Wii Fit weights

Claire- 22 lbs

Jack-12!!!!

Me? I'm not mentioning. But, tomorrow is 6 weeks so I can start working out again. If I get to 125 (!!) Brian said he would buy me a super nice camera. I started an exercise blog but I'm going to make it private...but if you want to see it I will let you...probably. Just give me your email address and beware :)

And sorry for the lack of pictures. Camera is charging.

Ok...

so, we went grocery shopping for the week and the total for the budget came out as follows...

Grocery : $49.96

Other shopping: $25 (diapers... :P I really want Claire to be potty trained...)

Food Storage: $14.72

Brian's Misc: $2.50 (this was because when we went to Smith's I went out to nurse the baby and the lady rang up 5 things of turkey instead of 4. Brian didn't want to go back in to fix it lol)

Pretty good I think.

Meal Plan

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: Taco Salad

Friday: Egg Muffin Sandwiches (going to be my first attempt at homemade english muffins)

Saturday: Beans and Rice

Sunday: Roast

Monday: Green chili burros (if we have leftover roast...if not...bean burros)

Tuesday: Garlic Chicken

We're trying to get our shopping under $50 a week. Possible? I dunno, I've never tried it before. I do have a budget for food storage if things are a good deal. We'll see today. I did stay with my meal plan last week. Yay!

Monday we went to Brian's coworkers house in Midway. They are renting in an place that has a pool and clubhouse so Claire and Brian were able to go swimming. It was the first time for me to see anyone from Sawtooth and it was nice. Midway was nice but probably out of our price range and way out of the way from everything. I'd rather live in Springville or Mapleton. Other than that not much has been going on. Hopefully we do something fun this weekend...or at least get a library card or something. Logan is going to go out job searching.

If you want to sleep....

don't talk budget before bed! Seriously. You get so much going on in your head that it is so hard to get calmed down. Well, I do anyway. I've not had much success with sticking to a budget but I am DETERMINED to do it now. The next 9 months are going to be cheap, cheap, cheap. As I've said multiple times on here...I really want a house :). House payments are the easy thing...the down payment is the hard thing, especially if you want to put 20% down to avoid PMI. Living cheap is hard if you don't want to let your family live on processed foods. "Simple living" is not so simple and takes a lot of time and effort.

Next trial? I'm going to try to make wheat meat. It's pretty dang healthy for you according to one site "Nutritionally, seitan (Japanese word for wheat meat) is a nearly complete, high quality protein (more protein per serving than tofu), provides a modest amount of B vitamins and iron and contains no saturated fat or cholesterol. A 3 1/2 ounce (100 gram) serving contains 118 calories, 18% protein and less than 1% unsaturated fat. The same amount of beef has 207 calories and 32.2% protein and is high in saturated fats."

When I was looking at stuff on wheat meat it was pretty funny because most sites says what cultures use it and mentions China, Japan, Russia, Middle East, and Mormons. LOL.

So...does someone want to buy me THIS? :)

Another thing that I've been thinking a lot of is Habits. I recently broke a bad habit of biting my finger nails...YAY (I blame my dad) . Of course it helps that when your hands are always full of baby, toddler, laundry, cleaning, cooking, and all the other things you don't have the time to bite your nails. I'm really happy about it and Brian is too. I don't think he would ever forgive me if our kids picked up on it from ME...they could of course get it from someone else...but just not ME. So I've been thinking about habits that I want to start. The list is very very long but you gotta start somewhere right? So, two I have picked to work on...

1) Appreciate. I don't want to think about how things will be in the future. I want to concentrate on the NOW. Things wont be like this forever (Hallelujah to some things...diapers anyone?) so I better appreciate them while they are here. I'll regret it if I don't.

2) Being soft spoken. I don't want to yell or raise my voice to my kids. This one is HARD sometimes. Claire can be a little bugger but I am the adult and I have the responsibility to be patient in word and deed. I better get this one down fast...I want my children to really remember this about me. (And for the record...I don't yell a lot but there are times when it is harrrd.) lol. Don't think I'm a bad mom please :)

Tried to take a couple of pictures after church

Her hair was CRAZY but she wasn't too interested in the camera

Jack Jack

Claire's footprints on a chair. Cute

THANK YOU!

Brian's mom left yesterday after being here for a week and a half and we are all very sad. Claire def. misses her Grandma, and her Grandma's lip stuff, and eye stuff, and purse...you get te picture :). We had a lot of fun with her here and she helped me out SO much. Thank you Grandma for coming! We love you! Hope you come out again very soon!

As my first day without a Grandma to help me with the kids I was very glad that we still have an Uncle here :) Logan is really going to be hunting for a job. He gets Claire in the morning till I get up. Bet he goes to bed earlier tonight. whahaha.

I thought I would start posting our weekly menu to motivate me to make one and follow it. You know, the whole trying to save money thing. It works better when you make a meal plan and follow it. I think Wednesdays are going to be our shopping day. That's when my Deals to Meals comes out and I see the sales.

Thursday: Spaghetti

Friday: Chicken Souvlaki Gyros-side of broccoli and cheese

Saturday: Navajo Tacos

Sunday: Chicken nuggets

Monday: Summer Tortellini Salad (we are going to Brian's coworkers house is Midway for a parrtay)

Tuesday: Chicken and rice casserole.

Claire was soo super cute today. She was drinking some water and was copying Logan and holding her cup one handed for the first time. I don't know why that affected me but she looked so grown up with her little fingernails painted and holding her cup one handed. *sob*

I had some chocolate cake (Magelbys Fresh chocolate cake at that!) today for the first time. We'll see how that makes Jack behave :)

Some food storage thoughts

1) Buy a couple gallons of milk and freeze the extra. Why? We run out of milk and when we run to the store to buy "milk" it end up being milk and this and that....lame. I bought milk from the creamery 3/$5. I put one in the fridge and 2 in the freezer.

2) Same thing with cheese. Buy it when in goes on sale and freeze it. We might as well be mice. We go through a LOT of cheese.

3) When you make bread, make a double batch and freeze it! Today I made hamburger buns and I SHOULD have made a double batch so I don't have to do it later.

I bought some sour cream powder from Emergency Essentials to try. I haven't tried it yet but I will. I also bought some Morning Moo milk. It's not as nutritious as real powdered milk but I've read that the cannery milk is G.R.O.S.S. (I don't drink white milk so I've never tried it) I would use Morning Moo for drinking and cereal milk and the cannery milk for cooking.I think I may store some club soda too. We made homemade root beer tonight and it was pretty good. I think it would be heartening to have something like that in your food storage.

I had more thoughts but I can't remember. I can't really can here in our apartment. I'm can't wait to get to a house so I can really get into everything again.

Jack

He rolled over yesterday...from his front to his back. We were all pretty impressed :)

Last night he slept from 12 to 6 and then 6:40 to 9:30. Momma was sore but very happy

Claire

Evolution of Claire's dress-up

She had a good nap :)

Baby Blessing

Sunday was the first day in our new ward AND Jack's baby blessing. Brian did a marvelous job...again :) It was nice because it was Brian's dad, my brother and my uncle M'Kay and uncle Krestin. Lots of family was there. It was so great. Our bishop seems really nice and the ward seems nice too. I'm nervous for Claire to be in a huge nursery though. Is that weird? I just want to keep her with me all the time. After the blessing we went to M'Kay and Angie's for lunch. Thanks! I was bad and didn't get any good blessing pictures :(

Yesterday Brian, Claire and Grandma and Grandpa went to Seven Peaks. Brian said Claire had a lot of fun. Then we met up with Brian's cousin Shannon for dinner. It's so good to have family around.

And Jack is totally a McGrath. He looks exactly like Jordan did when he was a baby and very much resembles me and Logan too. After everyone telling me Claire looks exactly like Brian....it's kinda nice :)

Whew

Sorry it's been so long! It has been hectic hectic lately. You know...the moving and unpacking with a crazy two year old and a three week old. We are SO LUCKY that my parents and my brothers were here to help. I honestly would have just sat and cried and cried. Our apartment is....not too nice. Not HORRIBLE, but not nice. The best thing that can be said is that Brian is just as motivated as me now to find a house at the end of our lease. YES!!!!!!!

The move down wasn't bad at all. Jack was such an awesome baby. Claire did really well too. It helped that we made it in three days. It is weird being back in Provo and I really miss the small town and weather of Sequim. And moving is EXPENSIVE! Getting groceries and things for the apartment. Yuck.

My parents left on Friday. It was very sad to see them go. They were amazing. I'm hoping they are planning a trip out again soon! Love you guys! But....luckily Brian's mom flew in on Friday! Aren't I one lucky girl? :) We haven't done much so far but we went to Ikea on Friday and got a couple of rugs to cover our carpet. Today we went grocery shopping. Brian's dad flies in tonight for Jacks blessing tomorrow. It will be so much fun :)

Enjoy the pictures. I'll have more once my mom gets home and burns me a CD with all the pictures she took...hint hint.

Claire is into dressing up now....in everything she owns lol

My boys :)
We gave Claire some chapstick on the way home from Alpine one night...big mistake.

Unkle Bian
Squishy cheeks
Uncle Logan

Cute boy


Stole from my moms blog...I WANT A NICE CAMERA!!!!!!!!

Hahaha...unpacking fun.

I love him

Claire already misses her grandpa

What a stud :)

Traveling

We are in Twin Falls Idaho. Sorry I haven't updated in a while :) I need to get the pictures from my mom's computer. Jack has been awesome on the trip...Claire has been pretty good too. (Knock on wood) Tomorrow is a 4 hour day and then we are in Provo! Weird.