Intiman Theatre - Anne Frank

On Mothers' Day we went to see the play Anne Frank done by the Intiman Theatre group in Seattle. They did a wonderful job portraying the emotion of the time and the struggle that those in hiding went through and the risks that those who hid them faced. Although I was familiar with the story, I didn't realize that Mr. Frank survived the concentration camp and learned that fact from the play. The younger two boys and I are studying WWII and our oldest boy is trying to finish his art appreciation credit, so although the story was heartwrenching, it fit the bill for where we are in our schooling right now.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Tonight boy #3 and I were home alone together and so I rented Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium for us to watch together. It is a magical sweet story about a magic toy shop and learning to believe in yourself and your potential. Dustin Hoffman did a wonderful job at playing Mr. Magorium and Natalie Portman did well as Mahoney, his apprentice. I give this one a big thumbs up for the whole family.

Fireproof - Movie preview

Awhile ago I reviewed the movie Facing the Giants on my blog. It is a christian based movie about football. Well one of the members of the PR team for that movie commented on my blog tonight that they are coming out with a new movie called Fireproof in the fall. I just watched the trailer for it and it looks interesting. You can check it out at www.fireproofthemovie.com . I like to support movies that are clean and teach a good lesson as this one seems to do.

Menu Planning and Shopping

During the almost 28 years of my marriage, I have constantly struggled with making sure that we have good meal daily. Cooking is not my love, but I do love my family and want to give them a variety of healthy menus. The other thing that I struggled with on and off is keeping the grocery bill to a minimum. When you don't plan well, you end up with many trips to the grocery store - which wastes money, time and gas. I recently read America's Cheapest Family by Steve Economides and learned a couple of things that may be common knowledge to others,but I found very helpful. One was a reminder to limit your grocery shopping trips, his family goes shopping once a month. I used to shop once a week, but because of my poor planning ended up shopping several times a week. In his book he suggests you begin where you are and start reducing your trips, if you shop several times a week - change to once a week, if once a week change to once every two weeks. In order to accomplish this, they freeze their milk and they make sure they eat their produce in the order that it gets ripe. This may be a "duh" for those of you reading this, but it was great for me to hear. I worked to reduce my trips to once a week and started freezing milk. This has worked out great! I am now working to reduce my trips to once every two weeks and once a month to Costco. My husband asked why we still had grocery money left, so it must be working.

Menu Plan Monday - Week of May 4th, 2008

This week I chose to use the BBQ Banner as we grilled burgers today. This week looks to be a good stay at home week - I hope it turns out that way. Here is our menu.

Monday: Grilled burgers (some turkey, some beef), baked beans, olives and orange/pineapple jell-o salad

Tuesday: Oven Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Stir Fry Veggies

Wednesday: Corn Chowder and muffins

Thursday: Sausage, Macaroni & Cheese, California Blend Veggies

Friday: Spaghetti & meatballs, Salad

Saturday: Spanish Rice, Green Beans

Sunday: Mothers Day!

Click on the banner to check out the other menus hosted at Organized Junkie's blog.