Darn Computer!

We finally got a (semi) new computer. Our old one had a wierd virus & was hard to fix, so my parents gifted their old one to us. This one is working beautifully, or so I thought. Apparently, I cannot upload photos to facebook for some reason. It keeps saying "cannot find page". Any ideas why?

New Year!

Happy 2010 to all! I missed the ushering in of the year, with the whole ball drop thing. I was sick & sleeping, so I hope it was a wonderful thing for those of you who made it til midnight. Blessings for what God will bring you this year. Make it count.

Busyness

I have been extremely busy these last couple months, as well as most of you I'm sure. I've slowly been getting into the holiday spirit, even though the idea of decorating my home when I have little ones who like to play with everything they see has been daunting. We have our tree up, but there are only kid friendly ornaments on it, and the candy canes are clustered at the top. Also, my kids think the stockings are fun to wear on their feet ~ I can't help but giggle when they slip around the house in them.

Most of my gifts for family are homemade, or bought with frugality. We've limited our budget, & it's interesting what you can come up with if try. I found a target coupon for $5 off a Kodak camera and was able to print 4 of them. I then bought 4 disposable cameras with them & paid less then $5 for them. My in-laws love these, so they're going in their gift baskets! One of my relatives is getting a blockbuster gift card that I "bought" with points I earned using my american express card. And for my daughter, I'm making some blankets & pillows for her dolls. I really like some of the frugal living blogs out there. My 2 faves are www.frugalcouponliving.com & www.moneysavingmom.com
They have helped me save some cash on groceries & gifts. You should check them out.

I hope you all have a blessed Christmas!

Famous?

Ian is in today's local paper! Why, you ask? We went to a train show in Batavia yesterday with my in-laws and he was just too cute to resist photographing I guess! Anyway, here's the link & picture: http://www.thedailynewsonline.com/

Eating Better - Recipe Review

So, as I mentioned yesterday, I'm trying to eat (and feed my family) healthier foods. For Christmas I recieved the book Deceptively Delicious. I've tried some recipes already, but mainly just the easier ones. Tonight I decided to try the recipe for Macaroni & Cheese with Butternut Squash. Even though it looked daunting, it was fairly easy to make. However, it calls for 4 oz. of cream cheese and that is all I could taste. I was not impressed. I might as well have just chewed on the brick of cream cheese, it was that strong. I wonder if you could make it with only 2 oz? Hhhmmm? I'm not sure I'll try, though. One recipe from the book that I absolutely love, is the Chocolate Chip cookies with Chick Peas. YUM!!!!! I cannot eat just one. They're even better fresh from the oven. I'll let you know if I try any more of the recipes.

Sweet Treat

A couple weeks ago I found a cookie mix at the batavia farm market. It wasn't just any old mix, it was labeled as "All Natural 8 Grain Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix". I like easy, healthy food, so I bought it. It has all sorts of good-for-you ingredients. Including, 8 types of flour and sunflower seeds. Ian and I whipped it up this morning and by golly; they were great! I highly recommend that you check out their website: www.allenshillfarm.com They even have an 8 grain brownie mix, which isn't bad either.

Cleanup

I'm so glad today was rain free! I've been looking at my poor, neglected garden. It needed to be cleaned up in the worst way! So after supper tonight, Ian and I went out to work on it. I pulled out dead plants and Ian picked the stakes out of the weedblock. [Of course, the stakes needed to be transported in his dump truck :)]. It felt so good to be outside working in some of the last nice weather of the season/year. Maybe when it's time to plant next year, we'll have a new house to garden at! That would be nice, but I'm ok if that's not the case. How did you enjoy the day?