Well if it's not in the fridge they can't eat it.. LOL

Costco's American cheese is a VERY good Price, you will find the juice and milk is too, and cereal and bread. So definitely invest in the "small" membership for the year.

Sounds like they aren't used to "convenience" foods and are lapping it up. Do they both come from families where all the meals are prepared traditionally?

Work in some vegetables and well balanced meals. I think they definitely are going to have weight problems before long at this rate. Nice to know that you are able to fix food that they like though.

You really could use a Sam's or Costco membership. I'd go with whichever is closer. I know Sam's cost is $40 a year, because I just paid ours. Sounds like you'd make that back in a week or two :-)

Yes, girls seem to eat all the time. I never realized how much until my DD went off to college and I suddenly had a frig full of leftovers. She probably weighed 105 soaking wet, but pretty active.

Other than the food, how is it going? Are they in high school? Has school started yet? And most of all, did they get over the homesickness they were feeling at first?

You're such a sweetie for giving them this opportunity to have their experience here.

Do they gobble up fruit? Need it for their health-tastes good, lots of vitammins and potassium, fibre. I know since I've had kids (1988 to now) when I buy fruit it disappears within days. Right now I have three kinds of melon-cantaloupe, watermelon and Sharlyn and plums and peaches. Next month I'll be buying apples grapes and oranges. Staples around here.

Jannie, they eat some fruit, but bananas just went bad.

Terri, I have no idea. I think Johanna fends for herself a lot because her parents own their own business and work long hours.

Patti, both girls are somewhat homesick, which is to be expected. Maria is having more problems with English and U.S. History than Johanna. Her teachers are working with her so hopefully it will get easier as the semester goes on.

A friend had a boy from Brazil year before last and he was eating her out of her home..Her own equal aged teen boy never ate like this one..LOL she was complaining at how he was always right behind her whenever she went to the kitchen just "waiting" and hoping for her to feed him. LOL

She said I never cooked so much in raising my two until he came along..and almost expected 3 meals a day.. LOL

So I'm just thinking that traditionally in their homes and countries, comparing it could be a food "extravagance" here. LOL

check w/ your employer they may have deals w/ costco or sam's club. when i was w/ lowe's home imp corp i got a costco membership for $5 a yr. or ask friends what they have & share shopping. i have sam's club and a GF has Costco we shop together once a month ea going to the others' club w/ them.

i think it's awesome that you and your family is giving this opportunity to these girls! one of my bossses just had a 14yr girl named Valentine from France w/ them for only 2 weeks. They participate in a program where a group of kids comes over for a yr and ea only spends 2-4 wks in the same house. they are not supposed to do special out of the ordinary things, it's supposed to be real american life lol, but they ended up getting special tix to Disney & harry potter & universal so i'm sure that was a highlight for Valentine lol. i was always dying to hear about what they did ea day LOL i find it interesting how life is in other countries. valentine had never ever baked cookies before and rarely ever ate dinner at home, they only eat out lol, she also does not do any chores at home lol! that boss is a well known cheap skate and does not normally go to the theme pks w/ his kids or ever eat any meals out lol and w/ their huge lakehouse & boathouse all the kids do chores to keep up w/ it. sure that was different for her :-) ~ liz

A few ideas: Buy 10lbs of dark meat chicken, it's .49 cents a lb here, skin it, boil it...then make dishes with it saving a "ton"!! Chicken sour cream enchiladas, chicken chow mein, chicken egg rolls.....it's endless and cheap! Your hamburger dish of tacos is good....keep up the hamburger dishes. There's spaghetti & meat balls, porcupine balls, stuffed bell peppers, red chili.....etc.

We have a Mexican market here. Every Wednesday potatos are 10lbs for .89cents. My GF buys 40lbs @ a time for her family of 4.

We also have salvage markets here. They sell surplus farmers crops...like .50cents for a cantaloupe, $1 for a whole watermelon. A bag of tostados that are crushed is .10cents....I put them in my taco salad!

They may be eating more than usual just because of the stress of being away from home and because some of the foods are novel to them.
Costco has some great deals on seasonal veggies and fruits - also their milk is a good price here, so is the yogurt. I love the big packages of Kashi granola bars too.
Oh- and you will love the bakery.

They'll get into the groove soon and will start to eat more normal amounts. They are just doing this because the food is so different from their own. Also, it is really a lot of work for them to speak English all day and go to such a different school. It literally takes all their energy think all day. It will get better.

Maria didn't eat any of my dinner, she was making a sandwich when I got home from the store and just ate another one about 30 minutes ago. Johanna, on the other hand, ate four tacos! ( :

There is tons of leftover taco stuff because I made a double batch and neither one of my kids ate them either. Tomorrow I'm making chicken n dumplings so they should have plenty to eat when I'm at work later in the week.

I think I'll go to Sam's Club in Lexington this Friday and check it out. It's closer than Costco, which is an hour away.

When we had our exchange student from Russia, I couldn't keep enough bananas in the house! I was getting a bunch every day! Funny what they get attached to!

We will probably find that the cravings get better as time goes on.

Oh, did I mention the cream cheese I've gone through? They don't like Miracle Whip or Mayonaise so they make sandwiches with cream cheese. Now Lauren is doing the same thing...uh, and I've made a few for my lunches too.

We had an exchange student years ago just for a week. The kids were on their way back home and we housed a stopover. The young girl we had was from Panama and was afraid to go back home because she had gained 30 lbs. in the year she was in the states. She said they only ate cake on their birthday at home, and when she was here, had it every day! Better be careful. They're like little kids in a candy store with a free reign.

Check out Aldis also. We have seen a HUGE savings. Eric will even eat the Aldi brand of mac-n-cheese (and he is picky on that!). We also like the Aldi brand of freezie pops and high fiber granola bars. Both are much cheaper than the store. In WV Aldi milk is more than $1.00 cheaper and sounds like that alone would make the trip worth it for you! Since the girls are not accustom to US brand name products (I am assuming here) getting them "hooked" on the off brand may save quite a bit.

Do you have a day old store for bread and other pastry products? Even if you have to drive a little further, you can stock up and freeze it.

(Can you imagine if it had been two extra teen boys!!!!!!!!!!!)

Janie, no Aldis here. We do have Save A Lot and I buy basics there, like canned goods, sometimes milk and eggs. Their produce is almost always half rotten, but then so is Kroger and Wal-Mart.

When I was in teen years ...

... Dad used to claim that he figured that I had a hollow leg.

Don't recall whether younger brothers were ever so characterized/(accused?).

ole joyful

Kathleen, is there a BJ's close? It's the same as Sam's or Costco. It gives you one more option, if it would be closer than Sam's. We have all three withing 25 minutes of us. Prices seem to be very comparable between all three. It seems like Costco is a little higher for the membership, tho. I kept both memberships (DD got us Costco for Christmas, Sam's was going to expire in Sept. I did this because I can get some items at one but not the other, and when we travel, it gives us the option for either one of them for gas. They tend to be about the same for gas prices, but you can sometimes find one but not the other, and when you are filling a 75 gallon tank, the few cents they are cheaper than regular stations makes HUGE differnce! DD's SO's mom has the BJ's membership, so we shop together if we want/need to.

Tami

Georgysmom makes a good point about weight gain. Our neighbor had an exchange student who ate non-stop too. She even admitted that she never had this amount of food at home. But she gained 25 pounds in about 4 months and my girlfriend had to take her shopping for new clothes for the winter. The ones she brought with her didn't fit.

So do you have an accurate scale? Maybe the girls should weigh themselves ever now and then to keep tabs on their weight.

Try Crystal Lite for breakfast drinks.actually I use the Good Value Wal-Mart brand .My husband was the same way, a juice lover and he could drink a quart in a day and that's ok except he didn't need the calories....I use the Early Rise Orange and love it.......Real OJ tastes weird to me now..I buy several different flavors.

wow, this post is old! Maria has lost most of the weight she gained now. Ruthie, I did start buying frozen juice (some) and have been buying Crystal Light and some of the Wal-Mart brand of calorie free stuff. They seem to like it. Lauren has given up soft drinks so either drinks bottled water, tea or milk only so she has more variety too now.

Although it is a bit old, how's the budget going? ;) BTW, it sounds like you're near Lexington and there is an Aldi in Lexington. Could be worth looking into it when you're there. Or check to see if there's one closer to you. I really like Aldi for a lot of things and do WAYYYYYYYYYYY better there than with a warehouse club membership. You never know for sure what you'll find there an no doubt, not everything is a bargain, but on staples they have in stock, I'll save far more than when I had a Sam's membership. The way to shop Aldi is to check the website for their ads. Not all the stores get all the things on the ads but you can see some of the pricing. They only carry about 1400 SKUs and if it doesn't sell, they don't keep it around. Their business model is extremely low overhead and high turnover. It's cash or an acceptable debit card only and you put a quarter deposit on a grocery cart so have cash and a quarter (or more if you need more carts!)

Another thing I've noticed is Target has gotten really competitive on a lot of things and downright cheap on others.

Cynic, never seen an Aldis but I do shop at Save a Lot for basics. Their produce and meat aren't that great so I go to Kroger for those items.

Kathleen, check on that Aldi's. Around here, I would buy my produce from them before I will buy it at a reg. grocery store. It's better, fresher, and way cheaper most of the time. You do get the occasional instance when the produce isn't good, but not often. I don't buy thier meat, but that is because I buy freezer beef, a side at a time. Bread is good, and cheap. Cream cheese is good too. If you have a meat slicer and use a lot of ham for sandwiches, sometimes we can get a whole Black Forest Ham for about $8, then slice it on our slicer, vacuum pack it and freeze it. It will give me a couple of months of lunch meat for DH that way for the price of one pound of the same ham in the deli. Oh, and either take your own bags or grab an empty box in the store. Otherwise, you have to buy bags in the store.

Tami

"I used to buy one gallon of milk and it would go bad before it got drunk."

Don't let your milk get drunk, it's bad for its character.

sylvia

(slapping self for her smart mouth)

I was famous as a child for my "hollow leg", but it seems like it would come & go depending on what else was going on, such as growth spurts & stress, & my cravings depended on what my system needed.

example- I once went through an obsessive phase when I ate bananas twice a day (cannot *stand* bananas!), & I simply couldn't get enough broccoli;
bananas & broccoli are both high in potassium.

After I got my fill of potassium, my craving went away, & I returned to "normal".

My thought is, keep a variety of different kinds of food on hand, let 'em eat when they're hungry, & don't make any sort of big deal out of it.

I don't know what I would do without my Costco membership. When is was just DH and I milk and bread would always go bad before we could use it up...now I can't keep either in the house.