Maine Question One

Mark put together this little video to help the state of Maine pass a law to protect marriage there. They vote on this issue this November.

Life's better with the windows open.

I have so much more energy when the windows are open. I love it when the weather cooperates. Yay fall. I know the weather is flip-flopping around between moderate and hot, but I just tell myself that it means that we will have more nice-weather days before it gets cold.

3 Month Supply

Most of you know but in our church, our leaders encourage us to store food and otherwise be prepared to provide for ourselves and our family in case of an emergency.

We have been working on our food storage lately. We decided to focus on getting a three month supply of everyday foods that we can eat if we were not able to go to the store for whatever reason. We have here one week out of thirteen for our three month supply:

Here is the menu for the week:

Breakfasts
Granola and powdered milk (for two days)
Oatmeal and powdered milk (for two days)
Toast with peanut butter and honey (for two days)
Whole wheat kernel pancakes, syrup, canned fruit

Lunches
Tuna sandwiches and fruit leather (for two days)
PBJs and applesauce (for two days)
Macaroni and cheese and fruit (dehydrated or freeze-dried) (for two days)
Canned soup and bread

Dinners
Refried beans, rice w/ Ro-tel tomatoes, homemade tortillas, canned salsa

Spaghetti, jar of marinara sauce, canned green beans

BBQ sandwiches (BBQ sauce and home-canned chicken, pork, or beef) and fruit salad (canned peaches and mandarin oranges w/ pudding mix)

Zatarains red beans and rice, canned corn, garlic biscuits

Tomato soup and grilled cheese, apple juice box

Canned soup and bread

Fry bread (fried pizza dough with refried beans, shredded cheese, and salsa)

Snacks
Pudding cups
Granola bars
Popcorn
Rice Crispy Treats
Beef Jerky
Candy
Fruit snacks

This is a lot more snacks than we normally eat, maybe I went overboard. But part of me thinks that snacks will go a long way to comfort little people in a stressful time. Who knows.

--If you are wondering where the cheese is coming from, we bought a case of this:
We were considering buying Velveeta for cheese but decided we'd spend a little more and get the canned stuff. We're not so into fake cheese either way, but at least with canned cheese we won't have to rotate it and eat it nearly as often. It has a much longer shelf life than Velveeta does, and it shreds. We ordered it from this website and were very happy with the customer service. We purchased a few cans to try before buying an entire case. We think it tastes like Kraft Singles. There are some other interesting items for sale on that website if you're interested in looking around.

We got our freeze-dried and dehydrated fruits from FoodWise in Gilbert. They sell these foods in various-sized PET containers so you don't have to buy an entire #10 can of something if you don't want that much. We got an assortment of fruits in 13 quart-sized containers, one for each week. When we empty a container the store will refill them for the price paid minus the price of the PET container so you save by reusing your containers. This was the most expensive portion of our storage.

There are also basic items that we will need for our meals that are not included in our containers like ingredients for bread, wheat, beans, flour, salt, etc. These items are stored separately.

We decided that in case of an emergency we wanted to cater our meal choices around the things that the kids will like the most so we don't have to worry about them not wanting to eat in a time that's already stressful. Yes, this does make our menus not as healthy but that's just how it is. Maybe I'll be able to figure out how to do healthy and kid-friendly some other year.

I give credit to my friend Autumn for the idea of how to rotate our food. Each container is labeled with a month of the year. Ours are labeled November 2009 through November 2010, making thirteen containers. Each month we will empty the food out of one container and put it on our shelves to be used up, either through eating it or donating it sometime that month. Then, we will fill the container back up with another week's worth of food. Everything will get rotated once a year except for a couple of items like our cheese and probably our freeze-dried and dehydrated fruits. We spent more money on these items that have longer shelf-lives and we don't want to replace them as often as once a year.

The expense
Obviously, buying this much food at once costs a lot of money. We started out stockpiling food when things were on sale but our supply was building very slowly. We decided to put a hold on building our savings account and put the money towards our food storage for a few months. I'm not saying this is the right thing for everyone, but if you're wondering how we paid for it now you know. We had some money saved but didn't want to take it out so instead of depositing money into our savings account after a paycheck we would withdraw the money in cash and keep it in an envelope to spend on our three month supply. Now that we have completed the task we are going back to saving our money. I tried collecting receipts to calculate how much it cost us but misplaced a few of them. If you might be interested in doing this I could pretty easily estimate the costs. My friend Autumn and her husband used their tax return one year to purchase their food. By the way, if you want to see her run-down of this method you can check out her blog.

Pros and Cons
There are some disadvantages to this method of food storage of course. The largest ones I see is that my grocery spending is going to go up. I try to buy only things that are on sale. When I was shopping for our three month supply all at once I either bought sale items or bought in bulk. But, when I am replacing these containers every month I will not have that luxury. Another con, I have more mac and cheese, canned soups, and other processed foods than I really want in my house. And maybe when I refill my containers I can think of some better substitutes. Storage is also going to be tricky. As I type my containers are still in my front room.

And, the containers I bought are a little too big, so that makes some wasteful space that I will have to find room for. I figure I can fit about half of my containers stacked in my hall closet, four in Owen's closet and one in each of the other two rooms.

Though we feel like we can deal with these inconveniences because the beauty of this system is how easy it is to use in the event of an emergency. The system makes rotating food so easy and you don't have to keep a running total of every single item you want to store.

Now we'd better go put all this food away.

First Picture

Adam has drawn before, but until now it has been scribbles that he interprets into something. It's probably even better than a Rorschach because he does the scribbling and the interpreting himself. He's delving into the dark corners of his mind you know. And yes of course I looked up the spelling of Rorschach. But Friday he drew this:

He called it a "bread cow." I'm guessing he was going for a cow and after the fact decided that it reminded him of bread. And do my boys really have to do their first recognizable pictures on Magna Doodles? They do have plenty of time with paper and crayons too. But at least I got a picture of this one. Adam says the things on its legs are spikes. So cute, isn't it?

Robotic Happlesauce

Our caterpillar is dead. We never found the right kind of food for it. I felt horrible: both sorry and grossed out. Last night before I fell asleep I had images of creepy crawly things rushing through my mind. Dallin cried when we told him this morning. Just one more confirmation that we should never get a dog.

Three Months

Take a look at my beautiful Owen.

He is three months old today.

Owen, I love you so, so much. I told your dad last night that there is nothing else I would rather see than your sweet little smile. The Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower, they've got nothing on you. It's true. Just today it seems like you've had a babbling breakthrough. You were talking up a storm to me today. My heart melts when I hear your little sounds.



Today might be one of the last days for this little outfit.



Here is what it use to look like on you just a couple of months ago:


So far you are my big eater. I'm hoping in another year or so you can teach Adam a thing or two at the dinner table. Right now I am loving your chunky little thighs. My boys have been (and are) generally scrawny, so it's fun that you have some rolls, be they ever so small. Along with your smile, they are also better than the Grand Canyon. Feeding you gives me the opportunity to examine them multiple times a day. I estimate that they are now six times as large as when you were newborn. Don't forget I majored in mathematics so that's no exaggeration.

House Tour

Let's have a look around our house to see what we've been up to lately.

If you could shuffle through the grass in our front yard you might see some remnants of our picnic lunch aftermath. We've had a few picnics out there lately, the weather has been perfect. Probably the birds have gotten to most of it by now, but at one point there were grapes and popcorn all over the grass from the foodfight. It may or may not have actually been my idea. Usually I have a hard time letting loose but it was so fun to laugh and play with my kids. And the boys sure liked shoving grapes down my back. I will not tell you where I found a grape several hours later.

Enter the front door and we have our latest project. For now they're pushed against the wall until they find home in our closets. Yesterday the room looked like this:

Mark had the day off so we worked on our three month supply of food. Maybe I'll post more about this later. Because I have been so great at posting and everything.

But let's continue with the tour. The dining room has Dallin and Adam working on play-do. I was pleased because when Dallin asked to do play-do today I didn't tell him no I didn't want the mess, I told him he could when the dining room was clean. He didn't like the idea right away but once I left the room he begun the task. And they even cleaned up the play-do too without me asking. Wow. I know.

Amongst much clutter on the kitchen counter is the canned salsa I worked on with a friend this morning. I'm all grown up and learning to can. Tear. Someday I'll have the guts to do it without Nikki's help.

And what's this tied to the back door?

It's Adam's own amusement park ride. You see, you don't have to feel bad for never taking your kids to Disneyland because then they have the opportunity to create a Pull 'Em Back out of a bungie cord and a riding toy. And right now you are trying to figure out how to make an adult-size version. Me too.

Let's go past the ride and out the back door to the patio. What's this? Did the Smith family actually get a pet?

I guess the answer is yes. Though he will only be here when and if (BIG IF) he goes through metamorphosis. He's more of an "educational experience" for the kids.

Meet Robotic Happlesauce.

We found him leaving church on Sunday. It might have been meant to be because we went out a side door that doesn't get used very often and that's where we met him, crawling along the sidewalk. We stole a plastic cup from the kitchen in the name of science. We are hoping our limited knowledge (all found on the Internet) will be enough to sustain him until he becomes a moth. And if you're wondering about the name, so am I.

Thanks for humoring us. That completes the tour.

Gotta Post 'Em

It's been a little while since I've done a real post. Life with three kids is a little busy. Don't ask me what I do all day. It's important stuff really, but a list of diapers, laundry, lunch, baby feedings isn't too exciting. But anyway, here are a few things that I haven't posted about.



This was Mark Thursday morning. He did an overnight at Chick-fil-A in Queen Creek last week to be one of the first 100 customers at the new store. He went with a friend he's done this with before a couple of years ago. The prize for the first 100 customers are certificates for 52 free meals.

So, just wondering....Can you get any cuter than this?



I submit that you cannot.

And those sweet, perfectly smooth baby cheeks are courtesy of my new dairy-free diet. I started to write a post about this weeks ago but it never got finished. Some title ideas I thought of were

"I always liked sorbet better anyway"

"Soy milk Schmoy milk"

Wait, I only have two. And neither is super. Oh well, maybe that's why the post never got published.

My sister's kids have dairy issues and I was suspicious that Owen did too. He was pretty unhappy in the late hours of the day and it was obvious his tummy was bothering him. Also, he had eczema all over his face and upper body for a good three or four weeks. Without my mentioning my suspicions, the doctor saw the eczema and thought it might have to do with my diet and maybe Owen couldn't tolerate milk products. Bummer. I went completely off for a couple of weeks and started to see some improvement. But then we had a new problem. When a large part of my diet was eliminated I wasn't getting enough calories and Owen was hungry. So, I thought maybe I could add in just a little dairy and maybe he could tolerate a little. But not really. So we're back to no dairy at all and we just spend some extra money on snacks for me. If anyone has done this before and has suggestions for getting more healthy calories in that would be great. Thank you very much.



For the last year or so I have been doing a playgroup rotation once a week with three other moms in the neighborhood who have kids Adam's age. Dallin is at a friends house when it's my turn. It is a lot of fun getting Adam's friends together and focusing on him and his friends for a while because it is usually Dallin who gets the friends over. This particular time we made a craft. The kids and I dubbed it a "rainbow dancer" because as you can see it is perfect for waving around to music.



Have you played Stratego? It's in the checkers/chess family of games. I got this Star Wars version for Mark sometime when we were newly married. Dallin has resurrected it. It took him several games to get the hang of it and he is still learning strategy and whatnot but it's fun to see him play a board game like this with his dad.

Photo Session Giveaway

Just FYI, there is a giveaway on I Heart Mesa for a mini-photo shoot with Lloyd Zeffler Photo. He's the one that took these pictures two days before Owen was born.



If you live in, or close by Mesa, or are going to visit sometime soon then enter the giveaway. I just did.

And one thing I love about Mesa: the autumn weather. It's beautiful outside today.

Go Maine and Washington!

In 2008 we witnessed 3 big victories for marriage: Arizona, California, Florida. Let's score 2 more in 2009!





I'll see if we can get a cool button for the Washington marriage issue, too. For now, Protect Marriage Washington