Saving Money!!

Ok, it is official.....I am turning into one of "those people" LOL You know, the ones who are in front of you at the grocery store and have every ad for all of the stores in the area and a bucket load of coupons. You ALWAYS get behind on of them don't you?! And they take FOREVER! Well, I AM starting to see WHY they do it! Have you seen the economy? Hello! It is time to take some coupons in hand and work on saving some money for your family. This week I have picked up a lot of great ideas from my mom, my friends at the over night crop I went to and from surfing the net. There are so many ways to save money and I am gonna try it! The first site that I would like to recommend is one that allows you to load money saving coupons onto your shopping card (for my area, it is Kroger). Simply go to ShortCuts with your shopper's card in hand. Register your card and start adding savings! It is SIMPLE!! If you don't have a shopper's card, GET ONE! You really do save money using them. Yes, they are tracking your purchases but who cares. They use it for market research and the best part is, that they will mail you coupons occasionally on items that you actually use. I get a packet every few months that has coupons for things like $9 off entire order over $90....well, I am feeding a family of 5 plus have a home daycare, of course I can spend $90 in one shopping trip! The next site you need to visit is P&G eSaver. It is the same type of thing. You add e-coupons to your Kroger card on various P&G brand items.... every little bit helps! The next places that I recommend are sites where you can print coupons right from your computer. I went to Coupon Mom and Cool Savings and printed a few but also downloaded the Coupon toolbar and printed some there. My favorite find of the day was this site.... Stretching a Buck. I came across this post where she was teaching people about organizing your coupons and it was exactly what I needed! For you see, I am notorious for cutting out coupons and leaving them at home or putting them into my little coupon caddy and forget about them....only seeing them again when I clean it out and they have expired. When I had a vision in my mind yesterday about how I wanted to do my coupons, this was it! I am so happy that I found her! There are other great sites out there I am sure so if you happen to know of one, please share! I am going to keep track of all of my savings this year to see what a difference this makes. Have a great day! Go save some money!!

Miracle Muffins

When I made my menu & grocery list last week, I had planned to make sausage & biscuits for Sunday morning breakfast but didn't buy the sausage because I thought I would be able to go get it Saturday. Well, I went to an overnight scrapbooking event Friday night & was there from around 6 PM Friday evening until 4:15 PM Saturday. I took about a 2 hour nap during that time. Needless to say, when I left there, I was not interested in making a stop @ the store to pick up sausage. William got home around 9 & I was already in bed. I told him that I wasn't sure what I would fix for breakfast because I hadn't gone to the store. I told him that I could have made muffins but I was out of sugar and eggs. He said "oh, no you're not. Your dad started a new diet and sent a bunch of food home with me". I jokingly said that the girls in my Sunday school class like chocolate chip muffins so I wish I had some. William said "You do. Your dad sent those too!" I was amazed and thankful. See, God ALWAYS provides! So Sunday morning, I got up and made "Miracle Muffins" for my family & the 5th and 6th grade girls Sunday school class.

Thanks God for having my dad send the food.

Share your miracle stories! I love to read about how God works!!

Too cold for the chickens

It is so cold here that we actually had to bring the chickens in tonight! The current temp is 13! William discovered that 2 of his new chickens didn't survive the cold so he brought the rest of them in for the night. These 2 are in a cage now but when they first came in, he just let them roam freely in the playroom in front of a space heater so they could thaw out. Normally when you thaw out chicken, you just set it in the fridge or in water for awhile! LOL
I sure hope it warms up again soon so we can put these birds back outside! They haven't even given me any eggs this week and now they are getting to sleep in the house. I better get lots of eggs next week!!! LOL

Mighty fine day

Wow! It has been a great day! The kids zoomed through their school work today and did well on their assignments....Amy made a 100 on her spelling test! Yay!
Andrew updated his blog today but Amy and Alex didn't want to. Alex needs to do something soon...his blog has nothing on it. I think he needs a topic so I may give him one tomorrow if he doesn't come up with something.
During quiet time, I listened to one of the workshops from The Ultimate Homeschool Expo. It was of Cindy Rushton talking about copywork. We have recently started doing copywork. I never thought about it before but it has been a great addition to our lessons. While I was listening to it, I made some copy work sheets for the kids to use tomorrow. I also sent some pictures of our pastor's youngest son in for their "Farewell Sunday" slideshow. They are moving to Oklahoma to pastor a church there. I am excited for them and can't wait to see how God uses them. We are going to miss them terribly but know that God has a wonderful plan.
Believe it or not, I am working on our VBS for June. That may seem like a long way off but it will be here quickly! We will be doing "Studio Go!" from Standard Publishing and I have to get volunteers and supplies ready. Oh, in other exciting news, I am now the local sales rep for a cookie dough fundraising company. Little Lambs has wonderful pre-formed cookie dough that organizations can sell and earn cash for! I will be setting up fundraisers with groups in the area and helping my family earn money too. This is a God send because we really needed that extra income! If you are involved in an organization that would like more information, let me know and I will email you some info.
Thanks for stopping by today. Be blessed and happy in all you do!!

Tired yet full of passion

Bet that title caught your attention but it has nothing to do with what you might be thinking!! Read on.
This morning started out ok. I didn't get up early and go for my walk because I had trouble sleeping last night and didn't drift off until almost 2 so when the alarm went off at 5, I hit snooze....many times! LOL
We started school about 20 min later than normal and everything was going ok until around 10:30 when I was trying to give spelling tests and was so sleepy that I kept forgetting to give them their words! We go through it but it was tough.
William came home from work early because he said that he wasn't feeling well. We both feel blah now. I think it is going to be a very early night.

Do you ever think about what your kids will be when they grow up by looking at what they are interested in now? Andrew LOVES to watch the weather and will give me a report later on. He likes to look at radar maps online, he loves the WeatherBug, he likes the interactive weather feature on the satellite. But, he also is a train fanatic and will watch documentaries about the history of trains. William and I always say that he is going to be a Train Engineer/Meterologist! LOL
Alex has started to be very interested in painting with acrylics. He got an acrylic paint set for Christmas and has painted 3 pictures. He is actually pretty good. I will have to take pictures of his work and post them. I don't think he wants to be a full time artist but he enjoys it. He has actually always said that he wanted to be like his daddy and build houses when he grows up....well, that was before the housing slump. William hasn't built a house in a year. I wonder if Alex will still want to do that.
Amy...what can I say about her? She likes to cook and is really into fashion design. Maybe she will be a fashionable chef! She loves cookbooks and watching cooking shows...oh and is a QVC freak but that is a whole other story. LOL
I want my kids to pursue their dreams and I do whatever I can to help them learn more about the things that they are interested in. We read library books, look up info on the web, watch TV shows, and visit museums that have the topic that we want to explore. I think this is one of the reasons I love homeschooling so much. I get to see the spark and excitement when they learn something new about something that is so close their little hearts.

I hope you enjoyed reading about thoughts for today. I look forward to sharing more another day. Have a good evening and be blessed!

Healthy & Frugal Meals

I really try to feed my family healthy meals. Yes, sometimes we eat things that we probably shouldn't but for the most part, we do fairly well. I have discovered that my kids prefer homemade chicken nuggets and burritos over the frozen kinds. It makes me very proud for a few reasons.

First of all, it is more economical to make them ourselves. I can buy a pack of boneless chicken breasts and put my own breading and seasoning on them for a whole lot less than buying them already prepared. The same goes for the burritos and the ones I make are bigger than the frozen kind.

Secondly, they are healthier. I don't add all of those preservatives and fillers that are in the prepared foods. For our burritos, we use the whole wheat tortilla shells and the kids LOVE them! For our chicken tenders, I use whole wheat cracker crumbs for the breading.

Lastly, it just makes me feel good when my kids say that their meal tasted good. I receive more praise for my cooking when I do it myself. That may not mean much to some moms but to me, it is special. I love to cook. It is like an artist who hears how great his piece of art is. Cooking is my "art".

Some of my favorite places to get recipes are:

Christy's Once A Month Cooking Recipes
Dottie's Weight Loss Zone
Rachael Ray
Saving Dinner

Please feel free to share links to your favorite recipes. I am always looking for new things to try!

Kid Bloggers

My kids are blogging! This is something that I have thought about doing for awhile and since some of my friends have started doing it, I decided to do it too. I had always thought it would be a great way for family to keep up with what they are doing as well as help them in their computer, typing, spelling and grammar skills. I have seen many homeschool kids put their educational journey on blogs and thought it was pretty neat. Well, now my children will be sharing their lives with everyone on their own blogs.

Today Amy's blog was very simple and she just introduced some of our animals. It looks like I am going to have to work on her creative writing skills a little more.

Alex's blog doesn't have a post yet...maybe tomorrow.

Andrew blogged about a few different things and it was exciting watching him be excited about his blog. You can read what he wrote here Andrew's blog Here are pics of him blogging: