Thrifty

I am a member of a few Triplet Forums and every few months the subject of our grocery bill total comes up.  After commenting that I spend $300-$400 a month for a family of 5, I get many inquires on how I do it.

I am not an extreme couponer. Actually I rarely use coupons.  What I do is shop the ads, stock up, buy the store brands and that's where I find my deals.  I have nothing against those who coupon but the grocery store I shop at(United Supermarkets) doesn't accept double or triple coupons.  For me it's just cheaper and less time consuming to purchase the store brand, over the brand with the coupon.  I actually enjoy the store brands over most name brands.

We have a large freezer and 2 small ones, so when meat, vegetables, fruit or bread are on sale I stock up.  If ground beef or chicken breasts are at their lowest sale price, I stock up.  I may spend more than my normal monthly amount but the following months tends to be less.  Starting tomorrow United Supermarket's ad has Pork Butt Roast for $.97 lb and I will stock up on this item.  My husband doesn't like roast BUT he loves my pulled pork BBQ sandwiches.  I found my FAVORITE pulled pork recipe on Aly's Sweet and Savory Eats and it is delicious.  There is even enough that I can freeze and eat at a later date. I have included the recipe under this post:)

When freezable fruits and vegetable are on sale I stock up on these too.  Here are the items I like freezing:

Carrots: I scrub and chop any large carrots into smaller pieces and then I store them in a gallon freezer bag, releasing all air from the baggie. Once the carrots thaw they are less crisp, making them still good to cook with but not as good to eat raw.

Peppers:  I wash, remove seeds, and slice into strips or chop(depending on how I use them). I store them in a freezer bag, releasing all air from the baggie.  I really like doing this when I find red/yellow/orange/green bell peppers on sale. I use them in tacos, burritos, meatloaf, fajitas...

Onions: I peal and chop each onion. I then wrap(half cup increments) and double freezer bag all the onions together.  You can also use an airtight, BPA free, plastic container.  If you don't your freezer will smell like onions. 

Blueberries/Blackberries/Raspberries: I just freeze them directly in a freezer baggie without washing first.  Washing can alter them.  Perfect for smoothies, pancakes, muffins...

Strawberries: I wash, slice and then store in freezer baggies.  I love these for strawberry shortcake.

Avacados; I have never tried to freeze avocados but here are some ways I'd like to try:

                   http://www.simplifylivelove.com/2012/02/freezing-avocados.html

                   http://www.pinksugarbowl.com/2012/01/over-ripe-avocados-dont-throw-them-out.html

Many websites recommend you "blanch" the fruit/veggies before freezing, to prevent them from sticking together.  I just skip this step.  When I pull the item out of the freezer I just bang the baggie against my counter top to break them up.  I have a busy enough schedule as it is I don't have time to blanch :)  There are other veggies you can freeze (potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkin, mushrooms, etc) but the above are the ones I have experience with.

Untied Supermarkets Ad: Feb 6th-12th
Fresh Baby Carrots $1.97 for a 2lb bag. 
Fresh Green Bell Peppers 2 for $1.00
Sweet Onions: $.99 lb

Barbecue Pulled Pork Sandwiches

pork butt (I used 2.5 lb - but you can use whatever size needed for your family)

1 can Diet Pepsi

1/2 bottle Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce

Lawry's Seasoning Salt

Generally coat pork butt with Lawry's seasoning salt, don't be afraid to cover it all! Place in crock pot and pour in soda and barbecue sauce. Cover and cook on low for 4-5 hours. If you have a larger piece of meat, it will probably take longer. After 4 hours or so, take two forks and shred the meat into bite size chunks. Let it sit in the juice to soak up all that flavor. It can stay on warm in crock pot while serving, and can easily be reheated the next day. Serve on a kaiser roll and add more barbecue sauce if needed. 

 I wanted to let you all to know that The Doctor's show will be doing a feature multiple births tomorrow Wednesday, February 6th and then a feature on cochlear implants Thursday, February 7th.  I'll be watching both;)

http://www.thedoctorstv.com/main/this_weeks_shows

Much Love,

Tanna

Hello, my name is Tanna and I'm a Pinaholic

I don't know about you but I happened to be addicted to Pinterest.  I find myself pinning all the time and imagining all the crafty and amazing projects I could complete.  The only problem is, is that I pin and pin but I never get around to creating anything.  My New Year's resolution I made this year, is to try one new "Pinterest" recipe per week and attempt to create something amazing I pinned.

For the month of January I failed but I plan to succeed in the month of February.  Until then you may want to check out my Pinterest board of things I have done in the past. 

http://pinterest.com/tannatriplets/pin-it-did-it/

Much Love,
Tanna

The Possibilities

When we first learned Colton was deaf we tried focusing on the things he could do, rather than things he couldn't do.  When Colton received his Cochlear Implant we were warned high impact sport were not a good option for him. With high impact sports there is the possibility Colton's internal processor could be damaged, which in turn could cause long term damages to his hearing.  Gary(Dad) and I are very athletic and we had hoped that our children would follow in our foot steps and be active in sports. With Colton's implants we knew some sports, like football, would be off limits but we wondered which sports would be a good fit for him.

Last year we learned of a new Texas Tech basketball player who wore a Cochlear Implant.  In 2011 Luke Adams started playing for the Texas Tech basketball team, after walking on.  When I learned about Luke I was so inspired by his story.  I knew I had to get my kids to a basketball game. My Mother-In-Law sent an e-mail to Texas Tech's head basketball coach requesting a meeting with Luke.  We were so excited when we learned that they were going to let us meet him before a game.  We were allowed to go down to the court, as the team was warming up and met Luke.  He is such a nice and welcoming young man.  I was so honored to be able to met him and it opened my eyes to all of Colton's future possibilities.

After meeting Luke, we signed the triplets up for outdoor soccer.  Lets just say, the athletic bone may have skipped a generation, LOL.  My kids are not the star of the soccer field but they did have fun and we had fun watching them.  To prevent Colton's implants from falling off during a game, we had him wear a white sweat headband. We learned this little trick from Luke.  This spring we are going to sign the kids up for baseball and we hope that is a better fit.

Much Love,
Tanna

Where has the time gone?

One of my New Year resolutions is to start my blog back up. I need to do it for me.  If you are reading this great but my main reason is so I can remember.  I have the absolute worst memory EVER! I love reading my past posts.  I hope by reviving this blog, it will help me to remember these days.

Where are we now??

My triplets are now 5 1/2 yrs old.  I can't believe it.  Time has really flown way to fast.  They are currently in kindergarten.  For the kids first year I decided to have them in separate classes. Colton's class is for children with hearing loss only, so Lincoln and Kota had to be split from him.  Since Lincoln is very dependent upon his siblings, I felt he needed his own classroom to find himself.  What is nice is that Colton and Lincoln's teachers share teaching duties.  For half a day they are together and it has really help bond Lincoln and Colton.

Colton has now has his cochlear implants for 3 years.  He is defiantly progressing slower than most but I know that is because he has other developmental delays.  Currently he is in speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy.  It is helping but the results are just slow.  He can say about 100 words but still chooses to use sign language as his main form of communication.  He understands everything we say, he just responds back with sign.  In just the last 6 months does he talk and sign at the same time but it is very broken.  This spring we have enrolled him in additional speech therapy and since he has a summer birthday he will be repeating kindergarten.  I hope by doing this it will help him to catch up.

I stopped working back in Nov '11, not because I wanted to but because I was fired.  A few months before I was fired my manager came to me and told me I needed to make a bigger commitment to the company.  She told me that if it wasn't something I could do then maybe I should look for someplace else to work.  This is the same person who is not married and has no kids.  She calls her dogs her kids and even at times tried to compair her dogs to my kids.  They were not happy that I was allowed to take FMLA so that I could take Colton to his speech therapy.  They were also not happy that I wasn't able to stay late or work extra on the weekends.  I apologized but told them my family will always come first and I would never choose my job over my family.  After that they started keep track of everything I did and in the end terminated me for "low performance".  I know for a fact that my numbers where higher than fellow employees and I wasn't a low preformer.  At first I was upset and hurt but now I know it was a blessing.  I've enjoyed my time off and being able to spend time with my family has been great.  I look back and wished it would have happened sooner.  I missed so much being away from them,  time I can't get back. I learned so much from this experience and I wouldn't change it for anything.

Well the kids are scheduled to get off their bus and then all hell will break lose, so I had better go and prepare.

Much Love,

Tanna