Tonight is the last night of a mega event at Kroger. I have a hand full of awesome coupons that could save me about $200 on my bill….

I also have 100 boxes to be unpacked, no hot water, a headache, no iron or ironing board (I have no idea what I am going to wear to work tomorrow) and have not seen my husband in about a week. I sat for a minute wondering how I was going to possibly run into Kroger quick and use them up. Then I quietly reminded myself, what I would like to remind all of you, that a great deal will come back around again. Sure, it stinks I don’t even have time to give away any of these coupons to my friends or family but there will always be another time.

So I held the baby, took extra long putting the 3 year old to bed, looked for the iron (didn’t find it) answered some email, and am currently stalling as I HATE a cold shower and will kiss the Natural Gas guy when he gets here tomorrow!

I LOVE this girl. She is a 40 year old woman trapped in a 5 year old body. Need advice? She can give it to you. This kid runs a room, you don’t need to help her do anything, she is so self sufficient it is scary.

I had to run into work this morning, as we were walking out she noticed her shoe was untied. She was also eating some chocolate at the same time.

This obviously creates a problem. How can you possibly tie your shoe and keep your chocolate safe? I was interested to see what she would do.

She does what any smart woman would do, tucks her chocolate safely under her chin to hold while the shoe gets tied. Brilliant. A girl after my own heart.

Once Upon A Time, there was a Man and a Woman, who thought it would be a good idea to have 7 children (we really are, but for the purpose of this post I am being sarcastic ;0). But, in their bliss of raising these wonderful children they were not prepared to take into account a few things….

The time would soon come that they would outgrow their “starter” home (12 years later) and need to move to a larger house. As their luck would have it, their 1st home would sell quickly and their new home would not be ready for 2 months. “No problem” says the Man, we will just temporarily rent something until we can move into the new house. The Woman (because I get the fun jobs) looks and looks and looks for somewhere that will do a short term lease.

“Oh, you don’t lease to someone with 7 kids and a dog?”

“What if we lose the dog?” the Man says. Then the Woman kicks him.

“It is against the public housing act, to have 9 people in a 4 bedroom apartment?” The Woman exclaims as another options goes out the window. “What do families do that have to rent with a bunch of kids?!”

“You don’t do short term leases, ever?” She asks for the 23rd time.

The Woman is getting desperate. The Man however, sleeps soundly without a care in the world. “We have a tent” he says, then he goes back to playing basketball on the driveway with the kids.

The Woman is now envisioning staying at the Marriott for 2 months and ordering room service for every meal.

“What? I would need to get 2 rooms for that many people, what do you mean you don’t allow kids to sleep on the floor in sleeping bags for 2 months at the Marriott!”

Stay tuned….

P.S. You should see how fun it is to try and find a vehicle that seats more than 8! What were that Man and Woman thinking? 🙂

Its been a little while since I have embarrassed myself/told you a family story…

Occasionally we are interviewed for different reasons by the media, usually they need a “family” to film and we try and pretend to be normal.

This past State of the Union Address, a local station needed a family to interview about our feelings about the Presidents address. They came out before it was on to get our opinion and ask us some questions. Paul and I enjoy politics, and follow closely so we were prepared to answer anything that they asked us. However, we quickly realized that they were not interested in a political story and a families opinion, but a family story about the state of the economy.

We played along and they asked to film us making dinner. No problem, I was making pulled pork sandwiches, one of the kids favorite and had everything ready to go.

Please tell me that I am not the only one who gets those little sugar ants in your house when it rains? EVERY TIME we get a bunch of rain, they end up finding their way into the house. It drive me nuts. Then I spend the next week trying to get rid of them.

So, I am working on shredding the meat and Paul starts slicing the rolls for dinner. The camera is rolling up close and in our faces while we are working on dinner. Paul desperately starts trying to get my attention and under his breath mutters, “Tiffany! There are ants on the rolls!!!!”

“You have GOT to be kidding me!” I whisper back. ” Just go with it, act like nothing is wrong!”

We continue to make dinner with the camera rolling on our every move and Paul brushes off the ants. We make the plates for the kids, and get them up to the table. We say prayer and try to quietly signal to the kids to wait to eat. The camera crew has been here forever and we are thinking they should leave at any minute.

My 9 year old daughter is NOT getting the sign language messages from us and sees the ants in her plate, she starts freaking out and LOUDLY yelling, “There are ANTS on my sandwich!”

Paul is trying to whisper to just be quiet and we will go out to eat as soon as they leave!

“Dad, there are ants, see right here!” she says. Then she starts counting them. “Mom look, 1, 2, 3, 4, I see 5 OF THEM!”

The cameras are now doing a close up of her counting abilities.

I am wishing a hole would open up in the floor and I could crawl into it. I am begging her to stop counting the ants on T.V. and explaining that we do not expect her to eat it, it is just for the filming and we are eating elsewhere. She finally gets it when her older sister hits her in the arm ( also all on T.V.) and tells her to “Shut Up” again on T.V.

AWESOME.

You might have seen us immediately after the State of the Union Address on Fox News, yes that was my daughter counting ants on her sandwich. Yes, we went out to eat that night, and yes, the song, ” The Ants Go Marching” has a new meaning for the Ivanovsky family!

**Thanks to Ginger we have VIDEO! You can’t see her counting the Ants in this one! Sooooo disappointing!

**Um, me again, and by the way….. I DID NOT say we were NOT going to watch it! I had just explained how we watch it with the older kids. They edit the way they want to!

Looking at the State of ‘Our’ Union: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

Sometimes after your second, third and even seventh child, things just are not as exciting as when your first child did it the first time. Like, when they hold their heads up as newborns, and you tell everyone “how advanced” your child is. Or when they repeatedly point to a ball and say “ba ba” and you KNOW they are saying “ball” although they say that when they see anything.

But one thing that I will always think it exciting and hysterical? That first little while, learning to eat food! How do they manage to get rice cereal and sweet potatoes in that many different parts of their body?

First, let me say, all I can do is go by my own experience, I am sure there are 100 ways to start and run a co-op.

About 10 years ago I joined a co-op where we had to drive down to Houston (about 30 miles) and pick our order up. We all took turns and thought it was great. Although, it did get hard to arrange babysitting and took up an entire morning. Then I found a group about 8 years ago that had the produce delivered to the home that was 15 minutes away. I did that for a few years. When the woman who ran that got older and stopped a few of us started up again at my house. Now we are doing it at my friend’s house.

• Decide on an affordable price to pay each week or bi-weekly that will give you enough money to work with. We do $20 every other week.
• Find the closest grocery district and check the prices and quality of the different grocers.
• Make sure that they will deliver to a residence, or locate a business that will let you have it deleivered there.
• Check to see that your neighborhood allows large trucks to deliver.
• We are staying around 25 people. That has seemed to be a good number in the past. You will have weeks that drop in number, like around the holiday’s and in the summer when people are on vacation.
• We require that you have the $20 to the person ordering by the Wednesday before so that she has an exact amount to work with when deciding what to order. You have to be strict on this as it is not fair to stick the person ordering with the bill when people don’t pay.
• When ordering you will get familiar as time goes by how many are items are in each case or box. You should be able to ask and order separately a few extra if you need it. For example, the avacado’s were 48 to a box so we ordered 1 box and 2 extra to make sure each basket got 2. Beans, mushrooms, peas etc. come in bulk, we have to weigh them out into bags when they come. We ask for extra plastic bags to put them into.
• When the truck delivers, we usually need about 5 people to help sort. We separate all the boxes and open them all and check to make sure everything is there. The baskets are all placed out so they are easy to walk around in rows. We start with the heaviest and less likely to be damaged produce and put it on the bottom. Then end with items like lettuce and grapes. Sorting it all out evenly. With the extras, we divide those up at the end, so you might get a random piece of fruit!
• We try and aim for about 6 different vegetables and 6 different fruits, depending on the season. We always order the “staples” lettuce, apples, banana’s and tomatoes.

I have found that it really encourages my kids to eat more veggies, plus save some money. The kids love to look at and unload my basket for me. With 7 kids in the summer I occasionally order 2 baskets for us as we eat so much! I would like to have an organic co-op but the price would be about double, but that is an option for someone if they want to start one!

Good luck! It is really easy to do and sooooo worth it!

**Thanks Julia for the picture, that is what our baskets looked like last Friday!

For quite a few years I was involved in a fruit and veggie co-op, for a good year we even had it at my house. I REALLY miss it! A friend of mine is jump starting it again and I am really excited! If you live in The Woodlands area, or can pick up from the Woodlands area on Friday’s you are welcome to come and try it out!

We are going to start this Friday! This is how it works:

• The cost is $20.
• We will be doing every OTHER Friday. So about 2 x a month.
• You will need to help sort at least 1 time a month ** see bottom for more info.
• Your $ is due the week before so we know how much we have to order. It is best to just leave your check on the previous Friday when you pick up.

The baskets will contain the basics for salad making ( lettuce, tomato) plus always apples and bananas. Then we choose fruits and veggies that we can get a good deal on that week. There should be about 6 veggies and 6 fruits each time. We base the basket contents on what is in season, high quality, good value. The grocery store value of each basket is about $35.

This is not a business, it is all volunteer. We just want a good deal on our fruit and veggies, and when you buy in bulk at cost it is a good way to save! There is no contract or anything, it is week by week. So if you are out of town just skip a week. If you want to try it, jump in and give it a shot!

You will need 2 cheap laundry baskets from Walmart like the ones above. One to leave to be filled, and one to leave for next time when you pick yours up.

** Sorting- We do not have an exact time for our delivery yet. But when we do, we need about 5 people each time to help sort the items into the basket when they arrive. If you help once a month we should be in good shape. If you work and are not able to help sort you can still be included, just let me know.

If you would like in on this weeks order email me! Your basket and payment will need to be at Lanna’s by Wednesday to be included. (I will give you the info and address etc. in the email!) mylitter@mac.com

We are keeping the group to about 15 so we can manage it!

Photo Credit: Bountiful Baskets

My husband was a rock star this year at Christmas. He really hit it out of the park. Not only did my 13 year old have a freak out moment, but I did also!

My sister and her husband went to Virginia for Christmas, she HATES to feel like she is missing out on anything, so we received no less than about 28 texts from her between Christmas Eve at 6pm and Christmas morning at 9am. When I was not responding fast enough, she finally couldn’t take it any longer and called.

“Merry Christmas Avery!” she said when the 7 year old answered.

“What did your Mom get for Christmas?”

“Um, she was really happy about a bracelet from my Dad, it came form her favorite grocery store.”

Awesome, my sister though. What a schmuck, he bought her a bracelet for Christmas from Kroger!

“From Kroger?” Anna asked.

“Um I think so, it had her name on it.” Avery explained.

Anna thought about it for a minute, “Avery, this is VERY important, was it in a BLUE box?”

“Yes it was, Grandpa said Dad is being cheap by buying things with her name already engraved on it.”

We all had a good laugh!

Soooo, it took 14 years, but he finally surprised me at Christmas! 🙂 I got not one, but TWO boxes from Tiffany’s this year. Pretty Cool!

P.S. It was funny, because I have never said anything, but I have always wanted something from there just because of the name thing. A Tiffany’s just recently opened close by and I never thought about it. On Christmas Eve after everyone was in bed, Paul asked what I had hoped I would get for Christmas. I couldn’t really think of anything, then out of nowhere I said, “You know, I have always wanted something from Tiffany’s, even something super small like a key chain or something, I’d take just the box!” He later said he was sooooo excited for me to open it ( he got me a bracelet and necklace) and be surprised. I was really a perfect Christmas for everyone!