Baking Day

On Tuesdays the gardener is here most of the morning so a few weeks back I decided to make it our "baking day". So far it has gone well. Interesting though as I have three very willing "helpers" who think they are seasoned professionals. None the less, we enjoy ourselves, the kids learn a little something, we bond and our efforts yield delicious results.
Today our plan is to make whole wheat dinner rolls and a special muffin recipe I found on another blog. If by Gods amazing grace we have a day without arguing, fighting and whining ( and this is completely by Gods grace :) ) we may add a couple of things to the list! I'll post about our progress.

Super Savings Saturday

Adopted from Moneysavingmom.com, I am attempting to shop for groceries on a tight budget. So far the plan has not been nailed down but today I think I hit my goal and I am on the right track toward stretching our dollars. I have been mentioning to friends and anyone who will listen that I have taken on a new system for getting my grocery shopping under control. Moneysavingmom.com's coupon shopping methods plus wisely shopping certain stores sales and "special" programs have allowed me to seriously change things up. My goal is $80.00 per week. That is for everything including diapers, toiletries, cleaning products and paper products. Today I spent $57.62. My total before coupons, sales and extra bucks (cvs special coupons, just like cash) was $183.55. I plan to create a menu with the things I purchased as well as what I have on hand for the next week. We will see how it goes . I'll let you know how it went this week and hopefully I will be successful again as I try to stay under my $80.00 per week budget next week.

Summer fun can't come too soon!

A day at the beach is always a treat for us. So we indulged just before the weather turned cool again. We ended up spending about six hours there soaking up the suns rays and playing to our hearts content. It was great! Calvin and Jaclynn crashed extra early that night and Sydney followed shortly after. I was actually able to get them all to run out of energy by the end of the day. An evening like that is few and far between!

Finding more ways to save!

Click on the link in my CHECK THIS OUT! section.

I heard about this site called Swag Bucks from another bog and I am very excited about it. It takes practically no effort and you can earn points that give you gift cards to some pretty great places. For instance, earn 45 swagbucks and you will receive a Five dollar amazon gift card. 50 swagbucks and you get a Five dollar Starbucks gift card. Now who couldn't use free Starbucks? It is simply another form of search engine that racks up your points as you use it. It took me less than a minute to sign up. Give it a try!

This and That

For a little while now Jaclynn has been heard walking around the house, pointer finger constantly extended, repeating "this?" and "that?". Now, for the last few weeks, much to our surprise, she is always asking, "What is this?" and "What is that?". Just a couple of days ago it turned into "I want this." and "I want that." It is a funny progression but totally rings true to the development of our little ones. Now starts the difficult part of the journey of gently yet firmly (is this even possible?) guiding her path towards righteousness.

Just a test.

Pretty picture to view while I make sure things are posting correctly. Just trying to re-do things a bit.

Wise words

"What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work but on the account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow."
-Martin Luther

Such wise words for our present time, spoken so long ago.