Amazon Gift Card DEAL!

Living Social a site similar to groupon is having a special for a $20 Amazon.com Gift card for only $10 combine this with your Swagbuck Amazon GC's and think of the possibilities! I love a good deal and this one is WAY to good to pass up. Just like that I have given you a few of my favorite websites :D

Meal Plan Tuesday

I am behind what else is new right? Seriously I think this has been the roughest weekend we've spent as a family in quite some time so it is no wonder I haven't gotten much done. I must say I love allyou and the allyou website. They have a meal plan 1 list 5 meals on their website you can get and download the shopping list. It is so easy and the recipes are simple and usually cheap and tasty which is a must. I like that most of the recipes I used last week had a lot of things that a kitchen normally has so you didn't have to buy a whole lot. My total shopping list including this list totaled $117 now that total included all my other items I needed for the week as well like baby items, toiletries, etc. and I didn't use coupons so that made me pretty happy. I am sticking to once a week or twice a week budgeting for groceries as I think it works better for our family. I am also keeping a log to help me keep track and see where things are going. I am almost at the point where I am ready to go to the envelope system but I haven't made it totally out of my comfort zone yet.

So knowing it is Tuesday already my meal plan for this week looks sort of like this.
Tuesday-Chicken and Brocolli soup since we are still fighting flu around here :(
Wednesday- Pork Loin from the Allyou website
Thursday- Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
Friday- Beef Stew and Cornbread
Saturday- If everyone is feeling well we will have breakfast. Pancakes, Eggs, Bacon such a treat!

As soon as I commit to something

It goes out the window. Friday met us with Micah coming down with a tummy illness, Saturday I got it, Sunday Kerith came down with it and Titus started having congestion and cough all the while Grace and Jonah started to come down with the croupy coughs,runny noses etc. the only well one in the house this weekend has been Eric. These are the times where living close to family is sorely missed. I sure would of loved to call up my Mom or Dad and say hey can make a trip to the store for me. These times always make me thankful for the time I do have with my family and also thankful that I have a very wonderful husband who takes care of everything while I am unable to. I spent around 18 hours in bed door closed something I haven't done in ages, I knew in order for me to stop the madness I needed to get rest and try to get liquids to stay down. Here it is Monday things are finally on the upswing I think, I hope, I pray. It was a holiday weekend we had hoped to spend some quality family time together and I guess we did just with some lovely unwelcome visitors who we hope don't come back for a long while.

Old McDonalds

I always thought Old McDonald had a farm e-i-e-i-o according to Jonah it is a place to eat. On Thursday Titus had his well baby visit and the other kids got to tag a long which has led to Micah having a stomach virus but that is another story. I am so easily distracted. Jonah was well behaved and it was lunch time so I took him to get a happy meal something we rarely do and he was SO SO excited. When Eric got home from work Jonah exclaimed "Dad Mom took me to Old McDonalds today!" we have been trying to correct him but he will not have it. It's Old McDonalds to him. This is also the child who only loves his Mother on Monday,Tuesday, and Fridays and just told me he wants to watch the weather. I really look forward to watching him grow up his four year old philosophies are very interesting.

Confession Thursday: Coupons

Thursday's have now been dubbed Confession Thursday but I am sure you realized that :D. I have to tell you I haven't used coupons in quite some time and have felt a lot of guilt because of it. I subscribe to many coupon blogs, websites, and clipping services and read how these ladies are spending $15 for $150 worth of food. It does happen and I have learned all the tools to make it happen for my own family and I really thought I was failing until I started to put two and two together and realized a couple things. 1) I really don't enjoy coupons all that much except for the products we actually use which isn't much since I cook a lot from scratch. 2) I will never be a saving tons off my grocery bill because I don't have a store that doubles coupons over .40 cents. The ladies I have read about have stores that double coupons up to a dollar and some even triple! I am ok with never being a super saver because you know what I am doing my best for my family. If I am only able to save $10 off my grocery bill at one trip to Super Walmart IT IS OK! I need to repeat this IT IS OK! I have a tendency to do way to much then feel guilty when I don't accomplish much. We are working on that this year(we as in Eric is helping me). I love when my husband is proud of even the little bit of savings like $10 off our Walmart visit it gives me the warm and fuzzy feelings. He is also helpful in letting me know that he would rather I spend my few hours I have while the kids are in school doing something I enjoy like soap making or card making rather than focusing on going to several different grocery stores to spend a little less. I married an angel I tell ya but that is a different post. So if he is ok with it I should be as well but again I am the queen of I can do it all syndrome but God isn't finished with me quite yet praise the Lord!

Me and my mind...

I love the days when I send Grace off to Kindergarten and Jonah, Micah, and Kerith off to Mother's day out. I have 5 hours of time just with myself, well not really Titus is here too but he doesn't say much. This week I have been so grateful for the time I've had since I am fighting this cold sore throat thing. On my drive home from dropping off the kids this morning I had all these great thoughts on what to write about but some where between turning onto our street and pulling in our driveway I lost all my thoughts. I hope on the drive to pick the kids up my thoughts will return to me. I have this issue with grocery lists as well. I can make a list in my mind at 2 am but as soon as I have pen and paper in my hand everything is out of the brain. So because I am apparently brain dead this afternoon I am going to take a nap and hope something comes back to me.

Snow

I love snow. This morning we woke up to a blanket of white and I took Jonah, Micah and Kerith out to play. Our play time did not last long as the wind started to whip up making the wind chills in the single digits and the kids got cold. We came in and enjoyed some hot cocoa.