Happy Halloween!!!

For over a week April could talk of virtually nothing other than how excited she was that it would soon be Halloween and how she was going to go to so many houses, say "Trick or Treat" and get tons of candy. So which of those goals do you think she accomplished? Let me give you a clue.....0. She lasted about 17 minutes doing the Trick or Treating thing. After about the 6th house she said, "I think we should just go home and pass out candy now." So that is what she did. Every year is the same. She has big plans but it must never be as much fun as she thinks it will be cause she never even lasts for our complete block. She prefers to hand out the candy instead of collect it. Which isn't all bad I guess. Layne does get a little disappointed. He loves Halloween and wants so badly for her to get more into it. He took her to about 2 of the houses tonight and came back shaking his head and saying "I've never met a kid that didn't want to go Trick or Treating." He thinks its weird. : )

It's kind of strange because we thought we would be bombarded with kids since it was really nice out tonight. We only got about 70 which is 10 less than last year - and last year was freezing!!! This year (maybe I already mentioned it) we passed out fruit snacks instead of candy. We bought 2 boxes of 42 packages for less than $10. Can't beat that for frugal treats!

I think I mentioned in a post earlier in this week that I started reading the book "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer. First let me say that I normally don't read that type of book and I was completely expecting not to really enjoy it. But....wow. That book was so good - I literally could not put it down. I read the whole book in 3 evenings. Seriously - it was that good. Now I'm dying to read the next book in the series "New Moon" I believe is the title. But I don't want to spend the money on it, so I had to settle for putting my name on the waiting list at the library.

Now that Halloween is officially over it's time to start thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have started my Christmas shopping, but just barely. I have also started picking up some of the staples for Holiday baking. Last week Hy-vee had flour and sugar on sale for $0.99 (limit of 2), so I picked those up. I also picked up a 2 lb package of yeast at Sam's Club for $4 to make yummy cinnamon rolls and homemade bread on the cold days we have ahead of us.

Do you know what one of the worst things about the cold weather is? Static. It drives me nuts. Rumor has it that if you pin a safety pin into the seam of your skirt or pants it's supposed to keep you from getting that static ride-up on your legs. I personally have never tried it, but I am willing too! (Although I am a bit skeptical....)

Another tip - that really has nothing to do with cold weather - is to keep a chalkboard eraser in your car to clean that foggy, smoky residue off the inside of the windows. That I plan on trying as soon as I pick up an eraser. I don't know about you, but I hate that stuff on the inside of my windshield. It seems like no matter how many times I try to clean it with glass cleaner it just never works. I'll think I'm good to go and then about run over some poor animal or sideswipe a care the next time I'm driving towards the sun.

Have a safe and fun Halloween!!!

Dining Sets,Pumpkin Carving, and Nightgowns

Today we picked up our beautiful new dining room set. We know longer have the hand-me-down table and nursing home chairs. (I did mention that before, right? That our chairs were from a nursing home that closed down? But they were pretty darn comfy if I do say so!) They asked us if we wanted the set to be delivered and assembled. The price? About $175. Oh - and the pick-up location is 1/2 mile from our house. One would think that when you spend $1,000 on a dining room set you would get free delivery, but apparently not. So obviously, since we are cheap and about had a stroke paying for the dining set, we decided we could do it. It wasn't a horrible experience, but let's just say we decided that it probably would have been money well spent to have had them deliver and assemble it. Now we just need some accessories (and to clean the counter top behind the table!) Oh and here is a picture of our beautiful set!

Can you believe that tomorrow is Halloween?? Since we had not carved our pumpkins yet we did this after assembling the dining room table. April and Grandpa Mike grew the pumpkins in Grandpa Mike and Grandma Sue's garden. April was pretty proud of them. And we only spent $1 on the packet of seeds, instead of $4 or more per pumpkin. They weren't real big, but they were a good enough size to be carved. Usually I man the camera and get all the pictures for April's scrapbooks. However this year I ended up with a more "hands on" role. Yes, lucky me, I got to clean the insides out. When we were done we had pumpkin chunks (thanks to Layne) all over the kitchen. My shirt that once had white sleeves now has orange flecks of pumpkin stuck all over it (does that stuff stain???). Here's what they looked like when we were done:

Tip of the Day: Like April's p.j.'s? Of course they are a bit hard to see. But here is a great tip. We almost never buy her pajamas from a store. We pick out a pattern for a couple dollars and then pick out some cute fabric that we know she would love or sometimes we let her pick out the fabric. I will usually buy about 3-4 different patterns at a time and most nightgowns take no more than 2 yards for her size (size 7). We have a local lady that sews for a living. I will take the pattern and fabric to her. She makes the gowns for about $5-7 each - depending on how complicated and time consuming the project is. April is still able to wear nightgowns that we had made when she was 3, they were originally ankle length and are now knee length. We originally bought 2 nightgowns - both of which she still wears. Neither of them have had a single seam rip or have any holes. We paid $1 for those patterns and each gown cost us $5 to have made. That is a total of $11 for gowns that she has worn for over 3 years and can probably still wear at least another year or two. These gowns are great because no one has any like them, they are originals. April helped pick the fabric so she loves them. They would be fantastic gifts for a child, grandchild, or niece. They are very affordable and last much better than any pajama you will ever buy off of a rack. This is one of the best frugal gifts you could give to a little girl!!

Precious Time

How is it possible that November is only days away?? It seems as though the older I get the faster time slips by. It seems like only a few years ago my husband and I started dating, it certainly does seem like the 12+ years that it really is! I see April growing up so quickly. I swear it was only last year that she was born. It's as though I fell asleep one night and literally woke up to her being 6 years old. What I wouldn't give to have her be an infant for just one more day. To smell that sweet baby smell, to kiss her pudgy hands and cheeks. To know that all it takes to make her happy is me holding and cuddling her.

We are in such a hurry to grow up when we are young. We actually wish away most of our lives. Always in a hurry for the next milestone. When we are in our teens we can't wait to be out on our own, completely independent. Then we can't wait to get married, buy our first house, have children. The list goes on. We get so wrapped up in planning ahead that we forget to enjoy what we have now. Even if things don't always go according to plan it's okay. Just take a deep breath and just be. Not everything needs to be as big of a drama as we make it out to be. And trust me, I am the queen of drama. I need to take my own advice more than anyone else probably does. I am not spontaneous. I never have been. So when something doesn't go as planned or there is an interruption in my plans I get... well frazzled. I freak out and sometimes throw a temper tantrum of sorts. (Ask my mom, she knows all about it.) This is something that I really need to work on. I need to learn that I can't control everything and everyone. I need to just relax and know that somehow everything will work out just as it is meant to.

So for today's tip: Take a few minutes to yourself and just think about all the things that you are grateful for. Don't think about the things you want to change about yourself, think about the things you like about yourself and your life. Things don't always have to big and grand to be appreciated. Often its the little things that mean the most.

Guess what we bought today?

Our very own dining room set!!! It is our first brand new set ever. And it is BEAUTIFUL! We have had a couple hand me down sets, but nothing we were crazy about. But hey, they served a purpose and were free. We are supposed to get it on Thursday. I will have to take pictures to post once we have it in here. We also bought a pretty mosaic bowl for the table. Now I need to find a runner to put on it. Yoohoo! I am so excited! Oh - but we do have one dilemma. We used to put our Christmas tree in the dining room because the table we currently use is a smallish octagon shape so we had plenty of room for a tree. The new table is 72" long so we won't have the room in here for our Christmas tree. We'll figure something out I'm sure.

I've been using my crockpot quite a bit lately. I forget sometimes how convenient it is. It's so nice to have something put into the crockpot to cook during the day while we are at work. And then we can avoid even having the discussion of what we should eat. Which is definitely a bonus.

So I finished reading God's Smuggler. It was really a great book. It's amazing how some people believe so strongly that they are willing to give up everything and put themselves in harms way to spread the word of God. Now I have started reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I'm not too far into yet, so I'm not sure.

Today's tip: I have been looking for a white board calendar to hang on the refrigerator for meal planning. I found these awesome magnetic week over week calendars at Office Depot. You can move each week to rotate them. So your not stuck with just one month in a normal calendar fashion. You can have 1 week of one month & 3 of another or any combination. I thought this calendar was awesome and am planning on ordering one in the near future.

Christmas - the Shopping has begun! (Barely)

Today mom took April for a couple hours in the afternoon. Layne & I ate some lunch at home then went to a couple stores. I picked up a couple little things for April for Christmas. One of them was from the $1 section at Target, it was some nail polish and nail stickers for her stocking. We made our way to Barnes and Noble after that and picked her up a cute diary with a lock and key. She has so much that its hard to find presents for her. I did get a couple coupon books today that they were selling for a fundraiser at church also. They are for Younkers and cost $5 each. Each coupon book has 1 $10 off any purchase of $10 or more and numerous 20% off coupons. I'm hoping to be able to use these to pick up some gifts as well. Only 5 more paychecks till Christmas! Yikes!! Boy are things going to be tight this year. Hopefully I can come up with some creative gift ideas that are easy on the wallet. Luckily I do have ideas for most of the people on my list. Which helps. Some of them are even homemade gifts, but none of them are real time consuming - definitely a good thing!



Todays tip: Do you like to use those daily shower sprays to help get rid of the day to day grime on your shower walls? Did you know you can make it yourself for about 1/10th of the price that you pay when buying it? I have come across a couple different versions of this of this normally pricey cleaner.

Recipe #1:

Mix together 1/3 cup rubbing alcohol for every cup of water you add to a spray bottle.
Shake, then spray on, no rinsing is required.

Recipe #2:

Mix together 3 cups hot water, 1/2 cup Vinegar, 1 Tbsp Dish Detergent, 1 Tbsp Borax
in a spray bottle. Shake then spray. Note: Do not use this version if you have tile and grout in your shower. The acid in the vinegar can cause the grout to break down!

Too Many Doctor Visits

It seems as though these last couple weeks have just flown by and my poor blog has suffered for it. Between April having strep throat (again) and me going back in to the doctor for additional testing it seems as though we live at the doctors' offices. I do not even want to see all the medical bills that will start rolling in soon!!

Last weekend when we were out of town we ate out a lot. Which is not normal for us. So this week we've just been eating at home and trying to use up what we have here already. Tomorrow we will pick up our food from Angel Food Ministries. So our freezer will once again be full. After we pick our food up tomorrow I am going to sit down with a cookbook and pick out a few meals to get us through the next week. Since it's been getting colder I've been making more soups. This week we had a sausage soup - which was okay, but not fantastic. I actually would have preferred it without the sausage, which I guess would just be soup. : ) I also have a lot of eggs right now so I hard boiled some tonight for egg salad to have for lunches this weekend.

I don't know about all of you, but I am SO READY for the election to be over. Every commercial on the radio and television is political and that gets old real quick. I have tuning in to Saturday Night Live during this election season and boy is it funny! I could never run for any kind of public office if I knew everyone in the country would be picking me apart. You better be a pretty strong person to have to put up with that and not take it personal.

I hope no one is too disappointed, but I do not have a tip ready for tonight. April has a friend over right now and to be honest, it's very distracting. Who knew that 2 kids could be so loud!! Gotta get going for now to take April's friend home.

Another week begins

Why is it that the weekends just fly bye and the weekdays drag? Well, actually they drag while I'm at work and fly bye once I get home.

We went out of town to visit my brother, Ryan, and his family this weekend. It was a pretty good time. I had great plans of things I wanted to do/see - I didn't really do much of anything I planned on, but I have to admit it was nice to not really do anything. My brother has a 4-year old daughter who is so cute and funny. She and April love to play together, for the most part they get along although there is some rivalry for attention since they are both the only children in their households. I took the girls to the Children's Museum on Saturday for a couple hours. They were so good.

Remember how I mentioned last week that I've been feeling moody? Well, it's not getting better - at all! Next week I should get that "special visitor" and hopefully things will even out a little bit. I hate to be grouchy but man! I am ready to claw someone's eyes out for looking at me wrong right now. It's really not fun to feel that way and I've been trying so hard to keep it under wraps so I don't upset anyone else - just because I'm hormonally unbalanced doesn't mean everyone else should the price, right? And I am craving junk food like crazy! Man, what I wouldn't give right now for some salt & vinegar chips! Seriously, there is a show on the Food Network about snacks and they just had salt & vinegar chips on there and now I'm craving them. Thanks Food Network!

Tip of the Day: Have you ever wanted to try out a new restaurant while out of town but didn't want to pay a lot? Visit Restaurant.com to see what they have available in that town. I bought 5 gift certificates last week to places around where my brother lives. (I knew we'd get down there a few times in the next year.) Anyway, I had a coupon code that I came across online to get 80% off my purchase. I bought 5 gift certificates (valued at $25 each) for a mere $10, not $10 each, but for a total of $10 - that's $2 per certificate for a savings of $23 each!! There are some regulations for using coupons that vary by location. Typical ones are that you must spend $35 to use the certificate, that you can only use one per visit - or even one certificate per month, and that gratuity is automatically calculated into the bill. We used one of our certificates while we were visiting Ryan. It was accepted with no problems at all. This is definitely a website worth checking out - especially with Christmas coming up! Think of how cheap you could get your Christmas shopping done for!!