Heiner Hullabaloo

We had a great time!  Benjamin's brothers and their families came to our house for Christmas this year.  Our first Christmas in our new house and we were able to spend it with lots of family!
We spent a lot of time watching the kids play together, chatting, and playing games.
One sister-in-law is from Sweden and so we went to IKEA (being a Swedish based store) for lunch and walked around.  It's a neat store, they have the kitchen of my dreams there.
  We made sugar cookies with the kids, went for a walk, went to the park, and went to the Festival of Lights at the Washington DC temple.
On Christmas, we woke up around 6AM and opened stockings and played with Santa gifts.  Then we ate breakfast, got ready for church, had enough time to take a few quick pictures of the kids, and AMAZINGLY made it to church ON TIME!  There is absolutely no excuse for being late in the future.  If we can all get ready on Christmas, with 6 adults and 6 kids and be on time, then there is NO excuse to be late again - we'll see. :)  We had a yummy well prepared (except the burnt marshmallows) dinner, and pies.








The next day we played our new games, mostly the ones for the XBOX Kinetic.  We got some great laugh wrinkles from that.  Please watch following video for some fun times!



On the night of the 26th we went to the Washington DC temple to see the lights and enjoy the visitors center.  It was wonderful.





Merry Christmas!

Benjamin is one of the scout leaders for church and therefore he gets to go to the activities with them.  This last weekend, Dec 10th, they were going to Arlington National Cemetery for the Laying of the Wreaths.  It was an amazing experience.  We were able to see many of the tombstones of the people that have fought for our country.  Many of the tombstones were of people that had been able to live long full lives, but there were those we found that had died young, during a war.

A couple weeks ago we went up to New York to visit some of our family.  We had great time!  They heard or saw somewhere that the New York State Fair was going to be there the same time we were, so we took a trip to the fair.
It somehow managed to be really hot.  We didn't bring any appropriate clothing for this trip since it's usually colder there than here in Virginia and we had been very autumny for the last week or two.  Oh well.  We got out the sunscreen, got the hair off our necks and set out.
I really thought the girls would be more afraid of the rides but they weren't scared in the lest.  Entegra was asking the entire time, "Can we go on the Ferris Wheel now?"  Entegra was smiling for the entire ride.  She was able to enjoy many rides and most of them without Mommy.  Benjamin doesn't do rides.  I actually have a funny dating story to go with that but I'll have to write down later.
Back to the kids.  Bracken fell asleep after several hours of whining and just being uncomfortable.  Inara was sad that she couldn't do as many rides as Sissy, she's 1-2 inches too short, but she still had a great time.
We were at the fair for about 6-8 hours (can't remember).  I really don't remember much about the first half, only searching for a bathroom for the girls.  But I do remember that didn't take 3 hours.  We tried to find somewhere to eat that wouldn't break the bank.  Ben or his brother found a hamburger place with reasonable prices but less than stellar hamburgers.  A bun, the hamburger meat...that's it.  But Ben and Jon were able to get a bloomin' onion, which was delicious.

Inara climbing the fence to look at the calf.

First half of the day...I remember now...we walked around, looked at booths a little, saw the rear end of several cows.  We saw a grey Swiss cow, that was a type of cow I've never seen before.  Attempted to see a Sea Lion show (or seal, don't know which) but watched the back of peoples heads for a little while instead.  Entegra was on Daddy's shoulders so she got to see.  After that we were too hot so we went in a building and looked at the exhibits.  The girls were able to make a few things and hold a baby chick.

Entegra holding a chick. We went outside and saw a bow and arrow activity.  Ann-Marie and I decided we wanted to give it a try.  Entegra jumped all over, super excited so I let her try too.  After we all had our turns, we sat down and watched a Pow Wow. Finally, we ate lunch and went on to the carnival part of the fair.  Entegra and Inara were excited to go on rides and waste money on the games.  We repeatedly told the girls, the point to the games was to try your best, but have fun trying with out expectations of winning...because seriously, the chances of winning are next to nothing.   Over all, we had a really great weekend.  We were able to play games, and go to the play ground...just have a good time.  On the other hand, we had quite the church experience due to cranky, tiredness, but that was just a small part of the trip.  Really, the kids just loved playing with their baby cousin and all her toys.  :)

A new ballet year has begun.
Entegra is in the same basic level again because she wasn't quite old enough yet for the next class but I think it'll be good for her.  She was a little shy but got into the steps pretty quickly.  It may be a little difficult for her to have such a long day.  I'm a little concerned about whether or not this was the best idea considering she's in school full day and then goes straight to ballet and tap with no down time.  By the time we get home it's dinner time, chores, and bed time.  But she's happy to be in dance and really wants to be in this program, so we'll just wait and watch.




Inara is starting her first year and has been super excited.  She didn't do much more then stand and stare at the teacher today, but hopefully she'll get used to everyone and become less shy.  If nothing else, she looks adorable in her pink ballet outfit.


I think the girls will have a fun time and I know they love the costumes they'll be able to wear for their performances. :)

Photo collage made with Smilebox

-Taryn

I've decided to create a new blog.  It'll be more of the couponing, dinner schedules, recipes, and less of the funny family moments.  I figured you all probably don't need or care to know what we're eating for dinner this week and I don't want it in our journal-ish blog.  I want to be able to this blog out at some point without all the added recipes or coupon trips.
So, if you feel like seeing our recipes, dinner schedule, and coupon things feel free to follow it.  It'll be called Heiner Household Happenings.

I'm sure somethings will be linked back and forth.
Thanks,
Taryn

Okay, so that was previously a total failure.  Note to self, don't try $35 per week if going on vacation with entire family to California!  It isn't going to work.  Actually, I had this whole plan on how to make it nearly work but Ben was not for it.  He said, "We're not buying bread or packing cereal while on vacation!"  Alright, alright...I wanted to eat out at La Comida anyways :)   (Apparently, smiley faces are a new type of punctuation, at least on my blog it is.)
Click here to see my plan for super cheap vacation eating.

So, I'm going to attempt, again, the $35 per week grocery limit.  I'll add some new goals, and some of the old.

Old goals:  includes- food, baby things (ie. wipes, baby food, etc.), going out to eat, household necessities (ie. toilet paper, zipper baggies, laundry soap, etc.), health and beauty items (ie. shampoo, body wash, hand soap, etc.), and couponing trips.
New goals:  week starts Friday (payday) and ends Thursday night; can use current pantry items (this will help with cycling through some of the storage that never gets used); fruits and veggies at least twice a day; and I'm not going to stress 2 weeks, just go as long as I can.

Just so you can understand, our usual grocery budget is somewhere between $100-$150 per week but we spend over consistently for no real good reason.  Usually it has something to do with the yummy tasters at Costco :) or sodas and cookies at McDonald's.
It's fine, I just like a challenge in something that interests me, plus that extra money can be saved for Fast Offerings and fixing up our basement.
Fun Fun, wish me luck!

-Taryn

We were going to California during the middle of my $35 per week grocery goal and I wanted to see how I could possibly make it work while on vacation.  This is what I was planning to do but understandably, Benjamin didn't feel the need to be that cheap :)

Friday-(leave for airport at 1pm)
Breakfast at home, cereal or oatmeal
Lunch at home, sandwiches or Totinos pizza
Dinner: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carrot sticks, popcorn (pre-popped, obviously), clementines, and an empty water bottle (the airport will allow you to bring food but only empty bottles that you may fill up after security checks you in).
Bracken: 4 frozen baby food cubes with 3 tablespoons baby cereal (will thaw by the time we're on the plane for dinner).
All of that is on hand, no associated cost.


Saturday-
Breakfast:  cereal  (packed box of cereal, bowls, spoons, dish soap, sponge), buy 1 quart of milk when awake.
    Cost: $2
Lunch:  peanut butter and honey sandwiches, apples, 1 pop tart (packed peanut butter, honey, loaf of bread, apples, and pop tarts).
    Cost:  assume didn't have apples originally (4 small) or bread (1/3 of a loaf) all bought at home because taxes are 4% less= $1.75ish
Dinner:  Super Ultra Delicious Special Gorgeous Yummy Still-Dreaming-About-It Grandma Birthday Dinner made by Super Ultra Gorgeous Talented Cousin (you know who you are )!
See, we were still able to eat real food.
   Total Cost: $3.75ish


Sunday-
Breakfast:  same as Saturday  (we didn't even manage this, we were in such a rush to get to church and were amazed to find we were the first ones there from the family!  AMAZING, it never happens.)  Instead we snuck goldfish and animal crackers during Sacrament meeting (packed from home.)
   Cost: would've cost $2, actual cost $0
Lunch:  leftovers from dinner the night before
Dinner:  eat more leftovers and cake from party
   Total cost: would've cost $2, actual cost $0


Monday-
Breakfast:  Same as Saturday
   Cost: $2
Lunch:  Zot's -there was no way I was going all the way to California and not eating the best hot dog in the world (We didn't make it. Darn it.)  Other Grandma bought doughnuts and Dad provided milk.
   Cost:  if Aunty was there $7-8, if Uncle was there $14  :)
Dinner:  La Comida- there was no way I was going all the way to California and not eating at a childhood favorite restaurant.  (We did make it and it cost more than I expected.)
   Cost:  expected $12ish, actual $21
   Total cost:  w/auntie and expected $22, w/uncle and expected $28, actual spent $23


Tuesday-
Breakfast:  haul to the airport, after settled on plane eat apples, animal crackers, goldfish, any packed snacks.
   Cost: $1.35ish (apples)
Lunch:  prepacked lunches- PB&honey sandwiches, snacks, airplane pretzels and in flight sodas.
   Cost: $0.45 (part of bread loaf)
Dinner:  not quite home yet, see if we can make it on stashed airplane snacks, sodas, and home brought snacks and any leftover bread.  When home eat Totinos pizza, again.  Wednesday we'd have a real meal again!
  Cost: $0.15 (part of bread loaf)
  Total cost: $1.95


I forgot to mention Bracken's food.  I found stage 2 foods 2 pack for $1.34 with $1 off coupon for 2 boxes attached to each box.  So, I bought 4 boxes, a total of 8 containers, enough for one container for lunch and one for dinner everyday at a total of $3.36, bringing each meal to $0.42.  Seems like a bit especially when I make mine at home for $0.10 a meal, maybe, but the cheapest I am able to find for a single container is $0.60, therefore yeah to me!  Most the time, however, he just ate what I ate.  He only ate about 3 containers.


Complete and Total Cost estimated:  $33.06
Complete and Total Cost actual w/estimate:  $29.96
     (being that we weren't being cheap and so we ate out instead of eating packed bread and cereal)
Actual Cost (since we ate out):  about $128
    We ate out a LOT, probably 8 times.  Oh well.

We had a blast though and didn't have to worry about anything.
Yea!


-Taryn

I just want to start writing out my menu plan for the week so that I can refer back to one specific place instead of the 12 different pieces of paper I was randomly using.  Plus, this way I can link recipes and easily find things, hopefully.
This week isn't going to be the norm.  I hope to write out the menu in advance, this is just dinner that we did at the time.


Monday
Totino's Pizza  2 boxes  (we bought while couponing)

Tuesday
Spaghetti with red sauce
Texas Toast (bought while couponing)

Wednesday
main dish: Old El Paso Tortilla Stuffers (previous coupon trip)
vegetable:  couple of spinach leaves hidden inside burrito with cheese
fruit: Carnation instant breakfast shake with banana and a few leaves spinach

Thursday
Totino's Pizza (for girls and myself, Ben ate cereal and frozen burritos)
Berry smoothie
    (we weren't really that hungry, see family outings Children's Museum, if your curious)

Friday
Dinner was suppose to be Hamburger Helper (available from previous couponing) but it requires milk which we're still out of.  So, we made tacos.  We didn't have any tortillas, but luckily I had tortilla flour on hand and we made our own.  Got out a can of refried beans, salsa, and some cheese, and called it a meal.
(I'll eventually link how to make homemade tortillas)


Saturday
Entegra had pizza at a friends house.
Ramen noddles for everyone else, which Entegra also ate.  She was hungry, even after 2 slices of pizza!


Sunday
Pancakes with sweet potato puree mixed in

MONDAY
My week begun with a trip to the store for coupon shopping.  I went over budget, at least with the amount I wanted to spend on couponing.  But here is what I was able to get with the coupons.

All of this totaled $50.80.  After coupons $6.38! Totino's were the only thing that cost me. 87% Savings!

All of this totaled $60.65 before coupons.  After coupons $17.50! 71% Savings!