There’s a time of day when the 4 year old should have had a nap, but now if you lay him down he won’t sleep tonight.  It’s the time of day when he sees his sister’s chocolate protein bars that are tucked away in her closet, so her brothers and sisters won’t eat them, and she can have them for after her pointe class.  The time when he brings the box to her with his big baby eyes and says, “Can I have one?”  And she has to say, “no” because if he gets one then they all will want one and she won’t have what she needs for dance class.

Then his cute little lip sticks out, and big alligator tears trickle down his cheeks and your heart breaks and melts into a pile of enabling goo.  And you know if you don’t do something, that sad little moment will turn into a kicking, screaming, thrashing, a “oh why didn’t I give the toddler a nap?”, moment.

When this happens, I take him by the little hand.  And put a spoon in it.  Then we pour honey, peanut butter, cocoa powder, and oats in a pan and wait for the magic to happen.

Snack Balls

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup honey

2 Tablespoons cocoa powder

1 cup quick oats

Place honey in a saucepan over medium high heat.  Stirring until it is very runny.  Turn off the heat and add the peanut butter and cocoa powder, stirring until smooth.  Add oats and stir until mixture forms a dough.  Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and let cool for a few minutes (or don’t.)  Eat right away and store the leftovers (there won’t be any) in an airtight container.  Then cuddle your boy with a good book.

Self braided headband. Tutorial Here.

Above is the brown return air vent from Heidi’s new aqua and white bedroom. A rusty vent fan cover from the boy’s bathroom, a 3/4″ steel conduit pipe ($3) that I hacksawed to fit the window in my office, and wooden finials and mounting brackets that held a smaller curtain bar in the master bedroom.

Add the last bits of white primer and spraypaint from the garage….

Total out of pocket cost:  $3.  Money saved:  $50.  Smile.

The fabric should arrive today for my office curtains and Heidi’s room will be carpeted this week!!!! I can’t wait to see it all come together.

Take the lowly graham cracker for example.  When I first wrote the Grocery Shrink ebook, I was able to buy a 16 oz box at Aldi for $.99 ($.06 per oz).  Now the box only holds 14.4 oz and costs $1.49 ($.10 per oz).  The price of graham crackers has gone up 60% since then.  Thankfully graham crackers aren’t essential and I can choose to not buy them…but nearly all foods have risen in price in a similar fashion.  By shopping the Grocery Shrink way–we don’t feel these prices as keenly as someone else might, but I’m starting to feel it more and more.  Sale prices are still dropping, but store limits (you can only buy 2 at that price) are squeezing my ability to maximize the dollar like I used to.

I’m still working with a $50 per person per month food budget.  Since I have a large family that gives me $400 to play with for the month.  Sticking to that budget is getting a lot harder to do.  And I’ve been thinking about it…a lot.  Some of my children are very young.  While my 6 year old out eats me on a regular basis my 4 year old and 9 month old don’t.  

I think some new budget recommendation are in order, at least until food prices come back in line with inflation.  And yes, they can.   Food prices fluctuate madly while inflation prices rise more steadily.  So until further notice, my budget recommendations are:

$100 per male adult (or child age 12 and over) per month

$75 per female adult (or child age 12 and over) per month

$50 per child (age 11 to age 2) per month

$30 per child (age conception to 2) per month (Even if a child is still in the womb or breastfeeding, mom needs to up her nutrition during this time–and may need to take advantage of more convenience items.)

For my family, our new grocery budget would be $480/month.  We can’t afford that right now, so I’m still going with my $400 budget, but as soon as our circumstances change, I’ll be asking for that raise .  If you can afford to take your raise now….go for it!

When we take out our sunken Harvest Gold bathtub in the master bathroom, it will stop water flow to our only functioning bath.  We will have to open the boy’s bathroom for use, which has been closed from wall-paper removal and a large hole in the shower’s fiberglass floor.  Now that it is painted, I can clean it all up and call the fiberglass repair man.  I’ve seen lots of DIY fiberglass repair articles on the web, but this is one I’d like to call the professionals for. I’ve seen plenty of black mold from improper leak repairs and am ready to do this one right.

Now that Heid’s room is painted, the carpet man can come.  Then she can move into her room which will allow Heather to move into her room and all the children will be in their rightful places.  What a happy day that will be!

I used my Christmas money to order curtain fabric for my office and Heidi’s room.  Heidi went with white bridal illusion covered in silver glitter.  I took a risk on aqua blue and white chevron.  I saved some money by salvaging some finials off a curtain rod that was too short.  I bought a $3 electrical conduit pipe that just happens to fit and will spray paint everything white–tomorrow.  Because even though It’s January in Kansas City, the weatherman thinks it will be 60 degrees tomorrow!

That Chevron has me sitting on pins.  I love it–right now. Is this something super trendy that I will tire of quickly?  It’s an expensive enough purchase that I’ll have to live with it for awhile.  So now that I hit “complete purchase” I’ve decided to love it no matter what.

I had the same concerns about my black and white damask curtains that I made for my living room 3 years ago.  Thankfully I live in the midwest where it takes years for the trends to hit, so they’ve stayed in fashion this whole time.

And then I think about the poor orphans in Africa and wonder why I care so much whether my curtains are fashionable.  I’ve spent years not caring so much and have found that when I take the time to choose my purchases carefully for their beauty as well as functionality–it makes a difference how the people in my home feel.  So I think I will pray that all people have their needs so met that they can waste a thought on whether something is lovely or not.

I love to eat cookie dough.  I’m not afraid of raw eggs, but if you are–just leave them out of your favorite recipe and you’ll have edible dough.  The drawback is there’s tons of calories in the form of fat and sugar and very little protein or vitamins.

I recently became aware of sugar free recipes for cookie dough meant to be eaten raw that includes protein powder.  Several of them called for grinding dates into a paste–but dates aren’t currently in my pantry.  So I tried this variation made with pumpkin puree instead.  It had good flavor but tasted pretty “light” not rich and creamy like real cookie dough.

Here’s the recipe as pictured above:

1/4 cup pumpkin puree

2 Tablespoons peanut butter

1 scoop Bluebonnet French Vanilla Protein powder (Sold at amazon this is just whey and stevia.)

1 packet purevia, stevia sweetener

2 Tablespoons quick oats

2 Tablespoons coconut flour

2 Tablespoons mini chocolate chips

Combine all except the chocolate chips.  Stir until the coconut flour absorbs the moisture and the mixture forms a light and airy dough.  Fold in teh chocolate chips.  Form into 8 balls.  2 balls = 149 calories; 12 g carbs (3 fiber); 10 g protein; 7 g fat

I’ve got PB2 (powdered peanut butter with the oils pressed out) in my amazon shopping cart.  I’d like to try this recipe again substituting PB2 for the peanut butter and part of the oats.  I’m trying to get the overall calories down and protein up while also making the balls slightly denser to taste more like real cookie dough.  So far these little balls are a tasty treat..but can they get better?

Strawberry Spinach Salad–Serves 1

2 cups spinach leaves

4 oz sliced fresh strawberries

4 oz grilled chicken breast, sliced (I throw mine on the Foreman grill)

12 almonds, chopped, and toasted in the microwave on high for 1 minute

2 Tablespoons (1 oz) Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette Dressing

Layer all ingredients on a plate and eat right away.

Yes, I’m drinking my smoothie from a Cottage Cheese carton.  All of our glasses are too small to hold an entire smoothie, so this was my solution ;p.

I found this recipe via pinterest and traveled to the blog to read more–aak and now I can’t find it!  I’ll update with the link as soon as I can.

Her recipe was pretty good, but I made a slight change to help it be colder and thicker.

1 small banana, sliced and frozen

1/2 cup skim milk

1/2 cup Greek yogurt

1 tablespoon peanut butter

4 cups fresh spinach

1/2 cup ice

Blend all until smooth.  Drink right away .  This was the first green smoothie I had that I liked!  The banana and peanut butter covered the green taste really well. To save costs I bought my spinach in a huge bag from Costco.  It has 3 produce servings for the Fit Yummy Mummy Plan which really helps towards the 10 a day goal.

Someone brought a huge box of eggplant to church last week.  We waited by the box until the crowd thinned so we could take 2 of them without feeling greedy .  I looked up my recipe created this summer for Eggplant bake and cut the cheese in half and added a half cup of parmesan for flavor.  It was delicious and only had 300 calories a serving, which is a generous 1/8th of a 9 x 13 pan. 

2 eggplant (1 or 1.5 lbs each)

1 jar spaghetti sauce (26 oz)

2 lbs ground beef

2 cups mozarella cheese

1/2 cup parmesean cheese

1 tsp garlic salt

Place ground beef in a large skillet and sprinkle with garlic salt.  Cook meat until no longer pink, drain and rinse of excess fat.  Slice eggplant into 1/2 inch thick slices.  Cook for a few minutes on each side in a hot skillet until lightly browned.  Grease a 9 x 13 casserole dish.  Place 1/2 cup of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of the dish.  Cover the sauce completely with eggplant slices.  Sprinkle with half the ground beef, half of the cheeses and half the remaining sauce.  Repeat the layers once more.  Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes.  Let stand a few minutes before serving. 

We served ours with a huge spinach and romaine tossed salad, green beens, and peaches. If you aren’t watching you carbs, garlic bread would be perfect .

I’m off to put the children in the tub.  It’s Saturday night, whether you need it or not…..

P.S.  I did not peel my eggplant.  I try not to peel anything if I can help it, because usually there are lots of vitamins in the peeling.  When I served the leftovers to my mother for lunch she looked shocked.  “You didn’t peel it!?”

“Oops, Was I supposed to?”

Mother:  “What did your recipe say?”

Me:  “Ooh, recipe, that would have been a good idea…”