A new blog is born!

That's right, this is blog #3! I just started a new blog HERE called Frugal Newbie.
My goal is to post grocery deals, coupon and price matches, giveaways (and links to giveaways), menu planning, budgetting etc...
I am SUPER new at this so bare with me, but please click over there and become a follower. My 'Followers' area is as bare as the Christmas clearance shelf at Walmart.

Thanks!

Cushnee giveaway!

Giveaway for a Cushnee bath kneeler HERE which would be SO nice to have for bath time! You can learn more about Cushnee HERE !

Another stroller giveaway!

Another stroller giveaway HERE I love these Kolcraft strollers!!

Stroller giveway!

Can be found HERE I would REALLY like to win this!! Contest ends Dec 30th!

Little Ceasar's Deal

Go HERE to print out a coupon for 'Buy 1 Get One FREE' on Little Ceasar's pizza!
Hurry because today is the last day its valid!

I'm still here!

Hello bloggery friends! I am sure after such a dry spell of no posting that I lost all 4 of my readers, but if any of you have stuck around, thank you!

I have not fallen off the face of the planet this last month, though falling off the face of the U.S. and down near Hawaii somwhere would have been nice!
This has just been a very busy time for us. This post will be chok full of randomness, so be prepared!

My camera was grossly neglected the last month so we have all of 2 pictures of school. We have still been enjoying MFW in a big way, so don't let the lack of still-shots make you think otherwise.

We have whizzed through Kenya, Saudi Arabia and we are currently visiting India.

The pictures below are of the Decorative necklaces art project we did for Kenya.
Although the girls all seemed to think they made better hats.

After that we suffered a self-imposed craft drought and have done NO MFW crafts until today when we did the stone inlay craft for India. Though we cheated and used playdoh instead of clay, so I am sure it will crack when it dries and we will have gemstones all over the house. Joy.

Random picture.

Here's our Christmas tree this year. I let the girls decorate it completely, so click on it at your own risk. I figure Christmas isnt about having a perfect looking tree, so if they want to group 33 ornaments on one branch, so be it. Its quite a unique tree too....

It's not every tree that has a cute Gizmo ornament....

Or an ill-fated Gizmo ornament...

Their one Christmas Eve gift. Zoobles. Believe it or not, this is the ONLY still photo I have of gift opening. Momma forgot to check and make sure that the camera batteries were charged before Christmas morning. Oops. Rest assured there were abnormal amounts of gift wrap flying around, lots of yelps and squeals and mass quantities of those frustrating little twist ties.

This little guy *HEARTS* his new track set and this is only a SMALL portion of it. I got a HUGE amount of track, extra bits and pieces and a whole bag of motorized trains and freight cars at a yard sale this summer for about $40. So he was set and I didnt need to buy him a THING while holiday shopping.

Momma got a Garmin for Christmas. I love this thing. I may have kissed it when I got it out of the box.

After my run, I hook it up to the 'puter and I can even see my run on Google Earth and do all sorts of other cool 'techy' stuff.

Rad.

And THESE should be arriving any day now. Nike Air Max 2010+.

Retail cost: $160 Price for me: FREE

Only because of THIS:

Bought those in July, only used them for running. I wore down the heels enough to 'pop' that air cushion on the sole. We sent them to Nike to see if they would qualify for a Nike voucher. 2 weeks later I got a $160 voucher in the mail to use at Nike.com and I used that puppy right away. Hopefully the shoes will get here in the next few days as I have been running the last couple weeks in 7 yr old shoes and I am noticing that my knees and shins are kind of mad at me about that.

The other reason for my bloggy absence is due to the fact that I have been spending a fair amount of time trying to work our grocery budget down and learning the ins and outs of coupons and price matching. So far, I have worked us down from about $330 a week to $230, not too shabby! My goal is $200 or less a week (this includes EVERTHING we get Aldi's, Whole Foods and Super Walmart-meaning paper products, soap, batteries, cat food etc)...

I would love to hear your best grocery saving tip!

Thanksgiving Fun!

We had a great week off from 'regular' school! One of the highlights of the week was making 'Thanksgiving Blessing Mix' for the neighbors.

First we decorated bags....
Laid out the goodies to put in the bags....

Starting stuffin'....

Then we attached a message that told what each goodie represented...

They had fun delivering them =)

The older girls did a small workbook I printed off from Enchanted Learning...

The younger 2 did a simpler book from the same site...

Little guy had a good time perfecting his Leapster skillz...

He's a stylin' boy, that one...

Thanksgiving video

Here is a youtube video of my kiddos and what they are thankful for... HERE
ENJOY! **edit to say: that may not work...here it is all typed out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVE6X7r1g58 I hope that works!!

ECC week 19 Kenya (Africa)

First off, here's a picture of our first snow of the season. This was Friday night, Nov 12. Started around 7pm and snowed off and on thru the night. Melted all the next day though and we havent had any of the white stuff since! I am hoping for a mild winter (as far as the snow is concerned) so that I can still get my outdoor running in!
Here are our book basket books for week 19....

Playing mancala w/ my 5yr old. She was the only one that just about beat me!

Some map work....

Grassland mural...

Impromtu Grasslands book that my 10yr old made. There were about 6 pages, each w/ a different animals/nature picture and a fact about it.

Non school related, but this little cutie got a hair cut courtesy of daddy this weekend....

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I MISS MY BABY!!!!!

Operation Christmas Child Shoebox Party!

'Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows...' James 1:27

This is our 2nd year to participate in Operation Christmas Child. We are so blessed by this oppurtunity.
Last year, I shopped for the box and the girls just put the items in.
This year, I not only took them with me but they each contributed $5 of their OWN money to buy stuff for an unknown 5-9 yr old girl somewhere in the world.
They also paid the shipping cost and were THRILLED with the fact that this box was COMPLETELY from them.

This year, the homeschool group we belong to put on a 'Shoebox party'. We all gathered at a church, brought our shoeboxes, and food to share from a different place and any artifacts, jewelry, pictures or money to share from a different country.

In this picture we are getting ready to pray over the shoeboxes. We watched an Operation Christmas child video and it took all my strength to not end up a blubbery mess at the end!

Oh those sweet children!!

Here's all the kiddos (minus a few little ones) w/ the shoeboxes...

The gal who spearheaded this did SUCH a good job. There were 2 tables for each continent. One table held artifacts/pictures etc from that continent and the other had an activity to do. The kids were also given a map of the world. Once they had completed an activity, they would put a star on that continent....

Here they are doing origami animals for Asia...

Face painting from Africa....

Oreo penguins for Antarctica....

Kangaroo sack races for Australia...

Igloo building for North America...

'Dutch pins' (bowling basically) for Europe...

(There was also 'futbol' for South America, but I somehow didnt get a pic of that)

That whole counter was full of food from different places....

YUMMY!!!!

I cant wait til my girls are a little older and we can volunteer at the distribution center. I have always had a BIG heart for giving and helping the less fortunate and I cant wait to share that passion w/ my girls =)