Stocking up for winter

This week has felt like a "stocking up" kind of week. On Friday and Saturday I went garage saling for some clothes the kids will need this fall/winter and hit a few jackpots! For just over $20 I think I have most of what they'll need. Some dressier clothes for our son, it seems like he has plenty of every day clothes as handy me downs, but needed some nicer clothes for church, weddings, parties, etc. So, I think I got enough to get him through at least until Christmas present time! ;) For our daughter, I needed pants! I went to put a pair of her pants on from the spring a couple days ago and they were short....all of them. :( I figured I better get them before garage saling season is over, so that was on the list this week. I found her 8 pairs of pants at one sale, $1 each! :) I also got her several pairs of pjs (all princesses of course!), a couple sweatshirts and t-shirts. I'm thinking I may need to get her some more long sleeve shirts as we go through the winter, but there is always plenty of that on clearance throughout the season, and there is also Christmas! ;) For now, I think we're ready for the change of season for both of them, we're all stocked up!

Of course, the kitchen is another place to get stocked up. As I mentioned we had all the apples to use, so I decided to bake apple/cinnamon muffins with some of the pulp (I still have plenty left for another couple baking projects) I had from the juicer. While I was at it I figured I should also use the shredded zucchini I had in the freezer since last summer to use for bread. Then, I got a sweet tooth and figured cookies should also be baked. Yes, crazy, I know! I've always heard of people doing like bulk baking/cooking days and freezing everything and it was always something I had wondered about doing. Well yesterday, I did it. I pulled out all of the baking supplies and went to work. Now our freezer is stocked with 30+ apple muffins, 30+ zucchini muffins, 3 loaves of zucchini bread, 2 frozen batches of cookies (slice and bake kind of idea). Then the pantry has 2 batches of chocolate chip cookie dry ingredient mixes ready to have the liquid ingredients added at a moments notice or the first sign of a snow day to be baked and our counter has a batch of cookies calling us to eat them every time we pass them by! WOW! Of course, never forget the mess these things leave behind too...yes, I have that too. It was nice though to finally use those things that I have had and figured, I'll use them for baking and just never seemed to remember to do it. Now this year, I have them all prepared and at the first thought of company I have breakfast, snacks and dessert covered! The important things, right?

A few things I learned:
1. Don't do this if you aren't a multi-tasker, it requires thinking about a lot of things at once
2. Making similar types of recipes and just doubling/tripling them works better then multiple types of ideas
3. Clean as you go...you'll end up needing those same supplies again anyway, so keep cleaning them.
4. I wish I would've borrowed some bread pans for this project and I could've had more in the oven at a time and been more efficient.
5. Pray that this is the day your kids take long naps and wake up in a good mood! :)

Not that I'm at all ready to see the summer warm days full of playing outside, hanging out by the pool, sitting out on the porch in the evenings, BBQ dinners and suntans go away--but now I'm ready for the change of weather when it inevitably comes. I'm trying to embrace it...