We have a new budget. And it has seriously impacted my grocery budget. We have always eaten "healthy" - what I mean by that is organic, whole foods, no preservatives, no food colorings, no white sugars, LOTS of produce, etc. You get my drift.… However, the past few years b/c of an increase in children, increase in work hours for myself and Jonathan, and an honest decrease in paying attention to my spending, the grocery budget has slowly increased. B/c my time was much more limited, I was trading making a lot of my own stuff for convenience in the way of healthy things… well, that gets expensive after awhile. B/c healthy things packaged are expensive… and a lot of times, still not as healthy as you'd like them!
So… enter loss of job. Bingo. I now have more time and I have to decrease my grocery budget. But, I am determined not to do it while sacrificing a healthy lifestyle. (I feel like this is what I read on most food blogs :) I know I'm just another woman who is trying to make good choices for her family while being a good steward of all that God has put her over!) When you 'work' as a mother, many times you have to trade off something else for that time you're not at home, or in my case, at home but behind my laptop. For me, it was cleaning and a lot of time in the kitchen traded off for a lot of Trader Joes foods :) (I still love that store!) Ha!
Now, I must stay I am thoroughly enjoying my time in the kitchen. I'm trying a bunch of everything… really trying to make foods that are going to save us money in the long run but be healthy as well. So, Wyatt and I have been in the kitchen a lot. A lot. We have made granola, granola bars, pita bread, tortillas, two different kinds of whole wheat pizza crust, we've been soaking beans, and making soup, and freezing it, and then making a new recipe for pancakes… He is learning a lot! And he's great with a rolling pin! Today he was spanking the dough as well as giving it a fohawk... really? Boys :)
I think our favorites so far have been homemade tortillas. We've done these a few times now… they are great in lunches. And the boys loved them spread with PB and honey then topped with some of our homemade granola. We roll them up and pack them in Henry's lunch. The great thing about the pizza crust is both times we've made them, we roll them out into about 15 mini pizzas and then freeze them. So easy… and we are suckers for pizza in this house. So the boys can pull out their own crust, get the sauce, the cheese I pre-shred for them, and make their own pizza comletely on their own. I jsut put them in the oven. They love it b/c they feel very independent, and I love it b/c it's one less thing I have to do! :)
Anyways… that's what we're doing over here. Exciting, huh?!
When Henry was 5yrs old, we told him he could play basketball when he was 7yrs old. I'm not even sure how serious we were, we just figured that was 2 years away and he'd probably forget by then. He did 15 months of swimming, and he would still remind us that he was playing basketball when he was 7yrs old. Well, guess what. He turned 7yrs old in November, and guess what reminder we recv'd from him.... remember, guys, you said I could play basketball when I was 7!!! Now, of course, we could have exercised our parental authority to say no :) But, we didn't have a really good reason to, so we decided to start looking for our options of where to play. Where we live, there are basically 3 different leagues for this age group. All are about the same price. All seem to have good reviews, but we chose Upward Bound for this first time round. Not necessarily b/c it's a 'christian' organization, but they also seemed to give you the most bang for your buck. We had a very good experience - and Jonathan was able to coach which was very fun too! This was low commitment, and what was nice was it gave the boys some time with Jonathan (Wyatt would go to practices). As far as Henry goes, he had a wonderful time. There were a few kids he recognized from school on his team and other teams, and he even knew some of the cheerleaders :) He took this very seriously. And it was a great opportunity to work with him on making others more important than just playing the game. Over the course of the season, he had multiple fans. Uncle Devon, Aunt Beth, and Reuben/Theo came to games, his first grade teacher, Grandma and Grandpa Berry, his close friends... it was very meaningful and we are always reminded of how THANKFUL we are for the community we have here! Fun stuff! 
