God’s creation is AMAZING! While I was in my backyard this morning, I found a hawk has made a nest at the back of our yard.

UPDATE: I have since realized the hawk did not make a nest in the backyard, it was just the way the trees grow together.  The hawk just happened to be sitting in the tree hunting or eating.  But it was still an awesome teachable moment for me to share with my blessings.

Does the hawk fly by your wisdom, and spread its wings toward the south? –Job 39:26

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.

1 John 4:7-9 (NKJ)

I have found my new favorite breakfast food for the children!  Yes you read right, popcorn cereal.  I made it for breakfast and after letting the children know that some cowboys might have eaten this when they where little ones, it went over with a big hit! (It was apparently used in Colonial America.)  I would have liked to have gotten a picture to post of it, but the children downed 2 bowls each faster than I could think to grab my camera.  I got the recipe from Tammy’s Recipes, a website I like to frequent for, you guessed it, recipes.

Okay here is the how’s and what for’s.  Pop some corn in your air popper.  Take some of the plain popcorn and put it in your cereal bowl, filling to the brim (it will reduce to about half.)  Sprinkle on a spoonful of the sweetener of your choice.  We used sugar to try this first time, but brown sugar or honey also sound good.  Add your milk, I went with Tammy and added 1/2 cup.  Finally stir to coat the popcorn and enjoy.

I decided to try this because, hey what do I have to lose, right?  I am SO glad I did.  This breakfast, for all 3 of my children, cost about sixty cents.  And the time it took was less than it would to boil water.

On Sunday, one of the angelic 3 year olds in my class gave me a flower.  I was delightfully surprised at her gift.  She painstakingly picked out just the right colors and worked hard to paint the flower.  I was especially taken by the beautiful purple…(along with the other colors streaking through it.)  Purple is my favorite color; it also happens to be the favorite of about half of my3 year old girls.  And the pink, green and blue allows it to blend into some other nick-knacks I have and love.

I have receive gifts from my children before and I am always thankful for whatever they bought or made for me.  But there is something that just shouts love when you receive a hand made item from someone when you least expect it.  I am so blessed to be able to teach such thoughtful children.

As you can see from the title, I didn’t succeed at writing 2 posts each week.  I forgot that sometimes life gets in the way.  We have had sick people in our house these past 2 weeks.  Everyone is fine now, but it did limit my free time.  I have a new respect for bloggers who post daily, semiweekly or even once a week.  For those of you out there, how do you do it?!

In other news, I have been doing great on my budget.  Last week I spent down to the last penny (I was fishing out coins).  My greatest deals were on Saturday.  I spent 4.24 on 2 packs of diapers and 1 pack of pull-ups (thanks to a gift certificate and coupons).  I also found a local store that is selling milk and eggs at a fantastic price.  Milk is $1.99 and a dozen eggs are $.99!  This week I am going to try not going to the store at all.   So far $80 is tight, but we can do it.

Alright, so far I have barely managed to make my goal of 2 posts a week…And that is only because last week I did 2 the same day.  I don’t know if that really counts for 2 a week, as it was not what I had in mind when I set my goal, but the way I figure it counts as long as I am attempting to write the posts on different days and it won’t if I start making it a habit to only blog on one day.

Well since you can see how I am doing on that resolution here, I will update you on my other one, to stick to my $80 a week budget.  Last week the only money spent was a little over $5 on ice creams at Chik-fil-A.  We ate from the pantry, which was really fun and I managed to use some stuff that I didn’t even know I had.  But unfortunately it was not to last.  I forgot that if I was going to eat from the pantry, I needed to be sure I had some basic essentials, like bread and tomato sauce.  After some great deals, like 3 gallons of milk for $1.49 each, I ended up spending $63.57 on groceries.  Since we went out to eat on Sunday, I am over my budget for the week.  On the other hand since I was under from last week, I am still well under budget for the month.

Using cash is really helping to stay on target.  I am going to make this really cute envelope system that I found recently.  We will see how it goes.

I wanted to make something special for Christmas this past year, so I decided to make each of my children a sock toy.  They were a big hit, and since I never got around to posting about them last year I figured I would do a little ‘Post of the Past’.

I put 6 magnets in each toy; the first 4 went into the hands and feet.  The other two went in a different spot for each animal.

The first one I made was the monkey.  It was kind of my test, since I had a pattern that I had printed off the Internet and if it didn’t turn out the way I wanted, I had not lost all that much.  I shouldn’t have worried, as it was really easy and fun to make.   I put the extra 2 magnets in the tail, one at the very end and one a little more than half way up.

The second I made was this adorable frog.  I had no pattern to follow, but I really liked how he turned out.  I call him the “Ay yi yi Frog” because I put the extra magnets about where his ears would be.  He reminds me of a tree frog from South America, so he would of coarse need to be able to speak the native language right…(Yes I know, I put way to much thought into this.)

The last one I made was an elephant.  I altered pattern for an elephant on four legs to make it walk on 2.  I put the extra magnets in the tip of the trunk and in the mouth so it could ‘feed” itself.

If anyone wants a beginners project to make for someone, these are great.  The hardest part was turning some of the smaller pieces right side out.

For Benjamin’s 5th birthday, he requested a Dinosaur cake.  We have been learning all about dinosaurs in school, and I think he was thinking along the lines of T-rex.  What he got was this…

In this next picture you can see the damage to the head…It was suppose to be erect, but instead it was either sleeping or eating, depending on what angle you looked at.

It might not have turned out just how I wanted, but over all he thought it was awesome.  Here is a shot of him (and Daddy) slaying the beast.

I kept to our budget, clumsy as I may have been.

Without couponing I managed to have just over $3 left from our household budget.  Having cash really helped me to not spend more money than I planned to.  I was even able to put together a small gift for a friend who had a baby Thursday evening.

Next week I will need to be a little more cautious about where the budget goes.  My plan is to get back into couponing and see if we can’t eat from the pantry next week.  We’ll see how well that works out.

Get ready for this…

Are you sitting down…

Using CASH!!

Wow!  Can you believe it!!

Seriously, I think using cash instead of card will help me.  In the past, I have said “my budget is … and I am going to stick to it” but then I would see a “great deal” or a “just have to have item” and since it was coming out of the bank and not my hand, I never saw how much I was spending.  Someone suggested that cash would be easier to keep me on track, so I am trying it.  That means I will need to be more cautious about spending money, because once the money is gone for the week, it’s GONE.

Lets hope I learn my money limits early…

Well I know this is late, but I couldn’t seem to remember my password.  I am sure I am not the only one who has issues remembering the many different passwords for each account.  And not being able to write them down, I am half afraid I will lose my mind and not be able to remember any!

Okay now that I have that little rant out of the way, I do wish all a very merry and prosperous new year.  For the first time in my short lifetime, I have decided to make a new year’s resolution.  And me being the jump-in-with-both-feet sort, I decided on 2 resolutions.

The first is that  I write on this blog at least 2 times a week.  This is a big step for me, as I spend hours weighing just what to say on each and every post.  In light of Proverbs 10, I am trying to restrain my lips so we shall see how I do with this resolution.

The second is in two parts.  The first being that I stick to my $80 a week budget for all household goods.  The second part is that by the end of the year I have managed to lower our budget to $50 a week.  I realized that just putting $30 aside each week is $1560 a year, which will add up quite nicely.

We will see how well I do on my resolutions.  I will update here periodically.

Before I get into all that I bought I want to publicly praise my children on their behavior at Walgreens.  They were polite, obedient and over all big helps to me.  I am so proud of them.

It really makes a big difference in a shopping trip if the children are be helpers and not hinders.  I found quite a few deals yesterday, but I did fall into a frugal shoppers worst nightmare in that I didn’t go into the store knowing exactly how much I was going to spend.  I know, I know, never go into a store unprepared, but I did and paid a price for it.  Without going into the gory details, just know I should have spent about $8 less than what I was charged.

That said let me show you what I bought.

• 6 boxes of Kleenex tissues
• 3 bottles Ocean Spray cranberry juice
• 2 bottles Ocean Spray pomegranate cranberry juice
• jumbo pack of Huggies
• jumbo pack Pull-Ups
• 4 boxes Jell-o
• 2 cans evaporated milk
• 2 cans sweetened condensed milk
• 2 cans Betty Crocker frosting
• 3 Glade spray air freshener
• 2 Walgreens coloring books (for the coupons)

All for a total of $22.45 out of pocket!!  AND…I will be sending in a $5 rebate on the Glade from here.  I was so excited till I started looking at my receipt and realized the mistakes that cost me $8.  It is a good reminder for me to be certain of how much I am spending before going to the store.

These are only the lemons I could reach…a little more than half the lemons on the tree.

Friday, while Tony took the boys to NC with him, Carolyn and I stayed home and pick lemons for lemonade.  I think we just might have enough, what do you think, LOL.  The boys did get to pick one before they left, but they really had no interested once they realized how “dangerous” it is to pick citrus fruit.  My poor hands hurt all weekend, but it was so worth it.  Just in case you have never seen a citrus tree and think I might be off my rocker, here is some pictures of my lovely tree.

After Carolyn picked her lemon, she was in charge of putting lemons in the buckets while I took on the mission of collecting them off the tree.  I was reminded yet again that I need to look for a taller ladder, our current one lets me reach 9 feet but my tree is at least 12 feet tall.  Needless to say I didn’t pick all the fruit, but I did get a good bit.  Enough to make some lemonade, for now and for later.

I get so excited when I score some awesome deals.  I can talk for hours on the subject, as seen by my husband on a few of our date.  And since Tony loves it when I save money, just doesn’t want to hear every single, little detail, well I thought I would post it here and maybe get it all out of my system.

Today I went to Walgreens while the children played at a friends house.  First let me tell you what I got:

• 2 bottles of witch hazel
• a two pack of Robitussin on the go
• a small bottle of Beano
• a bottle of Dulcolax
• and a ChapStick, fresh Effects

I know, not things most people “just have to have”.  And if I had not had 10 register rewards that were due to expire tomorrow, I might not have bought the stuff either.  (Well with the exception of the chapstick…mine is missing. )  But hear me out.  I spent a total of $4.28 out of pocket.  (My out of pocket is after the register rewards and other coupons.)  I got back 12 register rewards and will send in for a $5 rebate check via USPS tomorrow, which I will consider “Laundered Money” so it can either go into savings or be respent without coming out of pocket.

All in all, I say that’s a good find.

Isn’t it amazing how God challenges us through the unexpected.  He used my 6 year old in such a way this past week.  My little man decided on Monday to learn Psalm 1, 8 and 100 by Wednesday.  He didn’t quite make it, taking the whole time to really learn Psalm 1, but he hasn’t let that faze him.  He didn’t pout, as so many of us do, when he didn’t make his self-imposed deadline.  He was excited that he had learned Psalm 1.

It puts a new perspective on Matthew 18 for me, when Jesus says “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Can you imagine if we had just a little of Alexander’s enthusiasm for learning God’s word?

Tony took me to a ggggrrrrreeeaaattttt place for lunch to celebrate our anniversary.  It was a Greek, American, International restaurant called Athenian Gardens near the hospital.  I so recommend it to anyone in Beaufort (or anyone who comes to visit.)  It is a cute little family owned restaurant with great atmosphere. The food was fantastic too!  We were so full we didn’t eat dinner.

The original plan was to go out to dinner in the evening too, but since there was no way we could top lunch we decided on Frappuccinos from Starbucks and walking around Target.  I never thought I would chose pumpkin over chocolate, but I did!

Tony,

You are so good to me!  I am so excited to start discovering all the things I can do on this site.  Thank you for loving me so much.  I love you!

-WifE

P.S.  I really like the drawing of me!  It is so COOL!