The Gerbils Bit The Dust...

After about half an hour of trying to explain that our gerbils were dead to Lydia (our 3 year old) this was her understanding:

"You just open up the ground and the grass and then you die!"

Well, it's an improvement from where I started, so I'll take it.

Don't Pay for Water Bottles!

Use bottles you have around the house that are just going to get trashed! My daughter's favorite is using chocolate syrup bottles! She calls it her "chocolate water" :-)

I don't personally recommend using any bottle that has something hazardous to drink in it to begin with. For instance, I would not use a dish soap bottle because I wouldn't want her to get confused and attempt to drink dish soap. However, if she tries to drink some chocolate syrup, it's not going to kill her!

Happy Frugal Friday!

The Tightwad Gazette

My friend, Liz, wrote a review of the Tightwad Gazette today. I really liked what she had to say! I thought to myself, "I've never said anything about The Tightwad Gazette on this blog...", so here's my review:

That being said, those who haven't read this book yet are missing out, and they're spending too much money :-)

Frugal Inspiration... from a "blonde" ;-)

My friend, Liz, started a frugal blog as a part of what I think is an amazing New Year's Resolution. I LOVE to see people excited about being thrifty, so I wanted to share a frugal idea with you all today!

I can't do the dishes without gloves (even just to load the dishwasher). It grosses me out. However, I'm kinda hard on the gloves, and I go through about 2 pairs/ month. Well, I hate waste.

What do you do with broken rubber dish washing gloves???

Make little girl hair bands!!!

Just slice the fingers into the desired width with some scissors. Voila!

Works for me, they're all I use!

You can also make wide rubber bands out of the wrist portion.Now if I could only find something to do with this part!

I hate waste!

Don't forget to visit Liz's blog, Frugally Blonde!

See what others are "hooked on" this Friday! Also, check out more Frugal Friday participants!

Ridiculously Grateful

There is no possible way to express how thankful I am that Mark is done with school. For those of you who don't know, Mark and I got married right before our sophomore years in college, then Mark took an extra year to graduate. So we were married in college for FOUR YEARS!!! And by the time he did finally graduate, we had 2 children. I stayed at home with them and he was a full time student working part time to support us. It was unbelievable the amount of money we were able to live on. 

It felt like it took a lifetime for him to finish college. Seriously. Some days I felt that he would never graduate. He would just be in college forever and we were never going anywhere. The day he graduated was a day I anticipated longer than I have ever anticipated anything. I had waited through 2 pregnancies, 1 college transfer, and 6 different homes over 4 years of marriage. Six. different. homes.

I would love to give you a list of our grocery budget and tell you the kinds of things we couldn't afford, but I know my husband wouldn't like that. So I'll just tell you one thing. We went an entire year with no salt and pepper shaker. 

When the day came, I couldn't believe it. Getting Mark's first actual paycheck was an out of body experience. The life I'm living now... I feel like I have won the lottery every day! It's amazing! Some days, I have to pinch myself before I can believe it. Sometimes I still feel like when I wake up, we will once again be in the hell that was college. But we're not! We're totally walking on air!

Thank you God for giving Mark the courage and stamina to finish! Thank you thank you thank you! I could never be grateful enough for the life we have now that my husband has built for us! Security is absolutely nothing to take for granted!

Crazy Mommy Days

Craziest thing I've said this week:

"Lydia, we don't lick the wall!"

Craziest thing I've heard this week:

"Uh, oh! Ju-ju poo-pooed on my pillow!"

2008's Top Ten Photos!

The Roost is throwing the best party ever! What a great idea to post your top ten pictures. It's hard to narrow it down, but here we go!

Me with new baby Julian

Julian is admited to the hospital for jaundice. What an emotional time!

Mark graduates from college! Best day of my life!

Lydia enjoys a homemade popcicle at our new home in Virginia.

I made new friends even though we moved!

Julian grows his own personality!

Lydia at the firefighter picinic. I love this picture!

On our annual beach vacation

We were just on a walk this day feeding some ducks, but I love this picture of them!

Cutting down our first real Christmas tree!

Hope you all had a great 2008!

Ahhhh! That's better!

This blog has been needing a purple background for awhile... :-)

O Christmas Tree

Our family got our first real Christmas tree this year! We cut it down ourselves. It's the biggest Christmas tree that I've ever had!

Lydia helped me check the lights...

And Julian helped Mark to put them up!

I love colored lights on Christmas trees!

We have a large variety of ornaments. I love the randomness!

How lovely are your branches?

We've been busy this year, so I didn't do much decorating other than the tree. I think the fire is a nice touch :-)

We're not traveling for Christmas this year, we're just having a small family Christmas with our own kids. I'm so excited, and could not be more thankful for everything God has done for us this year! I feel prepared for our Savior's birth! Merry Christmas everyone!

Homemade Ornaments

I can't show you any of the ornaments I made this year yet because I don't want the recipients to see them (except for Julian's. He doesn't really know how to use the Internet yet...)

Here's the baby's first Christmas ornament I made for Lydia. It's supposed to be a mobile with her name hanging from it.  It was remarkably easier to write in wire than I thought it would be! 

Here's Julian's first Christmas ornament. Simple, but I like it!

This one I "made" for Mark. (Ok, not really. I just painted it). I wanted to get Mark a Brett Favre, but he was really expensive. Then I found a Joe Montana ornament at a yard sale for $1, so I just painted it to look like Brett Favre!

I guess next year I can show you the ones I made for this year :-)