Our Christmas tree

Goodbye fall decorations....HELLO CHRISTMAS!! This weekend we put up the tree and made the house ready for the big day. These horrible cell phone pictures do not do the tree justice. No we do not have an angel on top. I can't find one that I like and Matt hates the one that we have used in the past. The fence is to keep tiny little Jax's fingers away from my breakable decorations. Matt made this when Levi was just a baby and it worked great. Now it's time to use it again. So far so good! Merry Christmas to everyone!

What I am grateful for

I am grateful for so many things in my life. I am blessed every day by my Heavenly Father to have the best life possible. I am first eternally thankful for this guy:

Without Matt I would be lost. He is patient, caring, understanding, loving, giving, righteous, daring, fun, smart, determined, and best of all hot! The list could go on and on. He is perfect for me. He makes me want to be my best self and loves me for who I am.

I am thankful for my boys Levi and Jax. Levi is determined in every way. He gets that from Matt for sure. Levi has so much energy and wakes up every day loving life. He is high maintenance and cries a lot but I still love him. Jax is the complete opposite. Jax is laid back and cool. He only cries when he is hungry or tired. He loves his older brother so much and wants to keep up so badly. My boys are just that...mine!! I am so grateful that Heavenly Father sent them to me.

I am thankful for my parents. They have put up with a lot between all of us 5 kids. I'm surprised they haven't gone crazy yet. I am thankful they raised me with my beliefs and standards that I have today. I am thankful they taught me how to be a good person. I am thankful that I am stubborn just like my mom. Can't you tell she is a firecracker? Look at the red hair. That says it all!! Matt tells me that I am just like my mom so I'm pretty sure that's a good thing...right Mom??

I am thankful for my friends that I can count on and rely on for anything. I wish certain people lived closer (you know who you are) but that's ok. It makes the times we do get to see each other just that much more special.

I am thankful for modern conveniences. I love air conditioning, washing machines and dryers, blow dryers, cars, flat irons, clothes irons, tvs, computers, I could keep going and going. I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving and are grateful for all you have.

New Years Resolution--Food Storage!!

I am doing my New Years resolution early this year. Some people want to lose weight. Some want to quit smoking or drinking alcohol. Mine is FOOD STORAGE!! I have no food storage. So for 2011 I am going to do a "Food Storage Item of the Month" for myself and anyone else who may be inspired. My plan is that every time I am at the grocery store to grab that item of the month. So here is my break down of what I want to stock up on month by month:

January: canned potatoes
February: canned vegetables (ie. green beans, corn, carrots)
March: canned chicken
April: tuna
May: Miracle Whip (We eat a lot of sandwiches.)
June: soups (cream of chicken & mushroom)
July: dinner soups
August: cooking spray (I know I can't eat the cooking spray but I need it.)
September: syrup and pancake mix (We LOVE pancakes and french toast. It's a must have in this house!!)
October: cereal
November: evaporated milk
December: peanut butter

So there's my list! Wish me luck! I will post pictures at the end of each month showing how much of each item I purchased. Also, I will include the total amount I spent on each item. I'm excited about doing this. This list isn't set in stone either. If there is an awesome sale on something else then I have the right to get that instead. :)

Cha-Ching

I love getting good deals. Hopefully you know that by now. Have you seen the Ikea commercial where the lady thinks she stole everything b/c she got such a good deal?

This is totally me all the time!! Last night I went to CVS and scored all of this for $2.12.

How did I do it? Here's how: I had $10 worth of CVS ECB (extra care bucks) to spend. I wanted to find a deal where I could roll my ECB and get things I needed.

Transaction #1:

2 Herbal Essence shampoo & conditioner $2.99 each

Total: $5.98

Minus $5 ECB

Total out of pocket: $.98 plus tax $1.06

Got back a $2 ECB

Transaction #2:

2 Herbal Essence shampoo & conditioner $2.99 each

Total: $5.98

Minus $5 ECB

Total out of pocket: $.98 plus tax $1.06

Got back a $2 ECB

So now I had $4 in ECB to spend on something else.

Transaction #3

1 Suave body wash $2

Total: $2

Minus $2 ECB

Total out of pocket: $0

Transaction #4

1 Suave body wash $2

Total $2

Minus $2 ECB

Total out of pocket: $0

I received the $10 in ECB b/c I signed up to be on the CVS Advisor Panel. All you have to do is go here and sign up. I completed a survey recently and I received $5 ECB. They will email you a survey to complete and if you qualify you will get different amounts of ECB for completing the survey. FREE MONEY PEOPLE....FREE!! My sister completed the survey and received $5 in ECB but she doesn't have a CVS nearby so she sent it to me. Thanks Jessica! So I went shopping.

**Note**

I had to do so many transactions b/c the ECB were not only under my name but my sister's name as well. So that meant my sisters card had to be scanned in order to get the ECB so that's why the cashier had to separate everything into different transactions. Even though I did so many transactions it didn't take long at all. Very easy!

Hot glue and burnt fingers

I have a big furniture redo that I am starting this weekend. This piece of furniture will eventually end up in our dining room. Hopefully everything will turn out how I want it to. I have a vision in my head and I am going to do my darndest to make it happen. But in the mean time, Matt went out of town this week for work so I had to do something after the kids were asleep.

So I made this:

This is going to go in our dining room as well. I have a very special place for this big guy! You can go here and see how I made it. I went to Goodwill and bought a book for $2 and at the Dollar Tree I bought a wreath for $1. I picked out a book that had older looking pages and was thicker. I didn't want plain white pages. Most of the wreaths that I have seen made they used a 10 inch wreath. For mine I used a 13 inch. I didn't think that 3 inches would make that big of a difference but it did. It's ok though...I'm still in love. This project does take time and patience and you will have burnt fingers from the hot glue. But it is so worth it.

Master bedroom art

So a couple of months ago I bought some flowery art from Hobby Lobby. When I bought it I knew it really wasn't my style but we needed something in our room. We had empty space above our nightstands. I wanted color but flower art just isn't me. I want our room to be romantic, relaxing, 5 star hotel like. So the flower art had to go. Maybe I will find another place for it in our house. Not sure yet. I will have to add colors in other ways to our room. Anyway, I saw in blogland a lady made "art" from sticks. Sounds weird and hard to picture, right? You can go here to see where I got the idea. Our neighbor beside us has a huge willow tree and sticks are always falling in our yard. Perfect! So I grabbed the sticks I liked and spray painted them black and stapled them to my Goodwill frames. Easy, quick, more my style and FREE!! I can't show you the whole room...well...b/c....my bed isn't made and the nightstands are dusty and it for sure doesn't look 5 star hotel like right now. But trust me this works better than the flowery art. This could work anywhere in your house. Have fun!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I have not bought laundry detergent in over a year. Not b/c I don't wash my clothes but last year I was able to score 8 bottles of laundry detergent for FREE!! Well, now all of that laundry detergent has been used so I recently bought my first bottle. But detergent is so darn expensive when you add up how much you buy it for and how much you use. Now that Levi is potty training I am doing a lot of laundry... A LOT....A LOT!! So I thought I would try to make my own detergent and see how it turned out. If it turned out ok then I could have more detergent for a lot less than what 1 bottle costs. So I found this recipe here. I followed it exactly and it made enough to last me for a while. Then I also found this site here and they did an experiment (non scientific) between Tide and the homemade stuff. Pretty interesting. I bought all of my ingredients at Kroger for a total of $8. The next time I make a batch it will cost me $1 for the Fels Naptha soap. $1!!! Here is a picture of how much I was able to make.

Good luck and I hope you can enjoy saving some money too!

**Note**

There are many different variations of homemade detergent. You can even add other scents to your detergent if you want. Most recipes have the same basic ingredients though. Just do a search for homemade laundry detergent and find one you like.