This week, we truly lacked for nothing. We ate great meals, wore clean, nice clothes, & had lots of fun playing & working around the house.

yesterday…

breakfast -same ole’ - cereal & sausage biscuits

lunch- levi & mommy - sandwich & strawberries, daddy - meeting (bought lunch with money that was found this week

supper- DATE NIGHT!!! yay! Paw and Nanny took the boys, and we went to Opry Mills. We were suppose to buying a shower gift for a party tomorrow but somehow managed to forget to pick it up on the way out of the mall. We ate TGIFridays and the meal for both was $18, not too bad, we had water and ordered off the right size right price menu. We did get some awesome deals will shopping. Carters Outlet - camo pants for Levi - $3.99 ($24 savings) & the cutest sports blazer/jacket for $3.99 ($28.00 savings) & the best deal was GAP - we got sweatpants, sweater, tshirt, jeans, and hoodie for $30! (40% off clearance, 15% off -from doing a survey, and a $30 gift card) We did splurge and spent $10 getting Levi a pirate hat & sword for staying dry during naps and nighttime. (It was well worth it when you saw his face when we showed it to him!)

Today,

breakfast - cereal

lunch- grilled cheese, chips, raisons

supper- not for sure - I have chicken, we might grill

*all my ebay stuff has bidders - hopefully the prices will go up!*

Well tomorrow is day #7! I’ll update one more time and give some of my thoughts on what I have learned and what the Lord has been teaching & challenging me with throughout the week.

Categories: frugal
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The saying “dirt cheap” is kind-of untrue. Dirt isn’t cheap…..ask my parents who buy LOTS of it to put in the pots for the plants in their greenhouse.

Yesterday, we were going to have to buy dirt. Not necessarily the kind of thing I like to spend money on, but we need to fill in our yard before Friday so that our yard can get re-hydroseeded. Luckily for us though, some of our friends are contracting a house and they just broke ground and and have too much dirt so we were able to go get some for free!!! Donald with some help (thanks Cody) went and got the dirt and with the tractor Tim dropped off (thanks Tim) we were able to fill in the yard for free! Levi loved driving on the tractor and being “a worker man” (as he likes to be referred as) Hopefully in the next few weeks we will have a beautiful yard with grass! (Levi will be sad to know that his little dirt patch he plays in will be gone!)

Our Frugal Week is going well….

Breakfast - toast & dutch cheese, cereal

Lunch - leftover taco meat & beans on chips, Levi - ham & cheese sandwich & raisons

Supper - the boys & I will have tomato soup from the freezer and grilled cheese, Donald has to teach so he picks up something during his break.

I did finally get to Kroger. Ughh….didn’t have as many coupons as normal. I saved $6.95 on regular coupons, $1.40 on doubled coupons, $21.50 on Kroger Plus card. Not too bad I guess. Milk was not on sale, and ouch! chocolate milk is expensive, but it is a must in our house. I did stock up on some chicken breasts (great sale), laundry detergent (half price, plus coupon), brownie mixes (half price), & lots of baby food (lots of coupons) all in all it was a good trip, I stayed at our budgeted amount, and I had a great cup of free coffee.

our free tractor rental & free dirt

Categories: frugal
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Breakfast - toast & dutch cheese for Levi, granola for me, business meeting for Donald (breakfast included)

Lunch - leftover hotdogs from last night, sandwiches

Supper- beef and bean burritos (extra ground beef from last night) & rice

I never did make it to Kroger yesterday. I will definitely have to go today.

I did get some things posted on Ebay, and already have several “watchers” so hopefully that will mean several bidders. I started organizing Jack’s closet yesterday - transitioning to fall clothes. Most of his summer clothes that I don’t save - I send with my parents to Haiti. I definitely bought the wrong size last year when purchasing ahead of time. Jack is much bigger than I thought he would be! Oh, well, now I have some boy gifts, & will sell the rest on Ebay.

One of my cousins sent me a link to this website - www.babycheapskate.blogspot.com

great for all you mommies!!!

Levi having his lunch outside!

Jack “helping” mommy with dishes!

Categories: frugal
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Wow, this day started out EARLY….2 am Levi woke startled us awake when he was all the sudden in our room crying…after a few minutes of consoling him, I put him back to bed, just in time to hear Jack crying. Thinking he may be hungry due to his schedule being all out of sorts with him being sick, I thought I would try to feed him. Well that was DEFINITELY not the problem!!! After 1 1/2 of crying, screaming, and high pitched wailing from Jack, and us trying to console him every way possible, I gave up to our last resort, put in bed with us. Now that always worked for Levi, not for Jack though, he is a stomach sleeper and with Donald taking up 3/4’s of our queen and me hanging off the side of the bed, Jack did not have enough room to really get comfy. So as soon as he calmed down and was dozing off, I put him back in his bed, of course he woke up instantly, but I just left and he fell back asleep after 2-3 minutes of crying, and stayed asleep till 8.

SO…..this mornings breakfast was not great. I planned on getting up early and making something fun & yummy, but at 4:30 when I finally crawled back in bed, I also shut off the alarm clock!!!

Breakfast - we resorted to cereal & egg sandwiches. Kind-of blah, but filling none the less.

After breakfast, we went to the post office & library- returned some books on Curious George and got some books on PIRATES. Levi is very excited. We wanted books on cowboys, but once he saw these he was ready to go! Levi of course wore his daily outfit of cowboy boots, hat, & his toy gun in the library. He was shooting everything that moved. He wanted to take it into the post office, but I told him that wasn’t allowed. No guns in federal buildings. He thought that was silly.

Lunch - Levi had PB&J sandwich, pretzels, and raisins. Donald & I had leftover pork roast that I shredded and added bque sauce to and put on buns. (I’ll be honest, the pork roast last night was so-so, but the sandwiches were good!)

Supper - I planned on meatballs (ground chuck from freezer) & veggies, but hubbie had other idea. So hamburgers & fries (all from freezer) it is!

I have to make a Kroger run sometime today! We are running low on milk, eggs, & bread. and Jack is going through diapers & wipes like crazy….guess it is the teething!

I plan on taking our “big pot” of change with me to see how much money is in it. We usually plan something fun with that money, this year we were going to use it on our big 5 year anniversary that’s coming up in December. BUT instead we are hoping it will amount to something large and help us so that we can be “medically debt free” - we have had quite the year on medical expenses with Jack’s surprise c-section and 5 day hospital stay to his CT scan and ER visit. We have surprisingly met our deductible and have paid off all our expenses as far at the birth of Jack are concerned (or so we hope, we just paid a “surprise” bill from the guy who stood by me during the c-section!) - all we have left is Jack’s Vanderbilt bills which hopefully with our “pot of change” will be paid off in the next few weeks!!!! yay! then we are going to save change like crazy till December!!!!

I’ll let you know how the shopping trip and “pot of change” go later today!

*I put some new pictures in the September gallery* Levi playing with a bottle of water in the dirt (I told him if sprinkled water on the dirt he would “make cement” - he loved it!! & Jack has a new trick - standing up in bed! He is quite proud of himself! Makes nap times fun!

Categories: frugal
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*Frugality is the practice of acquiring goods and services in a restrained manner, and resourcefully using already owned economic goods and services, to achieve a longer term goal.[1](wikipedia) *

I am not an impulse buyer or heavy spender, but I definitely am still learning how to be frugal.

I have recently really started watching how much we spend on things. Especially groceries & everyday necessities. I have always clipped coupons, but I am now making my grocery list & meals according to what coupons I have. There is a thrill in seeing how much you save at the bottom of your receipt! I love when coupons are doubled & tripled. The other day the bread we buy was on sale for 99 cents and we had a 55 cent coupon that was doubled. My sister-in-law was telling me she bought something that was on sale with a coupon and a rebate and made money!!! We are pretty crazy about saving money right now, we even print coupons off that we find online (of course you have to be careful not to use $5 worth of ink for a 50 cent coupon

SO this is the week of frugality…..we will see how it goes…..you’ll have to check back daily for updates.

so far so good….

We had a great breakfast - cereal & scrambled eggs I know great combo - Levi likes it, so whatever works!

Lunch was sandwiches & leftover chicken strips from freezer.

Supper is in the crockpot - a $4 pork roast with potatoes! (hope to have lots of leftovers for sandwiches tomorrow!)

We have not left the house, so no expensive gas wasted! Levi has had a fun day playing puzzles, play-doh, & guns. He is now napping. Jack is sick. He has been running a temperature since yesterday. I think it is his teeth. He is extremely cranky and just fell asleep for a nap. I hope his tylenol kicks in and gives him some relief!

One of my goals this week is to go through the boys clothes and put the ones that can’t go to Haiti on EBAY #1 reason- make some money for fall clothes for the boys #2 - clean up some of the clutter *side note - I love ebay…..Donald makes fun of me by telling me he has to watch out because if he doesn’t use something for a while I will sell it on EBAY. ha! he is kind-of right! I sell all kinds of things on EBAY. It is slightly addicting! The greatest thing is - I can dress the boys in adorable clothes that I (or Oma) buy on sale/clearance and then sell them used on EBAY for more than what we paid for them to begin with. *I just sold a shirt for $15.50 that I bought last year for $4.99!*

Completely off the subject, I took pictures of Jack last week, and put them in the gallery. They are under September 08. They are the cutest pictures ever, I know I am bias!

Categories: frugal
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Levi is entering a new stage in his life. He is now a three year old boy. scary, I know. I can only begin to imagine what this year holds. He is already showing signs of no fear. I am sure we will need to lower our deductible on him soon. Glad our hospital just got a new ER, because I am sure with 2 boys we will see the insides of it soon. He amazes me daily with all that he knows. His favorite thing to say when I asked where he learned something is “all by myself” I guess he figures that he is so smart, that he teaches himself things. who knows!! He keeps us busy! (*check out his birthday pictures in the gallery*)

Jack is now in the crawler stage. I really shouldn’t say crawler, I should say he is in the slithering stage. He slids on his belly wherever he wants to go. AND he is into EVERYTHING. The little stinker is quick, and thinks when you say NO to him that you are being funny. He is very extreme. Extremely happy & content or extremely mad. Usually he is happy, but watch out if he gets upset. He now has 4 teeth. I didn’t even know he got the top 2 until yesterday. He doesn’t let you know he is teething. He is starting to make all kinds of different sounds, and loves to spit out his baby food on you. He keeps us busy, too!

Hope you enjoy the new pictures.

Categories: Jack, Levi
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WOW! August flew by so quickly.

It started with Levi having pneumonia, Jack having an ear infection & wheezing, & Donald having strep throat & it ended with me (Judith) having tonsillitis, & the boys having troubles with allergies. & it’s NOT even winter yet!!!

Levi is almost 3! His big t-rex party is on Saturday! He is so excited! He really is growing up so fast. He loves to learn! We “play” school, and I am amazed at how fast he learns & to see what interests him. He has learned to recognize numbers and the letters to his name. He draws the letter L on every sheet of paper he can find!

Jack is almost 7 months old already and is beginning to crawl!!! He pulls his body along with his hands. He can get to anything he is NOT suppose to have! He just began rocking back and forth on his knees. He has 2 sweet little teeth & received his first haircut (due to much prompting on Daddy’s part) He sits and plays, and loves to BOUNCE!!! He is very energetic & keeps himself entertained for long periods of time. He truly is such an easy baby.

We are constantly reminded how blessed we are to have healthy children. Health can be so easily taken for granted. It humbles me to watch our children develop properly and on time. To God be the Glory!

*updated August album in the gallery*

Categories: Jack, Levi
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