Been away...sorry!

Man, what a crazy last few months I've had!

Over the course of May and most of June I was in the last months of my 4th pregnancy. That combined with the end of the school year and the summer break of my MOMS group I decided to take a break from blogging.

Now that my baby girl is here I am back and will start posting on Thursdays again! Some topics I will be addressing are:

1. Finishing my monthly meal planning
2. Miss. M's birth story
3. Postpartum Recovery
4. Adjusting to life with 4 kids
5. Fun Summer activities
6. My recipes

So glad to be back! I really love sharing the journey with you!

Our newest addition. Miss. M!

Monthly Freezer Meal Planning Part 1

Hello and Welcome!

This week I am going to start a 3 part series on monthly freezer meal planning. I used to do this every couple months before my family had to move to an apartment for a year to financially prepare for me to stay at home full time. I have been a pretty intense budgeter for a few years now. Even more so once my son was born (baby #3) and I quit working full time. I transitioned to a part time position where I worked 5 am to 9 am, 5 days a week. It was torture, especially with a 6 week old that doesn't sleep. Thankfully in December of 2014, I was able to be a full time stay at home mom (SAHM). Then, like an addict, I found a part time job to do from home. I don't think I know how to not work. Anyway, a year and a half later, another kiddo on the way and in a small house I had the inspiration to start up monthly meal planning again. Living by the pay periods has caused me to meal plan every 2 weeks (ish) anyway. This baby however, has given me an intense paranoia that I will go into labor and there will be no food for my other kids because I'm due around the mid-month pay period. Silly, I know, because I have awesome people who would never let my kids starve and would run to the store for me. But paranoia, especially preggo paranoia can be a strong emotion. It keeps you up a night. It also causes you to spend 13 hours making 30 dinners, 17 lunches and 3 dozen muffins. Oh yes, you read that right.

While we aren't exclusively living on these meals for the next 30 days, I am using this stuff to supplement my usual menu planning to allow me to focus on other projects that creep up on the nesting to do list (like re-organizing my laundry room). Thankfully we have all the major furniture covered and many of our toys and activity playsets have survived 3 kids.

Let me say, I have a culinary background. I worked as a line cook for 5 years and know my way around a kitchen and recipe book. I do still think that anyone can monthly meal plan. Cooking days like this can easily be scaled back to 3 or 4 hours (not 10) and you'd get away with 15 meals or so.

Some books gave me the original inspiration for monthly freezer meals.

1. Miserly Moms
2. Don't Panic-Dinner's in the freezer

I have also been previously inspired by sites like Monthly Freezer Meals on Facebook and a few friends of mine.

The first task to hurdle when meal planning is figuring out what you want to cook. I usually include several meals what use similar ingredients. A couple pasta dishes, a few tex-mex inspired dishes and a few casseroles. I will also try to incorporate meat that is less expensive cuts or can be used in all the dishes, ex: ground beef, chicken tenderloins, ground turkey. Then using Pinterest boards I've made or cook books I have (or recipes in my head) I decide the meals I am going to make and about how many I want to get.

Some of these are staples in our house and some are new.

Then I make a grocery list, inspecting my pantry before adding anything. I also added my usual 2 week menu plan since I wasn't going to be exclusively using this list for our menu. I took the time to group the bigger list by aisle at the grocery store to easy my trip. 

The total trip for the planned 31 freezer meals, 12 weekly meals, lunches and breakfast cost me $340 using exclusively Winco and Costco. We had to rearrange our budget to make this work but it will make things so much easier in the long run.

I learned a few things this trip,

1. I am not taking my kids for this level of shopping again. (I'd rather go at midnight)
2. I overbought on things like pasta (I was rusty with my amounts for this kind of volume)
3. I need to find a few more vegetarian ideas to help make more meals stretch for less $.

I will be back in a few days to go over the cooking day and freezer storage. I'd be happy to answer any questions on menu planning and hope that you all enjoy this post!

Vegetarian Egg Bake Recipe

Hello and welcome!

This week my table at my MOMS (Moms Offering Moms Support) group had the responsibility of bringing food. This is one way the group avoids a fee to be a member. Moms volunteer to bring food or help in the kid area to lessen the cost of catering or child care. We still have church staff member who run the kid area but the moms rotate in helping. The food is rotated from table to table and catered by the leadership staff for special events, like our Christmas or Mother's Day brunches. Have I mentioned how much I love this group?

My co-table leader let our group know that her oven died a few days before the weekly meeting, she had signed up for a quiche but that wasn't going to happen with her oven down. She asked if someone else could bring a hot dish to cover her. She would bring a cold one. Another wonderful lady (they are all wonderful actually!!) from our table offered a hot dish and I offered to bring an egg dish. 

Luckily for me Costco had the 5 dozen egg carton at a great discount ($7.50 for 5 dozen!). We still had several eggs left from last pay period but it was too good a deal to pass up. I always keep spinach and tomatoes in my fridge and there are usually hashbrowns in my freezer for MOMS related casseroles. Luckily this week I had decided to buy mushrooms with no intended purpose but something told me to. After looking at several online recipes and being short on several items I decided to throw something together based on what I had. The ladies liked it, so I thought I would share it with you lovely people!

Vegetarian Egg Bake

Ingredients:

12 large eggs

½ cup Half and Half

½ tsp Dried Thyme

3-4 mushrooms, sliced or diced

2 small handfuls of spinach, chopped if desired

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups frozen hash browns

½ cup shredded cheddar (optional)

Salt and Pepper to taste

Topping: ½ cup fresh tomato, diced

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Sauté, over medium-high heat, 1 tbsp olive oil or butter and mushrooms.  When mushrooms begin to brown, add garlic, sauté 10 seconds (until fragrant). Add spinach and cook until wilted. Add hash browns, stirring occasionally, cook for 2 minutes until hash browns are warm. Place veggie mixture in an 8x8 greased casserole dish. Let cool slightly.

In a separate bowl mix 12 eggs, half and half, salt, pepper and thyme. Whisk until combined.

Add cheese, if desired, to veggie mixture, add egg mix to veggie mixture and stir gently to combine.

Bake for 30-40 minutes, until egg mixture is set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool for 5 minutes, top if diced fresh tomato, if desired.

Makes 8-12 servings. 

Click Here for printable PDF

Here are some pictures of the cooking and final product!

Ingredients

Sauted Mushrooms, Garlic and Spinach

Veggie Mix, cooling

Egg Mix

Adding Cheddar (in our opinion makes it better)

All mixed up and ready to bake

Ready to Eat!! 

You are not alone!

Hi there!

As the arrival of my 4th child approaches rapidly I am reminded of all of the feelings that come with newborns. Joy, terror, elation, exhaustion, shock and calm, etc.  As a person who struggled with depression and anxiety throughout most of my 20's I have always been flagged as "high risk" for postpartum depression. While I have experienced bouts of crying and feelings of "how in the hell do I do this?", I have never officially been treated for postpartum depression. Perhaps my previous experiences with keeping my depression and anxiety in check without meds has given me tools to process these hormonal mood swings, maybe it's just not that bad. Either way, I am a big proponent of mental health care and especially care for mental health postpartum. It's scary as hell when they hand you a baby, assist you for 1-3 days then send you home with a few vague pamphlets on infant care. Where's the mom care info? This video made me laugh after my 2nd was born. Could have used it the first time around! WhatsUpMoms Elle: How to Recover *Down There*

The arrival of my 3rd!

Yet, there is still a lack of mental care info!

All my babies so far

They always recommend rest. Pft. Rest, right. The newborn's days and nights are backwards and we need to get breastfeeding established; but yeah, I'll nap. My DH is an amazing man but still only 1 person and goes back to work after a week or so. We have 3 other kids under the age of 7! My 4 year old likes to say "Mommy!" until I answer, always getting closer to my ear and ever louder until I respond. They give you a website and a phone number for counselors and a single page of info on new mommy classes at the hospital. While this bit of info is wonderful it just seems lacking. Plus new moms feel such pressure to be perfect. There is an extreme fear that if you don't do everything "perfectly" than you're not a good mom. This can be very isolating. What is perfect though? You! No matter what, you are the perfect mother for your child. My saving grace after my kids births was a determination to not be a hermit. To make myself take them all to the grocery store, to go to the park. Always keeping it as short as possible and trying to go between feedings (I hate feeding in public).

Most of all I recommend finding a Moms group or some other kind of support group of women and moms in all sorts of stages of parenthood and with all different ages of kids. My church's MOMS (Moms Offering Moms Support) group has been wonderful in reminding me that my kid is not the only one with night terrors (Oh yes.) or that I'm not the only homeschooler on the planet or I'm not the only woman with the desire to have 4 kids! If you find the right group they'll love you if you haven't washed your hair in a week or if you couldn't be bothered to change out of your pj's. They'll just be happy you made it.

Lastly, there are a few amazing books that have helped me through hard times as a mom.

1. Out of the Spin Cycle-Devotions to Lighten Your Mother Load
2. What Every Mom Needs
3. I'm a Mom! Now What?

Goodnight Moms!

Spring break for homeschoolers? How does that work?

Well, late is better than never. This week was officially spring break for my crew. While technically only my oldest is of school age and it's not a huge change, one takes for granted all of the activities that go on to keep you busy in a week.

As mentioned in my title, we homeschool. Well, kind of. Really my oldest is part of a "Partial Homeschooling" program that is technically integrated with her school district. She goes to a school that does electives one day a week and all day class one day a week. I am responsible for her schooling the other 3 days. At home I teach Language Arts and Math. We use the online program K12 and her teacher creates that math curriculum for me to follow at home. My oldest being a natural introvert, this program is well suited to her.

Miss. H on her 1st day of 1st Grade

How did I decide to homeschool, you ask? This decision came gradually. Ask me 10 years ago if I would homeschool and I would have given you a funny look and say "Yeah right!". Then after my first was born and we began to approach pre-school stage I met an assortment of women who homeschooled. They were not introduced to me as homeschoolers but as I got to know them they began to describe their children and their involvement in their kids schooling, I was intrigued. It seemed to me that all of the preconceived notions that I had about homeschooled kids wasn't true. These kids were social, well rounded, well educated and loved being homeschooled. I began to look at options and how homeschooling worked. Let me just say, without direction and some guidance it can be wholly overwhelming.

After 6 months of reading about curriculum, certification programs, Washington State homeschool law, I still didn't know where to begin. Then my daughter began to see kids going on the bus, tv programs about kids in school and hearing about school from older kids. She wanted to go to a class, have lunch with kids, have a true teacher. I prayed long and hard about what to do. My heart was called to homeschool, her heart was called to class. Enter a good friend of mine and the savior to many of my mom questions. She was also a homeschooler and a provider of many of the answers to my homeschool questions. She mentioned to me a program that she had decided to send her oldest to, a program unlike any I had heard of.  This program was run through our school district and was no extra cost (bonus!), the kids are in school 2 days a week. Day 1, electives, the kids can choose up to 3 classes that range from foreign language to science to drama. Day 2, class with a licensed instructor. In class they cover social studies, science, english (though most is done at home) and some math (again, mostly done at home). After two years in this program we adore this school. The staff and teachers are amazing people, the class sizes are small, the home programs are easy to work with and we still get to enjoy things like field trips and school plays.

Well this is just an intro into the massive world of homeschooling. Comment if you'd like to see more of what an actual day looks like for us.

Diagnosis: Gestational Diabetes

This is my 4th pregnancy...yeah that's right, 4th.  No I am not crazy (well I suppose that can be debated on occasion.).  In truth I have always felt called to have 4 kids.  How else does one explain the sudden realization at 15 years old that they want to have a family that big.

The first 3 pregnancies had their ups and downs. Intense cravings, unreal morning sickness, immense swelling, crying because someone forgot to get no mayo on my cheeseburger (poor DH). I even had a failed induction with my 3rd child. This time around it's Gestational Diabetes (GD). In classic modern girl fashion, once my test results were in I took to the internet, learning as much as possible, how many carbs are recommended per meal, risks for the baby if I don't follow it closely, what other women ate while dealing with GD. All the while being overly concerned I wasn't doing enough.

I was officially at a fasting rate of 95 mgs/dl and the test cut off is 92 mgs/dl. Several of my friends suggested I ask to be retested but with my weight being higher that the last baby and said last baby being 10.2 lbs (!!) at birth my doc decided I would be good if I follow the dietary recommendations and check my glucose levels. Hard to argue with in my opinion.

More reasonably priced kit

One day after the diagnosis my doc called in my prescription for a meter and the accoutrements, I was appalled to learn that my insurance only covered the rediculous cost of the strips (seriously, how is the not covered in full?!?) at 50%. I emailed my doctor who was equally appalled and told me I was ok to purchase the more reasonable one I found on Amazon (Hooray for Amazon Prime).

"Ok, I have a meter, I'm eating better, now what?!"

Three days later I met with a dietician or nutritionist, I'm really not sure which. We go over blood sugar levels: Fasting <90 mgs/dl, 1 hour post eating: <140 mgs/dl (these numbers may vary). Max carbs: Breakfast 30 g, Snack (3) 15 g, Lunch and Dinner 45 g (may also vary based on facility).  Must eat 6 times min, a day. No pills, no insulin.

So far I am thankful for my culinary background in helping me be creative with vegetable dishes for dinners, my kids are still iffy on eating them but I'm happy! Mostly I'm thankful that I am now required to feed myself on a regular basis. As a pregnant mother of 3 it is surprising how often I realize at 3 pm that I haven't eaten since that half piece of toast a 9 am. All in all I am thankful for this opportunity to realize how many dang carbs a person can consume in a day and what is more appropriate. It can be so easy to not care about carbs on a daily basis. I personally think moderation on a daily basis is key, much easier to say then implement.

So far my numbers have been within range, although I learned I need to be careful with my intake of bread and butter pickles. The only thing I'm really missing is lattes. Still not daring enough to try a Dutch Bros (mmmmmmm) and I can't do artificial sweeteners.

29 weeks today!!! 

Let me know if you's be interested in seeing recipes on this blog. Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome!

Hello!

Welcome to my new blog!  I will start my first post by a little about myself...

Me

My name is Stef.

I am the mother of 3 active little kiddos and pregnant with our 4th (and last) kiddo.  We are from southwest Washington. I am an avid baker and partial homeschooler to my oldest. I was recently diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes, a first for me in all my pregnancies.  I adore being a mom and getting to be a SAHM (stay at home mom) was the biggest blessing of my life. I worked full time until my 3rd was born. I have a bit of insight into the life of a working mom and a SAHM. I wouldn't trade having had both experiences.  

I really hope to use this blog to show my experiences as a mom, share some recipes and just talk about some of our life experiences to help other moms know they are not alone. I welcome you to join me and learn with me as I go through parenting, one day at a time. 

My Crew

L to R: 

Me, Miss. S, Dear Husband (DH), Mr. C and Miss. H

Our newest addition to arrive in June

Miss. M.

My goal is to being posting new blogs weekly and go from there. Thank you for visiting!