A Few More Pictures...

These are just a few more pictures from our family photo shoot with Natalie Ragsdale...these are a few of my favorites!! 

 My Miss Attitude!! Love this girlie!!

 Our "kissing" picture!!

 My sweet Mr. Blue Eyes (no editting done on this pic!!)

 My parents!! (They've been married for 37 years!!)

My brother, Randy, his wife, Irene, and daughters Mikayla (6) and Miya (2)

Family Pictures

My brother and his family are here to visit this week, so Momma decided she wanted family pictures taken. She hired a friend of mine, Natalie Ragsdale, to take the pictures. We've only seen one that she posted to facebook, but it's great!! I am positive the rest will be just as good...here's the one we've seen!!





I'm a little behind...

...but I will catch up soon! Last week our family was on vacation in St. Louis (we had a blast!!) and this week my brother, sister-in-law, and 2 nieces are here from North Carolina...will update with pics later!!

Happy Birthday, America!!

Well, our family has already been doing things around the house this morning. I finished my inventory of the freezers for the pantry challenge and started on the cupboards. I also made Mississippi Mud bars, chocolate oatmeal no-bake cookies, and jello (Randall's favorite snack). Randall moved the tv in the living room for me, so now I have a little cleaning to do. We are going to head to Momma and Daddy's later. Aunt Debbie and Uncle Ronnie will be coming up from Stuttgart, so we are going to have hot dogs and chips and dip. There will be no fireworks because we have had no rain in a while and are currently under a burn ban. Hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July!!

Walgreens shopping trip

I am attempting to look closely at sales papers and get some good deals without spending lots of money. I would LOVE to become an extreme couponer, but I just don't have the time to give to that, so I am doing the best I can. I went to Walgreens yesterday, and look at what I bought...

My total should've been $55.41. I paid $19.71. That is a 63% savings!! I was very proud of myself. I even got the Ivory soap for FREE...yep, Free!! It was $0.99, and I had a coupon for $1! I had $10 worth of coupons, as well as $10 Register Rewards. The Gillette soap was buy one get on 1/2 off, as was the sunscreen. I was very excited! Hopefully I can do more of this in the future!!

The Pantry Challenge: Inventory

Ok, I officially started the inventory today. I finished the freezer in the top of the fridge, but didn't finish the deep freezer or the cabinets. However, I realized that we have PLENTY of meat in the freezers to get buy without buying meat for a month (there is a TON of deer meat that we can use!!) The picture below is the start I have on my inventory. I plan on finishing up tomorrow, then hopefully making a better list and organizing everything a little better so I can work on menu planning!!

The main reason for doing this pantry challenge is to use what is already in the fridge, freezer, and cupcoards as well as making a concentrated effort for stretching dollars as far as they will go!!

The Pantry Challenge

Okay, it's July, and I am going to try the pantry challenge that I found over at Good Cheap Eats. I know we have a ton of deer meat, fish, etc. in our deep freezer, so I plan on doing an inventory tomorrow while Emma and Mac are at church for Day Camp (after I go to the gym, of course!!). I want to try to start using more and wasting less. I have cut down on wasted food over the last year and a half or so by only buying groceries once a month, but I want to see how this works. I want to see if I can skip a month of buying groceries by only eating what I can find in our freezers, fridge, and cupboards. I won't have to plan for the next 2 weeks because we will be having supper next week at VBS, then we have something up our sleeves for the next week. (check back for pics, updates, etc.)

Check back later for updates on my pantry challenge, as well as my shopping trip to Walgreens today!!