End of the year catch up

Hello everyone, I didn’t Blog much in December but that seems to be almost the norm for a lot of bloggers like me.  I’m still here and we’re all fine.  

I am still shopping at CVS.  In fact, one of my plans is to shop for everything a lot more carefully.  

This is what I bought early this Sunday morning, on our way to church....

Before the total was a lot, about $130 ish.  

I had a few coupons, some extracarebucks from previous weeks,  some coupons from the CVS red box and 2 emailed coupons, a $10/60 and 30% off non sale items.  

After all deductions, I paid $32 in cash and got back $32 in Extracarebucks (that was just a coincidence the amounts were the same. ) 

One very easy deal for every CVS card holder is to get the $3.99 toothpaste Coupon from the CVS app and load it to your CVS card.  It makes a tube 100% free. 

Some other careful shopping was how I spent $70 in birthday money.  (My Birthday was a few days before Christmas and I turned 60 😱) 

I shopped sales and used coupons as well as a military discount at Rack Room Shoes.  

The sandals and boots were both originally $69 a pair. 

At Bath and Body Works, the big candles were in sale for $10 and I used a $10/40 Coupon. 

The double wall water bottle is from Walmart and was just $4.94

And I have $5 left

We are having really cold weather right now,  like most of North America, and the boots are really keeping my feet warm and cozy.  

With the New Year,  I have plans to do several home projects, like organizing.  

These are before photos of my laundry room.  I cleaned it all up Wednesday but haven’t had a chance to take after photos yet because.......

......my husband was out of town, 2 grandsons came to stay for a couple days,  we had an impromptu birthday party for my dad and............

We adopted a new puppy.  A friend posts him on Facebook.  He was found in the country and his owners couldn’t be found.  We suspect he was dumped off. 

She told me he was a sweetheart, but her parents couldn’t keep him because they were getting ready to downsize to a motor home.  

So I got him because he looks like a perfect pup for our home.  

He’s been to the Vet.  He weighed 7 pounds, could  be 6 weeks to 9 weeks old,  may be schnauzer or wire hair terrior and some mutt. He had worms and was treated for those and for his first puppy shot like a trooper. 

He’s eating great and doing good with house training.  He was around 5 grandchildren at one time and their noise and noisy toys didn’t bother him a bit.    

 our new puppy Ducky 

So,  I’ll take the laundry room after photos soon and Hopefully lots other before and after was January goes on.  

I’ll update my 100 day sewing challenge too. 

Goodbye for the last time in 2017.  

Very easy Faux Gingerbread houses

First, this is not my original idea.  I’ve seen variations of them in multiple places.     

I bought a box of Aldi graham crackers and broke them all to make squares.  

Each house uses 6 squares.  If you use every cracker in an Aldi box, there will be just enough for 9 houses. 

Then I made some Royal Icing with 4 cups powdered sugar, 3 egg whites and 1 teaspoon cream of tarter.  I used a hand mixer to beat it.  The recipe said for 5 minutes but mine was “right” after 30 seconds.  

Now,  take 6 cracker squares and shape your houses, using the icing to hold the pieces together,  you could use a bag but I used a knife for some and just dipped the edges for some.  You will have to hold the pieces for a few seconds while they set but mine set up fast.  

Each house was made on a disposable plate.  

Then I looked to see what candy was lingering in our pantry.  I found plenty.   I opened or unwrapped as needed and put the candy on divided dishes.  

Then I called in the 5 grands that were here.  

The houses are very simple but these were two were very excited about them.  

I sat with them and spread the icing on their houses so they could stick on candy.  

This was fun and much simpler than baking a gingerbread head from scratch.  

Any old candy is fine.  The kids didn’t are at all that they had a jumble of candy with no rhyme or reason,  they just like the hands on decorating part.  

December 2- More Christmas things

There were 17 family members visiting today, 19 total counting me and my husband.  

The grands like to craft so we did 2 craft projects. 

One was painting wood ornaments from a kit that I bought on clearance after Christmas 2016.  

Serious painting going on..........

Great grandpa Richard with his namesake baby Richard James or RJ,  didn’t paint but they had fun being outside.  

The finished ornaments- a few by adults, others by 2, 4, 5 and 7 year olds.  

The other craft was inspired by Pinterest and craft supplies I had on hand.  I used wood popsicle stick, with 3 held together with hot glue.  Then I spray painted them silver. My first plan was to paint them white but I had silver paint on hand so silver is what I used.  I did this before kiddos arrived.  

The kiddos used white school glue, glitter and sequins to decorate them.  

I’m so glad it was warm and only a very light breeze blowing.  We did all the crafting outdoors so the glue, paint and glitter mess stayed outside.  

No photos, but lunch was chili in the big crockpot with corn chips, crackers, cheese and sour cream for toppings,  a fresh fruit tray and some raw veggies with dip.  Dessert was cookies made with a hello cake mix and mini M&Ms and brownies made from a Berry Crocker mix.  

After lunch,  I took a nap with this 2 year old cutie. ❤️ she is the easiest napped of all 8 grands.  

My daughter said the photos I posted yesterday left her a bit confused so here is a full length photo of the dining table.  

Merry Christmas again everyone.  

I may post more but it may be after Christmas.  Who Knows?  I’ll just play it by ear.

Hello everyone,  we have had 3 busy weekends in a row and this weekend is also going to be busy

Life just gets busy this time of year, doesn’t it?  

I’ve had ideas for blog posts but just haven’t had the opportunity to actually do the posts.  

We did put out ours Christmas decorations this week so I’ll show them.  

We have 2  Nativity sets,  this one with tall ceramic figures made by a dear friend years ago.  

This plastic set was bought our first married Christmas at Kmart in Oceanside California.  The pieces are very durable as all our children played with it and it doesn’t look too worse for wear.  Son Bobby made the stand for the angel when he was about 10.  He cut and bent a clothes hanger to make it and I’ve used it ever since then.  

My brother makes us a fresh evergreen wreath every year and he delivered it yesterday.  

We rearranged the living room and I am so happy with how much roomier it seems.  

The white tree is new this year, purchased at Hobby Lobby.  

You know how women usually prefer clear white tree lights and men usually like colored lights? 

This tree has a big selling point——-

The lights are programable and can be clear or multicolor, they can be continuous or they can blink in several patterns.  

My mother in law’s thing has always been Christmas ornament collecting,  she’s done it so long and has several thousand.  Now,  she is starting to downsize a little.  She asked which ones we wanted and I chose the Campbell soup balls as my grandparents were Campbells.  

These balls are fragile and we decided to use them on this silver tree as a centerpiece.  This tree is very sturdy so I’m not worrying about them.  The limbs must be heavy wire under the tinsel and don’t sag at all when things are hung on them.  We bought the silver tree at Pier 1, maybe 10 years ago.  

The Campbell Soup Kids are different on every ball but they all seem happy, kind and of course cute.  

That’s the extent of our decorating this month.  

And if you don’t see any posts from me for awhile, maybe even until Christmas, it’s only because life is busy right now.  I’ll be back blogging when extra activities slow down.  

Merry Christmas everyone,  even if today is just December 1.  

🌲