Christmas Card Photoshoot

Our tree and decorations went up yesterday afternoon.

A little early, yes, but the next few weeks are going to be hectic. I love all of our special Christmas decorations and I hated to not have them put up until the weekend of Dec. 13th. Also, as Annabeth is three this year, it is the first year that she seems to really understand all of the excitement that is coming.

This is the first year in two years that we have braved putting ornaments on the tree. When she was one and two, we simply decorated with candy canes because I feared our ornaments being broken. This year, she helped decorate, we have only hung paper, plastic, and wooden ornaments so hopefully we will not have any broken.

Once everything was on the tree, we caught her on the stool, just staring in amazement at our beautiful tree. I think Christmas is beautiful for most everyone but it is especially special when seen through the eyes of a child.

Our other Decorating Day tradition is to take our annual Christmas card photo in front of the tree. Here are some individual shots of Annabeth and an outtake of our family.

I love this face and was so happy that Mark captured it! 

Peek-a-boo! 

"May we please have one nice smile?"

This what we get, every time.  

Annabeth: "Let's make the ghost face!"

She saw a ghost decoration around Halloween that looks

like this and she loves to make this face!

We are happy to be decorated and we are thrilled that we finally got a decent family photo but most of all we are anxiously awaiting Jesus' birthday! We cannot wait to remember and celebrate the birth of our King. 

Frugal Friday 66

Happy Frugal Friday!

Here is how we saved money/spent money wisely this week:

- I ordered my first "Clean Out" bag from ThredUp. I worked on cleaning out my closet and am looking forward to seeing out how much money I make. I will do a full post later with a full review of ThredUp but if you want to check it out now click here

- One of the items that Mark traded for last week was a new gun. It needed some work and instead of paying a gunsmith to work on it, he has been repairing it himself. For the tasks he wasn't sure about he used tutorials on the internet. He loves to repurpose and to repair items.

- With the weather turning very cold and snow in the air, we have been spending more and more time at home. Annabeth enjoyed making lots of art projects with items we had on hand including some fun hand print animal paintings.

The green hand print butterfly was a school project this week

(and yes it has a sad face)

The red owl was a Pinterest find.

- Annabeth developed her first canker sore this week. Instead of buying medicine we used a home remedy of applying baking soda to the sore. It seemed to relieve the pain quickly and made it go away within 24 hours..

- After about a week stuck at home due to sickness, I took Annabeth out to lunch at Pizza King Station. We can eat for under $10 with a tip there because of their awesome lunch specials! I was excited on this trip because somehow an order of chicken bites was run into our order on accident and they gave them to us for FREE! Mark enjoyed all of the leftovers later for a late lunch.

We have been enjoying lots of good books and games at home.

Happy Savings to All!

"Buy Used and Save the Difference!"

"This is SO much fun!"

"This is SO much fun!"

Annabeth has been chanting this all morning as we have been enjoying the first real snow of the season! We had some snow and sleet on Halloween but not enough to get out and really play in.

The snow started yesterday afternoon and Annabeth stood post at the back door waiting for there to be enough to play in. The ground must have been pretty warm because by dusk we still did not have much on the ground. When we woke up this morning though we had 2-3 inches - just enough for a three year old to play in!

She does not remember the 12+ inches that we had a couple of times last winter and thinks that this amount of snow is "stupendous!"

I held her off until about 9 this morning and then we headed out for an hour or so. Then she decided she was too cold and was ready to bake cookies. My mama, my sister, and I always baked cookies the first snow of the year growing up and I am more than happy to share this tradition with her.

She said her favorite pink ball "had" to come outside with us 

Her Sage flower in the snow 

Tasting the world and making snow angels 

Snow Girls.

School can wait until afternoon on snow days! :) 

She helped me set out the cookies 

We cheated with some Pillsbury cookie dough 

Happy Snow Day to All! 

Frugal Friday 65

Happy Frugal Friday!
Just three months until my birthday - for those also counting down! :)

Here is how we saved money/spent money wisely this week:

- Annabeth and I shopped Kohl's to finish shopping for the kids in our family. I had a $10 off $25 purchase. I was able to get 1 book, 4 kids' clothing items, and 1 adult shirt for $17. Off original prices I saved: $80.20!

- I finished up two photo projects for Christmas gifts on Shutterfly. I used a Pampers Rewards Code and a Shutterfly website discount. I paid for both items + shipping for around $15. Saved: $50.37!!

- Mark made a huge batch of beans and cornbread for Sunday dinner. We decided to invited Luke and Cassidy over for dinner too. Cassidy came by when she got off work and took some to Luke for when he got off work. I love having her over - I am really blessed that Mark's brothers married such lovely ladies to be my sisters-in-law and friends!!

- We made Annabeth a rice tray to practice drawing her shapes and writing her letters. This week in homeschool I began really teaching handwriting beginning with the letter "A." We used a cookie sheet and rice we had on hand. I will bag and reuse the rice for the rest of the school year.

- Annabeth and I attended a Mommy and Me art class at The Art of Kira Studios taught by our friend Alysha. We had so much fun and made two really cute snowman crafts. I will enjoy decorating with them for years to come. The class did cost $15 but that covered supplies, snacks, and they cleaned-up so it was well worth it for an evening of fun!

Our finished snowman cans.

I let go of having the "perfect" craft and let her make her own. 

I love best-friend dates with Nanners. 

- Alysha and her two little ones invited us to lunch after gymnastics. We took advantage of Kids Eat Free at Chillis and saved: $4.99

- Mark traded two items (one at a store and one with a friend) for two new-to-him items that he had been wanting. We love to trade and barter!

 - Our homeschool group took a field trip to the Kid's Commons in Columbus, IN. For $3/child, the group enjoyed a class on Habitats as well as free reign of the museum after. It was great fun at a great price!

Exploring the museum.

I LOVE this outfit. :) 

- On the way home from Columbus, Annabeth and I stopped at the outlet mall because we had $15 in Stride Rite coupons. She has all of the shoes she needs right now (tennis shoes, church shoes, and boots) so I used the coupon to shop ahead a size in tennis shoes. She really wanted the Frozen shoes but they were $50+ AND she didn't even like the movie. Luckily the saleslady was giving out Frozen stickers so we took a free sticker and found aqua-purple tennis shoes that I told her looked just like Elsa and Anna shoes. She happily agreed to those. With our coupons and store sale we saved: $24.01

Total Saved: $149.57

We have had a busy, wonderful week! We are looking to a girls' day on Saturday while Mark heads out to hunt. We're praying for a deer to restock our freezer for the winter.

Happy Savings to All!

"Buy Used and Save the Difference"

Our "Taste Tested" Pinterest Board

Want to know what we have been baking and cooking lately?

Check out our Pinterest Board Taste Tested.

*These are all of the recipes that we liked. Any that I had pinned that we did not care for I do not pin on this board.

Happy baking and cooking! :)

Frugal Friday 64

Happy November Frugal Friday!

Here is how we saved money/spent money wisely this week:

- We visited my family and I took a bag of clothes for my sister. She gave me two soup bowls and my Mama gave me a serving dish.

- Mark and Annabeth enjoyed Sunday afternoon at the lake with my dad. They did some fishing, went out on the boat, and Annabeth even kissed a fish! We love nature fun!

Yes she wears a life jacket on the dock!

Water safety is important! 

- I redeemed a giftcard from Coffeeology.com surveys and spent just $2.67 on a baby shower gift for later this month.

- We had an issue with our smoke detectors and needed to replace the batteries in all of them. Walgreens had the batteries we needed on sale for $3 off/pack + we had a $.50 coupon from the paper. Saved: $6.50

- I combined a store sale and a giftcard to get a $35 value birthday gift for FREE!!

- I did some consignment store shopping and found two pairs of pants and three shirts for just $25.

- We had a pound of apples leftover from an apple stamping project. We made 4 batches of apple bread. We had some for dinner and some we will shared some with friends who just had a new baby.

- I ordered Mark and Annabeth's ornaments from Etsy. I found shops that offered free shipping so I saved the price of shipping while supporting small businesses.

We hope you all had a good week and that you are keeping warm in the first cold week of November!

Happy Savings to All!

"Buy Used and Save the Difference!"

Halloween Costumes 2014

This Halloween was Annabeth's 4th Halloween.

Her first Halloween she was not even a month old. She had received two costumes as baby gifts - a lamb costume from my friend Nicole and a cow costume from our friends Miss Charlotte and Rosie.

Just a few weeks old, our baby cow

Her second Halloween was costumeless. :( I had found an adorable outfit on Carter's clearance well after Halloween and paid just $4 for a special candy themed outfit. I loved it so much I couldn't bear the thought of her changing out of it into a costume.

Her shirt says, Candy Makes Me Happy 

Last year was her third Halloween and it happened to fall on the same night as our Mommy and Me dance class. I dressed her in her red, white, and blue leotard and called her a "Future Olympian." She did have quite a few fun and frugal outfits leading up to the big day though!

Then, last Novemeber, the three of us were at the mall and Gymboree had one costume in their store - an internet return. It was her size. It had a tutu. It was deeply discounted. I NEEDED it. And so her costume was purchased.

Then...
Her Auntie Rose brought a Sofia dress as a gift for her dance recital and Nana and PawPaw gave her a Minnie Mouse costume for her birthday and so she had THREE costumes this year!

She enjoyed wearing her Sofia costume to our library's Halloween program and trick-or-treat.

"Sofia the First" playing puppets at the library

I found a cute Mickey sweater and Mickey ears and we went as Mickey and Minnie to a friend's Halloween party as well as our Homeschool Group Fall party.

Minnie and Mickey 

Her original costume was used for Halloween cards and for the big day -- her first time trick-or-treating! She loved the tutu and the tail. I think she looked just adorable! :)

Our little ballerina giraffe 

Cute Hello Kitty bucket from Matt and Jenn + K.E.N. 

We hope you all had a safe and Happy Halloween!