Pantry Challenge - part 2

Today I'm sharing my pantry contents...  Does anyone else find it weird to show the whole world what's inside your fridge/freezer and pantry?  Or is that just me?

Moving right along then - here is yesterday's post of what I found in my freezers and fridges (it's A LOT more than I thought I had).

Top 3 shelves (that second shelf is baking supplies -and a jumbo container of taco seasoning- only)

Bottom shelf and floor.

Here's what I found in the pantry (tally marks indicate 1 meal of each item, unless otherwise noted):

Tuna - I

Canned chicken - I  I

Salmon - I

Rotel - I  I  I

Green beans - I  I

Peas - I

Tomato paste - I  I

Tomato sauce - I

Home canned spag. sauce - 1½ pints

Dehydrated tomatoes - 1 bag

Black olives - I  I

Home canned jalapenos - ½ pint

Home canned apple butter - ½ pint

Pizza sauce - I  I  I  I

Peanut butter - 4 jars

Apple sauce - ½ gallon

Pumpkin pancake mix - I  I  I

Italian dressing (marinade) - I

Baking supplies - PLENTY (including about 12lb of flour and ½ giant bag of chocolate chips in garage fridge)

Pasta - I  I

Corn chips - 1 bag = I  I  I

Other random items include - snacks left over from Christmas sacks, tea, popcorn, cereal, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar.

I have WAY more food than I ever dreamed I had in my house.  I managed to make an entire month's menu plan and only added a few items to my list that I'll need to buy during the second half of the month.  I picked up a few things today and I shouldn't need to purchase anything for at least 2 weeks.

On Monday I'll share my menu plan for the entire month of January and my budget for the month (including what I spent today).

Pantry Challenge - part 1

Are you taking the pantry challenge?  I am!  If you're not familiar with what the pantry challenge is all about, you can hop over to either Money Saving Mom or Life As Mom and find out more.

My first step in starting this month of eating from what we have with minimal shopping was to take an inventory of my freezers, fridges and pantry.

Today I'm sharing my fridges and freezers with you.

This is the freezer in my garage.

This is the freezer inside.

Here's my freezer inventory (each tally mark represents 1 meal worth of the item - unless otherwise noted):
Meats
Fish - I
Chicken breasts - I
Ground beef - I  I  I  I  I  I  I
Browned taco meat - I
Steak - I
Antelope steaks - I
Deer sausage - I
Whole chicken - I
Cooked shredded chicken - I  I  I
Jumbo bag of chicken nuggets

Fruits/veggies
Carrots - I  I
Pumpkin puree - 11 pints
Frozen mixed veggies - I  I  I  I  I
Frozen corn - I  I  ½
Frozen broccoli - I
Jumbo unopened bag of frozen strawberries
Jumbo bag of frozen blueberries - ½

Other
Chicken stock - I  I  I
Bread - 2 loaves

This is the fridge in the garage.

This is the inside fridge.

Here is my fridge inventory:
Grains
Crescent rolls (canned) - I  I  I  I
Pizza crust (canned) - I  I  I  I
Tortillas - 2+ packages = appx. 24
Brown rice - I  I  I  I
Quinoa - I  I  I  I

Beans
Several jars of beans in varying amounts, including - pinto, navy, red/kidney, lentils, black and black eyed peas.
Refried beans - I

Meat
Turkey pepperoni - ½ bag
Hot dogs - I  I  I
Deli meat - I

Fruits/veggies
Salsa (homemade) - 3 pints
Applesauce - ½ jar
Onions - I  I  I  I  I  I  I
Garlic - tons from my aunt's garden
Potatoes - I  I

Dairy
Cheddar - 2lb
Mozzarella - ½lb
Eggs - 2 doz.

That's it for today.  Tomorrow, I'll give you my pantry inventory and my meal plan for the entire month of January!  I'll also include my goal for how much I'll spend for the month and what I'll be purchasing with that amount.

You can follow along with Part 2, also.

Incredibly thankful

I have never participated in Gratituesday, but thought it was about time since I can think of so many things to be thankful for this year.

In no particular order, here are some of the things I'm thankful for from 2009:

~ My garden and all of it's abundance.
~ Eli has made so much progress with physical therapy that he is down to only going once per month! (That link is to a really old post, but it will give you background on Eli's condition in case you aren't familiar).
~ Homeschooling and a kindergartener that is so eager to learn and easy to teach.
~ A wonderful husband who serves this country faithfully without ever complaining and is currently serving a 6 month deployment in Iraq.
~ The best next door neighbors a family could ever ask for.  Seriously, they take care of our yard and house each time we are away, shovel my snow when Michael isn't home, check on the kids and me frequently when he's away and babysit (for free!).
~ How God is using us to minister to a young unmarried couple we are friends with and the wonderful fruits I see of our investment of time and family into these young lives.
~ Bloggy friends who I'm proud to say are now real-life friends.  It is such a pleasure to call Carrie and Amy my new real-life friends!
~ Our new church.  In late July, after much prayer and many discussions, we moved our family to a new church and could not be happier.  This church is exactly what we were looking for and the entire family loves it!

My little Houdini!

This child can get out of just about any shirt I put her in (unless it snaps in the crotch)!  It's quite comical!  I think the only reason she didn't get this one completely off is because it had a snap at the back of the neck.  In this photo she's 8 months old.

She can also get out of velcro diapers when she's not wearing something to cover them.  I learned this the hard way with a very nasty diaper this summer (not pictured...)! She's 10 months in this photo.

Good morning mama!  13 months.

And this was taken today - and she's done this more than once today!!  She's 15 months.









She also frequently tries to get her sleepers off while I have them unzipped changing her diaper.  She tries feverishly to get her arms out before I get done with the diaper change!!  She WILL NOT leave socks on.  I have to put Robeez on her to get her to keep her socks on because the Robeez have elastic around the ankles and she hasn't figured out how to get them off yet.  She also constantly pulls on the feet of her tights trying to pull them off.

She's funny!

Quite overwhelmed

Whew!  What a whirlwind 2 weeks.  I am feeling quite overwhelmed today.

If you missed it, two weeks ago, we found out we are moving to Turkey in July!  Why the stress, July is many months away still?  Did I mention that Michael is leaving TOMORROW and will be in Iraq for the next six months...  Oy vey!

There have been so many things that were necessary to accomplish before he left that I feel like I haven't stopped or taken a breath in the last two weeks.

Beyond my regular motherly/homemaker duties we have:
~ Completely cleared our crawl space before Michael leaves (because the movers won't go in there) since I didn't want to get stuck trying to bring all the stuff up by myself.
~ I have sorted EVERY piece of baby/kid clothing and gear in all of the bins we were keeping for future children (most of you know that we won't be having any more children since I had such extreme complications following Rachael's birth).  I have taken photos and listed a lot of our gear on craigslist, given/sold some to friends and taken tons to Goodwill.
~ All of the items that had previously been stored (in Rubbermaid tubs) in the crawl space are now stored in the garage, so I've completely rearranged the garage to accommodate all the bins AND the van.
~ Spent countless hours discussing all the ins-and-outs of things I will need to accomplish while Michael is away.
~ Decided not to sell our house.
~ Filled out lots of paperwork.
~ Plus tons more small things that I know I'm forgetting because my head is so full of information, I feel like it will explode at any moment.

Today is the final appointment of items to be accomplished before Michael leaves.  We must go apply for our military passports and Visas.  The paperwork is complete and photos have been taken, the only thing left is to go in at 2:00 and finalize it all.

I still have a long journey ahead of me, but it's all manageable since I don't have to accomplish it all in a two week time span (and I have some wonderful babysitters lined up for those days when I just don't want to take the children to certain appointments)!

So, dear readers, if I'm not around much over the next few weeks, it's not because I've abandoned you, it's because I'm taking a wee break.  The kids and I will be driving to Arkansas to spend Christmas with some of my extended family and I'm going to rest my tired self and gain up my strength to endure this deployment!

Frugal Christmas for kids

As a family, we do not place a lot of emphasis on Christmas gifts the way the commercial world would like us to.  We choose to mostly celebrate Jesus' birth!  We do give gifts to our children, but they are usually small and Christmas morning is NOT an elaborate gift-opening-event in our home.  Rather, it is leisurely.  There's a fresh, hot breakfast and then the children are permitted to open their gifts.

Michael and I also typically do not exchange gifts.  Not because we're anti-gift, but simply because we have decided that if there is truly something out there we want, and it's in the budget, we would go ahead and purchase it, no need for a special occasion!  However, there are, on occasion, surprises!!

This year the children are receiving small gifts.

Jacob:
~ new pair of waterproof gloves
~ ninja costume
~ pillow case with a photo of Michael and the boys
~ stuffed animal with recorded greeting from Michael (these are provided by Airman and Family Readiness Center)

Eli:
~ new winter ha
~ Power Ranger costume
~ pillow case with a photo of Michael and the boys
~ stuffed animal with recorded greeting from Michael

Rachael:
~ Cabbage Patch doll (each child has received a Cabbage Patch doll on their first Christmas, however, last Christmas, the company only had reproduction 25th anniversary dolls out - and they were much too retro for my taste!)
~ stuffed animal with recorded greeting from Michael

Michael is deploying to Iraq on Wednesday, December 16, so the boys will receive their pillow cases this Tuesday (provided I get them finished this weekend - I've already printed the transfers, just need to iron them on) as a special gift to help them sleep well and feel like daddy is close, even though he's very far away.

Tip: I shop Target on November 1 each year and purchase a few costumes for each child.  I got both costumes this year for $15 total.  Retailers deeply discount any left over Halloween costumes starting the day after Halloween.  This year Michael was TDY for the first 2 weeks of November (he left VERY early on the 1st) and I wasn't unable to purchase any other costumes (the kids were with me even for the ones I did buy, but I *think* they've forgotten about them by now).  Rachael is still a bit young for dressing up, so she isn't receiving a costume this year.

Littles and card games

I enjoy playing card games with the boys and it's so fun to watch them learn and develop new thinking and reasoning skills.  We are currently mostly playing games like Go Fish or Crazy 8's with card sets found at Dollar Tree (but Jacob also really enjoys Uno). These are awesome and usually come in packs of two - we have one that had Crazy 8's and Go Fish and another pack that they received as a gift that had Crazy 8's and Memory and each pack is only $1!!  So far they're holding up quite nicely!

However, Jacob has finally gotten to the age where he understands that his hand of cards should be kept out of view of everyone else playing the game but at almost 6, his hand isn't quite big enough to pull of the feat of holding them all....

Enter, the card holder:

This has quickly become one of my favorite "gadgets" for having fun with littles.  It seems to be even more helpful for Eli who is 3 and is constantly fidgety and always knocking his cards off the table.  It helps him keep them all in one place and for Jacob it is helping him learn the art of keeping his hand hidden!


This post is linked to Works For Me Wednesday.