. To make life a little easier for myself, I put together some simple labels to stick on the front of each of our freezer bags and containers, and you can download them for FREE and see our second round of freezer cooking 22 meals!

What are your favorite meals to freeze ahead? Have a freezer tip to share with readers? We’d love to hear!

November 2015 Personal Planner Pages – Free Printable

November 2015 personal planning pages - 12 pages to organize your month || HomeschoolCreations_edited-2

The fall weather around these parts has been wonderful. The leaves are in their full colors here and I’ll admit – it’s my favorite time of the year. With November on the horizon, we have the holidays to start planning for and several birthdays in our immediate family coming as well! It’s definitely a time that I need to be on top of everything coming (and going). I’m excited to have another round of freezer cooking coming too, because I know it will be a bit help!

I’d love to share a few printable pages with you all to help you get your November organized – keep reading and thanks for downloading!

My Daily Planner

Daily Planning Pages printable - free download for February. Also link to the FULL 2015 Daily Planner - get organized this year.

If you’d like to take a look at how I’ve set up my yearly planner, I’ve explained it more in this post here, as well as given links to my favorite binder and colorful tabs (because pretty makes life fun too, right?).

Download the November Personal Planner Pages

You can download the November 2015 Personal Planner Pages HERE. There are 12 pages included as a part of the download: the month at a glance and then weekly planning pages as well. Each month I’ll be offering a free download for that month’s planning pages, so you can check back and download them as they become available.

Purchase the Daily Personal Planner

Daily Planner Cover image

Add to Cart

If you like the layout and want to start planning out the rest of your year now (and next year too), purchase the full 2015 -2016 Daily Planner for $4.99. The calendar runs thru December 2016. It includes 18 month-at-a-glance pages and dated weekly pages through December 2016. Enjoy!

Don’t Miss The Daily To-Do List

Daily to do list free printable


 

My Daily To-Do List is pretty basic, but hopefully it will work for you too. There is an area to make a list of things to accomplish, household goals, appointment, meals for the day, and even a space to record exercise (oh – I crack myself up!) and water intake. Each page in the document is identical so you can print them off, cut the page in half, and have two lists. If you print them front to back, you’ll have four to-do lists and save a little paper.

 

Hope you all have a wonderful November!! I’d love to hear your plans!

 


 

September 2015 Personal Planning Pages – Printable for Mom

September 2015 Daily Planning Pages printable from Homeschool Creations-1

 

We’re sad that summer is essentially over (I may be a bit sad about that!). School is now in full swing and there are no more ‘lazy’ days to be had. I am excited to share a few more pages from my yearly personal planner with you all this month. If you want to have a central place to keep track of your goings-on in September, feel free to share and download the planning pages below.

How I’m Using My Daily Planner

Daily Planning Pages printable - free download for February. Also link to the FULL 2015 Daily Planner - get organized this year.

If you’d like to take a look at how I’ve set up my yearly planner, I’ve explained it more in this post here, as well as given links to my favorite binder and colorful tabs (because pretty makes life fun too, right?).

Download the September Personal Planner Pages

 September 2015 Daily Planning Pages printable from Homeschool Creations month at a glance-1
You can download the September 2015 Personal Planner Pages HERE. Each month I’ll be offering a free download for that month’s planning pages, so you can check back and download them as they become available.

Purchase the Daily Personal Planner

Daily Planner Cover image

Add to Cart

If you like the layout and want to start planning out the rest of your year now (and next year too), purchase the full 2015 -2016 Daily Planner for $4.99. The calendar runs from July 2015 thru December 2016. It includes 18 month-at-a-glance pages and dated weekly pages through December 2016. Enjoy!

 

Sponsor Thanks

We really appreciate the following companies. There are some fun reviews and giveaways coming up in the next few months, so stay tuned!  Many of these have been long time sponsors of Homeschool Creations and we are SO thankful for them – be sure to stop by their sites and check them out!

  • Rainbow Resource has been providing provide the best educational products to homeschoolers, parents, and educators at the lowest prices we can offer since 1989. They currently carry over 50,000 quality educational products in all subject areas, for grades PK-12 and beyond! In addition to their great prices, you can count on them for additional "perks" as well, like free shipping on orders of $50 or more!
  • Educents is the online marketplace for educational products and resources saving you up to 90% on engaging lesson plans, interactive worksheets, hands-on learning tools, educational games and more! Plus, Freebies are added daily!
  • EEME – Teach your kids electronics with online lessons and hands-on project kits that foster the curiosity and problem solving skills kids need for the science, technology, engineering, math – STEM – opportunities of tomorrow.
  • Reading Eggs is the perfect program for homeschoolers, providing a comprehensive range of online reading lessons, activities and e-books that teach kids aged 3–13 the core literacy skills needed for lifetime reading success. Take advantage of our FREE 3 week trial and see how your child’s reading improves with Reading Eggs!
  • Betty Lukens provides interactive educational tools for parents, grandparents, and teachers that make learning fun. Their educational magnets are ON SALE this month and will provide hours of fun at home and while traveling with younger children!

Don’t Miss The Daily To-Do List

Daily to do list free printable

My Daily To-Do List is pretty basic, but hopefully it will work for you too. There is an area to make a list of things to accomplish, household goals, appointment, meals for the day, and even a space to record exercise (oh – I crack myself up!) and water intake. Each page in the document is identical so you can print them off, cut the page in half, and have two lists. If you print them front to back, you’ll have four to-do lists and save a little paper.
 

Daily Assignment Sheet

Daily Assignment Sheets Collage

Need a daily assignment sheet for your children? We’ve laminated ours so we can use a Vis-a-vis marker and clean them off each week. Don’t miss this free download.

 

September Pocket Chart Calendar Pieces

September Calendar Numbers free printable from Homeschool Creations

 

Get your September pocket chart calendar pieces ready to go now. These cute pieces have three different colored number cards and pictures. Use the different colored number cards to try different pattern sequences: an ABC pattern, ABAB pattern, AABB pattern and other patterns you can make up together.

3 Useful Tools for Your Homeschool Year

Three useful tools for your homeschool year

 

Next week officially starts our homeschool year. Lord have mercy, I am not ready yet!! While there are a few homeschool supplies we love and use daily, this year we found three new items that we can’t wait to get started on using – and I’m sure will become things we wondered how we ever did without. Two of these the kids get to use and the last one is a mom-only – no kids are allowed to swipe my supplies! (Yes, I may get a bit territorial at times, I’ll admit it!)

Folding Bookstand

useful homeschool tools-7

Laurianna has a lot of larger textbooks this year in high school and this would have been so handy to have last year as well! The folding bookstand is really compact and opens/closes easily so she can take it with her to co-op and quickly prop it up on her desk to hold one of her books, save a little desk space, and keep her place in the book.

It’s actually a cookbook holder, but will definitely do the job, especially with those larger books. Above you can see a quick video of how it works.

Boogie Board eWriter

useful homeschool tools

Sometimes there are things that you just don’t want to use paper for or don’t necessarily need to have a record of. The kids will all be using the Boogie Board LCD tablet for spelling and a few other subjects that will allow us to work on the tablet and then erase it when we are done.

There is a special pen that writes on the board, so you can doodle, draw, or take notes to your heart’s content. When you are done and need a clean slate, you push a button at the top and the entire contents erase, leaving you with a fresh screen. The kids have already been having a blast drawing pictures and using it for their math work.

For us, this will also be handy when traveling and we don’t want to bring a bunch of extra paper (yes, I’m one of the moms that might make her kids do school work when we travel). There are bluetooth versions available which would sync your notes to your computer, but for now the standard board should be great for us (especially since this is 1/4 of the price)!

Erasable Pens

pilot frixion pens

These are the ‘mom-only’ supplies. Yes, they are fun and the kids will enjoy them, but sometimes I like to have something for just me. For the last year and a bit I’ve been using the Pilot Frixion pens but this year bought a set that is clickable – meaning I don’t have to take the cap off (and lose it). The eraser of the pen stays in place and the set comes in a variety of colors too. Being able to erase any mistakes = heaven. And ten colors – yes, please.

My color-coding brain did a happy dance when I saw the clickable version of these pens.

Seriously they have been the best pens ever. The ones I used last year were so handy for correcting papers, because I like using pen, but hate that when I make a mistake I have to scribble everything out. I like a smaller point too on my pens, so the .05 size is perfect for using in my planner or correcting or anything.

 

Homeschool Supplies We Love

Here’s a peek at a few of our other favorite homeschool supplies as well. Do you have a useful tool or supply that has helped your homeschool time? I’d love to hear about it – leave a comment and share!

August 2015 Personal Planning Pages – Printable for Mom

August 2015 Daily Planning Pages

August – just about time to start school here, but there is still a little bit of summer left to enjoy and savor. I am excited to share a few more pages from my yearly personal planner with you all this month. If you want to have a central place to keep track of your goings-on in August, feel free to share and download the planning pages below.

How I’m Using My Daily Planner

Daily Planning Pages printable - free download for February. Also link to the FULL 2015 Daily Planner - get organized this year.

If you’d like to take a look at how I’ve set up my yearly planner, I’ve explained it more in this post here, as well as given links to my favorite binder and colorful tabs (because pretty makes life fun too, right?).  

Download the August Personal Planner Pages

August 2015 Planning Pages at a Glance 2
You can download the August 2015 Personal Planner Pages HERE. Each month I’ll be offering a free download for that month’s planning pages, so you can check back and download them as they become available.

Purchase the Daily Personal Planner

Daily Planner Cover image

Add to Cart

If you like the layout and want to start planning out the rest of your year now (and next year too), purchase the full 2015 -2016 Daily Planner for $4.99. The calendar runs from July 2015 thru December 2016. It includes 18 month-at-a-glance pages and dated weekly pages through December 2016. Enjoy!

Sponsor Thanks

We really appreciate the following companies. Many of these have been long time sponsors of Homeschool Creations and we are SO thankful for them – be sure to stop by their sites and check them out!    

  • EEME – Teach your kids electronics with online lessons and hands-on project kits that foster the curiosity and problem solving skills kids need for the science, technology, engineering, math – STEM – opportunities of tomorrow.
  • 2015 Homeschool Buyers Guide – sifts through volumes of often-overwhelming homeschool information and breaks down the decision-making process into manageable bites. In about an hour you’ll gain valuable insights that answer your questions, provide direction and help you take the next steps.
  • Reading Eggs is the perfect program for homeschoolers, providing a comprehensive range of online reading lessons, activities and e-books that teach kids aged 3–13 the core literacy skills needed for lifetime reading success. Take advantage of our FREE 3 week trial and see how your child’s reading improves with Reading Eggs!

 

Don’t Miss The Daily To-Do List

Daily to do list free printable

My Daily To-Do List is pretty basic, but hopefully it will work for you too. There is an area to make a list of things to accomplish, household goals, appointment, meals for the day, and even a space to record exercise (oh – I crack myself up!) and water intake. Each page in the document is identical so you can print them off, cut the page in half, and have two lists. If you print them front to back, you’ll have four to-do lists and save a little paper.

Daily Assignment Sheet

Daily Assignment Sheets Collage

Need a daily assignment sheet for your children. We’ve laminated ours so we can use a Vis-a-vis marker and clean them off each week. Don’t miss this free download.

 

August Pocket Chart Calendar Pieces

 

August pocket calendar pieces from homeschoolcreations.net

We’re in the thick of summer now – keep the learning going with these cute calendar pieces will keep the learning going! The August pocket chart calendar pieces have three different colored number cards and pictures. Use the different colored number cards to try different pattern sequences: an ABC pattern, ABAB pattern, AABB pattern and other patterns you can make up together.

Keeping in Real – The State of My Planning

At this point in the summer, I’m usually putting the finishing touches on everything that needs to be done for the upcoming year: start and end dates, planned breaks and vacation time, weeks planned out.

Want to know where I am now?

I definitely want to take most of the month of December off. I’ve printed off the yearly planning calendar – but haven’t filled in one single date yet. Nada. Nothing.

I’m not sure I recognize myself.

This summer hasn’t seemed like much of a summer break at all. Last summer I learned (and yes, I mean LEARNED) what it means to really relax and unwind. That’s something that is really hard for me to do. Something happened last summer, and I wasn’t especially happy with it at the time, but essentially I figured out what it means to rest and be okay in the resting, not always doing.

But the last few months with time off haven’t felt restful. There has been travel and visits with family, but it’s been more of a rush and not so much of a time of relaxation. That break and down time from homeschool (or life in general) is so very important.

The need for rest

Sometimes I think that we forget that. We get so caught up in all we feel NEEDS to be done and the prep that we THINK is hanging over our heads, that the busyness of life overwhelms us – and we miss the rest we really need.

I’m just as guilty of this as the next person.  Although I do have a calendar printed off and much planning that needs to be done, I also know that I need to rest and enjoy the everyday moments. There will be plenty of time to get caught up in the planning soon enough.

For me that means a dedicated focus on doing nothing for a bit longer. Instead of stressing out over starting back up with school at the beginning of August, I’m going to remember that we HOMESCHOOL and can start whenever we’d like to, thank you very much. I’m giving myself permission to stop and take a break. Breathe a little.

Can I encourage you all to remember to take a break? That may mean planning a daily rest time into your day (they aren’t just for kids, and trust me, they help tremendously). Go to the pool with your kids. Read a book for yourself (do you remember the last time you did that?). Give yourself permission to start school a week (or two later).

Resting will only help you out in the long run. You’ll be a happier momma. A better teacher for your kids. Maybe a little more energized for your spouse (wink). Creative juices flow so much more easily when there isn’t overwhelming stress.

Are you feeling the need to breathe and rest a little too? What tips do you have for moms in the midst of needing that break?