You’ve likely seen all the deals I’ve been getting by combining coupons and sales. Well recently I’ve decided to branch out a little more and try some other money saving/earning strategies.
Check out this cool photo! Who would have thought Brooke had such talent for balancing things?
Last Thursday, we went to David’s award’s ceremony at school. We didn’t know for sure if he would be getting an award or not, but I thought he probably would since he got 100% on his report card.
I meant to post this yesterday but forgot to do it. As I walked past out back door last night, I was in awe of the colorful sky and I wanted to share it wth you. Isn’t it beautiful?
Whew!! I’m tired from my second and final day of baking. Nevertheless, here’s what I managed to get done today.
After being inspired by a few other bloggers out in the blogosphere, I finally decided to have my own baking days this week.
Photo Credit : Hans Splinter
Check out this cool photo below! Who would have thought Brooke had such talent for balancing things?
Yesterday, I turned around to grab my Sobe Lifewater only to find an apple balanced on the side of the lid.
Last Thursday, we went to David’s award’s ceremony at school. We didn’t know for sure if he would be getting an award or not, but I thought he probably would since he got 100% on his report card. I took some pictures, unfortunately the lighting was not very good so the pictures are not as clear as I’d like.
In this photo, you can find David on the far left side of the group of kids lined up across the front. He has on a green jacket.
This is a picture of the ribbon he got. Just in case you can’t read it, it says, “Roaring with 100%…Vinemont Elementary School.”
We are so proud of our little man. 
I meant to post this yesterday but forgot to do it. As I walked past our back door last night, I was in awe of the colorful sky and I wanted to share it wth you. Isn’t it beautiful? David described it as “a rainbow of colors.”
I’m once again reminded of our awesome God and the beauty of His creation.
Whew!! I’m tired from my second and final day of baking. Nevertheless, here’s what I managed to get done today.
Initially, I thought these tortillas were not going to be good because they felt too stiff. However, as I cooked them, I placed them under a warm cloth and by the time I was done with all of them, they were nice and soft. They taste really good too. I will definitely be making these again!
I really wanted to make some Fried Apple Pies with this same dough recipe, but I ran out of flour. Oh well, maybe I can try those another day. It’s not like we really need any more sweets right now anyway. 
Baked Spaghetti
We’re having one of these for dinner tonight and the other one is going in the freezer for later. It looks and smells so good. I wish it was time for dinner now.
Happy Baking!!
After being inspired by a few other bloggers out in the blogosphere, I finally decided to have my own baking days this week.
Technically, I didn’t do a whole lot of baking, but rather prepared items for the freezer that will make it easy to bake them on days my time is limited.
Here are the fruits of my labor from today.
Breakfast Casserole
I’m leaving one of these in the refrigerator to bake Saturday morning for breakfast and the other is going into the freezer for another day. I’ve never tried freezing one of these before, so I hope it does okay. I guess time will tell.
I ended up with three dozen Oatmeal Cookies and four dozen Chocolate Chip Cookies. All I did on these was mixed up the dough, dropped tablespoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for a few minutes to slightly harden the dough so that I could drop them in freezer bags without the dough balls sticking together.
Now when I need a few cookies I can get them out of the freezer, a dozen at the time, and bake them.
Honey Oatmeal Wheat Bread
I made three loaves of this bread. The plan is to eat one now and slice and freeze the other two for later. Homemade bread is just so tasty and David thinks there is nothing like it.
Tomorrow I start again. I’m going to try my hand at homemade tortillas and hot pockets. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Every now and then, we end up eating a bowl of cereal for supper. Well, tonight was one of those nights. I took out all the cereal and placed them on the counter for the kids to choose which ones they wanted to eat.
Upon David’s inspection of each cereal, he advised me that he didn’t want those Frosted Flakes because it isn’t a good cereal. I proceeded to tell him that not only is it good cereal but it’s a kid’s cereal because it has Tony the Tiger on the box.
David’s response was simply that he didn’t want it because it has a tiger on the cover and the box is Auburn colors.
What else needs to be said here?
Okay, so I intended on doing this little project before Thanksgiving but I just didn’t get it all together to it then. It’s a collage of photos of things in our lives we are thankful for. I decided it was still a good craft to do even after Thanksgiving because we should be thankful all year round not just on a day designated as a day of thanksgiving.
While David was at school I cut a bunch of pictures out of my old magazines of things I thought the kids would like. Of course, I couldn’t find two of all the same pictures so I decided, in order to minimize arguing over who got which picture, to let them take turns choosing pictures. Being the youngest, Brooke got to go first. It worked out beautifully. No arguing! Can you believe that?
I snapped a photo while they were working away, and then since David wouldn’t cooperate by holding his picture up for me to take a picture, I propped their papers on the couch and took a photo of the results. I thought they came out really good.
At the very least, the kids had a lot of fun picking out pictures of things they enjoy.
Yes. This morning we woke up to find snow outside. The kids were adamant about getting out there to play in it. I can’t imagine why, but nevertheless they were very excited.
This was Brooke’s first time getting to play in snow. The last time it snowed she was too young to get out there. Bless her heart, she doesn’t have any gloves of her own so she had to use mine and needless to say, they were slightly large on her little hands. However, I’m fairly certain that Santa has been informed and will be helping her out in this area. 
Anyway, I suppose you want to see pictures of the kids so I’ve added them below.
I also wanted to add this sweet message that Chuck left for the kids this morning before leaving to go to a meeting at church.
David just had Christmas pictures at school so I thought I’d put a sample out here for you to see. As you can see, he had recently lost several teeth, three to be exact. I guess we know what he wants to Christmas…his two front teeth.
More Money Saving Strategies : Swagbucks & Ebates
You’ve likely seen all the deals I’ve been getting by combining coupons and sales. Well recently I’ve decided to branch out a little more and try some other money saving/earning strategies.
About a month ago I joined Ebates to start getting cash back on most of my online purchases. It’s a completely FREE site and since I’m going to be continuing to order online anyway, I figured I might as well be getting some cash back in my pocket.
Ebates is very easy to use. All you have to do is sign up and then choose one of over 1,200 stores and click through to the website and shop as you normally would. Ebates then automatically credits your account, based on your purchase amounts, for the specified percentage of cash back for that particular store.
You also get a $5 sign up bonus. Then once you earn $5 cash back you’ll be eligible to receive either a check in the mail or have your earnings credited to your paypal account. It’s a win-win situation!
The other site I recently signed up for is Swagbucks. Basically with this site you earn Swagbucks for searching the web. In other words, you use Swagbucks as your search engine and you earn Swagbucks for certain searches. The fun part is you won’t know which searches will win you bucks.
The best part is once you get a nice stash of bucks saved up, you can trade them for prizes. This site is also FREE and since you’re going to be doing internet searches anyway, you might as well earn prizes along the way.
I’ve heard people can earn about 4 bucks per day on average, so it may take a little while to save up for the better prizes but you’re not losing anything in the process.
If you choose to try Swagbucks out, I recommend downloading the toolbar so you’ll have the search box convenient for searches no matter where you are on the web.
Have fun shopping, searching and earning!!