Winter Is Here!

I love snow.  I love watching it snow, I love seeing the snow on the ground.  I do not love (or even remotely like) the sub zero temperatures that come with winter for us.  I am, however, thankful for this nice warm fleece robe. :D 

Winter has definitely found us (finally killed the fleas!!! YAY).

There has been a picture floating around Facebook for awhile, it's a link to blog where a genius made her daughter a nice, warm, winter poncho... Us parents know you aren't supposed to buckle your kids into their seats with their coats on, it loosens the belts up and makes it unsafe... and it is a HUGE pain in the rear to take the coat on and off when making a bunch of stops-but it's necessity. 

Then comes this lovely mommy-genius over at Reality Daydream blog.  She made her little girl (cute little thing) a nice warm poncho for such a time as this...  Her tutorial is in the link, it's easy, a lot easier than it sounds..  My sister in law saw me share the picture and enlisted the help of my mom to make her little girl one. She loves it so much I decided to make Hannah one, too. 

This lovely genius-mom idea allows a nice warm coat, a hat that's harder for my little one to take off (and it's soft, so she likes it), and it can stay ON HER while buckled... Flip up the back side so there is nothing between Hannah and the seat, buckle UNDER the front side so she stays nice and warm and safe.  

I did get the hood a little big, and the only thing I messed up on was when I cut the circle I cut on the fold instead on the open side of fabric resulting in one layer being two semi circles vs a circle, so a few extra seams-but that's ok.  

Even with the help of all three big kids, this took me 2 hours... Well, 3, but I did had to stop in the middle to take care of Hannah.  Most of it was scrap fabric from previous projects-the brown minky fleece is from Hannah's baby quilt... The white minky fleece I found 1/2 yard piece for $1.50 in the Walmart ends bin.  

We've only used it a few times, but I'm loving it, and as you can tell from the big Hannah grin, she loves it, too.  

In other news, we are more than half way done with school.. We are at the point in Andrew's lessons where doubling up is no longer an option as most of the reviewing is over, so a lesson a day, we have 68 lessons left.  Barring major sickness we should have no problem getting done before vacation.   He is reviewing his cursive.... I don't want it to be perfect, but I do want to know he can write it legibly.  We basically just started the cursive over again and most letters he is doing awesome at. That's the beauty of homeschooling-you can go slow, or completely stop and master a problem area before moving on.  

Our shopping is this weekend.  The next few days will be busy for me getting everything ready for that and keeping Hannah happy. She hasn't been feeling good at all.  

Have a great week and stay warm! 

~Tabitha

How I Use My Kindle

Hello hello! 

Last year my husband bought me Kindle Fire (these things are cheap during this season). 

I haven't messed with it too much, but I learn a few new things here and there.  

When Hannah was born, I put Facebook and my email on it-with the intention of taking it back off as she got older... But I never took it off and am enjoying sharing pictures with family and friends.

Of course I use it for an e-reader.  I'm hoping to get a subscription to a homeschool magazine soon and use it on my Kindle rather than having more paper piles piling up around the house-but that's up to Mr. Budget.  I have the OverDrive app, which I use to borrow e-books from a library if I run out of free titles through Amazon-I refuse to pay for an e-book.  If I have to spend money, I'm getting paper.

I do admit to playing way too many games on it-I shouldn't, but I do-one stereotype from my generation I will admit to, the gaming stereotype. 

I use it to check the weather with The Weather Channel app.  I have looked up a few things on YouTube before, so I finally put the app on it so when I do find something to watch on Youtube (usually a tutorial on a new carry with my moby wrap or mei tei), it saves to my profile so it's findable again.  

I read my Bile on it through Bible Gateway. 

Pinterest and FitBit apps are on it. Pandora, too. 

My favorite app has got to be Sermon Audio.  I know I've told y'all about them before.  I can listen to sermons wherever I am-house, car, park... I love it.  

A discussion on a homeschool page this morning is going to send me to Amazon underground to see what I can discover for free school apps.  

How do you use your smart phone or tablet for school?  

Have a great week!

~Tabitha

Shopping Trip From 11/12

To say there is a lot going on here is an understatement.. So let's start where we left off.

As for my grocery shopping trip last week, it was crazy as usual.  
At HyVee we bought a boneless ham, got a turkey for free.. For getting a turkey we got a free 2 liter of Dr. Pepper. Among other things, our total was $113.76
At Aldi's we got our usual-mostly dry goods along with cheap eggs and margarine. The total there was $134.09
At Sam's I stocked up on my chicken and also baking supplies. Total there was $239.64
At the discount bread store I only needed 6 loaves of bread, making a total of $4.79. 
Finally at the health food store I got a bottle of raw honey for $11.70. 

YOWCH. Grand Total of $503.98.  We usually budget more around November and December if we can because I do try to stock up on a few things and take advantage of the meat sales available. (Aldi's also had bone in ham for .89 cents a pound.)


On to other things. I am making lasagna and cinnamon rolls for Sundays. The lasagna is something I can stick in the oven at noon and it will be done by 4, so I can sit down and listen to the church services (we watch church online).  The cinnamon rolls we have been doing those on Sundays for a few months.  I am simply making them this month instead of buying. We'll see how that goes.  In order to do this precooking that I'm not used to, I had to buy some foil pans with lids as none of my glassware has lids.   

Now, What's happening today (besides grumpy children) you ask? 

I have chili going on in the crockpot.

Half a bag of pinto beans (I soaked those overnight)
1/2 lb ground beef, stuck it in raw
2 cans tomato sauce
1 can diced tomato
1 onion chopped
Chili powder (I just dumped, I'll taste before we eat to see if it needs more)

Stick everything in, set it low and let it go. I stirred everything and broke up the meat about 10 (it went in at 7). 

My big turkey I cooked Monday.. Then I warmed it up this morning and deboned it.  I can't do it when it's cold, the cold just goes up my arms and tenses my shoulders up. I got 6 quart bags and two turkey bacon ranch wraps out of our 13 lb turkey.   What I put in the freezer I'll use for soup or pot pies. 

I think that's everything for this week.  

Have a great week! 

~Tabitha

Shopping Trip Nov 12

We have officially entered the holiday season. Every year I pray there will be good sales.. So I guess we will see how it plays out the next few months.

I put off my meal planning again, so I'm still working on that.  But we are having some staples-tacos, chili, shake n bake chicken... 

Our biggest meal is, of course, Thanksgiving.  We aren't big turkey people around here, so I get a ham.  Sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn, (skipping the biscuits-there might be a overthrow in cooking lol), pumpkin pie and apple pie.  I would love to skip the regular potatoes and the second pie, but Eva needs food she can eat, so we do both.  

Everybody's biggest question is always what to do with the leftovers.  

We eat as is for a few times. Make sandwiches... I found a really awesome loaded baked potato casserole that's 10x better with leftover honey ham vs loaf ham.  We also do super easy ham bone soup.  

Get creative with your recipes. Utilize Pinterest. Or stick it in the freezer if you start to get tired of it.  Just make sure you label so you know what you have.  

While we aren't really big turkey people..  I do usually take advantage of Hyvee's buy a turkey, get a loaf ham.. It's an awesome deal.  Then I cook and use the turkey for the kids' and I's lunches.  I can cook the whole turkey, then shred or dice and freeze and have the meat all year round.  And if it is cooked right (not dry), hubby is all for eating the meat for one meal.   There are ways, my friends, there are ways.  ;) 

Something I made for the kids this week...

It's a toy basket crocheted from old cut up shirts.  The jury is still out on if they like it... But I think it'd make a great reusable shopping bag. Very sturdy. 

Have a great week! 

~Tabitha

Vacation Planning Part #2

I told you a few months ago that I would be planning for our Florida trip for awhile (you can read that here)... So here's some more planning to do.


Like we did for our Illinois trip, we plan on doing the meals as cheap as possible. This means we'll need sandwich meat, bread and condiments to be kept cold.  Now with Illinois we used our huge cooler I use for grocery trips and had ice in it. That was a pain in the butt and that trip was only 4 days.  If our van was the kind with a flat cargo area, we could very easily drain the melted ice, but it's not.  It's a welled cargo area as the back seat is made to fold flat (think the Chrysler Stow N Go commercials).  So we are thinking of buying a plug in mini fridge type cooler, we do have an adapter back there.  It would eliminate the need for ice, also. We will still have our little coolers, but those are easy to empty the ice out of.  It's still an idea we are throwing around, so we might change our minds, but it seems like a good alternative. 

I am trying to figure out what kind of containers I want for the snacks.  Something easy to get in, but stack-able (who knew that was hyphenated??!?) to utilize space. Any suggestions? I don't think a lid would be necessary.

I have pillows on my list to make-mostly for the adults as I made kids pillows a few years ago for the car.  Car seats aren't exactly comfortable. 

I plan on stringing twine from the front seats to the back for curtains.  I can hang receiving blankets with clothes pins-it's enough to keep the bright sun out of sleeping kiddo's eyes, and small to store.  

For our hotel stops, I plan on having a duffel bag for each night with clothes for everybody. I will take a few minutes each morning at the car to get dirty clothes in a bin and get the next day of clean clothes where they will be easily grabbed.  That way we don't have to take a ton of bags in if we are only staying one night. 

I think that's all that's going on in my head.

Have a great week!

~Tabitha

Learning Addition and Potato Soup

Andrew is in Abeka K5 this year.  

As I've told you before, I plan our school weeks two weeks in advance so on the off chance he wants to keep going or do school on the weekends-I know what do to next without a big to-do. 

This week we started a new skill-addition. For three or four lessons I tried to explain different ways and what it was, how to do it. I would get blank stares.  Then a page came that used dominoes.  So we pulled out great grandpa's dominoes and it clicked.  

He loves using dominoes for math and he did 10 math problems by himself simply by going through the dominoes this morning. 

Also today I made me some baked potato soup.  SO GOOD!  The kids looked at me like I was crazy, so I get leftovers for a few days. 

Creamy Baked Potato Soup
2 red potatoes
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
2 cups milk
cheddar cheese
bacon bits
salt
pepper

Make a rue with your butter, flour and milk.  Add cut up potatoes (peel if you want), just cut them small so they get done.  Cook for about 20 minutes until it thickens to your liking.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Scoop in a bowl and add bacon bits and cheese.  I would have loved to add chives-but I'm out. And sour cream adds a scrumptious layer of flavor, but it was already getting a lot of milk product so for the sake of Hannah's tummy and my sleep, I skipped that too.


Hannah is starting to crawl and the girls are letting me do their hair-lots of braiding happening around here.  

Have a great week!

~Tabitha

Shopping Trip 10/15

So now we have our new budget figured out. We are able to add another $100 onto our previous budget for a total of $450 a month. Praise the Lord for that!  While there is still some budget squeezing, it's not near as bad as it has been.  I only had to take off a few extras and not compromise our meals for that.  

My last trip I only able to do 2 weeks at a time, and there has been some squeezing and supplementing to meet that.  This week I'm doing a full month again.  

Meals include salad, sesame seed chicken, salisbury steak, tacos, baked chicken (homemade shake n bake style...do they even sell shake n bake anymore?).  Soup for the kids and I on the weekdays, chicken strips and fries on the weekends.   

With my meal plans I decided to do 14 meals, then rotate.  It simplifies my planning and I'm not scrambling to find enough recipes.  I'm still trying to stay away from the pasta and high carb foods for Dennis' health.


The weather is changing outside.  Getting colder, but hey, it's winter. 

I made Hannah a new pair of pajamas yesterday. Got them a little big but they'll last all winter, I'll take pictures for next week's post. 

Andrew is learning addition and money in school... So I saved the local grocery add and we'll practice money counting with that.


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I think that's everything that's happening this week. Have a great week!



~Tabitha