Eat From the Pantry Challenge

I follow several money-saving and couponing blogs written by women who inspire and motivate me to be a good steward of the resources God has blessed us with. Two of my favorites are taking the challenge to eat only from their pantries and freezers for the entire month of January. Of course they will still buy fresh produce, milk and eggs, but they are limiting their grocery shopping excursions to 3 times in the month and their spending to no more than $75 total! WOW!

Let me just say that when I first read about this idea, I was filled with trepidation for them. One of the bloggers has a family of 8! How could she do it, I thought?! But then after seeing pictures of her pantry and freezers (notice multiple freezers), I started to think about my own pantry (or rather cabinets) and freezer and realized I too could do it. Check it out!!









Since I first started aggressively couponing and stockpiling food about two months ago, we have been bursting at the seams with food. We gave away a good bit during the holidays, but as you can see we could probably live off all this for quite some time.

My goals for this challenge are slightly different from Money Saving Mom and LifeasMom's. You can see their goals here. However, I do intend, like they do, to purchase the perishables we need 3 times a month, spending less than $75 total.

My additional more personal goals are as follows:

1. To make creative use of the foods in my pantry and freezer
2. To decrease spending at the grocery store and therefore also my dependence on grocery shopping and deal-finding, which has become an obsession of sorts
3. To increase my faith that God will provide because it is easy for me to be self-reliant in this area
4. To simplify my life

My concerns are that I will miss out on good stockpiling opportunities in the month of January and that I will not be able to come up with creative AND yummy foods from what I have on hand. However, I do have an amazing husband and mom who are excellent and resourceful cooks, so the latter qualm should be easily rectified.

Pray for my family and me as we take on this challenge. We may not be able to last the entire month, but even if we can do it for 2 weeks, I would be thrilled and our family blessed. I will keep you posted as to how it goes!

A Very Merry Christmas

Last year Kate was too young to enjoy Christmas. And while this year she still didn't truly grasp what was going on, she did appear interested in at least a few things about Christmas that I too find important:

She loved eating Christmas cookies (sugar cookies rolled out and cut into snowmen, candy canes and the like and frosted with red and green icing). Here she looks like she has a big slimy green booger sliding down her nose. Gross!



She also enjoyed tearing open the packages with Daddy's help. Most people who know me well know that I prefer wrapped gifts to bagged ones because I love the thrill of ripping open the paper. Guess I'm a kid at heart, too!



Kate hit the motherlode with gifts this year...not really from Daddy and Mommy as much as from grandparents and great-grandparents. Fortunately for us, she did get a lot of much-needed clothing and some great little books, CDs and puzzles.



But, most importantly, Kate had a blast with all of her relatives, especially her cousins and grandparents. Here she is sitting in her cousin Zach's new dunebuggie while Kaileigh keeps everyone in line.




This Christmas was so much fun, and I know as Kate grows older, future Christmases will be even more enjoyable. It's amazing how your whole way of thinking about Christmas changes when you have kids. Even as a young adult, I eagerly anticipated waking up on Christmas morning to see what "Santa" had brought. Now, as a parent myself, I (and Daniel) want to emphasize to Kate the value of the immaterial (family, friends, love and hope) and downplay the material (presents) to teach our children the true meaning of Christmas.

I pray you had a blessed Christmas and that 2010 is a wonderful year for you and your families!

A Gingerbread Man & a Christmas Bush

While the menfolk went hunting up in South Dakota, us girls had our own fun making and decorating and of course eating a delicious gingerbread man. Lacey, our resident artist, did an amazing job dressing our little man.



Lacey is so funny. She made the comment that: "Eating candy is more fun than playing." Here she is stuffing gumdrops in her mouth. Of course she didn't want her mama to know we were eating so much candy!

On another note...here is our beautiful Christmas bush! Daniel and I are cheap, let me tell you! We couldn't justify spending $20 on a pathetic little sapling at Lowe's and I can't tolerate a "fake" tree (it's "Un-Christmas" to me), so we spent an hour searching the woods behind Daniel's parents' house until we found "the perfect tree." Unfortunately, it looks more like a bush AND it actually fell and almost hit Kate! Maybe I will rethink the whole "fake" tree after all!



If you know me then you will know I am not a creative, artsy person although I do aspire to be one. I commented to Jen earlier this week that I couldn't wait until Kate was older so we could make homemade ornaments together. Of course Jen is an amazingly creative person and said that there were lots of ornament ideas for little ones to do. Here are a few we did together (well, I really did them but Kate helped!):

The handprint ornament (What a mess!):



The wreath ornament is actually Kate's hand cut out and taped together. Really cute and easy!



We wish you a Merry Christmas!! God bless you and your families this Christmas season.

Book Reviews

To explain the seemingly random last post, I am writing book reviews for Thomas Nelson publishers. Basically, I pick a book from their list, they ship it to me free, I read the book, write a review of it, and then post my review to my blog and to another consumer website (e.g. Barnes & Noble, Amazon). I get to keep the books, too! This is the perfect gig for me!! So, if you periodically see book reviews on here, then that is because I am posting my obligatory book reviews for Thomas Nelson. Maybe you will find a book you are interested in reading!

The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great by Benjamin Merkle

The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great provides a historical account of the legendary Anglo-Saxon king, who valiantly and tirelessly fought for and defended his nation, again and again, against the marauding Vikings.

In this work Merkle highlights the military conflicts fought between the Christian (Alfred) and pagan (Vikings) forces as one by one the kingdoms of present-day England fall to the Northmen until only Wessex, Alfred’s kingdom, remains. Even after he is forced to abandon his throne, Alfred pursues the Vikings using guerrilla warfare and is eventually successful, even convincing the Viking leader to be baptized. Merkle’s vivid dramatization of the battles of Ashdown and Edington sends readers racing out onto the field of battle ready to protect and defend, fully armed with his informative asides about the typical weapons, military techniques, and strategies donned by both the Viking and Saxon warriors. Merkle also introduces and demystifies many of the popular legends and myths associated with Alfred and the places where he fought.

Merkle attributes Alfred’s greatness not only to his success on the battlefield, but also to his radical military reforms, his revival of literacy and Christian piety, and his revision of the Anglo-Saxon legal code. The White Horse King revived my interest in Anglo-Saxon history and literature while providing substantive information in a clear, concise way that does not overwhelm or oversensationalize. Merkle’s work is also interspersed with helpful maps, pictures, and notes and concludes with an annotated bibliography of useful sources for the interested reader. I highly recommend this book to any history or biography readers.

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