Semi-Homemade Holidays

I woke up this morning and felt the chill of the upcoming fall season. I cannot wait. Mind you, by noon today it will be 90+ degrees, but I can enjoy the morning chill while I drink my morning pot of coffee. Then suddenly, the chill brought thoughts of wrapping paper and spending WAY too much money on Christmas gifts.

The thought has crossed my mind several times to have homemade Christmas, or a limit on gifts. That is hard with kids. You love your kids and want to make them happy. And with that in mind, I am going to attempt a compromise. We are going to have a practical/Semi-Homemade holiday season.

What is that you ask? I am not sure, but my ideas are:

• Price cap on overall gift cost. My oldest is 8, and understands that if he gets 2 BIG gifts and the little ones get 8 small gifts that he was not shorted somehow by Santa.
• 1/2 the gifts need to be practical gifts. (Examples: Books, clothes, new bike gear, Scout gear, gift cards for roller skating rink, Sonic, etc... all places that my kids love to go all year round.)
• Limit the amount of toys. With an 8, 4 and 3 year old - we, as parents probably won't buy ANY toys since that is the go-to with Grandparents, aunts and uncles.
• My oldest (and I) will go at least once (hopefully more) to volunteer at a place in need. My youngest will pick out and take at least one gift to a kid's shelter.
• We will make homemade gifts for Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Teachers, Friends, etc. (Not Popsicle stick frames, but we will get Pinterest crazy and make cool gifts.

I do hope to keep this a tradition. I don't think we will ever be a completely homemade/material gift free family, because lets keep it real - Christmas offers some amazing sales and gifts are fun!  Anyway, wish me luck! I am going to be starting now, because the other thing about this idea - you can't wait till the last minute. Lucky for me, I work retail - so for me, Christmas starts in September anyway.

Merry Christmas!!! And all ideas are welcome...

One Cheap Cookie!

I know my blog is based on my Crockpot, my Wok, and that sort - and these were not made in either of those, but sometimes a CHEAP, homemade cookie is needed. My kids (and I) prefer homemade cookies to Oreos and Chips Ahoy's - and in between paychecks, I cannot afford to get macadamia nuts, and fancy coffee to make awesome cookies. These are a staple in my kitchen, and the kids - they are peanut butter fans like myself. If I could find a way to dip peanut butter in peanut butter I would. :-) So, here is my simple PB COOKIE RECIPE.

1 cup Peanut Butter (I used Honey PB - such a good touch!)

1 cup Sugar

1 Egg

Preheat your oven to 350. Mix the egg and the sugar until well blended. Then mix in the peanut butter until thoroughly mixed. Ball up dough into the size of cookies you want. I like big cookies, and my kids share well. Place on a slightly greased pan. Take a fork and dip it in some sugar, I prefer brown sugar, and press the fork on the cookie in both directions. Cooking times will vary depending on the oven. My cookies took 11 minutes. The house smelled of delicious honey peanut butter. HEAVEN! You can always add a Hersey's Kiss into the middle for a thumbprint Peanut Butter cookie. I want to try the mini Reese's Peanut Butter cups. With the above ingredients, I made 15 medium to large sized cookies.

1 cup of Kroger brand Honey Peanut Butter (The jar cost $1.79, I only used a 1/3 - $0.60)

1 cup of Kroger brand sugar (5lb bag was $2.89, 1 cup would cost $0.26)

1 egg (Dozen cost $1.79, so 1 would cost $0.15)

These cookies cost me $0.41 cents to make since I had a coupon for free peanut butter, but without my coupon it would cost me $1.01 and that breaks down to $0.07 a cookie. These cookies are about the size of the Grandma's cookies that come in the individual packs, so I would say 7 cents a cookie is pretty good! Are they the most healthy choice? No. But, you don't need to avoid EVERYTHING that is not entirely healthy. :-)  It is all about moderation. Hope you enjoy my frugal cookie. :-) Until next time...

Birthday on a Budget!

Malakai's 7th Birthday Party was scheduled to go down on 2/11/12, the eve of his ACTUAL birthday.

This is Malakai when he was new. I would say a couple of
days old since most of his tubes were removed at this point <3


Well, with several scheduling conflicts, and this Momma get a stomach bug that was a killer, we had to postpone the party. But, that doesn't mean I am not going to make the WHOLE weekend about this kid. After all, he did change my life, and his Daddy's life. And with this weekend, I found another thing to blog about - Awesome cheap/free things to do with your kids! And that is what this weekend was ALL about.

Building and Growing at Lowes!

STOP #1} Lowe's Build and Grow - Lowe's does these kid friendly workshops on Saturdays about twice a month. They receive an apron their first time, and each workshop they attend they receive a patch to iron on their apron. On this particular day, they were building Valentine's Day Card Creators. The site suggests ages 5 and up, but you know your child. Alannah has a decent attention span, and she enjoyed her 3 year old self quite well. The workshop had about 30 kids and lasts between 10 and 11. Build and Grow with Lowe's Click on the link to get information on the next one they are offering. It is a racecar, and we are VERY excited!

1 hour of FUN, 2 aprons and 2 kid made creations = $0.00

Malakai getting CROWNED at Toys 'R' Us



The Birthday Boy!



Flying his Spiderman kite!

STOP #2} Toys 'R' Us - Our next stop was Toys 'R' Us. This is an adventure all in itself. There is SO much to play with and look at, you could literally spend HOURS in here. If you sign up for Geoffrey's Birthday Club, your child will receive a birthday card inviting them to the store. Geoffrey's Birthday Club Sign-Up The card instructs them to go to Guest Services, and let them know it is their birthday. And now for the fun! They make a HUGE deal of their birthday. They get crowned, and an awesome balloon. Next, they announce overhead to the ENTIRE store that the birthday child is in the store and that they would be walking around with their crown and balloon. (Malakai LOVED this part) So many parents, kids and employees stopped to wish him a happy birthday. In the birthday card, they receive a $3 off of any purchase gift card. Now, this doesn't seem like much - but, what I find is that my children can't ever decide on the item they want. It's too hard to narrow down. We spent a little over an hour looking up and down every aisle. Ooohing, and Ahhhing at all the AWESOME stuff. This particular day was very windy, and Malakai choose a Spiderman kite, so we could fly it when we got home.

Over an hour of fun, a Birthday crown, a Birthday balloon, and a Spiderman kite = $0.00 (The kite was $2.99, and his coupon card covered it. (Add the 2 1/2 hours of flying the kite that day - Toys 'R' Us gave us 3 1/2 hours of fun)

Malakai, the Birthday King, BK style.

STOP #3 - Burger King - Next was lunch. What better than a free Kid's Meal, that comes WITH a crown and a toy? If you sign up at the BK website, they will send a coupon for a free kid's meal for your child's birthday. BK Birthday Meal. Malakai enjoyed going in, ordering, and paying with his coupon. He felt like a BIG KID. The plus side to this was the toy. It was a Robot Grabbit Hand. And this was one of the toys he was thinking about at Toys 'R' Us, so SCORE one for BK. He wanted to fly his kite, so we got the food to go. Normally, you could spend an hour playing on their indoor playgrounds.

35 minutes of eating, a Birthday crown, a toy and the excitement of getting a "SPECIAL" meal = $0.00

Yay for 31 Flavors!

STOP # 4 - Baskin Robbins - Baskin Robbins is one of those awesome places that celebrates Birthdays, Anniversaries and just regular AWESOME coupons. And the perk with this particular club is there is NO age cut off. Baskin Robbins Birthday Club SWEET! Malakai and I drove to our local Baskin Robbins while the kids napped away. I was telling him about all the flavors. And he was excited to pick one. We spent some time looking at ALL 31 flavors before he picked Chocolate. Seriously? He is just like his Dad. Ice cream is the EASIEST thing to be adventurous with.  We sat on the bench pictured, and we talked while he enjoyed his cone. Malakai must have told me 20 times by now, that this was the MOST awesome birthday EVER. That kind of thing warms a Momma's heart.


1/2 hour of good conversation, a BIG chocolate Ice cream cone = $0.00


This was followed by me preparing his FAVORITE dinner, and a small family celebration with gifts. I know to some these things don't seem like fun, but I pride myself in the fact that my children truly enjoy the little things in life. And this entire day didn't cost me a DIME. (Except gas) And Malakai truly felt like the ENTIRE day was about him. Below, I am going to list links to the other clubs we joined. And the good thing is we got to use these throughout his birthday week.

SONIC Birthday Club
Denny's Birthday Club
IHOP Birthday Club
Wendy's Birthday Club


Others include Marble Slab, Firehouse Subs, Buffalo Wild Wings and SO much more. I enjoy freebies. And, the crazy thing is - I do find myself wanting to go to places that offer perks like these. Thanks, until next time...