Busy and Blessed

It has been another busy week here at Busy Hands Busy Minds.  My sister was working in our area this week and stayed with us two nights.  We enjoyed having dinner together Monday and Tuesday nights and the kids had lots of fun playing games with her.

Lauren came with her children and spent one night with us as well.  That is always a sweet time watching the little ones play and getting in a hug or two as well.  Here are pictures of Ashtyn Claire and Eli from the other day.  Apparently Chase was too busy to get his picture made.  Poor quality due to pulling them off of Devin's Facebook!

My first granddaughter...Ashtyn Claire

Grandson Elisha Jeffrey will be two years old in just a few weeks!

Uncle Caedmon and Ashtyn Claire

We have been eating "around the world" this week.  It wasn't intentional, but Monday night Devin prepared a couple of wonderful Italian pasta dishes for our Valentine dinner.  Tuesday Tracy treated us with Chinese takeout.  Wednesday night we had a cheap US dinner of pinto beans and cornbread.  Last night was a Middle Eastern theme with shish-ka-bobs, rice pilaf, flat bread and different spreads.  Tonight we will have Mexican with chicken enchiladas, beef nachos and rice.  We do like a varied diet around here and so enjoy good foods from all around the world.

Have any of you noticed the prices of foods going up in your area?  Yesterday I needed to do some grocery shopping.  We have two bank accounts as Jeff has a home business as well as his work with American Family Association, so he rolled money from one account to another so that I could shop.  He told me how much he was putting in so I needed to be careful not to go over that amount.  It was a generous amount, but we do a lot of food storage and I always buy much more than we need for the week. I knew my purchases for food storage would be limited.  I checked the Kroger sale ads and only found a few items that I wanted to purchase and I needed a couple of items for our menu for the rest of the week that are not available as Sam's which is where I do most of my shopping these days.

At Kroger I noticed produce prices were up!  A package of three colored bell peppers was over $6!!  I generally buy them in the six pack at Sam's and was eager to see how much their cost went up.  At Sam's 6 peppers were around $7.  A better deal than Kroger for sure, but still about $1 higher than 2-3 weeks ago.  Butter at Kroger was over $4 a pound.  At Sam's 4 pounds were a little over $8.  I have been buying reduced milk at Kroger for $1.25 per gallon, but yesterdays milk was reduced to $2.  I still stocked up, but that is a substantial increase.

Do you buy reduced foods for your family?  I have been for our entire married life!  For an example of items that I find reduced I will tell you about our Middle Eastern dinner last night.  I made shish-ka-bobs using reduced ground pork to make meatballs.  I included mushrooms that I found reduced yesterday, onions, bell peppers and canned pineapple chunks.  I made a wonderful rice pilaf that was chock full of veggies including organic celery that I purchased reduced.  It also included grated carrots and cabbage, onions, garlic and a 32 oz. box of chicken broth that I purchased reduced.  We made our homemade flat bread recipe and spread it with roasted garlic and had a Greek yogurt dip and hummus which were both purchased at reduced prices.  I cooked so much food that we have plenty for lunch today!  There is no telling how much money I have saved through the years buying foods at reduced prices.  It really pays to look around your grocery store for those little stickers on reduced foods!  I always feel so blessed to have found such great deals on good food.


 The warm weather we have been having has gotten Jordan itching to be outside.  He has used up all of our scrap wood making several new raised beds and even scrounged up enough smaller scraps to make a planter box.  He thinks he can find enough wood to make one more planter box and then we will have to break down and buy more wood.

From the top

Side view

Raised bed garden on top of carpet remnants to keep weeds out

Last night I was just wiped out!  Cleaning, schooling, shopping and coming home to put away all the food, plus cooking a big dinner last night just wore me out. I also think my iron levels are low as I keep a glass of ice nearby to chomp on all day long.  Not good!   I was looking forward to going into my nice clean bedroom, lying in the bed and watching my last Net Flix interest...BBC series Larkrise to Candleford.  Jackson, however, was really wanting me to lie down with him and Caedmon as they went to sleep.  I have been doing this as I am trying to get them to go to bed earlier and Caedmon just recently became Jackson's bed partner.  Usually we snuggle up with Caedmon on my shoulder and Jackson holding my hand.  So sweet!!  Last night Caedmon went to bed earlier and I was just going to send Jack to bed without me.  I really felt the need to be alone!  Jackson really wanted me, though, so as soon as Jeff finished some recording he was doing Jackson and I crawled in my bed and watched the next episode of Larkrise on Jeff's big computer screen.  Jackson had the biggest smile across his face!   As we snuggled and watch the movie he told me he was having the greatest time!  Later he told me how much he loved me and held my hand.  Then before the hour was up he was softly snoring.  Later, Jeff carried him to his own bed.  This morning he awoke with a smile on his face, gave me a huge hug and told me again how much fun he had last night.  Special times with a special little man.