Saving You Time & Money
It’s no secret among friends and family that we are a Lego loving family. In the past 4 years our collection has nearly tripled in size. To reflect our love for Legos, this year our Christmas tree is decorated exclusively with Lego ornaments. It took a family effort to create them, thus giving us lots of extra quality time together (sometimes good, sometimes bad LOL) and that’s an extra benefit. Now, lest you begin to throw accolades of how creative we {Read More}
This post was originally published on December 6, 2011. It is not meant to say that what anyone else does at Christmas is wrong, just to share how our family chooses to celebrate with the giving of gifts. Several years ago was our first time to buy Christmas gifts for kids in our home. It was our first year to be foster parents and we loved getting to know the kids and spoiling them with a life like they had {Read More}
A friend of mine posted this as a status update recently on Facebook. It’s exactly how I feel. Although I may post about how my family celebrates Christmas or Halloween, or how we handle our finances, this doesn’t mean you should do the same thing – each family should do what works for them! If you are a parent who hides an elf every Christmas, dyes dozens of eggs every Easter, carves three pumpkins every Halloween, bakes homemade cookies at {Read More}
Microwave fudge is the easiest and quickest way to make your own fudge. It takes just 3 ingredients and 5 minutes to prepare. You can’t go wrong with this one! Microwave Fudge Ingredients 3 cups chocolate chips (I prefer to mix semi-sweet and milk chocolate for a sweeter fudge) 4 TBS margarine (slices are preferrable) 1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz) Microwave Fudge Directions Mix chocolate chips (if using 2 kinds) Put all ingredients in a large glass bowl {Read More}
Last week I shared some tips for giving nice baby gifts without breaking the budget. This week I’m going to let you peek into my gift closet and give you some tips for children’s gifts without breaking the budget. First, I should say that I haven’t always had a gift closet. It began as one box in the closet where I’d store gifts I found for family throughout the year. As my sister began having children, it expanded to 2 {Read More}
Not too long ago I began to feel like a hypocrite. Even worse, I felt like a hypocrite because of what I said to my son. I told him we didn’t have enough money to buy a new kitchen gadget for him to play with. (you do remember that he’s a chef wanna be right?) It wasn’t the first time that I hadn’t been completely honest with him about our finances and it made me feel terrible. He doesn’t need {Read More}
Everyone knows I love my Tide laundry detergent. I thought I was doing pretty good to get a 50 oz jug for around $2, but now I’ve come up with a way to make 3x that amount for around $2! I started with this recipe for laundry detergent from Pary Moppins’ friend. I decided to half the recipe because I didn’t want the extra detergent sitting around for years. Here’s what you’ll need: 1/2 bar Fels Naptha or Zote laundry {Read More}
A couple of weeks ago I shared my mother-in-law’s recipe for candied sweet potatoes. As promised, today I’m sharing a couple of ways you can make this traditional recipe into a Halloween party worthy dish. For these headstones I sliced large marshmallows in half long ways. I wasn’t terrible happy with their shape or that the dish wasn’t entirely edible if I used a pen or marker to write on the headstones. So for these headstones I sliced a block {Read More}
Keep all of your child’s medical records, prescription print offs and miscellaneous information from doctor appointments in a folder or binder. Carry it with you anytime you take your child for a well check or you have an appointment with a different doctor than normal. It will help you give the most accurate information to the doctors and save you from a lot of paper clutter induced headaches at home! When we were foster parents back in Arkansas, each foster {Read More}
This Saturday and Sunday are the Annual Phone Book Recycle Days at the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler. For every outdated phone book you bring you’ll receive one free admission to the zoo that day. We love the zoo in Tyler. It’s big enough to have a good variety yet small enough that you are able to still see all the exhibits. Say hello to the giraffes for us! For more info visit the Caldwell Zoo website. Subscribe to RSS headline {Read More}