Cal's First Music Concert

Cal had his kindergarten music program last week. Mrs. Smith had a cute theme of princes and princesses.  Cal, um, well, looked a little bored up there.  He kept yawning and putting his hands in his pockets instead of doing the actions.  It was kind of funny because he was right in the front row.  He did do a few actions in a couple of songs.  Of course it was very obvious to me what he was doing because I am his parent. I guess he was wanting a little more Pavarotti or Caruso. 





Aside from the music concert, on Sunday Lee and the kids built this tower:

Pretty cool.

Three-Month Food Storage

Here is another post I did on fivesistersfivefamilies.blogspot.com. (Check it out!) I posted awhile back on this blog about finishing my three-month food storage and one of my friends wanted some more details. Well, here they are!  More than you may want!

When we received tax money a couple months back, Lee and I decided to finish our three-month food supply.  My church leaders have counseled us for years to have a year supply of food.  Recently, they have encouraged members to build a three-month supply that consists of one's daily diet, and then gradually build the supply to a year with items that can be store for a long time like wheat, legumes and rice.  Providentliving.org is a great resource to get information from about food storage.  Here is the counsel about the three-month supply from www.providentliving.org:

Build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet. One way to do this is to purchase a few extra items each week to build a one-week supply of food. Then you can gradually increase your supply until it is sufficient for three months. These items should be rotated regularly to avoid spoilage.

My brother-in-law sent me a great tool to figure out how much to buy for long-term storage according to family size at this website: www.trackmyfoodstorage.com

Before I finished my three-month supply, I had stocked up on some items.  I didn't have a solid plan yet to building my supply, so it was a mixture of all food items.   The tax money allowed me to buy everything at once which was wonderful. (Okay, there were a few shopping trips involved! But it all happened in a short time frame.)

But, purchasing everything at once may not be feasible for some people.  A great suggestion I heard was to work on a certain mealtime before moving to the next.  For example, buy a few extra breakfast items each week till you have three months' worth of breakfast foods.  Then work on lunch, etc.

So, this is what I did after I took inventory. Okay, this gets hairy...but hang on and please email me questions so I can clarify if it is too confusing! I planned out a two-week menu for dinner and made a list of things to eat for breakfast and lunch.  Then since there are about four weeks in a month (I would use this menu twice a month) I needed to repeat everything in my dinner menu six times.  BUT since there are more days than strictly four weeks, I added a seventh week just to be covered (remember my dinner menu has 14 different meals, so for the seventh week I only have to do seven extra meals).  For lunch and breakfast, I figured out how much we ate each week and did three-months' worth.

To explain the two-week dinner menu: for example, one of the meals is spaghetti.  Since we would eat spaghetti TWICE a month (or once every two weeks), in a three month period I only need enough spaghetti and sauce for approximately 6 meals. (I did seven to be safe.)   Here are my different menus:

Breakfast:
Oatmeal
Cereal
Syrup
Boxed milk
Powdered milk

Lunch: Peanut butter
Honey
Applesauce
Mac-n-cheese
Tuna
Juice boxes
Canned fruit

Dinner:
Beans and rice
Taco soup
Spaghetti
Baked beans & homemade bread
Alfredo
Pasta salad
Stroganoff
Bean burritos
Pizza
Canned soup
Rice and gravy
Scones
Fried rice
Ramen

In planning your menu just think of what you eat and how often.  For example at breakfast, we eat oatmeal once or twice a week, have pancakes of some sort once a week and eat cereal the other days.  It takes a little bit of figuring how much of what to buy.  With my three-month storage, I wanted things that would last a long time, but that were everyday items too.  Some things I bought do have a short shelf life--like pepperoni for pizza and the boxed milk for cereal--so I need to make sure and rotate them.  Also I bought some things to go in my freezer, like shredded cheese, butter and bacon (I use bacon in fried rice).

I also made a list of condiments and other ingredients that would be used in my menu; ranch dressing, salsa, pickles, baking soda, sugar, garlic powder, olive oil, shortening, etc. I can't make homemade bread if I don't have items like salt and flour.  Also, I included items for school lunches for my kids.  I normally give them small boxes of chocolate milk in their lunch, but for the food storage I bought juice pouches.  Also I like to give them a little treat in their lunches, so when I saw fruit snacks on sale for $0.50 a box, I bought enough for the rest of this school year and three-month's worth for this coming school year. (My kids eat a "sack" lunch 4 days a week, then one day a week at school.) Now that I've droned on and on, here are pictures of the loot....

If you google food storage you will find many resources and ideas.  One thing that I have to keep on top of is rotating the food.  Lately I have been keeping a mental note that if we use a bottle of syrup from food storage I need to buy one the next time I go shopping.  A better idea would be to have a pad of paper and a pen by our shelves to record what we use, or even a white board...but I haven't done that yet. As you might notice on many items I re-wrote the expiration date so it was very obvious to me when that item expires.  Expiration dates are so tiny and sometimes in obscure places.  Thanks Lena for the idea!

I also went ahead and did a three-month supply of personal and household items.  I purchased things like face lotion, shaving cream, razor blades, shampoo, dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, hand soap, diapers, wipes, etc.  I have a SMALL supply of water, and fuel canisters for an emergency stove.  I do need to build up my water supply more and purchase more fuel canisters.  So as long as I don't loose power and water, I am fine!









































My husband will essentially be starting his own business this fall, so this gives me an added peace that we will be fine food wise for at least three months!  And to throw in some money advice, my church leaders and other financial counselors/gurus counsel to have a three to six months worth of money saved up to cover the necessities of life in case of an emergency.  Of course save more money if you can.  We finished our three-month emergency fund back in August.  Now I need to start working on a year supply of food basics like wheat, legumes, powdered milk, chocolate, etc.

Good luck on your food storage!  Please share any tips that you have found helpful in building a food supply and rotating it!

Here we come Elkton!

After a couple of change in plans, meeting with doctors, lots of résumé sending, emails and phone calls, we have decided to move to Elkton, Virginia (when Lee is done with his Army obligation). Well, prayer and pondering were the main factors going into the decision! 

Two doctors used to work at the practice in town, but after retirement they closed the doors just a couple of months ago.  The doctor who owns the practice seems very nice and is excited to get an optometry doctor back in town.  Lee and I are looking forward to the challenge of growing a business and for Lee to be his own boss.  This will be quite the experience!  If you're in the area and need your eyes checked or are camping in the Shanadoah National Park and your kid pokes his eye out or something....stop on by!  Something I am tickled about (and really, I don't know why) is that there is no Walmart in town.  It's kind of fun the town is that small.  Reminds me of Ely in a way.

Image from www.elktonva.gov.  Check out their site!  It's pretty nice!

Happy Easter!

We hope you all had a great Easter.  It was fun reading about some of your traditions that you do with your families. We did start some!  There were some short video clips on lds.org and we watched one each morning the week leading up to Easter.  On Saturday we went to an egg hunt and lunch that Lee's work hosted.  Sunday we watching Finding Faith in Christ, had a family testimony meeting and after dinner did an egg hunt with the Resurrection Eggs.

As for what we have been doing the past couple of weeks, I have a few photos.....

I had fun going to a surprise birthday party for my friend Sarah.  Her boys are the same ages as Clark and Cal. 


Here is another picture--but look at the library sign.  It's so funny!


One night Lee took some pictures of Elden and his train and boy, he could be Ethan's TWIN!


An event took place a couple of weeks ago that Lee and I will never forget.  A family at our church adopted a young man--the one in the front row, far right--Shawn Botti and were sealed to him in the St. Louis Temple.  Shawn will be leaving soon to go on his mission to Los Angeles (YES, my mission!!!).  It was such a special occasion and you could feel the presence of the Holy Ghost so strongly.  It was an amazing sight seeing all their kids (used to be seven, now eight!) in the sealing room there to witness Shawn being sealed to Rob and Danielle for time and for all eternity. 

We love the Fowers.  What a neat family! Thank to Tara for watching our kids for HOURS and for Jeni and Sam riding with us.  We had a great time with you!

Some pictures from the hospital Easter egg hunt...




Our power went out that morning at about 4am...thus no hair dryer or curling iron to assist me in having bangs that day.








We went "fishing" SO many times. 




Time for the egg hunt! They split the kids up into age groups (I think everyone does) and the 3-5 year olds had two hallways FILLED with eggs.  What a fun use of a hospital on a quiet Saturday!




Saturday night Lee and I went on a date. Lee got us frosty's and me some fries at Wendy's.  We listened to a book and went to Lowe's.  We were walking by the appliances and the other kitchen stuff.  One of the workers said something about Lee taking me out on a date that is supposed to be supposedly romantic and of course brought me to Lowe's to look at guy stuff.  It was funny because I enjoy looking around at Lowe's or any home improvement type store for that matter.  I told him that since we were together without our five kids it was a GREAT date, plus we had gotten a yummy treat too!

Sunday morning Lee snapped pictures of the girls.


And Elden.






Clark ready to fight the Lamanites.


The lame attempt at a kid picture.  Elden was outside and when I brought him in he started screaming and crying, so thus the absence.


That night we let the kids pig out on their candy (Saturday too...).  Cal built a Starburst tower.  Then he proceeded to eat it.  He of course got sick and threw it away.  We told him to save the rest for Monday but he didn't want too. Good job Cal.


Clark and Cal used reusable BYU shopping bags for the egg hunt and picked up many, many eggs.  Clark sure had a nice loot of candy.  Even after eating it for two days, there was still a lot left Sunday evening! 




We hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Lee and I recently finished listening to this book together.  It was very good.  We haven't watched the movie, so aren't sure what that is like, but we recommend the book.  It was very thought provoking.  What a wonderful life I am blessed with!

And thanks, Amazon, for the picture.

Another Date Night

Lee and I have continued to do some creative date nights...and I hope we'll keep thinking of ideas!

This is what I did a couple of nights ago...I found this free online puzzle template.  I printed it off on cardstock.








I had Lee open it at work.  That night we ate yummy Belgium chocolate and drank San Pellegrino Limonata. We watched Number Seventeen, a movie co-produced by Alfred Hitchcock.  Not one of his best...though we can't give it a fair review because the sound and picture quality were very poor. Now I need to think of what to do this weekend for a date...