Almost A Week Without Daddy, Blueberries & Free Chick-fil-a

Today my husband left for an almost week long trip for work.  It's been a long few weeks.  He went to Mexico on a missions trip for a week and then since he got back on Father's Day, he has worked a lot between the fire station and his part time job.  I am so thankful for how hard he works and how he provides for our family, but it doesn't make me miss him any less.  So my heart is a little heavy tonight as I type this because I'm missing him a lot.  And a shout out to all the military wives, other fire fighter wives, and police wives, whose husbands are gone a lot and you're missing them tonight too!  

Today after Nathan headed out on his trip, I took the kids to a local berry farm and we picked blueberries.  We actually had to try twice to go picking because the first time, we got half way there and it started pouring down rain.  So after we got home and waited about 30 minutes, it stopped raining and we were able to try again and it didn't rain the rest of the day.  :)  

I love blueberry picking but in the heat and being big pregnant it was somewhat of a challenge for me today.  I had big plans of picking tons and tons of blueberries but after about 45 minutes of picking blueberries, eating blueberries, and keeping up with three kids, I had a little less than half a bucket of blueberries.  Alanna was getting cranky and I was dizzy from the heat so we decided to call it a day.  But we still had a great time and I'm so glad the rain held off so we could go!  

Alanna loves blueberries so she loved picking them and eating them even though she spent most of the time getting into all of the water bottles and trying to dump them out.  Liam ate almost every berry he picked and then was pretty sad when I said it was time to go and he didn't have a full bucket :)  Ruy spent most of the time throwing blueberries up in the air and then trying to catch them in his mouth.  

Later today we all dressed up like cows and headed to Chick-fil-a for "Dress Like A Cow Day" to get some free chicken.  I'd do just about anything for a free meal at CFA :)  Not really...but I will happily dress up every year for Cow Day!  

Liam was totally excited about it this year but Alanna tore up her ears before we even got into the van.  She kept pulling off her spots and then handing them to me telling me they were broken.  Ruy was a big help cutting out all the spots for me and he painted his and Liam's nose.  I look pretty silly but it is what it is :)  

I hope everyone else enjoyed some free chicken at Chick-fil-a as well! 

My Menu Plan + Grocery List & Spending Budget

So if you missed my last two posts on my menu plan & spending budget you can find them here and here.  But I have been trying to stay on a budget of $125 a week on groceries and $100 for the month on house items & dog food.  I have stayed on budget so far the past two weeks with groceries and I had $60 leftover to spend on house items.  

I didn't buy a lot of things this week because we didn't need a whole lot and I'm going to be out of town two days this coming week staying with family.  We're also going blueberry picking and I wanted to leave enough money to be able to buy a bunch of fresh blueberries!  YUM.  

We also starting today, started buying fresh eggs from a local farm.  I spent $10 on the eggs we bought this week. We are SO excited about this.  The boys were jumping up and down to see the eggs and just loved that so many of them were brown.  They are so pretty and I'm really happy about having fresh eggs to eat every week now!  

Here is how my spending went this week and what I bought. 

Target:

Toothbrushes for the boys $4.29

(since the kids were sick last week I wanted to make sure they had new brushes) 

...I also realized that toothbrushes are really expensive at Target and I probably won't be buying them there any more.  As much as I don't like Wal-mart, they are about $2 cheaper there. 

Sam's Club:

2% Milk- $2.88

Skim Milk - $2.61

Cheddar Cheese - $ 12.12

String Cheese- $7.98

Romaine Lettuce- $3.98

Bananas- $1.39

Blue Corn Chips - $5.98

Peanuts- $5.98

Sonic Toothbrush Heads - $28.88

Total after tax $ 74.98

*The toothbrush heads aren't a part of the grocery budget...

 so I spent $56.10 on groceries this week. 

And I spent $33.17 on household items.   

So I have $26.83 left for house items until July 23.  

And here's our menu for this week:

 

Saturday

B-  Me:  Cinnamon Muffin In A Mug with Cream Cheese Frosting (S); Kids: WholeWheat Banana Muffins

L- Leftovers (S or E)

D- Homemade Pizza & Salad (E) (Everyone)

Sunday

B-Me: Trim Healthy Mama Pancakes with yogurt & fruit (E); Kids: Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes (I have these already made and in the freezer)

L- Fruit, cheese, lunch meat, hard boiled eggs (S) We have a cook-out/baby shower to go to so I'm keeping lunch simple.

D- Baby Shower Cookout (I'm bringing a side dish)  

Monday-

B- Blueberry Muffins (S)

L-  Packed Lunch for Museum (We're having a family day at a museum and will be packing lunch)

D- Chicken Tacos/Chicken Salad (Sour Cream or Greek Yogurt, cheese, re-fried beans, lettuce, tomato, salsa)  Lately my husband and I have just been eating Taco Salad instead of using shells or wraps.  It cuts down on the carbs and the cost of buying/making shells. 

Tuesday -

B- Scrambled Eggs, smoothies (S) Everyone

L- Grilled Cheese Sandwich with fruit  (Crossover from the cheddar cheese & bread) Everyone

D-  Dress Like A Cow @ CFA (Cheat)

Wednesday - We're going out of town to stay with my husband's parents for the night.

B- Me: Trim Healthy Mama Pancakes with fruit & yogurt (E); Kids: Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes (From Freezer)  

L- Packed lunch at the beach

D- Eating at Nathan's parent's house.

Thursday-

B-  Eating at Nathan's Parent's house

L- Eating at Nathan's parent's house

D- Eating at Nathan's parent's house.

Friday- 

B- Ham & Cheese Omelets, fruit (S) Everyone

L- Turkey paninis, yogurt with fruit (E) Everyone

D- Homemade Pizza & salad (E) Everyone

Snacks:

-Peanuts

 -String cheese

-Smoothies

-Fruit (we have apples, a few slices of watermelon, some strawberries, and blackberries left from last week.  Plus I have some frozen fruit in the frig & we're going blueberry picking)

-Carrots & Ranch (Carrots were leftover from previous shopping trip and really need to be eaten.) 

-Granola Bars (I'm hoping to make an on plan granola bar this week or at least one that is all whole foods for the kids to eat) 

-Yogurt (I make homemade yogurt every week)

 One confession before I go... I ate at Chick-fil-a twice for dinner this week.  Last night we went out of town unexpectedly and had to eat out and then I went grocery shopping tonight and instead of coming home and eating leftovers like I should have...we ate out again! :(  This was not a good thing since I'm desperately trying to cut back on eating out.  I'm really going to push harder on this issue this coming week and will hopefully have better news to report on not eating out.  Dress Like A Cow day is on Tuesday so we will be doing that but our meals will be FREE :)  so that is the only time I am planning on eating out this coming week. 

Well that is all for tonight.  Please let me know if you have any questions! 

Mini Cheesecakes & Blackberry Peach Jam

I'm doing a real quick post this afternoon on two delicious recipes I made up the other night, then combined to form one fabulous dessert.  

Mini Cheesecakes with Blackberry Peach Jam

I've been craving cheesecake here lately so I went and made this recipe from The Laundry Moms.  These little things are SO easy to whip up.  The only change I made to the recipe was to use Golden Flaxseed instead of Almond Flour in the crust.  I also used cupcake liners in the tins to make it easier to get them out.  Now even with the liners, my cheesecakes still did not turn out as pretty as the original but it's the taste that matters right?!!! :) 

Then I made this recipe for the Blackberry Peach Jam.  The only change I made to this recipe was to use the Trim Healthy Mama Sweet Blend and not honey.  I used 4 cups of blackberries (from our blackberry picking trip), 4 peaches, 2 tsp of Sweet Blend, and 8 tablespoons of Chia seeds. I cooked it just like the recipe called for.  I filled three mason jars just under full so that I could freeze them.  This recipe turned out amazing.  It's thick and delicious.  It could be used for on top of cheesecakes, pancakes, waffles, toast, etc.  I love that it's sugar free and has no preservatives in it! :)  

Happy Eating!!!

Blackberry Picking & Berry Cobbler

Today Liam, Alanna, and I  went blackberry picking with one of my good friends Katie and her two kids.  Her son is a year younger than Liam and her daughter is eight months younger than Alanna so they play together really great and it's always so fun when we are able to get together.  We always joke around and say we're too much a like because her husband's name is Nate, her son's name is Luke and her daughter's name is Eliana.  And we both are in love with the old rustic farmhouse style.  I told her she is forbidden to name her next son anything sounding like Jude or even with a "J" LOL :) 

The weather was pretty great when we got there.  It was overcast and about 75 degrees.  The kids loved the hayride.  

Liam picked about five blackberries and then found a big beetle and spent the rest of the time playing with that instead of picking berries.  Luke picked a few, but was more interested in eating the berries or looking at Liam's beetle.  

Alanna liked eating the berries but she obviously didn't know to only pick the black ones and kept picking the red ones that weren't ripe yet.  This face .... 

Eliana spent most of the time chillin' in the Ergo with her mom until she decided it was not fair that all the other kids were running around having fun and eating berries without her.  So she had to get down and join in.  Alanna wanted to share some of our berries with her.  

Alanna was having a really good time following me and eating berries until all of a sudden she started crying non-stop.  I think the grass and vines from the berries were bothering her and making her itch.  Thankfully I had almost two full buckets when she started getting upset so we just headed back to the hayride.  

As soon as we got back on the hayride, Alanna calmed down.  

We ate a picnic lunch, looked at the goats and bunnies and then headed home.  The rest of our day was a little busy since I had an appointment with my midwife.  But we made it through the rest of the day even though I was exhausted.  

After I got the kids to bed, I made a Blackberry Cobbler.  This is a sugar free and grain free recipe.  If you follow Trim Healthy Mama it is an S-Meal.  The picture for the recipe was from the last time I made it using (thawed) frozen berries, but it turned out just as great using fresh blackberries. 

Here is the recipe...

Ingredients

• 3 cups blueberries or blackberries (I used 3 cups frozen berries from Sam's Club)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon  Glucomannan
• 2/3 cup almond flour or  2/3 cup Golden Flaxseed from Sam's Club)  
• 1/3 cup coconut flour
• 1 cup granular sugar alternative (I used 2 tablespoons of the THM Sweet Blend)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 6 tablespoons butter, melted

Instructions

1. Pour berries into greased 11x14 pan.
2. Sprinkle with lemon juice and glucomannan.
3. Stir flaxseed, coconut flour, sweetener and egg until mixture resembles coarse meal.
4. Sprinkle dry mixture over berries.
5. Drizzle melted butter over topping.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until top is browned.

Enjoy as is or with low carb vanilla ice cream or the THM Tummy Tucking Ice-cream.  

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as our family does!!! And if you've never gone berry picking before...you definitely should go! 

4th of July, Sick Kids, Amazing Chocolate Muffins & My Menu Plan + Grocery Shopping List

Please excuse my very long title.  I had several things I wanted to post about but didn't feel like breaking it down into several days of posts, so I crammed it all into one post :)  

First thing is Happy Independence Day!!!  I hope everyone had a fabulous day and I hope that you escaped the rain and were able to enjoy some fireworks.  My husband had to work at the fire station again this year and Ruy is away on vacation with his Dad so it was just Liam, Alanna, and me.  But we've been dealing with some nasty sickness over at our house so there really wasn't any celebration going on here. 

You probably remember that Alanna was sick on Monday night.  She was still not herself on Thursday morning so I took her to the doctor.  My main reasons for taking her in were because even though her fever broke Wednesday night, she was still sleeping really bad, AND she was drooling non stop.  Alanna never drools and it just seemed really weird to me.  So I took her in and found out she has Herpangina.  I know...that name sounds terrible.  Basically it is mouth blisters.  EW.  A fever and vomiting are normal symptoms that go along with this sickness.  You get little red and white blisters all over the roof of your mouth, sides of your mouth, and sometimes under the tongue.  It makes it painful to eat and sometimes swallow.  Which is why Alanna was drooling so much.  She was obviously trying to avoid swallowing as much as possible and it also explained why she had not been eating very much.  

Yesterday, she was pretty much better...just a few blisters left in her mouth.  My husband was heading down to his parents house to fix their dryer and he asked for the kids and me to go with him.  He's been working a lot so I was excited for a fun family day.  Nathan's parents didn't know the kids and I were coming so it was fun surprising them.  We played out in the backyard...

  and had a picnic lunch.  

And I ate delicious ice-cream :)  

 Alanna was very happy and Liam seemed fine too.  

But then all of a sudden he got very emotional, kept crying, and then started saying his stomach hurt.  I realized he had a fever and assumed he had caught the same thing that Alanna had.  Sure enough, just a little bit later he threw up.  We let him take a little 30 minute nap while his Grammy (Nathan's Mom) rocked him on their porch swing, and then we packed up and headed home. 

 

 It takes us about 1 hour and 15 minutes to get home but we got stuck in horrible traffic and it took us over 2 hours to get home.  Thankfully both the kids slept for an hour!  They never ever sleep that long in the car.  Normally Alanna sleeps 19-21 minutes and then wakes up.  I'm not joking...it's like clockwork.  She always wakes up within 21 minutes.  When we got home we checked Liam's mouth and he certainly had blisters in his mouth.  Alanna finally slept through the night again Friday night and had no more blisters in her mouth when she woke up this morning!

Well since Liam was now sick I had to cancel my plans for Saturday of going blackberry picking with a friend of mine and her family.  And then going to the pool, a cookout, and fireworks with my best friend.  I was pretty bummed and felt really bad that Liam felt so yuck.  We spent the day just being at home and letting Liam rest mostly.  His fever was up to just a little over 102 right before I put him to bed so he was feeling pretty awful.  I'm hoping his fever breaks tonight and he has a better day tomorrow.  His mouth hurts pretty bad right now and he didn't eat any dinner.  I'm thankful Alanna is all back to normal and is her happy playful self again. 

Today I did get to make the best Chocolate Zucchini Muffins ever!!!  Seriously, I ate four of them.  They are not on plan with Trim Healthy Mama if you follow THM, but they are very healthy and if you follow a Clean Eating Diet than these are for you.  My kids loved these and they are most definitely a new favorite.  I'm going to make more tomorrow since I have some leftover zucchini that I need to use up.  

I followed the original recipe exactly except for I added 2 tsp of the THM Sweet Blend just to make it a tad sweeter.  When I tasted the batter I felt like my kids would like it a bit sweeter.  The Sweet Blend is amazing.  It doesn't leave a bitter aftertaste and you only have to use a small amount to make things sweet.  

Anyways...make these muffins.  They are moist, delicious, and they taste as good as chocolate cake only without all the sugar.  

And now here is my Menu Plan for this week. 

Saturday:

B- Chocolate Zucchini Muffins (Cheat)

L- Creamy Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese (Crossover)

D- Leftover Black Bean Soup (E)

Sunday:

B- Overnight Oatmeal (E)

L- Chicken Fajitas (E or S...depending on my toppings)

D- Leftovers

Monday:

B- Me: Muffin In A Mug Kids (S)  Kids: Banana Muffins

L- Broccoli Cheddar Soup (S)

D- Chili (E)

Tuesday:

B- Scrambled Eggs & fruit (S)

L- Leftover Broccoli Soup (S)

D- Leftover Chili (E)

Wednesday:

B- Me: THM Pancakes (E)   Kids:Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes

L- Bean & Cheese Quesadillas (E)

D- Homemade Pizza (E)

Thursday:

B- Overnight Oatmeal (E)

L- Homemade Chicken Nuggets, Smoothies (S)

D- Taco Bake (S)

Friday:

B- Ham & Cheese Omelets (S)

L- Me: Turkey Sandwich  (E) Kids: PB & Jelly Sandwich, fruit

D- Homemade Mac & Cheese, Veggie (S)

Snacks:

Peanuts

String Cheese

Cheddar Cheese

Smoothies 

Muffins 

Homemade Greek Yogurt with fruit

Fruit

Apples & PB

 And here is my grocery shopping list & prices:

Sam's Club 

Strawberries $3.98

60% Chocolate Baking Chips  $7.98

Yeast $4.49

Half & Half  $1.82

Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips $8.98

Blueberries $5.98

Bananas  x 2 $1.39 each 

2% Cottage Cheese $3.38

Sourcream $3.89

Total + Tax = $44.36

(Not pictured: yeast...I forgot to include it)

Kroger

Kroger Old Fashioned Oats

Oxyclean

Body Fortress Protein Powder (Only my husband uses this.  I use Swansons)

Baking Soda

Apple Cider Vinegar

Hunts All Natural Ketchup (I want to start making my own)

Dreamfields Angel Hair Pasta

Kroger Freezer Ziplock bags

Kroger Black Beans x 3

Kroger Kidney Beans x 2

Baking Cocoa

Bryers Carb Smart Ice Cream

Kroger Whole Milk

Kroger 18 Count Eggs x 2

Watermelon 

Gala Apples 4.12 lbs

Sweet Onions x 2

Grapes 1.75 lbs 

Total + Tax = $76.61

Oxyclean & Ziplock Bags from House Items Fund $11

I also spent $6 on toothpaste at Wal-Mart the other day for the kids.  

So $77 leftover from my previous shopping trip last week for the house items fund.

$77

-$11

-$6

Total leftover $60 (House Items Fund)

Totals for Grocery Shopping:

Sam's $44.36

Kroger $65.61

 Total $109.97

So my goal was was to stay under $125 and I did well with that again this week.  

Well sorry again that this post was so long.  I hope you found something helpful though and again Happy Independence Day!!!

Homemade Almond Milk {THM-FP}

I used to have to spend $2.50-$3.50 per week on a 1.2 gallon of Unsweetened Almond Milk.  Sometimes we would use more than a 1/2 gallon in a week and it was really getting too expensive for us to be able to afford.  So I asked some of the other Trim Healthy Mama fans on the Facebook Fan Page, if anyone made their own Almond Milk and if so, was it less expensive, and was it difficult?  I received a lot of responses and one of the admins even responded to make sure we were all getting the right information.  I had looked on several Pinterest links for recipes on making Almond Milk but all of them said to use 1 cup of almonds but apparently that is more than what the store bought almond milk has in it and to keep it a "Fuel Puel" (Trim Healthy Mama lingo), you should only use 1/4 cup of almonds.  So, one of the admins cleared it all up and between her help and several Pinterest posts I read, I came up with a wonderful recipe, and found a few helpful tips to make making my own almond milk easier.  

So here is my recipe & instructions on 

Unsweetened Almond Milk 

Step 1.  

Place 1/4 cup of almonds into 2 cups of water.  

*I buy my almonds at Sam's Club.  It costs me $17 for this huge bag.  It has 9 cups of almonds in it.  This makes each 1/2 gallon of homemade almond milk to cost me about $.50!!!  Yes, that is way way way cheaper than buying it at the store.  And there are no preservatives in it! 

 Step 2.  

Allow almonds to soak for 24 hours. 

Step 3. 

Peel skins off of the almonds.

*This takes me all of about three minutes to do.  If you don't plan on using the pulp to make almond flour, then you can skip this step.  But it's so easy to make almond flour from the pulp and it saves you so much money from not having to buy almond flour at the store.  The cheapest I have found almond flour is about $9/pound! 

Step 4. 

Fill a high-power blender (like a Ninja) with 8 cups of water.  Then add your almonds to the water.  Blend for about 1-2 minutes. 

Step 5.

Strain your milk through a Nut Milk Bag. 

 *I got my bag from amazon and I love it so much.  It makes this process so easy.  You could probably use cheese cloth, but I love that this bag makes it non messy, and I can just wash it and use it over and over!

Step 6.  

When you are done straining your milk, simply life the nut milk bag out of the jar and gently squeeze out any milk that is still left in the bag.  

Step 7.

Congratulations!!!  You just made your first batch of homemade almond milk!!! And wasn't that SO easy???!!!  

*You can make this Vanilla Almond Milk by either adding Vanilla Extract to it after you've removed the pulp, or (something I want to try) adding a vanilla bean to it and blending that up with it.  Also, you can add a sweetener of your choice to it once you've removed the pulp to make this Sweetened Almond Milk.  

*Homemade Almond Milk lasts for 5-7 days in the refrigerator.

Now if you don't want to make your own almond flour just throw the pulp away.  But if you like to cook with almond flour and want to save some more money, then here is how you make almond flour from the pulp...

Lay some parchment paper on a baking sheet.  Spread your almond pulp onto the parchment paper.  Bake at 200 degrees for 2-3 hours.  And that's it!  

I usually freeze my almond pulp until I've made a few batches of almond milk and then cook up a bigger batch at one time.  

I hope this post was helpful to you and saves you lots of money!