Eating Clean on a Budget: Intro

Most of our friends know that we eat a kind of "crazy" real food/paleo diet. While, I've always enjoyed cooking meals from scratch, our family's food intolerances has taken cooking from scratch to a whole new level! As my 9 year old says, "we eat only things that grow in the ground or animals" and that is completely accurate! We eat meats, vegetables, fruits, seeds, beans and nuts. We eat little to no processed foods, grains, dairy or soy. Feeding a family of six, with four growing boys, without breaking the bank, is quite challenging!!

I wrote another blog on where we source our food, but it has changed slightly since moving to South Carolina. We order from Azurestandard.com, Vitacost and Amazon Prime. Our family typically shops at Aldi, Sam's Club, and go to the Soda City Farmer's Market for goat milk, eggs, meat and vegetables. We get lots of stares at the farmer's market as we parade down the street with our collapsible wagon full of 5 gallons of goat milk, 3 overflowing boxes of produce, 8 dozen eggs and meat! We eat a lot of food and are quite a sight!!

This series will share breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack and drink recipes from our home! I hope these recipes hope your family eat clean while keeping a budget!

Good reads

Many of you know that I am very intentional about what we put IN our bodies (organic/real food) and ON our bodies (essential oils, natural products), but I also realize there is much more to us than what we consume and touch. My boys are growing up quickly; my oldest devours a novel a day and wants to read anything he can gets in his hands! I want to be careful and intentional about the things we are putting in their hands and minds. We want the things they read, listen to, and watch to produce spiritual fruit, grow their minds and imaginations, and encourage them to follow Christ. Over the past few years, I have asked older and wiser parents for suggestions and help. Here are a few of our favorites...

Missionary biographies

The boys and I just finished Nate Saint's biography and all I can say is WOW! I've read several books on Jim Elliot and other missionaries, but to walk through that story with my boys was incredible! I loved seeing them on the edge of their seat wanting one more chapter, hearing their excitement as they built paper model airplanes, and seeing them process the missionaries' sacrifice of their lives. I pray the Lord will give my boys a heart for the nations to know Him, as we read these biographies!

Some may think it's too violent or sad for their kids to read stories of missionaries or martyrs. However, this generation seems to be old enough to process the battles in Star Wars and video games; let's give them examples of a real and worthy spiritual battle on the mission field. 

Hero Tales  and Missionary Stories with the Millers are great compilations of short missionary stories with great lessons!  Window on the World is a great book that discusses people groups and how to pray for each of them. We also like the Trailblazer books, by Dave and Neta Jackson. My boys are already excited to start reading about George Mueller next week! 

Bible

We want our kids' favorite story, to be the story of God's love and redemption in Christ! We desire them to know God, love and follow Him, So, we desperately need God's Word! Here are a few of our favorite Bibles, from infant to older boy.

Toddler - The Gospel Project Big Picture Interactive Bible for Toddlers, consists of two board book Bibles, an Old Testament and New Testament. My husband reads this Bible to our 1 and 3 years old boys each night. 

Preschool to Young Elementary - The Gospel Project The Big Picture Interactive Bible Storybook. My 7 year old loves keeping up with what he's learning in Sunday morning small group with this Bible! The Jesus Storybook Bible is a great Bible for a wide range of ages! We've read through The Jesus Storybook Bible several times and love it!

School age readers - NIV Adventure Bible My 8 year old loves reading this Bible on his own!

Books and CDs

My older boys have enjoyed Adventures In Odyssey audio stories for years. We love the Bible Eyewitness set that takes listeners back in time to experience each Bible story.

Jonathan Park is another great audio series for kids!

My oldest discovered the Adventures in Odyssey Imagination Station novel series last year and can't get enough! We love the books because they take him on a reading adventure back in time to different significant historical events. He's learning history while enjoying a great adventurous book! 

A few other favorite books are Little Pilgrim's Progress, Kingdom Tales, Chronicles of Narnia Series, and The Boxcar Children, Magic Treehouse. Other fun books our sons have really enjoyed are: Origami Yoda series (Inspired by this series, my boys have made over 100 origami Star Wars characters!), Frog and Toad Series (lots of funny voices and laughs), I Love You, Goodnight, A to Z Mystery Series, God Found Us You, and Geronimo Stilton books and videos. We gave our oldest son The Dangerous Book for Boys for Christmas this year. 

I would love to hear about great books and resources 

you are using with your families!

Creative Gift Ideas for Boys

With Christmas approaching, many parents and grandparents are searching for the perfect gifts for their kids. Many get tired of the same noisy toys or video games. Here are several ideas that I've found (and links that others have compiled) of great gift ideas that grow kids' imaginations, minds and love for the Lord!

Here's an awesome link by Megan Spires, with a list of 100+ battery free Christmas gifts for kids! From building toys, paper airplanes and Star Wars Origami to creative toys I would have never thought of... this is a great list!

Looking for gifts that grow kids' imagination and love for the Lord? Check out this post!

Ann Voskamp, author of The Greatest Gift, talks about how to have the greatest Christmas! She has beautiful family devotions (for grown up kids and littles) in her Jesse Tree Advent books.

My boys get excited every year when we pull this out of the attic! I love hearing them act out the Christmas story as they play together!!

Do you have a history lover? Or trying to foster an appreciation for American History? This inexpensive CD set would be a great gift!

Looking for family devotional books? Hero Tales is a family favorite with our boys! There are several volumes in this series.

My favorite gift for our oldest son this year is The Dangerous Book for Boys!

My son's favorite book from library, because what boy doesn't LOVE Legos!!

Snap Circuits has been one of my boys' favorite gifts!! They (and Grandpa) spent hours playing with it together!

I would love to hear your creative gift ideas!!!

Disclaimer: There are NO affiliate links. Just sharing my opinion and ideas that I liked!

One fun day:)

I'm so thankful the boys are starting to feel better and the weather is nice again! I feel like all is well with the world again when we can get outside to play! Here are some fun pics from our day:)

Art project!

6 years old, self portrait

Self portrait - he dyed the string brown for hair!

Samuel - 2yrs self portrait

Getting creative with shapes!

Timothy sleeping in swing, Evan reading, Ben playing ball and Samuel jumping!
Very typical:)

A quick nap before soccer:) He loves his swing outside!

Sweet Timothy loves to be outside:)

Samuel had fun playing soccer too!
Always jumping:)

Go lightning! They won 5-0!

They played hard tonight!

defense

goalie!

So proud of my soccer players!

A seven year old's love for the Word

I was blown away, challenged and incredibly blessed by prayer time with my boys tonight...

There were only three of us praying together, since one of the babies really needed to get to sleep. My six year old prayed, then my seven year old prayed and I finished in prayer. I noticed my seven year old, Evan, was in a different position from when we started and was laying on the ground. 

After prayer time, Evan said, "I prayed in 3 different ways." He then demonstrated

1. Standing with his hands raised

2. Kneeling with head bowed

3. Face down in prayer

I asked him where he learned those ways. He responded, "I read about it in my Bible."

1. Daniel kneeled down in prayer

2. After Moses was angry with the Israelites, he fell on his face before God

3. Paul told, I think, the Galatians to lift their hands in prayer (actually 1Timothy)

I was blown away, blessed, challenged, and thankful for the love God has given Evan for His Word! I pray God will continue to give him and his younger brothers (and me) a love and hunger for His Word! I pray God will grow our boys and use them mightily for His glory!

Summer bucket list

We're looking forward to a fun filled, busy, adventurous, family filled, exciting summer! These are a few our our plans and adventures for the summer;)
1. Vacation Bible School
2. Day at the Paragould water park
3. Fun at the Georgia Aquarium

4. Day at the beach in Gulf Shores, AL 

5. Swimming at Granny & Grandpa's new pool!

6. Bring home our new baby:)
7. Family reunion

8. Camping in the backyard

9. Slumber party with cousins!
10. Evan's Star Wars 7th birthday celebration!
11. Family Vacation to Mountain Home, AR

12. Celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary:)

13. Sports & More Camp
14. Nerf gun war at church
15. Growing a large vegetable garden
16. Make lots of blueberry, strawberry, & muscadine jam
17. Crowley's Ridge Nature Center
18. Many trips to the library

19. Swimming and water games in the backyard

20. Get muddy!!!
21. Sidewalk painting!
22. Lots of fun activities with HDBC Children's Ministry!

What activities are you and your family planning to do this summer?

Little hands painting!!

Evan and Ben have always enjoyed painting... the littlest one is no different! Samuel experienced painting for the first time today and had a blast!!

So excited to paint like big brothers!!

This is so much FUN!

He really knew what he was doing!!

Even used a paint brush!

Can you tell he's having FUN?!

Should I paint myself too?

Painting on paper is fun too!

Really focused on his masterpiece.

Painting belly & paper:)

All of my boys have to paint a goatee like Daddy;)

Getting messy in a dinosaur swamp!

Want to give little boys an activity full of creative, sensory, messy, imaginative fun?

 Have fun creating this dinosaur swamp for your little guys (or girls). 

You can use items from your kitchen, house and yard. This week I used green spaghetti (spaghetti cooking in water with food coloring), several types of beans/rocks (pinto, lima, lentils, split peas), rice, large rocks, mint leaves, and toy dinosaurs. Sometimes I add a little of the green pasta water to make it extra messy fun!

 Enjoy watching your little guys play and explore... or go work on those 7 loads of laundry;)

Looking for other ideas for creative indoor play? Check out these other blogs:
Indoor Activities for my stir crazy boys
Cooking like Mommy: Pretend cooking with real ingredients

Indoor activities for my stir crazy boys!

Anyone else super excited about springtime? Even though it is March, this freezing winter weather has made us a little stir crazy and ready to play outside, take walk around the neighborhood, plant our veggie garden, play in the mud, and have lots of fun with our boys OUTSIDE! Here are a few of our fun indoor activities that make these cold indoor day a lot more bearable... even FUN!

Pretend cooking with REAL food is one of the boys favorite messy FUN activities! I blogged about this awhile back, but we enjoyed this great sensory activity this weekend inside with our guys:)

Monster play dough is another great activity for the boys! My 5 and 6 year old guys enjoy creating monsters out of our homemade play dough! I give the boys a mound of play dough, toothpicks, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, buttons, and sit back to watch them create!

I made these felt dress up Mr. Potato Heads for a long road trip last spring, but the boys enjoy playing with these at home too! I glued a solid piece of felt to cardboard and glued the face shape and googly eyes. They each have a bag full of clothes, hats, and facial features to dress up their own Mr. Potato head.

 Dinosaur swap involves some prep by Mom, but is loads of fun!!

Dinosaur swamp

Painting or drawing is always a winner with my creative little guys! 

My boys have such a blast dressing up as one of many superheroes, fireman, soldier, race car driver, Mario & Luigi, and wild animals! I hope the boys never tire of playing dress up! 

And then there is always the option to get outside and build an igloo!! 

How does your family have fun indoors on cold winter days?