MLK Weekend

Wow...what a weekend. This weekend has marked our laziest weekend ever since we have had kids. It was cold out, we had firewood and enough food to feed an army. It sounds like we were out on the prairie or something...we weren't on the prairie but we were almost reclusive, which was actually really nice in a lot ways. I have recently made a couple of decisions about our lifestyle based on the economy, the now HUGE weekly daycare check and our general over indulgence over the past few years...it's well over time to rein it all in...I'm inspired by a friend who has decided to see if her family can live on a food budget of $100.00 per month (I mean, do kids really eat that much at 4 and 2 anyway. Ha!). For us, we don't do formal budgets very well...it's kinda like losing weight...I don't need a scale...how my jeans fit tells me enough! Just looking at my check book balance plummet and my heart sinking that we have 10 days left until pay day and all we spent it on was food is enough to tell me that we need to do something about it. Anyway, so, I have decided that we need to hunker down for the winter...eat in and use the stock pile of food in our freezer and pantry until it runs out...which will probably be somewhere around 2011. As of today, we have eaten almost every meal in or taken our lunch for every meal for 10 days...it's been "great". There are obviously upsides and downsides to every major decision...
upsides:
*family time around the table
*obviously, the checking account balance
*cleaner car as there are not crumbs from every fast food place known to man strewn throughout
*not having the temptation to roll into Target and spend another $100 "on our way to eat"
*fulfilling my resolution to cook more and get better at it
*being creative
*cutting out the completely irritating screams that come from the back seat when the sausage biscuit falls apart
downsides:
*too much family time around the table because little kids really love to draw it all out by standing up, arguing and just plain trying to get out of eating all together
*running the dishwasher over and over
*much more spilled milk, but who's crying over it? that would be me...the cleaner upper
*the "life lessons" that turn into battles such as the one I had with Henry last night about how you are not allowed to tell your potato to "shut up" because you don't like it...we just don't use those words!
*there's just a lot more trash when you are home more...as if we did not have enough already
*the amount of free condiments has been completely wiped out
Overall though, it's been great and I am now on a rampage...I noticed that I told Jon that the kids were "allowed" to eat McDonald's tonight...Did I say that out loud? But really, if you think about it, that's what eating out was for us when we were kids...it was a treat...just like when Donny and Marie came on once a week...it was EXCITING! So if you don't see us out and about...come join us at the dinner table...