#3 Thankful

I have a little boy with sensory and other issues, that we don't even understand.  But because of his sensory he likes and begs to be tickled before going to sleep and yet while most people would not be able to sleep after being tickled, he falls right to sleep after it.  I love him for knowing how his body works and I'm thankful for him.

#2 Thankful

I'm thankful that I was given two older boys that I can enjoy the time I spend going to the orthodontist every month with them.  They have such great sense of humors and they can be really sweet when they're one-on-one with me (or in this case two-on-two).  They make me look forward to the other 3 growing up.

Back up and running

Our internet's been down for awhile.  Our modem broke and I had to wait for delivery and haggling with the phone company over price.  That's an ordeal in itself.

So, now that I have it back, I had been wanting to start my thankful posts again for November, but kept forgetting to post at all and then the sinking abyss of the internet occurred. 

#1 thankfulness post for 2012

I am thankful for my family.  Both my brothers, sisters, parents, etc. as well as my children and husband.  Even on the worst days, because every family has them, I love them all very much.

Controlling the budget

We butchered a 1/2 a cow last Spring.  Sadly we are already out of all of the ground beef and down to some steaks and roasts.  I'm not a big steak eater, so I usually use them by slicing them into Korean or Chinese dishes, etc.  Sometimes Brian will make me something else while he and the boys (and sometimes the girls) eat steaks.  Well, my budget doesn't say beef yet.  It says that we must wait until next Spring or it costs entirely too much for the year. 

First I gave Brian an sermon about us not needing two pounds of beef for every meal.  We can cut back on our meat intake and substitute.  So, I've been pretty much in charge of the menu most weeks.  This is where Brian struggled anyways.  He made the same old, same old every week because of lack of planning and time.  I don't complain because he cooks.  However, money is my department.  I had him go to Aldi and get a bunch of cheap chicken breasts, a friend gave us several more pounds of ground beef as payment for some help at the farm and now we have a deer in the freezer along with some ground turkey I also had Brian pick up at Aldi.  It's only around $1/lb, so it goes further financially and the deer is SUPER cheap. 

Brian now has to abide by my rules of no more than 1 lb of meat per dinner.  That means approximately 3 chicken breasts or 1 lb of ground meat per meal.  He can always fry up a 1 lb of turkey or deer and mix with a pound of beef and it's enough for two meals.  I go through a recipe binder I keep.  I take a cheapy binder, put in sheet protectors and any time I see a recipe I like online or in a magazine I put them in there.  Super easy and now we have our favorite recipes readily available.  I make a menu before I grocery shop.  Sometimes it's based on sale items, sometimes it's just what I feel like making (depending on how much we have going on that week) or just feel like stretching out to something different.  I usually pick up about 5 or 6 items; some quick and easy, some a little more time consuming.  I take the weirder ones (Brian likes very basic recipes).  Brian doesn't like to adlib on recipes and I do.  I will make mine on the weekends or my days off and he takes the other nights.  Sometimes, if I really have time I'll cook up some of the extra dishes on the weekend so Brian only has to finish them. 

It's amazing how much stress this relieves for us.  Brian no longer calls me at work because he doesn't know what to make and he knows when he walks in the door what's for supper.  We can have meat thawed and ready to go.  We never were much for eating out, but this makes you not want to because you're not having the same, boring, meal week after week.  And my favorite part is when I get to cook I throw in a lot of fresh veggies and the kids never ever notice.  They eat veggies fine anyways, but I get a lot more in there to take the place of the missing meat they were use to.  We eat pretty darn healthy with these meal plans too.

This is one of our little tips of getting by, a little less stressed, when parents of 5 work fulltime.

Those days are gone

It was nice when Cole was bringing his lunch to school everyday because.he said our leftovers we're healthier.  But I forgot how expensive it was when he was getting school lunches and extras for w growing boy before he decided to cut weight to wrestle.  He was so disappointed last week after the hydration test to find out he can no longer lose weight.  I was a little relieved with hie heart and his height and weight.  It didn't make sense to me to cut but since he was just doing it by eating really healthy I was trying to be supportive.  Now he's eating everything in sight again.  He has a new higher goal and he seems happy again.  I know he's already put the few pounds he lost back on again and I think a few more at hie height will really look good on him.  Back to eating us out of house and home again!   :)

Addicting New Hobby and OCD

OCD never helps if you find a hobby you can actually stand.  I mean I know better than to ever start scrapbooking because there's really no end to it unless you stop snapping pictures of your babies.  That is NOT going to happen.  I asked a girl at work if she would make some scarves for the girls for next year's football season.  Instead, she offered to show me how to use a loom.  I started it on Thursday for just a couple of hours and had it almost half way.  Last night I finished the length and found videos on how to take it off the loom and tie the fringe.  Kaelin LOVES her new scarf, so after I finish Chelsi's matching scarf Kaelin wants yarn of her own so she can learn how.

I did really good last night.  I got the scarf knitted, which is actually relaxing and fixed the slow draining sink in my bathroom.  My Lord the girls lose a lot of hair down that sink.  Even got Jaemin's hair trimmed up.  I dusted this morning and had other things in mind, but I just couldn't look at the dust anymore and had to do it myself since the men of my house are youth deer hunting and now I'm paying for it.  Allergy meds or not, nothing keeps me from reacting to dang dust.  I really hate being OCD, but it's true you just obsess over it.  Which means you get things done really fast (aka the scarf), but it's so annoying to yourself and others.

Happy Halloween 2012

The kids made a HAUL!  Since there was a football game tonight people were trying hard to get rid of their candy (us included).  I'm going to stop buying more than 1 bag of candy to give out because we only get enough for about a 1/2 a bag.  But, Jaemin finally got into it and had fun.