Dealing with Sickness With a Big Family

Let me first say that part of this is going to be sarcastic... but part of this is actually how we deal with sickness.. which.. isn't all that well.

Having a big family, germs spread fast...  Exponentially fast.. Almost faster than the "I'm bored bug" or the "I'm hungry bug"... (cue snare drum)  

It seems like no matter what I do, we're sick ALL THE TIME. 

It dawned on me watching everybody through this bout of colds how different we all act when we are sick.. 

First off, we have Andrew.  He's our 8 year old and the stereotypical male...  Makes sounds like a dying animal whenever he gets sick.  Now, I love my boy, but I am SSSOOOOO thankful he is beginning to understand the importance of staying in bed when sick. 

Next comes Eva.  She's 6 and our "typhoid Mary".  Eva is a very touchy-feely person (drives me crazy), so she's always picking up germs, always patient zero in our house.  Once Eva gets sick, I know we're all gonna get.  She's also the person who MIGHT be sick for a total of 12 hours max...you know, just long enough to spread the germs. :/

Grace.  Grace is four and still tries to deny when she's sick.  She can be coughing so hard it sounds like she's going to throw up but "I'm fine mom!!"  

Hannah.  Hannah is 2 and has always been our cuddle bug. So much as a cough from getting a whiff of pepper and you'd best be cuddling that child.  So you can imagine how she is when she's sick.

Poor little Elijah.  He's so congested but there's only so much I can do to help him.  Lots of cuddling happening with him so he can sleep. 

Now onto the love of my life...The one I've been trying to figure out how to word this so I don't put him down... Because a wife shouldn't do that.  Dennis.  When it's just Dennis that's sick, or Dennis and one kid, I can handle  that.  I can deal with that.  Just give me some extra chocolate and all's well with the world.  When our own personal Typhoid Mary gives everyone  else the germs, THEN daddy...and daddy is the last one to get sick.  Oh boy. On comes the dreaded "man cold", much like the "man flu"-but it's a cold.. Now I do have to say this about my hubby-the worse the sickness, the better the patient my hubby makes. When his shingles flare up, you wouldn't know unless you were told.  When he has a cold...  Lord, give me patience to deal with this man.  Now I also know that he is the last one to get sick so I'm exhausted from dealing with everybody else... But I have to confess, I'm having a hard time this go around.  Some days, he's the stereotypical male "I coughed, the world must stop"... Some days I wouldn't know he's got a cold if it wasn't for the lower voice.  

Now, I suppose since I'm telling you about everybody else.. I'd better add me into the mix.  I guess you could say I'm the typical mamma... Or so I'm told...  I keep going until I can't get off the couch...  And when I can't get off the couch, hubby knows it's serious.  I've been sick for nigh on a month now...Mastitis, sinus infection turned cold and now I think the sinus infection is back again...  The only thing that got me down for a few days was mastitis.  But between Elijah and every one else, I feel like I'm losing it a bit.

So..now onto the more serious part.  What are we doing to help it?

Preventive.  Lots, and lots of vitamins.  Hubby and I take extra vitamin C and echinacea.  The kids get their multi vitamins.

When we get sick..  I really try to stay away from the typical cold medicines, but if the kids can't sleep we give them some to calm the cough so they can sleep.  During the day, I have eucalyptus, peppermint and Plant Therapy's Germ Fighter going on in the diffuser. The kids don't like my homemade chicken noodle soup...so  that's usually out. :/ We of course wash hands and are continuously after the kids to not cough or sneeze in each other's faces... Especially little miss Eva.  We also take extra vitamins when we are sick.. Right now we have elderberry syrup so I've been dolling that out..but it's almost gone.  I feel like there's more I could be doing, but I have no idea what.  


Have a good week!

~Tabitha

Grocery Shopping and Meal Planning for November/December

I had my meal plan all made with some favorites.....then I looked at the sale ads. And one of the grocery stores had a fairly good meat bundle... Now, it is a sale for the meats they have in the bundle... but it's still the amount we spend on meat a month.. so it's just some different things. So.... I re-made my meal plan. 



Thanksgiving Dinner... we plan on ham with pineapple slices (because my hubby is weird), shrimp (because it's coming in the meat deal), sweet potatoes (because I can, and they will be candied), corn, broccoli, Hawaiian rolls, black beans and rice, pumpkin pie and pecan pie.   

We are also making a pan of sweet potatoes for a potluck... Needless to say, Thanksgiving week my hands will be orange. 

Lunches, breakfasts, kids' lunches... yeah.. we're boring there. Nothing is changing. Chicken Sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets.  

For dinners.. To make sure I could make the amount of meat we'll be getting work for the entire month, I went on Pinterest...  We're getting 2 roasts....  so BBQ and tacos.. Not in the same meal lol.  That's AT LEAST 4 meals... along with leftovers for lunch-and I should be able to eat it all WOOHOO.  

Anyway.. It's pizzageddon this month at our house.. 
Pizza on Wednesdays and Sundays..  
Chicken fajitas 
Crunch wraps 
Chili
Ham and potato casserole (I make this every year when we get tired of ham leftovers.. super yummy)
Swedish Meatballs 
BBQ Pork
BBQ Beef
Tacos carnitas with pork and beef (I'll pull the meat out before I put the bbq seasoning on it) 
Chicken parmesan bake 
Pork chops


The Shopping (cue Jaws music... because that's what it feels like with 5 kids in grocery stores)

A friend told me about a wholesale grocery outlet about 90 minutes away from us.. so we took a drive and went to check them out.  I was not prepared. Not at all.  And I'm currently kicking myself repeatedly for not picking up more...  However, we spent $70 on stuff that would have cost us about $200 at Walmart.  
6 pounds of ground beef for $11.40
Tator Tots (looking at the receipt.. not a great price.. I remembered the Sam's price wrong)
Chicken nuggets $2.50 a bag (those bags at Walmart that are normally $10)
Cafe Bustelo K Cups $3.50 for an 8 pack
~Now, those were the most expensive thing we picked up~
Cocoa Rice krispie treats 2
fruit snacks
fiber one bars
fig bars
Lemonade (64 oz jugs for $.90)
zero bars
Hershey's Popped Snack Mix 2 (oh my goodness!! THE YUMMINESS)
Hershey's Baking Chips 2
Halls Breezers 2
Crispy Wheat Crackers 
Kraft Mayo (32 oz for 1.00!!)
Mayo 2
Texas BBQ Sauce (normally $4, paid $1.50)
Cream of Mushroom soup 2
Torani Caramel Syrup
refried beans 2
water flavor 2 
Cold brew coffee .25 each, we got 4
cold brew coffee (a different brand) .50 bought 2

Now, I fully know if I had my wits about me I would have been better prepared and had given Dennis a list of things to look for.... But I wasn't that prepared and I'm KICKING myself for it.  We are definitely going back next month... But after that it might be every other month simply because it's a long drive and an extra weekend. Also keep in mind if you're a stickler for expiration dates, stores like this are not for you.  
So... $70 for S&E Distributing..

Fareway
We were careful about what we picked up at Fareway because we always seem to go over...no matter what we do... So we only picked up what was on sale.  
$60 meat bundle
A 12 lb turkey we paid $4 for after the discount from spending the money on meat. 
Yogurt was only $.50 a container instead of $.65 
Steamable vegetables, 12 oz, were $.68. 
We had a coupon for the yogurt (YAY, they took store a printed at home coupon)...so we saved $14.36.  We spent $81.42.

Sam's
Kleenex was sale at Sam's, along with Pillsbury cinnamon rolls.. You know I can't pass up a chance to not make cinnamon rolls. lol We grabbed a bunch of tortilla shells and hoagie rolls to help eat all the roast.. Along with the Hawaiian Rolls to go with Thanksgiving Dinner.. because those are YUMMY.  Instant Savings saved us $6.75.  We spent $204.40

Aldi
Not much different at Aldi.  We grabbed our Thanksgiving pies there (because I have two shallow pie pans, neither one with a lid...) $5.99 for an 8 inch pumpkin and $4.99 for a 6 inch pecan.   Hamburger buns were $.85 for a 8 pack... I grabbed unsweetened almond milk to make maple lattes (SO GOOD).  We spent $148.98. 

And Walmart
Can't avoid Walmart can we? 
Now, to use the Savings Catcher you have to use Walmart pay... So.. kind of a pain, but the app does go through a lot faster than a card.. Also, you don't get a paper receipt... You can weight that on the pro/con scale yourself. 
Original Cool Whip-for the pies!! $1 
Ready Whip...One almond one coconut.. So I can have some. $3.38 each
We needed diapers and wipes (we usually use cloth, but the ladies in the nursery appreciate the disposable and it's nice to have a break from the cloth diaper laundry). We spent $188.73.

So complete total.. $693.53  We spent $134.01 on household goods.  So.. $559.52 on groceries for 5 weeks.  $111.90 per week.. or $18.65 per person in the house (6 of us eating food) per week. 

So.. Not too bad.  

Now. Ever wonder was $600 of groceries look like? 

Now you don't need to wonder.


Have a great week! 

~Tabitha