ScrapWarrior

Buying in bulk – Zaycon Foods

January 4th, 2012

Many times I am asked HOW I feed my crew on a TIGHT budget… COUPONS & BULK FOODS!! In October, a friend introduced me to ZAYCON FOODS and their Bulk Meat… I AM NEVER going back to store bought meat ever again.

HERE IS A LINK:

https://www.zayconfoods.com/refer/zf52795

Zaycon travels around and offers bulk meats (and other things). You do have to re-package to fit your needs… but the price & QUALITY is AMAZING!!! They are all over the US (not just here in AZ)!! I have never seen chicken prices this low in all of the years that I have been coupon shopping either.

80 pounds of Zaycon foods BULK CHICKEN

I started off with their chicken – 80 pounds for about $140 (including tax)… Got it home and WOWWIE! Those are the BIGGEST chicken breasts (boneless & Skinless) that I have ever seen and they were so tasty. Since then, we have bought their 93/7 ground beef, more chicken and bacon. I will let you know more about the bacon once we get it home in the next few weeks.

Here’s info on the Chicken:

• 100 % natural chicken with no added hormones, additives or artificial ingredients

• Comes directly from the processor and has never been frozen

• Sold by the case — 40 lbs in each case

Here’s into on the Ground Beef:

• Fresh, Premium, Fine Grind 93/7 Super* Lean Ground Beef

• Comes in a 40-lb case with four 10-lb chubs per case (approximate weight–see note below)

• No chemicals, additives or water added to meat during processing

• Processed at a USDA-inspected, state-of-the-art plant employing strict operating protocols (including HACCP) and the highest in food-safety standards

• Prior to processing, inspectors from the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service randomly sample cattle under a monitoring plan and perform testing for antibiotic residues

They are all over the US, so make sure that you click the link above (and I do get a refer credit of $1 if you order – It helps me feed my family! ) https://www.zayconfoods.com/refer/zf52795

January 4th, 2012 by Kris Mazy | Comments Off

Favorite Tools as a homeschooler

January 3rd, 2012

This is our 8th year homeschooling. I feel like I have successfully accomplished so many things with the kids. I was in my studio and was thinking this morning. “What Items Can I Not Live Without?” Besides the kids computers(yes, they each have their own netbooks) and AOP homeschooling curriculum called Switched on Schoolhouse, there are a FEW other things that just make my life a bit easier!!!

We started off our homeschooling sitting on the floor in the living room with a few workbooks for a lone 1st grader. Shelby was AMAZING to go along with mommy, having a 2 year old brother and and a one year old sister. Then, we moved out of boxes at the dining room table. – We never ate at the table because there were always projects going on all of the time. When we moved into our new house 20 months ago, we converted the formal dining room into a classroom. I really don’t need anything “formal” in this house since, well, we have little hand who break things. We got a FREE dining room table and chairs set off of the local Freecycle group. It needed a bit of “re-gluing” but is perfect! I also have a dresser that we have added into the room in order to have some extra space for art supplies.

My Cricut Machine is never far from me and it lives on the dresser in the schoolroom. Today, I am using the calendar set and cutting the months of the year to hang on my classroom wall for Berlyn and Rowan. (Berlyn is my autistic child and does go to a half day Kindergarten class at a public school with the most AWESOME teacher.) Berlyn has been learning the months of the year at school, so I wanted to add that to our classroom wall too! Shelby even got the new one for Christmas this year that hooks up to her computer and has digital art and can also use the cartridges. I can’t imagine not having this tool in our collection. The kids use it for reports. I use it for scrapbooking, and school related items (both theirs and mine).

My Cube Shelving in my classroom is another essential. I pick up a lot of items at local yard sales and I needed a way to organize them. These cubicle shelves are at places like Walmart, and Target. They have all different color shelves and you can pick up drawers separately.

We use the drawers for “glue”. Yes, I have an adhesive drawer! And one that has all of their painting supplies, and decorative scissors, and extra supplies.

The shelves also hold the plastic shoe boxes GREAT and can double as bookshelves! I have math counters and science equipment in those. Along with a shoebox of crayons, and one with colored pencils and one with markers. I have never run out of or lost my colored pencils while they are in these shoe boxes. (Hey, I even labeled the outside of the boxes with my Cricut machine and wall vinyl!!!

INTERNET plays a HUGE roll in our schooling as well! I use it for project ideas and the kids use it for research. I find worksheets online and activities as well.

Last but not least – a TIMER is essential in our house. We DO NOT school all day with formal lessons, however, we do school for a time every morning. I set the timer to 3 hours at 9am and get started. Once that buzzer rings, I check the computer work. If everyone has gotten done their today’s work, then… WE ARE DONE! In the afternoon is free reading, activity, cooking, etc.

I hope that this gives you an insight to “US” and what we can’t live without.

January 3rd, 2012 by Kris Mazy | Comments Off

USE THIS Digital Scrapbook Challenge – JANUARY

January 2nd, 2012

Are you ready for January’s USE THIS Digital Scrapbook Challenge?

Get a FREE Digital Element to use:

Check out the Forum post here at SWEET BERRY SCRAPS:

http://berrysweetscraps.com/forum/showthread.php?519-January-2012-USE-THIS-Challenge

January 2nd, 2012 by Kris Mazy | Comments Off

January 1!

January 1st, 2012

At midnight on 12/31/11 – 1/1/12 we always make it a tradition to bang pots and pans. Making and having traditions is important with us as a family. We have little family traditions all throughout the year that make holidays (and regular days) a bit more FUN!Normally we watch the movie Ben Hur… But Shelby got a Karaoke Machine for Christmas, so we had a ton of finger foods and a TON of singing and dancing!

What are some of your traditions? I would LOVE to hear about them.

Today, we enjoyed the sunshine (not often that it is this warm at our house in January… but today was about 65 degrees – by the end of next week we are back to cold and possible snow) We took the kids geocaching. If you haven’t heard of this… You have GOT to give this a try.

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting that my girlfriend Kim of TheOutdoorPrincess.com introduced us to many years ago. With geocaching, you use a GPS, enter in the coordinates and search for a hidden treasure. Sometimes those treasures are as simple as a piece of paper that you sign your name on, other times there are little trinkets that you can exchange with your own. Some of the neatest geocaches that our family has found contain travel bugs or geocoins that you can take, move to another location and track online. There is a local cache just down the road from us that has a history lesson in it that includes a newpaper article. We use geocaching as part of our PE for homeschooling.

January 1st, 2012 by Kris Mazy | Comments Off

Reflection on my year – 2011

December 29th, 2011

It’s hard to believe another year has gone by… 2011 is about at a close and I have been reflecting on everything that has happened this year.

I graduated from college with my AFA in May. That was something that I wasn’t sure that I would ever accomplish being a mom of 5 kidlings. I added photography to my already established web business.

In September, Larry and I celebrated our 14th anniversary and as a gift to each other is a cruise to Alaska in 2012.

Larry and I finished our foster adopt classes in September and was award our certification from the state in November. We have gotten a few calls for out of area kids, but have not officially taken any as of yet. We are anxiously awaiting our new family members to be placed in our house.

Both of my parents old Springer Spaniels passed away this year. Harpy in May and Gargamel in October. Gargy was Larry’s and my first kid, before Shelby was born.

I finished my first of 3 semesters at Liberty University for my Bachelors in Education. I am hoping with the Christian based background of Liberty and my Art Background that I will be able to teach Christian style art to kids one day. Who knows… I may go onto get my MA in Psychology and work with special needs children in the future.

I am opening a new digital shop online at http://berrysweetscraps.com – The grand opening for that shop is tomorrow.

May God bless each of you in the coming year!