Grocery Shopping

Grocery Shopping. I remember a day when I LOVED to grocery shop. When I was a teen it was so fun to shop for my step-mom, I was organized, efficient and felt so independent! Even as a single person and a young mom, I still liked the whole process of grocery shopping. It was fun to get out, show off my well-behaved children and and get the things I needed. Now that I'm older...choke, I hate it! I've completely changed my opinion of grocery shopping, shopping in general really. And it's not because of not having any money, even when we were making the big bucks, I didn't really like shopping. I liked shopping on-line and still do, nothing like getting a package during the day! Anyway, I thought I'd share my long and detailed process of getting ready to go shopping. The reason it's long and detailed is because I don't want to go back because I forgot something! Ahhhh!

I start planning my shopping list throughout the week before I go shopping, because generally I run out of stuff during the week. So I just have a little pad of paper on the counter that I can write down things as I run out. Like right now, my list says: Tuna, half & half and tortilla chips. Sometime during the week, usually Thursday I clean out all the leftovers in the fridge and sort through my entire pantry, filling up canisters of food from my bulk areas.
Canisters that sit on my counter...bean soup mix, bread flour, popcorn, steel-cut oats.
My cupboard that hold my baking supplies: I have three kinds of sugar there: white, raw and evaporated cane juice.

This is my normal kitchen pantry. On the big shelf there are containers holding oatmeal, rice, peanuts and farina. Here's a tip to make your pantry look pretty: take things out of bags and put them into canning jars. That's what I did with my raisans and craisans and other various nuts and things.

This is my big pantry where I store my bulk food. Most of these buckets are full of wheat or beans, there's a smaller one with salt in it. A couple of them are empty now because I'm starting to run out of things, but this works well for me. I got these buckets at a super-walmart in the bakery area for $1.00 each, with the lids.

After my fridge is cleaned out, including wiping off the shelves (because it's so much more fun to put food in a clean fridge) I start making my menu for the next week. All this organizing also helps me know what I have and often inspires me for the next week's meals. I use this form here when making my menu. I just start filling in the boxes with ideas that have come to mind. And as I'm doing that, I'm also jotting down what I need from the store to complete the meal. I don't really worry about coupons, because I mostly shop at Costco and Sam's Club.

I don't follow my menu as law, but I like knowing what I can make, what I have the ingredients for. Some items are fussier than others so sometimes it works better to prepare on a different day. One great thing about planning my menu like this that the chidlren get to see what's coming for the next meal, so they aren't constantly asking me!

I prefer to go shopping on Friday instead of Saturday because of the crowds. Another thing I do to make the shopping process FASTER is delegate my list out. I have my older children running all over the store getting things on my list. They are in training! One of these days I don't want to have to grocery shop anymore! Banana Taffy will be driving in less than two years....guess what he'll be doing for me!?

I love cooking for my family! I love preparing healthy and comforting foods for their growing bodies! I just don't appreciate the shopping part. Writing this post is not helping to motivate me to shop...I was hoping it was going too. :o) I think I'll count my penny's and spring for Hotdogs for lunch at Sam's Club, that might make it a little more fun!

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy

Thrifty Friday

I don't have much to share on this Friday's episode of Thrifty Friday. I did get a couple good after "halloween" deals though. These cloth pumpkins are the best thing I found, I think they are actually more Thanksgiving-ish, but I guess this store thought they were halloween. Needless to say, the bigger one was $2.00 and the little one was $1.00.

At the same store I found a bag of mini granola bars for $1.00 that are perfect for the diaper bag! (obviously some are in the diaper bag already, that's why the pile is little!)

I also got a big bag of Tootsie Rolls for $1.00 but I'm saving those for stockings! That was hard to stash away, I love to give my children treats, but I know I'm going to appreciate having them on Christmas Eve when I'm stuffing stockings!

Another thrifty thing I did this week was unload my garage fridge and freezer. As far as I can tell, the fridge is still running even though it's cold out there. I just thought, why pay for that electricity? It's cold enough in the garage now that if I need too, I can just store stuff out there, but I do have a full size freezer in the basement and since money is so tight I can't exactly stock up on stuff to stick in the fridge anyway. I'm even considering selling the thing...BUT we do have a job lead and we are anxiously awaiting a call back. Please pray! While we still are walking this all out in faith, we are still human and struggle with worry and are begging for some relief! :o)

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy

Thanksgiving Unit

This new month has a brought a new subject and probably my favorite holiday with it: Thanksgiving! In honor of Thanksgiving we are doing a unit study on the subject! It's only Blue-Raspberry and Bubble Gum that are involved in this, but I have caught an older child (or two) listening in to the stories I've been reading. :o) Here's a pile of books that I got at the library. The book about Myles Standish is a pretty big book, so we'll be reading that over a week or so. Have you ever done a pocket book? I got these books from Amazon last year. We've finished one pocket already, I'm just showing the cover page here. Blue-Raspberry and Bubble Gum absolutely think that these pocket books are WONDERFUL! Some of the information and assignments are a little over Bubble Gum's head, but she has fun being included anyway.

I printed the little Thanksgiving books off of this website. We haven't made it all the way through the little books yet, but they are very fun! We've owned Squanto for years and we'll be listening to this throughout the month. The other little book is from the library too and I'll just use that when it's appropriate.

Thanksgiving is so wonderful because it encourages us to keep things in perspective. As I've mentioned before we are in financial ruin and disaster, but there are still so many things to be thankful for. Before bed every night I list off all the wonderful things the children have done throughout the day, trust me, it's not really that exciting, but it's all about perspective. I could feel sad because I didn't get to do thus and so and buy this and that, but I'm remembering to be thankful. Here's what I'll say when I tuck my little ones into bed tonight, "You got to see your Great Grandma today and take her to the airport, you got to see the huge airplanes fly right over our car, you got to go to the library and get all kinds of wonderful movies and books, you got to play on the computer with daddy, you had cinnamon rolls for breakfast! What a wonderful day you've had! You are so blessed and God takes such GOOD care of you!" A thankful heart is well pleasing to the Lord!

Count your blessings!

Mrs. Taffy

Blog Frog?

I'm trying out a new little widget on my blog...see it on the side there called Blog Frog? I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I think it allows you to link your blog to mine so people who read my blog can also read yours...Check it out and see if you want to link up!

Joyfully,
Mrs. Taffy

TOT School

We had a really good week of TOT School this week! Laffy Taffy was feeling good and full of energy and curiousity!

(While Laffy is playing with his learning toys, I am sitting across from him teaching either Bubble Gum or Blue-Raspberry. )

Laffy did really well with these little shape puzzles! The biggest challenge was keeping the pieces from getting knocked off the table.

Now he's sitting on the floor next to my chair, I gave him a baggie of counting bears and a scoop, he likes scooping and pouring the bears into the different baskets.

The shape ball, still a favorite!

One of the great things I found a Goodwill this week was a bag of ball-pit balls for .50. I put them all in a basket and Laffy likes chucking them all the over the house and then going and collecting them all. We did talk about the colors of the balls a few times too.

This is probably the highlight of our TOT School week. I didn't even get this with Laffy Taffy in mind, but he sure likes running the marbles through.

Blue-Raspberry keeps reconfiguring the run and Laffy keeps running the marbles through! It's great! And just so you know I'm a "good" momma, I've been watching and Laffy DOES NOT try to eat the marbles...at least he hasn't thus far! :o)

Another aspect of TOT School this week: Laffy has gotten to know his Great Grandma and spend extra time with his 3 cousins. Spending time with family is the sweetest kind of learning, so many hugs and so much laughing!!

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy

Thrifty Friday

Okay, so I went to a couple different thrift stores this week. Mainly because I was just a little bit bored, maybe bored istn't the right word, more like unsettled. I went to Goodwill on Thursday. I had to run up the library anyway, so I decided to stop in and see what I could find. It just happened to be Toddler Thursday, so anything child related was 50% off. What a deal!

Two shirts for Blue-Raspberry, the tie-dyed one is for later, but it's a Land's End and it's NICE! I think I got the sweatshirt for 1.99 and the top for .99.

A movie for .50, some dominos for Laffy, so he'll leave the real ones alone and a container to keep them in, total: $1.50.

This is an awesome find! I've been wanting to get one of these for Blue-Raspberry for years and I've seen them from time to time, but this time it was so cheap!! $1.50 He's been having SO MUCH fun rearranging the different pieces and racing the marbles through!

A bag of ball-pit balls for Laffy Taffy. The whole bag was .50!! He's been having a blast throwing them all over the house. The big boys have been chucking them at each other in a sort of battle...they don't hurt though, they weigh nothing!

Today I stopped at the Salvation Army. I haven't been there in ages! Their prices are better than Goodwill, but their store is VERY disorganized!! Here's a new outfit for Bubble Gum: Jeans, turtle neck and jacket-$4.00

A shirt for Strawberry-$1.49, a shirt for Bubble Gum-$1.49 and a flannel dress for Bubble Gum-$1.99.

We've had a week full of emotional up's and down's, normally I clean to feel "more in control" of things. And trust me, I did a LOT of cleaning this week! But it was fun to find a few good deals too!

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy

Pizza Party

We are still reaping the Goodness that is Grandma Taffy. She'll be here until the 3rd of November. Her main reason for coming for this long-ish visit was to help care for Mr. Taffy's sister who had another throat surgery yesterday. Anyway...I had all the children yesterday and an extra, so Grandma Taffy told me to throw a Pizza Party!! WooHOO! Our local pizza place has customer appreciation once a month and this just happened to be the day! (That means the pizza's were only $3.99 each!) Not only did Grandma give me enough money for pizza, but also for Pop and PAPER PLATES!! What a blessing! Here's what 8 pizza's look like! Here's what a bunch of children eating them look like:

I think the boys ate 3 pizzas!

After pizza, I stuffed them even fuller with Pumpkin Bars and then sent them outside to burn off their energy! They ran around the house a hundred times playing Cops and Robbers! It was a sight to behold, they all came in pink-cheeked and panting!

Some good news...Mr. Taffy's sister is doing great! She didn't even have to sleep over at the hospital! It went much better, much faster and much simpler than we expected! We are SO THANKFUL!

Joyfully,

Mrs. Taffy