I don’t know how my kids do it but they NEVER wake up in a bad mood. Cheerful is always the word for the day and joy fills our home.
I like to think that much of their happiness in the morning has to do with something I am doing right. I am probably not the entire reason but just maybe the fact that we aren’t rushing, trying to get hair done, breakfast eaten quickly, and school books found and ready. Searching for a lost shoe in the morning is quite stressful and running late makes people cranky causing the day off with a sour taste.

I do love my mornings; up around six to kiss hubby goodbye, jogging at 6:30, kids waking up around 7:30, easy breakfast, the telling of dreams (or short stories if dreams cannot be remembered), giggles and bed-head. What a blessing the morning is! My morning hours are better than any other and I look forward to them every day!

So, we are expecting again! Number 6 is baking and should be born somewhere around May 5th, making me about 5 weeks along. We are very excited! We are so very blessed!!!

I am not sick yet but the past two days have proven to be very tiring. Morning sickness usually strikes me at 6 or 7 weeks so I am only a week or so away from misery. It should only last about 8 or 9 weeks. I have known some women to be sick during their entire pregnancy even after delivery! I feel blessed to only have to deal with it for a few months – long months they are however.

I am continuing to jog for 15 minutes 4 or 5 mornings a week. Hopefully I can reduce my exaustion a bit by keeping up my excersize as much as I can. I know that when the morning sickness hits I won’t be able to jog as much but I am sure gonna try! It is just that I hate running. I really despise it and it takes everything I have to keep it up. Actually, I hate excersize all together, lol. I was a child athelete and I think I am just burned out on moving.

Either way, it has to be done. And it is only 15 minutes so I guess I can push through. It’s important to me to stay fit during my pregnancy – it helps the weight to melt off in only months after the baby is born.

I wonder if this baby is a girl or a boy. We have only one girl out of the 5, the rest are boys so I am betting this one will be a boy to, however, my husband never guesses wrong and says he is getting some girl vibes. I, on the other hand, have never been right.
If it is a girl we have had a name picked out for a while. We have used up every boy name we like so I don’t know what we will do if it is a boy, lol.

Who knows. I guess we will find out in about 8 months!

The $8 Vacation

We camp. We love this and the kids get so excited about going. We camp almost every weekend when it is warm enough as long as college and Navy duties don’t call upon my husband. We have gone about 10 times this summer. Most weekends we leave Friday right after an early lunch and come home Saturday night at dinner time.

One night away from home with the kids in a hotel would be around $130, sometimes more than this if we need two rooms, which we usually do. Even if we do manage to get a room large enough for our family of 7 we still need to eat. Eating out is expensive with as many mouths as we have to feed! Hotels are quite boring, you can only swim so much, and check out time is a bit early.
Camping, on the other hand, can be quite the inexpensive vacation, costing us about $8 a night with no checkout time. The $8 is for the camp spot. You could even get away without that camp fee if you are a wilderness camper, but we prefer to have bathrooms close for the kidlets. We bring food from home that we would have eaten anyway, making meals over the camp fire or on our small grill. We bring a half gallon of milk, a small bottle of juice and a 5 gallon container of water. All this is stuff we already have at home. No extra money needs to be spent on food. There are a ton of recipes that can be modified to be cooked in a tinfoil bowl pinched closed at the top. We also have a set of plastic camping dishes (you can find plastic dishes at any Good Will type store) – no need to purchase paper plates!

Yes, camping supplies can be a little costly but you can get a good deal for your money if you are patient and shop around. Our first tent was purchased at the end of camping season about 7 years ago. It was good size for our family of four and our dog and we were able to get it for 50% off because the camping season was coming to a close. Since our family has almost doubled in size since then we upgraded this year and gave our old tent, which is still in excellent condition, to some friends of ours who have since started camping with us too! Camping is a great multifamily vacation because almost everybody’s budget will allow it.
Can’t afford a tent? Just about every family has a tent that they almost never use. See if you can borrow one or purchase one from a friend or family member for cheap. Need a good camping stove? We found ours used on eBay for a steal. Simple swimming pool air mattresses are cheap and great for camping if you don’t want to shell out the money for for a camping mattress. Join your local Freecycle group and see if anybody has any camping stuff that they don’t use cluttering their garage. REMEMBER, you only need to make these purchases once! Taken care of, your camping gear can last many years!

Camping is such a good thing for children. My kids explore, find new bugs, ask questions, and stare in wonder at wildlife. They learn more in one overnight camping trip than they do all week homeschooling. They swim, laugh, dig, explore, and stay dirty the entire camping trip. As soon as we walk in the door after a camping trip they ask when we are going again.

If you are not much of an outdoorsy person I would still say give it a chance; Camping for your family, even if you don’t want to (or especially if you don’t want to) can bless your family in so many ways. It will create amazing memories that your kids will cherish forever! And you can create these wonderful memories on a very tight budget!

Just don’t forget your blankets!!!!

I get a lot of questions on how we manage to feed all 7 mouths in our family. Although my husband is in the Navy and we are taken care of, the program he is in doesn’t pay very well so we have had to get creative with our food budget.

With my family of 7, and one on the way, we had to draw the line at picky eating. We make a meal and that is what the family has ~ or nothing. I have learned over the years that kids will not starve themselves ~ one night on an empty stomach will not kill them but will teach them appreciation for the food on the table. I don’t make Joe(8) eat tomatoes or Kait(11) eat olives but if we are serving up Cabbage Patch Soup they all eat it even though 3 of them don’t care for it much. They prefer it to hunger, lol. All in all we try to stick to foods that the whole family enjoys. Spaghetti, Burrito’s, Chili, Grilled chicken, burgers and dogs, meatloaf.

Crock pots are worth their weight in gold!!!
Sometimes if you have a day of the week with a couple of hours to kill (I know, not likely) have the older children (maybe age 8 and up) help you cook up 3 or 4 meals for the week then freeze them. All you have to do is stick them in a crock pot in the morning and dinner is ready on time!
Here are some quick and easy ideas for feeding the larger family.

Two meals out of one roast!

Buy a big roast cut it in half and put each half in a ziploc with some chopped veggies, a couple bullion cubes and your favorite seasonings. Stick them in the fridge, or freeze them if it will be more than a few days until you use them. Then just whip one bag out in the morning, dump the contents into your crock pot, and add some water. Add a salad, pasta, or some bread and you have two dinners out of one roast with almost zero effort! This can also be done in the afternoon with an aluminum foil pocket on a cookie sheet.

Quick Chili – low fat, 11 g per serving!

In a ziploc (we love ziplocs) mix 1 1/2 lbs browned ground beef (adjust amount to your family size) 1 can tomato sauce, chopped peppers and onions (or onion powder), garlic powder, a can of corn, canned tomatoes, kidney beans, Chili powder, basil, and pepper. Fridge or freeze until ready to use. Dump it in your crock pot on low sometime in the morning. You can even have a corn bread mix ready to throw in the oven for the perfect chili mate!

Hamburger Stew – low fat, 10 g per serving!

One of our families favorites!

In a ziploc mix 1 1/2 lbs browned ground beef, chopped onion and peppers, 4 beef bullion cubes, a can of corn, one chopped tomato, a few cut up potatoes, chopped carrots, basil, tablespoon worcestershire sauce, and a bay leaf. Fridge or freeze until ready to use. Dump into a crock pot sometime in the morning, add at least 5 cups water and heat on low until dinner. Remove the bay leaf and add a salad or rice and dinner is served!

Chicken can be used instead of hamburger too! Crock pots are good for pork chops too!

Now, to make it cheap

• Try not to buy brand name unless it is necessary (like mayo – cheap mayo is gross!).  Often, however, if you can match a coupon with a sale you can get the pricey stuff for very cheap or free!
• Nobody needs bacon, eggs, sausage, and pancakes every morning for breakfast.
• Keep pancakes made and frozen and biscuits ready for baking in the freezer too.
• Cereal can be found for cheap if you look around at different grocery stores. We have a grocery store about 35 minutes from us that sells cereal for $1.60 a box – and the good for you stuff too! We just had to look around for the best deals!
• Our area doesn’t have a food coop but many areas do. Ask around and see if you can join one.
• Although canned veggies aren’t quite as good as fresh, they are cheaper much of the year and are easier to cook with making your family more likely to eat them.
• Make a weekly food budget and stick with it! My daughter(11) has printed out a months worth of dinners and made a grocery list from that (5 dinners a week, the other two days are leftovers or sandwiches) . This way we only purchase what we need and everything gets used. We never waste money on food that doesn’t get eaten!
• Eat dinner together as a family. I don’t know why this works but we seem to save money on food when we all sit down together to eat. Maybe it keeps us from snacking or picking, I don’t know. All I know is that eating together as a family has saved us money.
• Stay away from the cookie and chips and soda isle!
• Limit snacks to fresh fruit, flavored yogurt with grape nuts in it (my fav!) or crackers. Crackers can be separated into baggies ahead of time for the week so snacking doesn’t cost more than thought it would.
• Learn how to say the word “NO”. It is not good for kids to get everything they want. Number one, they learn selfishness; Number two, they usually aren’t wise in the decision making area and will choose all foods bad for them. Have them pick one bad for them snack a month. That can be a tub of ice cream OR a box of snack cakes OR a bag of chips OR a 2 liter of soda. When it is gone, it is gone.
• Food should not be free for all in your family. Permission to eat something should be necessary. If you kids are hungry they can have something but you choose what and you choose the portions. Let them have their say, give them a couple choices if you feel you must, but ultimately put yourself in charge of food (and ultimately money) consumption.
• Rice and pasta are filling ~ add one of them to your meals as fillers.

Lastly, try to limit your meal planning and grocery shopping to only one day a week. This will keep you from getting burned out on what to do for meals. Set aside money just for groceries and do not exceed that budget. You will find creative ways to save. Make it a game – see how well your family can eat for $xx every week.

This may seem hard to do at first but you will be surprised at how your efforts will bless your family – a less stressful mama, an appreciative dad, and healthier kids! After a few weeks you will love your this way of feeding your family and you will feel so good about what you are doing for them.