Saving Dough Sunday 6/24/12

 Today's couponing trip...

Walgreens:

 Total OOP: $4.47 

*Still have $2.00 RR for my next trip!

CVS:

Total OOP: $19.01

*Earned a $10.00 RR!!

Bayer was FREE with coupon

The newest addition to our family

Our family's newest addition - a FUR BABY!  

I'm handing all the credit for this over to my lovely husband.  We HAD to run to Hobby Lobby last minute to grab 3 things (and I did- GO ME!).  Next to Hobby Lobby was PetCo....  Look out.

We wanted to get our daughter a fur baby for awhile.  She has a Beta Fish "Bubbles."  But we both had gerbils and hamsters growing up.  We were concerned that had a small rodent gotten loose (which is highly likely with it living in our 6 year old's room), that we may never find it again, haha!  So a larger version was the ticket.

Meet Pongo, our Guinea Pig, and our daughter's newest buddy...

Tower Garden - Week #8

Picking our first cucumber from the Tower Garden!

You will see in the video the size of the other cucumbers we hope that can be picked shortly too!

This is our tower garden Week #8:

We FINALLY have some tomatoes growing!  About 7 small green tomatoes are clustered on one of the 4 plants.  The strawberries are slowly producing a fruit here and there.  No luck on the broccoli or cantaloupe yet, the plants are growing great, just no fruit/veggie to be seen.

So far the best plants are still the lettuce, and now the cucumber!

It's growing SO LARGE now!  both the cantaloupe and cucumber plants are growing along the ground now.

Saving Dough Sunday - June 17th

 I know it's Father's Day

but luckily there just happened to be a Walgreens and CVS on the way home from our Father's Day dinner.  So luckily we got stop by.  Otherwise this wouldn't have happened today.

Walgreens:

 2 Transactions

Total OOP: $4.70 (w/ tax & used $2RR)

Earned: $6.50RR

CVS:
Total OOP: $1.55 (w/ tax & used $8.00 ECB)

Earned: $6.00 ECB

What to do with mushy bananas

 MAKE BANANA POPS!

When our bananas start to look like this...

...I know it's time to make Banana Pops.  They are SO SIMPLE and so healthy of course.  My daughter loves them, and always goes for these as a snack if they are in the freezer.

1st - Peel the banana

2nd - Cut them in half

3rd - Insert a popsicle stick

 4th - Wrap with saran wrap

 5th - FREEZE

They are a hit in this house.

Father's Day

 What a GREAT Father's Day our family celebrated!

First we got to sleep in because our daughter spent a much needed night with her Gramma and Papa after they were away for a week on vacation.  She really missed them.

We ate a late breakfast

 Belgian Waffles

When our little one arrived home, just in time for late breakfast, she gave her daddy his Father's Day gift.  The card was perfect - a dad trying to put a bow in his daughter's hair :-)

A personalized coffee mug - he had just complained we didn't have any "manly" coffee mugs in the house.  This one not only said "World's Best Dad" (which he is), but also has his name on the other side.

And the best part of the gift was a Q&A sheet Alyssa filled out on her own.  I love how her little mind works.

 Here's a close up of the Father's Day Q&A

 Alyssa with her Daddy

She is as much a Daddy's girl and she is a Mommy's girl

 This is me, Alyssa, and my dad

We went out to dinner and went back to my parent's house for yummy cheesecake desert.

All in all I think the guys were pretty happy with their special day.

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there!  And to all the mom's that not only play the mommy role, but the daddy role too. 

Busy June Week

 And for some reason I thought June would SLOW DOWN...

Not so much yet

 After this week's riding lesson

 It was a hot one, but look at her sweet face.  Should could care less about the heat when she gets to ride her trusty horse Gabby.

 SWIMMING

Swimming at her cousin's graduation party

 Decked out for Flag Day

Waiting on Mama at the salon

 And yes, I found her asleep like this one night

I'd say HOW CUTE and how pitiful that she was so tired she actually fell asleep wearing that eye mask.

We also attended a gymnastic birthday party and a reception dinner.  And remember this is the same week as my whole day of grocery shopping and Once A Month Cooking day. 

We will try for a slower week next week, but it usually doesn't work out that way.

First Attempt at Once A Month Cooking (June)

 Once A Month Cooking is something I've always wanted to try.

I am always on the go/working/busy and eating healthy is at the top of our list lately.

I found this great once a month cooking site that offered a "whole foods" menu.  A new menu for each month.  My goal was to try this months menu (June) and if all went well I'd jump on the bandwagon and try to do this every month....

Here is the menu

So here's how it went, and I'll add in my after thoughts at the bottom.

Shopping:

The list of ingrediants was nearing 4 pages long!!!  I hit 3 stores and tried to bargain buy where I could.  In the end, we still didn't find everything on the list and hubby had to stop and grab even more ingredients I was short on today as I was cooking.

The night before:

We spent a good 2-3 hours cutting, mincing, dicing, quatering, etc. all the ingredients to make cooking day a little easier.

 I got a late start after having to shop most of the evening for all the ingredients.  I had to get the yogurt going so it could sit and strain over night.  So I set my alarm for 1:45am to get up and do the 3rd step in the yogurt culture process.  Already, that was not such a fun thing to do.

Cooking Day:

I started my cooking at 9am

 This is what I started with:

Whole grain cornbread, pizza dough, apricot jam, and handmade taco seasoning.

So far so good.

Also got my yogurt straining by this point in the fridge.

The rest is kind of a blur!  I took photos of most but not all of the finished products.

This I am really looking forward to trying:

 This was the filling and the dough rising before the assembly

 Oh my gosh, they look so good!!  And smelled so good too!

Chicken salad, kabobs, and one of the 5 white pizzas

So here are my thoughts...

Would I do this again?  Not exactly.  Would I try once a month cooking again, yes, would I do it the way I did it today?  NO.  Here's why:

1st - I felt like I had to follow the recipes step by step and I would adapt things to work better and quicker for me

2nd - I wouldn't do this "whole foods" menu again.  I could have saved a whole lot of time NOT making all the dough, ravioli from scratch, taco seasoning from scratch, and SO MUCH more that I could have purchased some good quality items that would have saved me a lot of time and money even.

3rd - I wouldn't do a whole month's worth of meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) I'd probably stick with just dinners.  Lunch is easy for all of us to get (leftovers, pasta, tuna, sandwiches, salads).  Breakfasts, we are all pretty happy with yogurt, fruit, cereal, bagels - we don't really need fancy breakfasts.  

Dinners are what I worry about most though, so a month worth of dinners would be nice to have stashed in the deep freezer

4th - I'd pick a much more toned down menu.  Many of the ingredients on this menu were gourmet, so much so that I went to three different stores with no luck on a few items.  Gourmet = $$$$$

Had I read through the recipes a little closer I would have probably substitute a lot of these items for a lower dollar comparable product.

I think that after this experince, I have no desire to do this again - anytime soon anyway.

What I do plan to do...

Stick with our family's favorite meals and double the recipes on nights when I am cooking.  This will slowly stock my freezer with meals I know we'll eat and enjoy, and also not really add much time to when I am already cooking dinners at home.

12 Hours later (cooking marathon) I still have to make the yogurt pops and the coconut crusted chicken.  Both of these will have to wait as, like always, our schedule is busy the next few days.  So not sure this whole day spent cooking was worth the effort.  We shall see.  I may blog about how each recipes was as well.  Tomorrow night on the menu is the White Pizza.

Time to get serious

It's time to really get serious about this baby making.  Today is my last "cheat" day.  Many days, if not most are "cheat" days for me when it comes to food.  I have a huge sweet tooth, could not live without Coke, and just don't worry too much about what I'm eating.  Well that all ends after today.  Time to get this body into the best shape I can before it's time for the big "O."  (Ovulation)

Last day for coffee, caffeine, junk food, alcohol, and not working out.  Oh how I'll miss it all...

I know it's all for the greater good.  The greater good for myself and hopefully a future baby that will be living in there.

So here is the plan:

I'm currently already taking and have been taking Juice Plus (SO good for your body!!!)

Adding in the prenatal starting tonight

Work out routine starts tomorrow AM

WATER WATER WATER

New Whole Foods diet is in the works 

So here's to Day #1 of this journey!

Unoffical "Bring Your Daughter To Work Day"

 Although I was a little nervous for our, just turned 6 year old, to join us for a few hours at our show this weekend at the mall, I was so glad to have her there!

We've been doing shows like this for 3 years now and this is the first time she's been there other then to visit.  

 She was a GREAT helper!!!  She really did enjoy helping mommy restock the glitter headbands, dusting the shelves, fixing up the booth and making sure it was just right before we opened.

I was very tempted to put her in a tutu, pair of fairy wings, and the biggest sparkiest hair accessory and let her prance around to bring in business - but I think she would have been embarrassed (now that she is a whole SIX YEARS OLD).  But I did put her in a custom ordered embroidered shirt that said "My mommy makes my bows."  I thought that was pretty appropriate.  

She was there for about 2 hours then it was off to a birthday party she went, and Grandma Crossin watched her that evening.  Talk about a busy day for her and a special day for this proud mama.  I can't wait till she gets a little older and can really be my show sidekick. 

Working for the Weekend (and every other day of the week)

I have a wonderfully unconventional job.  It's not a 9-5, or can be defined as part time or even full time job.  It's a hobby that quickly turned into a extra full time job.

I'm known to many of my littlest customers as "The Bow Lady."

I work from home, in my studio, most days of the month then 3-6 days a month I hit our local malls with my very own small business Crossin My Heart Creations.

This past weekend was a show weekend... 

This is not so much of a "job" to me, it really is a passion.  The passion for design, the passion for details, the passion to make people smile with my work.  I've been making little girl's accessories since 2007 and retailing it on a larger scale since 2009.  It's just been a total snowball effect since the very beginning.  I have big plans for my small business and believe if you really do have a dream you can make it happen!!!!

Maybe at some point I'll go into more detail about all this, because it really did grow from nothing more then hard work, dedication, patients, and persistence.  I've come a long way, so has Crossin My Heart Creations, and we are still moving forward.  Very excited to see what the future holds! 

Zoo Members!

 

We have been on again and off again zoo members since our daughter was born.

This year we are on again :)

We went one time this spring with friends on a play-date, but this weekend we enjoyed a family outing.  Sometimes you just need to stop all the rush and working on your to do lists and take a family time out.  So off to the zoo we went.

Alyssa enjoyed a free birthday kids meal, we went to the Children's Zoo, and took a train ride.  It was a beautiful day and most of the animals were out and about. 

What a beautiful way to spend a Sunday

Family Vacation

 I wanted to document our family vacation quickly so it isn't lost.  We enjoyed a weekend trip to Branson, MO just our little family of 3, the beginning of May.  We had a blast and would love to go again.

 Our first stop was Falls Creek Restaurant

They throw their rolls to you here, Alyssa thought that was so funny

 After dinner we headed over the The Track for some go cart rides and arcade games

 That evening we enjoyed the resort's indoor pool

 Of course, when you visit Branson you have to stop by The Fish Hatchery because it's FREE!

($.25 to feed the fish)

We also headed over to the lake to walk, enjoy the scenery, sit on the rocks and put our toes in the water

We did lots of shopping that day too!

Our favorites:

The Christmas Shoppe

and the $1 Jewelry Store!

We also went to Tanger Outlet Mall

 The evening of our second day we enjoyed the resorts amenities

It was a hot 90 degrees that day and the outdoor pool was the perfect temperature

We also played on the playground and enjoyed mini golf

The last day of our trip was the busiest

We went to Silver Dollar City

First thing we did was their cave - hubby and I enjoy doing cave tours and wanted to introduce our daughter to this.  Maybe this wasn't the best cave to take a, not yet 6 year old to though.  It was a very strenuous tour with 600+ stairs down 30 stories into the cave.  It was the most work we've had to do on a cave tour that's for sure.  So proud of our little girl for making it through and doing so good (even if she was a little afraid)

This was one of Alyssa's favorite rides at Silver Dollar City

The Abandoned Mine

 She can't pass up a horse - so on the carousel we went

We had to head back home Monday morning.  We really enjoyed our stay and time together as a family.  We wish we had more time to spend there.

Vacations are never long enough...