I am a meal planner. If I don’t have a meal menu for the month, dinnertime is crazy. I get to about 5:30pm and think, “What are we going to eat for dinner!?” So, to avoid spending too much money on last-minute food purchases and/or eating cereal for dinner every night, I make a month-long plan. And I love it.

Because I have the month’s meals planned out, I try to make one really large shopping trip at the beginning of each month. And then I visit the store each week just for the stockpilable items. Today’s trip was my beginning-of-the-month trip.

As you can see, we like juice. They were $.69 each after coupons.

And I’ve never bought five packages of bacon at one time before in my life. But they were $1.24 each after sale and coupons. We also like bacon.

And I splurged on eggnog. Because, well, ’tis the season.

Sometimes a little splurging is in order.

Now, I need input from you all. Do you have a certain day each week that you always go shopping? (For example, Mondays or Fridays.) I need to be more organized and disciplined in my shopping, and I think it would help to have a certain designated shopping day each week. What do you think?

On to the pictures…

First, a Jaden update. We went back for a check-up six days after his well-child check, and his weight was exactly the same (down to the ounces). The doctor wasn’t happy with that and gave me a script for a supplemental nursing system. I didn’t buy it right away, because I wanted to try a different kind of bottle before investing in it. My friend Stephanie lent me her stash of bottles, and Jaden likes them better than the cheapies I bought at first. Also, I realized that I was making the formula too cool. Apparently, Jaden likes my 98.6-degree milk, and wasn’t too thrilled about cool formula.

Sadly, now that he’s used to the bottle and warm formula, he prefers it. He fusses when I nurse, and then he sucks down the formula. I’ve always tried to nurse 11 months before starting to wean, so this makes me a little sad. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to maintain my milk supply at this rate.

Side note: If you disagree with me supplementing with formula, please don’t spend time telling me I am wrong. I feel bad enough as it is.

He’s still as sweet as ever, despite all this going on. He’s truly a laid-back, happy, oh-so-sweet baby. I can’t get enough of him!

(Picture courtesy of Caleb. Pardon my lack of makeup!)

Homeschooling has been going well! Grace has been doing great with Cursive First and Spell to Write and Read. So far, she knows the sounds of the first 26 phonograms (25 single letters and “qu”), and she can write them in cursive (lowercase). Now we’re working on consonants, vowels, and syllables, and learning some new spelling rules (such as, “A-E-O-U usually say /A-E-O-U/ at the end of a syllable”). Soon we’ll begin spelling lists. To be honest, I have no idea when we’ll begin the multi-letter phonograms.

Tonight I just ordered the kit and manipulatives for Saxon Math 1. I have heard/read great things about this math curriculum, and I’m excited to start more formal training in math, since she loves the little bit of math work we’ve already done. (Maybe she’ll be a math brain like you, Em!)

The kids have been enjoying our beautiful deck! It’s almost done! Luke just has to work on the stair rail spindles (hopefully this weekend). But, it really is beautiful! Here are more pictures of it:

Well, we have declared this month “Say No November,” to see if we could possibly get some time to breathe and relax at home together. Ironically, this week has been SO busy! We had friends over on Monday evening (Jason and Steph were here to work on the deck). Then we had new friends from church over last night. And we had our 4×4 group (basically a small group from our Sunday School class) here tonight! It’s been a fun week of fellowship, and I’m ready for a quiet Saturday.

This is Michelle and her son Jesse, who is in Grace’s class at church. Her daughter wasn’t able to come.

And our friends the Browns. Grace and their daughter Tori are in the same class and get along well. Both of their kids are just so well-behaved. On another note, Casey (the dad) just found out he’s been offered a job after a long time of unemployment. Praise the Lord! Will you pray with me that this job works out? (His start date is Monday, November 16.)

That’s been our lives in a nutshell. This month we look forward to Grace’s 5th birthday (!!! – complete with her very first-ever friend party), a Base Camp leaders’ dinner to discuss next year’s curriculum and theme, a visit with our fun friends the Webbers, Thanksgiving (of course), Black Friday shopping (me, not Luke), and absolutely saying “NO” to everything else!

Happy November!

We decided that if we want to put our house back on the market, it might be a wise move to finish the deck. (And it will be fun for us to have while we live here, too!) So, our friends Jason and Stephanie spent Friday and Saturday here, and Luke and Jason started the project!

This is what the back of the house looked like before they started the work.

And this is them with the two-man auger. That was a fun little machine.

Installing the joists

The kids doing their “work” while the daddies worked on the deck. (Jason and Stephanie’s daughter Macie is the third from the left.)

Sweet Jaden during Deck Weekend. He didn’t feel like doing much work.

A view of some completed joists from inside the house

Grace and Macie played really well together.

By the way, this is Jason.

My manly-man attaching a hanger to the house

Completed joists

Jason lopping off the support beams with a chainsaw!

Jason and Stephanie’s baby, Makenzie Grace, who is 24 days older than Jaden.

Luke screwing down deckboards

And we’ll end with a story about Caleb…He absolutely LOVED to be around all the manly tools, etc. during Deck Weekend. And he was especially enamored with Jason’s blue measuring tape. Well, on Sunday morning before church, I let Caleb play with it for a little while, and this is what I found. Too precious!

So, the deck railings need to be finished (they’re partially done), and the stairs need to be built. And then the deck will be complete, and we will post some pictures of the finished product!

On the way to church tonight, we took a slightly more scenic route, and as we were driving along, I noticed an animal in the road. So I said to Luke, who was driving, “Deer! Er….COW!”

Yes, a cow was standing in the road. And his friends were standing in their owners’ yard.

It was a little cow party that we happened upon.

We were going to stop at the house to see if the owners were home and somehow didn’t notice their renegade cows…But as we were backing into the driveway, a large van (think 15-passenger) rolled up, and the whole family minus Dad vaulted out of the van and sprinted to corral our cow friends.

It was like an Olympic sport. One that they’ve trained for before.

I thought it was more interesting than curling. I’m just saying.

I went to Meijer three times, which is just plain crazy and not what I usually do, and yet it was totally worth it for the deals. The first time I got this:

Total spent: $6.95
Total saved: $52.33
Left w/ a $5 catalina

The next time, I got crazy and did NINE transactions. (I go through the self-scan lanes, which has worked really well for multiple transactions in the past. However, since they changed their computer system, a cashier has to manually accept EACH Mealbox coupon. So, needless to say, I had a cashier at my lane A LOT!)

(Started w/ $5 catalina from last trip)
Total spent: $3.13
Total saved: $75.99
Left w/ a $5 catalina

Then, I took my friend Stephanie (really early on a Saturday morning) to show her the ropes of couponing, and we each did EIGHT transactions.
This is us in front of her loot!

(Again, started w/ $5 catalina from last trip)
Total spent: $18.45
Total saved: $79.75
Spent ending $5 catalina on last transaction, but left w/ a $2 catalina from a different deal

The special deal of the week was to buy 5 cans of Campbell’s soup (cream soups on sale for $.65 ea) AND one loaf of Pepperidge Farm sandwich bread for around $2.49 (depending on the variety) for a total of $5.74. Then I used a $1/4 Mealbox coupon for the soup and whatever manufacturer’s coupons I could find for the soup. This took the total down to lower than $4.74. And then I received a catalina for $5 OYNSO! Moneymaker!!! Woo-hoo!!! Also, this moneymaker rolled, so I could do it over and over, never paying out of pocket for the soup and bread by just using the $5 coupons to pay for the order!

(As an aside, I have read online that you can actually receive change from the U-scan machines if your total is less than $5 and you use your $5 catalina to pay. I found that this is true, but the cashier told me it’s not a legitimate use of the coupon. So to avoid doing that, I always filled in my orders with other needed items. Besides the Mentos. Those were not needed!)

So, in the end, I got 90 soups (mostly cream of chicken and cream of mushroom, with some chicken noodle and tomato) and 18 loaves of bread for better than FREE! I’m interested to see how long 90 cans of soup will last our family of six. I’m hoping at least a year, if not longer. I’ll try to remember to tell y’all when they’re gone!

See? For those of you wavering about whether couponing and stockpiling is worth the effort…It is! Just ask Stephanie; she’s convinced!

*Next post: What were Luke and Jason (Steph’s husband) doing during our couponing? Stay tuned!*

“How tall are you, Mommy?”

“Actually, this tells me how much I weigh. It says ‘155.5′.”

“That’s HUGE, Mommy!”

We had Ava’s 2-year well-child check-up (that’s a lot of hyphens!) and Jaden’s 4-month well-child check-up yesterday. Ava is a healthy girl all-around. She’s in the 95th percentile for her height and 75th for her weight.

Our little Jaden is doing great in all areas except his growth. Since his 2-month check-up, he has lost 1.5 pounds. You might remember that Caleb also lost weight as an infant and had to have a sweat test to determine if the weight loss was caused by cystic fibrosis. The tests came back normal, and eventually we got him back on track with his growth.

Right now, we’re just going to nurse Jaden more and supplement with formula and cereal. So far, he doesn’t like either the formula or the cereal. I’m not incredibly thrilled about getting him attached to formula or a bottle, but of course if it keeps him healthy, I’m all for it.

Honestly, he’s an incredibly sweet baby. He sleeps well and is a very happy, alert, strong boy. That’s a big part of the reason I didn’t realize he needed to eat more. Yes, he seemed scrawny to me, but our kiddos are usually skinny. He was so happy, so I didn’t think to feed him more.

So, anyway, I would really appreciate prayers for Jaden (and me!). Pray especially that he will begin to put on some weight, and that I can maintain my sanity at this busy time in my life – with extra nursing and bottle-feeding. I know the Lord always has a plan and will get us through. But your prayers are always much appreciated!

More picture posts to come Friday or later, when our bandwidth resets…I especially want to share pictures of our beautiful new (in-progress) deck!

Caleb: “And please help us not to call names. At church I called Miss Emma a ‘booger.’ And that other girl…” (pause)

Mommy: “Miss Stella?”

Caleb: “Yeah, that other girl, I called her a toad. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

So, this year we picked two bushels, and we will head back to pick maybe one more bushel in the next couple of weeks. So far, we have eaten lots, made only ONE pie filling to freeze, and made LOTS o’ applesauce! I’m going to be prepared when Baby J starts eating fruits!

I’ve made 4 large crockpots and 3 medium crockpots full, and it was SO EASY that I thought I’d share the process with you!

First, “I” rinsed and dried the apples. Actually, our three munchkins wanted to help, so (from right to left) Grace rinsed, Caleb dried, and Ava placed (read: dropped) the apples in a bowl.

Next, I used my handy-dandy peeler-corer-slicer. I could not do apple prep without this thing (at least not without complaining a lot – right, Luke?)! After they were peeled, cored, and sliced, I used a knife to cut through the middle to make half-slices.

Then I threw the prepped apples into the crockpot. When it was full, I added some water (1/2c – 1c).

Then I cooked them on low for a long time. Eight-ish hours? I tested them with a potato masher to make sure they were soft enough.

*I didn’t get a picture of this part, but I discovered this year that if I strain the apples before mashing them, guess what I get? Fresh, hot cider!!! My hubby loves cider, so this was a very happy discovery! Basically I just put my mesh strainer into a bowl and poured the cooked apples in. After the cider was strained out, I proceeded to the next step…

Edit: Just found out Luke doesn’t actually like the “cider” from this process. It might be the variety of apples, or maybe something else, but he thinks it tastes funny. Oh, well, I guess.

If you want chunky sauce, I would recommend just using the masher to squish it up. Since I wanted mine pureed for baby food and to use in recipes, I dumped the apples in my blender and pureed for about 10 seconds.

And we have APPLESAUCE! Yay!

You may have noticed that I did not add any sugar or cinnamon. You can definitely add it, but the sauce is actually quite sweet as it is. We will most likely add cinnamon sometimes when we serve it.

To store the applesauce, I used freezer jam jars and applied labels (made on my computer). I will also freeze some in ice cube trays and then put the applesauce cubes into a gallon-size baggie to store. Then I can pull a couple of cubes out to thaw for Jaden’s meals. (Since we have an ice-maker in our fridge/freezer, I actually only own one ice-cube tray that makes heart-shaped cubes! I hope to pick up some regular trays soon! I’m thinking WalMart or dollar store?)

So, there you have it! A fun, frugal Rumley tradition!