Dealing with Morning Sickness

Morning sickness.  The only bad thing about being pregnant.  

I have to remind myself that even though I feel like crud, it means baby is just perfectly fine.  


I'm 21ish weeks this week.. Usually way past the traditional time for morning sickness.  But baby has other ideas.


My typical go-tos have failed me. :(   What I usually do.... 

Papaya Enzyme (basically chewable, all natural tums... but they taste good).   It has done the trick since my sister found it 4 years ago.  You can find it at Walmart.. 

Mother Ease by Solar Ray.   It's a mix of stomach settling herbs that usually helps..  I gave my bottle to a friend, so I can't go look.  

I've also used peppermint tea and ginger ale.   I know many women who chew on ginger chews.   

A lot of women also have good luck with bread or crackers as a stomach settler.  I've always been told to keep soda crackers by the bed and eat a few before I get up in the morning.  The last few pregnancies, bread and I have not gotten along, so crackers or dry toast (or even toast or some breads with something on it) are out of the question.  

When I was pregnant with Grace (4 years) and Hannah (2 years), I was mostly able to eat some version of what I was craving, and I was usually good...  This baby is just turning everything upside down, proving that every pregnancy is different... Usually any form of fast food makes me sick, but this time it's the one thing that doesn't make sick some weeks.     

My only advice for those suffering from mild morning sickness... Make sure you keep your doctor/midwife informed of how you're eating.. Nutrition is very important to keep you strong and baby growing healthy.   Obviously there's many women who suffer from extremely bad morning sickness, your doctor can help with that.  If you can't keep anything down, call your doctor.  

I'm in no way a medical professional, so please don't take my experience as such.  I'm simply a mom of 6 whose dealt with morning sickness for 5 pregnancies.   


Have a great week! 
~Tabitha

Budget for Shopping April/May

So I probably should have combined this post with the last post.  LOL  Oh well. 

Go check out our menu plan to see what we're eating this month.  

Our budget was $600.. We spent $580.  So...... We did save a bit of money, but not much.  

I was pleasantly surprised to find some "Friday the 13th sales".  But other sales, and coupons weren't the greatest. 

Our local little store had a buy one at full price, get a second one for $.13 sale.  So I went and grabbed donut holes, raisin bran, already cut philly chicken meat and Smithfield pork loins before we left town.  Spent $27.89.. almost half price. 

Fareway Foods, normally a store I avoid like the plague, and I quickly remembered why.   What we got on sale was pre frozen chicken breast, on sale 5 lb for 4.99 (normally 6.99), shredded cheese 8 oz for .99.  Boston Pork Butt Roast, we spent $5.80 on 3 pounds.  Sirloin Steak, the ad said it was $5.99 a pound, so we told them we wanted one pound, we got 1.8 pounds because we didn't check the label before we left the store.   Old Orchard Juice, 64 oz, was also .99 and we got the kids the treat of gummy snacks for .99 a box (normally $2.50).    This was the store that killed our money saving spree, as we ended up spending $75.22.  

Aldi's was $107.36

Sam's surprised me.  I haven't had a total at Sam's under $200 in quite awhile. The only thing we had on instant savings was some cereal.  But we still only spent $197.65

Walmart we couldn't find some of the specialty seasonings we were looking for and given the blizzard we were trying to beat home, we didn't stop at an ethnic food store in the city, so we ended up going on Amazon when we got home.  We spent $171.82.  

We're also trying out some grocery savings apps... After we figure out how they all work and that they do actually work, I'll share what we are using..  If you use any money saving apps, let me know!  

Have a great week! 
~Tabitha 

Meal Planning for April/May

This is not my week for anything I think... Let's try round 2 with this.  

I opened the blog to find a post on morning sickness I had forgotten to finish... So I'm still working on that. 

We realized last week that I had planned from a Saturday to a Wednesday last month.. so we had to go pick up a few things to get us through this week.  We're trying to keep our shopping days on Saturdays. 

Dennis has been helping me with the grocery lists and meal planning the last couple of months, which I absolutely love.  Not only is it finding us some yummy recipes, but it's getting us out of the rut of the same old stuff.  So we have a lot of new recipes again this month, but they all sound really yummy to us.  

Now, most of these recipes are from a site through his work, so I can't link to them this month.  If you want a recipes, let me know.  I'm definitely going to try sharing some of our favorites. 

So, the two we've tried (because we had almost all of the ingredients) BBQ Ranch Chicken Sandwiches and Garlic Stuffed Roast...  Both are actually really good (yes, I was a little surprised).  The roast actually called for a standing rib roast, but we had a deer roast in the freezer that needed ate, so used that instead.  

We have both been wanting to get back into smoothies, but have been struggling to find a way to be able to afford it... So we're going to try getting frozen fruit from Sam's, then we'll have juice or almond milk to finish them off.  Once the fruit is gone, so are the smoothies... 

We also have two birthday meals this month, Andrew and Hannah.  
Andrew got the choice between ice cream or premade cupcakes (because I just don't have the ingredients or time this week to get a  cake made for Saturday, luckily he loves ice cream)... Now we just have to make a special stop to get Dippin' Dots because it seems none of the stores we are stopping at have them.  Weird. Hannah is getting a cake or cupcakes.. Haven't decided yet lol.  

Breakfast meals:  Other than the normal eggs, bacon, yogurt cereal and the like...  
Strawberry Banana Smoothie
Breakfast Pizza 
Basil Tomato Frittata
Coconut Carrot Morning Glory Muffins
Cinnamon Rolls (depending on how the muffins go over anyway)

Saturday lunches we're doing one new a week 
Mediterranean Stir Fry 
Pulled Pork
Easy Beef and Bean Taco Casserole
Roasted Chicken Salad

Sunday dinners-rotate every other week
BBQ Chicken Sandwiches
Pizza

Wednesday lunches we're doing leftovers

Dinner Meals:
Oven BBQ Asian Chicken
Garlic Chicken
Five Spice Tilapia
Teriyaki Marinated Chicken
Garlic Stuffed Roast
Smoky Maple Mustard Salmon (using tilapia instead)
Dorito Taco Salad (I got this recipe from a friend on Facebook, and the calories are surprisingly really low plus it's yummy enough the kids ask for seconds)
Ritz Cracker Chicken
Crockpot Chicken Tacos (using the turkey I found in the freezer)
Sweet and Spicy Balsamic Chicken
Glazed Chicken
Crockpot Chicken Philly
Easy Parmesan Chicken
Cajun Chicken and Rice
Caprese Chicken 


Something new to us this month, we're are making our own bread.  I have a recipe from a YouTuber I watch a lot (Our Tribe of 10) that I'm going to try because it uses honey instead of sugar.  I am buying hamburger buns and hoagie rolls this time... but I will also be trying the hamburger buns again.   

I think that's all that's happening this week!  


Have a great week! 
~Tabitha