Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! I hope each of you experiences the peace of Jesus this holiday season. I'm so thankful He was willing to be born in that stable so long ago!

On a side note- we're going to be with family most of next week so my posting will be sporadic and very minimal until the new year.

She's Here!!

We're so thankful for the precious new gift of life that God blessed us with on Wednesday! Sophia Delight joined us weighing 8lb. 4oz. and is beautiful and healthy. This verse has been on my mind and heart and pretty much sums up our feelings: "The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad." (Psalm 126:3)

You likely noticed that I have been posting a bit less frequently. That will likely continue for the next week or so as I continue to recuperate, take care of my children and enjoy having family around for Christmas. I'm just not sure how things will be around here! But hopefully with the new year I'll be back to posting more normally.

Frugal Family Outdoor Fun

When have you last taken a break from the mundane daily grind and gone outside to play with your family? Clorox2 has declared Sept. 24 to be Worldwide Day of Play and is challenging people to take their Play 2Day Pledge, http://clorox2play2day.com, and it got me thinking about some of the things we've done with Logan this summer.

We don't spend lots of money on recreational things as a family. Fun can be free too you know! And so in the spirit of being thrifty, I thought I'd share some of the simple things we've done outside as a family this summer.

Every Tuesday evening is family night here and often that finds us taking a walk downtown. Sometimes just for the sake of taking a walk and sometimes to get ice cream at our delicious local creamery. But every time it involves Logan riding the trike he got for his birthday- legs frantically pumping as he flies along. I often wish that I could freeze those moments. Him intently riding his trike, hunched forward, focused. Us walking behind, enjoying his boyishness. It's such a simple thing really, but it brings all of us such joy.

There have also been evenings where we've walked to the park 1 1/2 blocks away. Sometimes we take Logan's ball along and play ball tag and sometimes we just sit, relax and read while he amuses himself kicking his ball, throwing sticks and just running off that endless energy of his. Again, a very simple thing to do but one that provides lots of fun.

And then there are the times we just stay put here at home but end up going outside to play. Usually the favorite thing to do is play ball. I think Logan could spend hours doing that! Our yard is small but we can still find room to set up a mini baseball field. Honestly, I'm always amazed at the delight little people can get from simply spending time together playing like that. And there's something about being outside that seems to bring out extra spunk!

One more thing that we did this summer that wasn't totally free was to go mini-golfing. That is actually one of our favorite memories of the summer! Our local mini golf place has little child sized clubs and so we all three could play. Well, the youngest one of us didn't really play but he sure did have fun being like mama and daddy! And we were continually laughing and being amazed at how his wild swings could get him such good shots so often! Maybe we need to loosen up a bit and we'd get a hole in one a little more often too? At any rate, the $15 spent that evening was worth every penny of outdoor family fun.

The thing that really stands out to me as I think back to outdoor things that we did this summer is that all of them were easy to do and most of them didn't cost us a penny. It just goes to prove that having fun really can be free!

What have you done fun outside this summer with your family? Do you have creative, cheap ways of having fun outdoors?

“I wrote this blog post while participating in the SocialMoms and Clorox2® blogging program, for a gift card worth $40. For more information on how you can participate, click here.”

My Latest Fun with Coupons

The Food Bank- when I was there though, the shelves were MUCH emptier!

I am so excited about my latest new experience with couponing! This past Tues. I went to the local moms group that I attend. It was the first meeting of the season so we just had a welcome brunch and then had time to just connect with each other again. For about 15 minutes though, one of the ladies from the Conestoga Valley Food Bank shared with us what they do, their needs and their vision. I was really impressed.

Not only do they help quite a lot of local families get through hard financial times by giving them needed food and grocery items, they also have a real heart for caring for these people. Instead of having the people line up to get their food and household items, they set up appointments for each individual/family and then a volunteer meets with them, helping them get the items they need and also giving them a chance to talk if they wish. Lots of times they are able to care for these people by listening to them and praying with them. I was so blessed by the ministry that the Conestoga Valley Food Bank is doing!

But my ears really perked up when Beth mentioned that they can always use volunteers to do different things, one of which was shopping for the items they give away. I've been wishing I could volunteer somewhere but with a 3 yr. old it's pretty hard to be able to do that very easily. (I have family that would babysit but they live about 30 min. away.)

To make a long story short, I am now going to do shopping for the food bank, watching for low prices on the foods and household items that they need and using my coupons to get them ultra cheap. The great thing is that I can do this on my own time and really, it won't even take up much of my time because I'll simply do this while I'm already doing my regular couponing/shopping! And obviously, they'll reimburse me for my purchases too. It just feels like the perfect fit.

So why am I sharing this with you? For two reasons. For one, if you live locally and have items that you get for free (or very inexpensively) and would like to give them to the food bank, I'll gladly work with you to make that happen. Also, I'm guessing that other food banks would love to have someone do this same type of thing for them and I thought it might be something that some of you all would enjoy doing.

For you locals that would be interested in donating items to the food bank, they will take pretty much anything. Items like cereal, canned fruit and veggies, pasta, Hamburger Helper, toothpaste, shampoo and soap are things that they give out to each person. However, if someone donates other items they happily pass those along too!

Vacation Time

I know I've been quiet on here this week and that is because we are on a week long vacation! Earlier I had thought I'd write some posts up ahead of time and then have them automatically post this week so that it wouldn't be completely dead on here. But, well, with canning 1 1/2 bu. peaches, doing 400 ears of corn, 2 bu. tomatoes plus all the normal stuff in the last couple of weeks I just simply ran out of steam and didn't get it done. And so, this week my blog is just going to enjoy a vacation. :)

Actually, Vince and I are enjoying an early 5th anniversary trip to the Boston area. We are thoroughly enjoying our time here and have taken in a whale watching cruise (we saw a LOT of them and it was amazing!), visited Plymouth Plantation (a great way to learn history for this non-history buff), taken a Segway tour of the city (this was a lot of fun!), as well as numerous other things. It's been a fun time, although I'm wondering how rested I'm going to feel when we're all done with all the running around we've been doing! It's okay though, it's still relaxing and we're making great memories. I wish I had some way to upload some pictures, but we actually haven't taken that many and I also failed to bring along the cord I need to upload the pictures from my camera.

I hope all of you are having a good week too!

Life...

Logan helping fold washcloths

Oh my. I never planned to take a blogging break, but I guess I kind of just did, didn't I? Life has been wild around here the last couple of weeks. We've had Summer Bible School (which we were in charge of), 2 sets of overnight guests, a bunch of green beans (I got 14 1/2 qt.) to put in the freezer and all sorts of other things. I kept thinking I'd get a post or two done but simply had no extra time. And so this blog just was kind of quiet.

And on top of all the busyness I wasn't feeling just amazing either. Those of you that know me in real life know this already, but we are excited about welcoming another little person to our family in December. Yes, I'm pregnant! I'm starting to feel better but the last number of weeks have been a bit of a drag with being extremely tired and feeling kind of yucky too. I'm glad that seems to be a thing of the past.

While we are excited, after losing our newborn daughter almost 8 months ago, we also feel some trepidation. Eleni's condition was a rare thing (it occurs in 1 in 60,000 births) so we really have no reason to worry about it happening again. But we are just much more aware that something could go wrong. And so we are constantly having to consciously choose to trust God and rest in Him. However, it's comforting to know that if something happens again, God will walk with us then just like he has the past 8 months. We won't be alone and we'll have His grace to help us get through it.

So that is what's been happening around here. I hope to get a couple of posts up in the next several days, but I have more green beans coming, possibly some blueberries too and we are looking forward to having some family come spend the weekend with us as well. So, it doesn't look like life will be slowing down.

Blessings to each of you!

"Working" at popping bubble wrap while I did green beans :)

Changes

For some time I've been considering what I wanted to do with my blog. I love blogging, but it does take up a lot of my time and I've been battling that whole issue.

I'm not going to stop blogging, but you will see some changes. Starting this week I will no longer post freebies or coupons- or if I do it will be very rare. I plan to still do my Tasty Tuesday, Weekly Spending Summary, and You Might Enjoy posts. And I hope to do more "meaty" posts about how to lower your expenses and probably some posts with money saving tips as well. I'm guessing that I'll do one or two of those posts a week. And along the way I'll include other hopefully interesting things too.

My decision comes based on several things. For one thing I want to be able to give myself more fully to my family and to those who I'm in real life relationships with. As much as I enjoy blogging, it is not worth it if I am not able to care well for my dear husband, little boy and others that God has placed in my life. I want to live my life with no regrets and I've got this nagging feeling that if I don't stop putting so much time into blogging I'm going to look back in a couple of years and wish that I would have spent more time with those that I love.

I also am finding this time of grieving to be exhausting. I never knew that grief would be so draining physically and emotionally. In the last couple of weeks I have felt extremely exhausted and I knew something had to change. I really sensed God was asking me to consider giving up my blogging time, even though it is something I enjoy a lot. I'm hoping that by not spending as much time blogging I'll have more time for personal things. Things that help me work through this grief and also projects and activities that help me grow as a lady.

Thanks for reading my blog! As always I'd love to have your input so feel free to leave a comment or email me. I take your input seriously and try to use it to improve my blogging style and content.

Oh and if you don't feel like always having to come here and see if I've updated, may I recommend that you simply subscribe to my posts via email or a blog reader? It's really quite simple, just look at the top left-hand side of my blog.

Have a great week...and remember, I'll still be here, just not quite as much as usual. :)

Our Weekend

Okay, so I know this blog is primarily about saving money, but occasionally I just can't help including other things too. I always figure two things. 1. It is my blog so I can blog about what I want to. 2. You can always skip over the post if you really don't want to know about it. So anyway, with that cleared up, let me tell you just a little bit about our weekend. :)

I had heard about Family Life's Weekend to Remember for years and always thought it would be fun to go to if I got married. Well, I got married but somehow we just never got it done. So I was pretty excited when I heard that there was a Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference in Hershey (which is really close to us). I got a flier about it and strategically left it lying on the counter where I hoped Vince would spot it. And sure enough, he did. I saw him looking at it and held my breath, hoping he would be the one to initiate going. "This looks interesting", he said. "Yeah, I thought so too," I casually replied. And then I couldn't contain my excitement when he asked, "Would you like to go?" I grinned sheepishly and told him that was kind of why I left the flier lying on the counter. We both had a good laugh.

Anyway, to make a long story short we attended the Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference this past weekend. And what a wonderful time we had! Seriously, I can't say enough good about the conference. It was fun, it was challenging, it was inspiring, and it gave us lots of ideas of how we can continue to grow and improve our relationship with each other. Here are a couple of things that really stood out to me:
* During conflict, anger needs to be directed at the situation not the person.
* Everyone has annoying traits that get on your nerves, so why shouldn't it be your spouse's annoying traits? (In other words, just moving on to another person isn't really going to help the situation.)
* We are to teach and train our children and support our husbands, not the other way around.
* Marriage is not a 50/50 relationship...we each have to give it 100%.

If you are married, I would highly recommend that you attend a Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference. It doesn't matter if your marriage seems to be falling apart or if it seems like it's as good as it can get, I guarantee you will be challenged and will find it helpful in strengthening your marriage. In fact, Family Life has received lots of testimonials from couples who were on the verge of divorce and went to a Weekend to Remember as a last resort- and it was instrumental in keeping their marriage together.

Oh and since this is a money saving blog, I can't help but give you a tip on how to save money if you go. Each conference has people that try to get a group together to go...and anyone can join that group. The great part about joining a group is that you can get into the conference for 50% off! What I would recommend doing is putting something like this in a search engine:
Baltimore Weekend to Remember. You could always add the word "group" to your search too. But that should help you find a group that you can join and get the 50% off. Oh, and no worries. Being part of a group doesn't mean anything other than getting a discount. Make sense?

Have you ever been to a Weekend to Remember? Care to tell us about your experience?

I was not asked to blog about our experience and neither did I get reimbursed for this post in any way. I simply wanted to share about our experience because we enjoyed it so much.

My Absence

I'm sure some of you are wondering just what happened to me that I suddenly stopped posting on here the last several days. Well, God brought an unexpected turn of events into our lives on Thursday, November 11.

Our little daughter Eleni Jo surprised us by arriving 5 1/2 weeks early on 11/11/10 at 8:25 am. Because of her early birth, we knew that she would knew that she would need to be in the NICU for at least a couple of days. We soon realized shortly after she was born though that things were more serious than we ever anticipated. Eleni was born with a form of dwarfism that basically left her with no chance of living due to underdeveloped lungs along with several other things. The doctors and nurses worked hard to help her survive, but soon realized that there was no hope. After living for 2 hours, she died very peacefully in our arms.

Her name means "shining light" and "sweetheart" and that really is what she was and is. She is our little sweetheart who is now a shining light in heaven. Her short life has impacted ours in so many ways and one of those is that we have an even stronger desire to serve God with all of our hearts and someday be able to be reunited with her in heaven.

The past several days have been hard and yet we have felt God's presence and the love of those who care for us too. Please pray for us.

I'll probably be back to posting at least some in the next day or two.

Dreaming of Tiny Sweetness...

Logan at just several days old.

I heard the most beautiful and amazing sound this morning...our baby's strong, steady heart beat. Thank you Jesus that all is well!

Yes, I am pregnant and yes we are more than excited to be experiencing the gift of new life once again. We are anxious to meet him/her mid-December- seems a long way off but I'm sure it will be here before I know it!

So if you have thought I seemed to be a bit absent on here lately that is the reason. I was not feeling very good and had zero energy so I was doing a lot of resting. And of course any energy I had went into doing my basic household chores and taking care of one active little nearly 2 year old. I'm glad to be feeling quite a bit better and am enjoying a bit more energy. Hopefully it will only keep improving! :)

Just a Little Peek

As you've probably figured out, we are back home after our little "vacation" in Maryland with family. I really enjoyed hanging out with my immediate family and doing Christmas with them and also reconnecting with many of the relatives in my Mom's family at the annual New Year's reunion. It feels like it was a good breather from daily life. Problem is, now I'm feeling a little frantic trying to catch up with everything!

Just for fun, I thought I'd post some pictures of my little family. I always think it's fun to get a little peek into other bloggers lives and it has been a while since I've done that for you all.

Logan opening his gift

He absolutely LOVED the little animals that he got!

Me with my gift from my Sweetheart...I've been wanting a stove top popcorn popper for a long time. Oh and in case you are wondering, the papers are some wonderful gift coupons for things like a footrub, a dinner out, an evening off of washing dishes. I love my man!

Proof that the simple things in life can bring lots of fun!

We've been hearing lots of "music" lately!

And just several more from our big snowstorm a few weeks ago.

Ready to head outside!

Daddy & Logan

Goodbye...for Just a Little

Yes, I am taking a short blogging break. We are getting ready to leave to spend several days with my family in MD and since I want to be able to enjoy my time there, and since I won't have fabulous internet connection, I'm going to take a few days off. If I feel inspired to battle the slow connection, I just might post a couple of deals, but please don't count on it!

I hope you each have a wonderful New Year!

Final Update: My New Resolve

Well, September is over and I am happy to announce that I had $28.80 left over for the month! Not quite my goal of $30, but I am still happy about it since this was after I spent approximately $5 on food for our unexpected trip!

This whole thing has taught me quite a bit. I learned that the world will not stop if I run out of one of my "staple" items. In fact, being out of a few staples forced me to be more creative and either improvise or totally make something else that used up some of my stockpile items.

I also learned to make meals that stuck more with items that I have on hand. Don't get me wrong, I probably did better at that than most people to begin with. But, I got even better at it which was good. In fact, it convinced me to try doing planned menus again. I know it's shocking, but I can't stand to stick to a planned menu! I tried it not long after we were married but soon got very frustrated with it. However, I think I am going to try it again, and just do things a little differently so I like it better.

My cupboards look like they experienced a makeover, and in fact they sort of did. I am enjoying the free space and actually rearranged quite a few of my cupboards and made room for some other things that had been sadly lacking a good, permanent home. It is definitely easier to be organized with less things!

Even though it was frustrating at times to not have something I considered a staple item, I enjoyed the challenge so much that I think I am going to do it again this month. In fact, I might even post how I did at the end of the month. The publicity does good things for my resolve!

Home Again, Home Again...

Well, we are back home after being gone for 4 days and being on the road for around 24 hours. Whew! There's just no place like home.

Thanks to each of you who left me sweet, caring comments and prayed for us. You have no idea how much that meant!

We had a good trip and good times in spite of being at my uncle's viewing and funeral. We had some wonderful times reconnecting with relatives who we haven't seen in years and also with friends at the reunion we went to in Ohio.

Often when we get back from a trip I feel rather worn out and find it hard to have the energy to get back into the swing of things but this time I feel so energized! Maybe it is because the little son traveled so well? Who knows. At any rate I am ready to dive into blogging again. In fact, I rather missed it.

A couple of other little notes relating to our trip:

Being at my sister-in-law's place gave me incentive to stick with my goal of becoming more organized. She has the natural organizational skills my husband's family is blessed with and being in her everything-in-its-place home gave me the kick in the pants I needed. Sigh. If only it came naturally for me!

We spent Saturday night at an old friend's place and being there inspired me to work at putting more personal touches around our home. We are still working at decorating a number of rooms- another thing that doesn't really come naturally for me- and I got some more ideas to help get me started with that again.

I was also so blessed by the generosity of the two ladies I mentioned above. They both gave me quite a few clothes for Logan that their little boys are no longer wearing. I had most of the clothes I needed for this winter but just hadn't gotten a chance to finish looking for the few things I needed. Well, now all I need is a pair of shoes, a pair of boots, and a few onesies. I was reminded again that there is much joy in giving (and receiving!).

I hope you all had a good weekend too!

A Turn of Events

It looks like I am going to be taking another break or semi-break from blogging again. But this time, not so much because I wanted to.

My Uncle Rick passed away on Sunday after a year long battle with cancer. Even though I knew he was sick and not doing so well, it still seems hard to believe he is gone. Uncle Rick was one of my favorite uncles. His love for a good laugh and great sense of humor combined with a caring, kind heart made him a great uncle and a great person to hang out with.

We are leaving Thursday morning for Toronto to be at the viewing and funeral services. From there we are going to a reunion in Ohio for the rest of the weekend. On top of that, I had planned to do my monthly shift tomorrow at my job...of all the crazy times! But I had no idea when I called to schedule a day to work. All that to say, I don't know how much I'll be able to blog. I hope to have internet access at least occasionally on the trip, but I can't promise anything.

Sorry for all the blogging absences lately! Thanks for bearing with me.

Update: My New Resolve

So how am I doing with my new resolve? Am I sticking with it? Do I still plan to have $40 left at the end of this month? It is past time for an update!

So far, I have been doing pretty good at using up the excess things in my cupboards. These are the items that I have used so far, most of which I got for free or very nearly free and had lots of:* Peanut butter
* Cornstarch
* Fettuccine noodles
* Broccoli
* Canned pineapple
* Campbell's Tomato Soup
* Frozen broccoli
* BBQ Sauce
* Macaroni
* Pumpkin
* M & M's
* Carrot Cake Muffin mix

I feel pretty good with how well it is going. I still have some extras I'd like to use up by the end of the month, but I have made a pretty good dent in our stockpile.

And it is definitely helping our grocery budget! I've also stuck with my resolve to only buy grocery items that are a really good price and as of today, I still have $47.84 to use on groceries this month.

I had mentioned last month that I hoped to have at least $40 left over this month. Well, I am bumping that to $30 since I wasn't anticipating buying chicken this month. (My sister-in-law was able to get me boneless, skinless chicken for $1.59 lb.!) Just to help you understand this a bit, we budget $140 a month for strictly food items, which includes anything I buy to can and also all meat purchases. We budget $50 a month for household items which includes diapers, cleaning supplies, paper supplies, toiletries etc.

The exciting thing is, I think I should be able to not spend too much on groceries next month either since I have a nice supply of ground beef, chicken and bacon. I was able to get all of these for excellent prices either this month or in August.

So, that is how I'm doing. If you have any questions, I'm open to them. Or if you have comments about how you are saving on your groceries or what you find helpful, I'd love to hear that too!

I plan to do a post on what I have learned from this whole experience, probably next week sometime.

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

I just want to wish you all a happy Labor Day weekend. We're getting ready to head out of here for the weekend. We got the in-laws settled and now we are off to Maryland to help my parent's do some work on the house they bought recently and hope to move into soon. It should be a fun weekend since the whole family is going to be there at one time or another.

Hope you all have a safe and relaxing weekend. I'll be back with deals and more on Tuesday.

Until then...

An Update on My New Resolve

I had posted earlier about how, in an effort to "clean house" and also to help out our grocery budget, I am trying to see if I can use up some of the items that I have stockpiled. I had mentioned that I hoped to have $40 left in our grocery budget at the end of August. So how did I do?

Well, I had estimated that I would have maybe $40 left in our grocery budget, but it was actually only about $15. The two major things that took up the extra money? A local grocery store had a meat sale and I was able to get ground beef, which we were going to need soon anyway, for cheap. And, silly me. I failed to remember that my dear hubby hadn't paid our monthly milk bill yet. We buy raw milk from a local farmer and usually just pay him once a month. Somehow, I totally forgot about that one. And then there were a couple of good sales that I was able to get items I usually use for half price or less. So I didn't have quite as much overage in our budget as I had hoped but still came out a little ahead.

So how do I hope to do in September? I would love to be able to end September at least $40 ahead. We'll see how it goes! I'll keep you posted.

Tomatoes!

Well, we got the in-laws settled (sort of!) and now I am back to canning. I started doing tomatoes yesterday and am hoping to finish today.

I got approximately 2 bushels of tomatoes for $8 total yesterday! Can you believe it? That is one blessing of living here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where there are all sorts of farms and produce stands. Anyway, so what am I doing with all those tomatoes? Well, I am making tomato juice and tomato sauce.

I use the tomato juice primarily in chili and my homemade Cream of Tomato Soup. Of course there are some other recipes here and there that I use it in too, but those are the ones that I make a lot during the winter.

And I am excited about making tomato sauce again. The last and only time I tried it, 2 years ago, I vowed I would never make it again! Iwas using clear jel to thicken it and didn't know that there were different kinds of clear jel. Well, here I accidently got the instant kind and lets just say I had a whole bunch, as in probably 25 quarts of tomato sauce, that was pretty much not worth eating.

But this year I am trying a recipe my sister loves and it looks so simple. I like the fact too that, unlike many tomato sauce recipes, it doesn't take tomato paste or any thing like that. My thoughts are why make your own pizza/spaghetti/tomato sauce if you are going to have to buy a bunch of stuff to put in it? I like knowing where my ingredients come from and I like that making my own is cheaper. So for me, this recipe looks like it should work. Oh, it is also supposed to taste like Pizza Hut's sauce...I can live with that! If I like the recipe or if enough of you want it, I'll share it on here later.

Here is a quick run-down of how I make tomato juice.

First, I wash the tomatoes and take out the stem end and any defective spots. Then I cut them into chunks and put them into the kettle I plan to cook them in. Once my kettle is full, I use my hand to squash down the tomatoes a bit to get some juice in the bottom so the tomatoes don't stick to the kettle.
Next, I cook the chunks on medium heat until they are soft, stirring several times. I've learned that if I let them cook till they start to foam a bit, they are usually good and soft and juice quite nicely.


Then I juice them. I use this contraption- I have no idea what it is called- or a Victorio Strainer. I actually prefer the Victorio Strainer, but my kitchen has no good place to attach it that is out of the reach of my dear son. So it was easier for me to use the "contraption" even though it meant that it took a bit longer.


Once I have enough juice I pour it into jars, add 1 teaspoon of salt per quart, and can it. Or else if I want to make tomato sauce I use it for that.


So there you have it. To me, this is such a cheap and easy way to make some healthy food. I like knowing just what all goes into my juice and sauce and of course I love that it is so cheap!

Just a Head's Up

I just wanted to give you a head's up that I may not be able to post much over the next several days. My in-laws (they have 7 kids still at home) are moving back to the States tomorrow after living in Romania for 10 years. We have been busy trying to get their house ready, buy food and necessities, organize work crews to help fix up their house etc. It's been busy and I think it will only be busier the next several days as we try to help them settle and adjust.

If you would, pray for them when you read this. They have a long road of adjusting ahead.

Thanks for your understanding...and I will try to post as often and as much as I can!