Cooking with Dani

About 15 years ago, as my husband and brother in law were just leaving the nest my mother in law wrote a cookbook called, “I Want My Dinner Now.” I have always joked that her real reason for writing it was to make sure her future daughters-in-law would know how took cook her sons a good filling meal.

This book truly taught me how to cook and gave me the confidence to try new things. Today I had the opportunity to share this cookbook with Dani. Together we created the most delicious Chicken Pot Pie. I hope she always wants to cook with me.

*Fun fact- When I found out that this book would no longer be published I purchased one for each of my children and all of my nieces and nephew as future wedding/house warming gifts.

Although this book is no longer in production my Mother in Law does still have a few copies left. Check out her ETSY shop https://www.etsy.com/listing/636069244/i-want-my-dinner-nowone-pot-mealseasy

As Trevor and I navigate our new world with our oldest daughter, Shayela having her first serious boyfriend we find ourselves contemplating what makes our marriage not just work but what makes it thrive and grow.

We have talked for many years about the desire to never allow our marriage to become stagnant. We never wanted to be the couple that got married young, had a bunch of babies, and when they all grew up didn’t know who the other person was.

Let me tell you, it takes a lot of effort. It takes intentionality. It takes late night date nights. It takes trust. It takes honesty. It takes a lot of understanding.

I will probably talk about this a lot in the coming weeks and months as we continue to walk through this with Shayela. However, the first word that comes to mind when I think about what we do that might be different than a lot of people is that we simply adore each other. We have a very deep love AND respect for each other. We make sure to nurture this part of our lives, never take it for granted, and never get complacent.

Cheat sheet for menu making

This will be our first year homeschooling our twins and we are SUPER excited about it. I am not used to feeding them breakfast and lunch throughout the year because they have always eaten at school, so we sat down and came up with a cheat sheet for my menu making.

We started with the items they like to eat for breakfast and focused mostly on foods they can make themselves. Part of homeschooling for us is teaching them independence and self sufficiency. Instead of simply adding cereal I asked them for specific types, this way it will be easier when I do the grocery shopping and I will not need to guess what kinds they want.

We then added lunch items. Again, focusing on items they can make themselves. For lunch we will make a schedule and we will take turns making lunch for everyone. Doing it this way will cause less mess in the kitchen, teach them life long cooking skills, and show them how to be part of a giving family.

Last but not least we added snacks. My number 1 tip for snacks is to divide them up into snack baggies as soon as you get them home from the store. That way if someone (you included) needs a snack they can grab a bag instead of being tempted to mindlessly eat out of the box.

From this list I create a menu that is hung on the fridge each week so there are no surprises. The kids know what to expect and I am not having to stress each day about what to make.

At the end of the day when you are feeding an army the trick is to plan ahead and get input from the troops.

Here are pictures of our list and one of our menus. I would love to hear some of the items you add to your list.

Visit Boise Idaho without breaking the bank!

This last weekend we decided to take a small family trip to Boise from our hometown in southeast Washington to visit my father who has been in the hospital for a couple weeks. With some money saving ideas we were able to visit Grandaddy and make it a vacation. I wanted to share a few of the ways we were able to take this trip with a family of 6 (plus my mom) without spending a ton of money.

• Look online and plan out your hotel in advance. I was able to find a hotel for an average of $117/night for 1 room (we needed 2 because Grammy joined us).  I was able to get this rate because I did the entire booking online. That was a savings of almost $100/night. It included a warm breakfast including waffles, sausage, eggs, etc, a very nice indoor pool, hot tub, sauna, steam room, and workout center.

• Get a cargo carrier for your vehicle. In the past when Grammy joined us on vacations we needed to take a second vehicle (we have a Toyota Highlander that seats 8) because we couldn’t fit all of us and our luggage.  Recently I found a nice soft cargo carrier at a yard sale for just $20 and on this trip alone it saved us at least 2 tanks of gas in Grammy’s car. Ours is a lot like this one and as you can see it’s worth the savings with just a couple tanks of gas you didn’t have to buy.

• Research gas prices along your route. I will be honest I am not the one in our family that does this part, hubby does it. For instance on this trip gas was cheaper in Washington and Idaho so he was very careful not to need gas in Oregon. It isn’t a huge savings but a little bit can go a long way.

• Plan your meals. Obviously we were able to save a lot of money because the hotel had free breakfast and for dinners we got food we could cook at our hotel in the microwave. The first night we ate frozen pasta bowls and spent less than $3/ person on dinner. The second night we went to the store and got some finger foods and shared them in the hotel while we watched a movie. For lunches we did eat out because we were going from one attraction to another and didn’t want to take the time to make food. So one day we went to McDonald’s and the last day we had our first Chick-fit-A experience. Also, be sure to take along snacks so you aren’t tempted to pay convenience store prices.

• We were able to visit three of the main family attractions in Boise, World Center for Birds of Prey, Aquarium of Boise, and Zoo Boise. We were very impressed with the prices of each of these attractions and you would not have to do all of them in a single trip. The Birds of Prey exhibit was very neat as it houses many endangered birds and teaches about the importance of conservation. The Aquarium of Boise had a lot of touch pools with many different types of fish, sharks, and sting rays. Zoo Boise was my favorite. We have been to a few zoos in our day but this zoo offers a much more personal experience with the animals. We were able to be within a few feet of some of the most amazing animals on earth, where at bigger zoos the animals are a fair distance away and you don’t necessarily get to see their size and colors up close. We also got to feed a sloth bear for just $3 (we bought one cup of meal worms and shared) and you could also pay $3 to feed a giraffe (we weren’t there long enough for giraffe feeding time)!

• We also really like to take advantage of small stops on our way to and from our destination. On our way home from Boise we found a beautiful bridge with a gorgeous view in Perry Oregon. Had we not been willing to go a couple miles off the highway to this view point we would never have see this part of God’s beauty.

  If you have any great ways of saving money on family vacations I would love to hear them!

~Amanda

 

 

 

Back to school with a big family

Up until 2 years ago back to school shopping was a piece of cake. I only had 2 kiddos in school and it didn’t seem like a big deal to wait until the middle of August when we got their school supply lists to start our shopping. Then Monkey and Bear went into kindergarten and holy moly… all of a sudden I went from 2 supply lists to FOUR! I almost had a nervous breakdown. I hadn’t saved or planned or anything. To say we scrimped by that year would be an understatement.

Now I have a plan… instead of waiting until the supply lists come out in August I start shopping in June. That way I buy a little bit at a time (we get paid twice a month) and I don’t have to scramble by waiting until the last minute. I start with the items I know they will be expected to have… pencils, paper, folders, dry erase markers, backpacks, lunch boxes, ice packs, scissors, crayons, glue, etc. Then I pay attention to coupons and back to school sale ads in our local sunday paper. I also use an app on my phone called Flipp to get our local sale ads.

So far this year I have purchased new lunch boxes for each of the kids at Walmart for just 6.99 each and new back packs for Monkey and Bear at Walmart for 10.99 each. Thankfully Butterfly and Monster don’t need new ones.

I also purchased a lot of the essentials from Office Depot using their Back to School Deals. In this picture there are 6 pencil boxes, 6 pairs of scissors, 6 mini staplers, 4- 100 count index cards, 9- 24 count Crayola crayons, 9 sharpies, 6- 4 count papermate pens, 9- 12 count pencils, 9- 3 count erasers, 1- 10 piece math kit, 1 three hole punch/ruler, and 1 three ring binder pencil pouch. My total was $42.26 and and my savings was a grand total of $166.76! The only thing you will want to watch out for here is you are limited to 3 of each item. I took Butterfly with me and gave her cash to pay for her cart full of supplies so you will want to take an older child, your spouse, or maybe even a friends if you need more than 3 of each item.

If you have any great ideas on how to save on back to school shopping I would love to hear them!