And to my left we have.....

My calendar, two casserole cookbooks, a slow cooker cookbook and my "where I write everything important" notebook. I have begun "meal planning". Thank you so much for posting all your meal planning tips and lists. I have been inspired!

So...come one come all...post your favorite casserole that uses boneless skinless chicken breasts! Bonus points to the post that is the fewest calories!

Thanks in Advance!

So how did we do?

After last months shocking grocery totals we decided to take action and cut our spending. I am happy to report that we spent $600.71 this month on groceries. We did it by making a detailed list that we keep on our computer and print out, shopping only once a week and clipping coupons for ONLY the things that we were going to buy anyways.

What a relief!!! I was afraid that we would be the family who spends $900 a month just because that was what it took.

So...on to my next step. Refining my list and creating healthy meals for a week. I am trying to limit my convience food buying. So I have a few questions...

1. If there was one meal that you would like to make for your family each week what would that be?(handmade)

2. Do you schedule out meals for a week, month etc? If so...what does your schedule look like? Do you use the same set of 7 meals for the entire month? Do you plan certain snacks or just the main dinner meal.

3. Is there a certain website that you have found especially helpful in making healthy cost effective meals?

Hmmmm...other than that...I think I am good. I don't know that I am looking to plan out breakfast or lunch but it would be good to have some sort of schedule for dinners. I am probably also looking for the caloric intake on meals as well so that I will know if I can eat the meal too.

THANKS!!!!!

Because of days like this....

I woke up this morning at 12:30am, 3:25am and again at 6am because my poor Kendell has a cold and a temperature. I am sad for her. I am sad that she is hurting and pretty much inconsolable and just looks like she feels really crappy.

She has the whole drippy nose, sneezy, warm body cold.

But underneath all this coughing I am sitting her SO THANKFUL that this is the first time Kendell has been sick. We are so blessed.

I don't know exactly why we are so rarely sick although I do know that "God only gives us what we can handle" and maybe...he doesn't think I can handle sick kids??? Hmmm...my God is a funny God!

Our doctor has never even seen our third daughter. In fact...I don't know if he even knows of her. She has never been sick enough to need a doctor and hasn't had a physical yet(she had all her baby checkups with our former doctor who retired just about when she was turning two). She will be getting a physical this year prior to kindergarten so he will be meeting my girl but I just find it so strange.

I am certainly not bragging. We have our fair share of bumps and bruises, slappy girl fights and name calling so we are in no ways "above physical pain" but I truly sat back and thanked God this morning because days like this remind me of our blessings!

We had a great day!

This year for the twins birthday we took them to the American Girl Place in Chicago. They enjoyed the train ride, shopping and lunch at the store and then a 2 mile walk back to the train where we had our very own dress up our dolls session.
They had a great day. One that I am sure they will remember for their entire lives. They hadn't been to Chicago since they were 2 months old and we visited daddy for his birthday(3/7), so they were excited to see the city.

I have been quite impressed with the American Girl books that we have read. They are stories that are historical and thought provoking and can hold my girls attention. I love that we are incorporating talking about a specific historical time period when we read the books. We have read the Kit series(great depression), Molly series(World War 2) and just started the Addy series(civil war). I would highly recommend the chapter books for girls who are great listeners or advanced readers(grade 1 and up). I think that any book that can interest the momma is a good thing! Anyways...here are some pictures from our day!

I am pulling myself out of denial!

About a week ago I got our bank statement in the mail for the end of November through the end of December...and Sean and I sat down and itemized the statement into categories. Ummm...lets say...THE CAREY FAMILY SPENDS TOO MUCH! I didn't realize how much we were spending on groceries. YIKES! Lets just say...it was over $900 for the month. So...I decided to take some action.

Sean and I decided to write out our weekly grocery list. That includes EVERYTHING that we use in a week, broken down by categories and amount needed. i.e. we use 3 large containers of yogurt. Sean has the list saved on his laptop and we aren't going to go shopping unless it has been 7 days since we went(of course unless there in an emergency). I think that 1/3 of our spending is "running to the store for one thing and picking up 12" shopping. SO...I am trying to eliminate that. I am trying to save $300 a month on groceries. If I put that away for 10 months we could go away in November just on our grocery savings alone.

Sounds good right? Well...sticking to it will certainly be the hard thing here. The list itself isn't skimpy. In fact it contains everything that we would want or use for the week(and probably includes more than we actually need), but within our food budget is also going out food money. We don't go out often but I think in December we did go out more than usual or ordered take out.

If you haven't done this I encourage you to give it a shot. It certainly saves on time when you are trying to remember what you need and is so convienent to have a printed list.

I have been keeping the list with the amount spent so that I can re-evaluate what we spent after the month is over. We will see how this goes....If you have tips please let me know!!! I would love to hear them!