In The Key of Life

3 years of Halloween.....7 costumes

Yes, he's into his costumes.....this year in particular!!

Let's count them down

2006

Little man with chubby legs in his stripey pants!

OOOOHHHHHHH...cutie pie!! Auntie Sara was upset because I didn't have a REAL costume for him, but heck ... he was 7 months old.

Check out those chubby little cheeks. SOOOO SWEET.

-

2007

Our little pirate boy. Again such a sweety...those curls sticking out from under that pirate hat get me every time.

I still love the striped socks too. :)

(you'd be surprised but this costume still fits Dex now....I made it all out of 3T clothes)

.

2008

Super Boy coming at ya.

I planned to make him a cape anyway so I turned it into a costume.

It still gets multiple wearing every month

(even down to the red tighty bloomers!!)

.

2009

The year of the multi-costume. Thank Goodness for clearance costumes!! Because I got them each for under $5, we bulked up the dress up bin.

AND.....for the seventh costume in three years......

Emerson was our little bee man! Another clearance costume from an awesome Old Navy sale.

SHHHHH...don't tell. It was a dog costume that I altered. Heck he was held almost the entire time and when he wasn't he was crawling so no one even knew that the belly side was just two straps.

(yes, I know...that's seriously thrifty)

AND...a bonus 2 costumes from this year

 

A Haunting Halloween family at our Outdoor Movie party on Saturday night. (pictures and videos of the party here)

Confessions of an Urban Housewife....Part 2

The ol' switch-er-oo

Yes, I do it! I'm sneaky. My little man (and hubby..well, me too) sometimes want to just eat junk. We give in once in a while, but most times I try to make the junk just a little bit nutritious. You already know about the popsicles... but now I've moved on to the most horrific of childhood requests....THE CHICKEN (MC) NUGGET.

I think in Dexter's entire life we have indulged in the Golden Arches mystery meat less times than I can count on one hand. Chick-fil-A...more times, but still less than others I know. BUT all around...he loves them just like any other little one.

After seeing this post, I figured why not give it a go. The fact that it had a Gluten Free breading idea was even better!

 AND...this week I visited a new grocery store, Bravo - International Supermarket, that had boneless skinless chicken breast for $1.96 a pound!(I checked the price at Publix today and it was over $5 a pound...how can that be!!!) SO, I grabbed the big container and had a plan!

Chop up about 3 pounds of chicken.

Throw the chunks in an egg wash (3 eggs...I forgot the water)

Use my GF breading with healthy additions, Sneaky Chef style, but minus wheat germ...plus flax seed meal.

Fry those babies up. I know not the healthiest option...I'll try baking them next time. First impression needs to be close to the original to win over the boys (big and small)

The verdict....YUMMMMYYYYY!

By themselves they don't taste just like fast food brands, but close. With bar-b-q sauce or ranch....you wouldn't know the difference! They look very similar to the Chick-fil-A style nugget so that's an added bonus too.

SCORE one for the Urban Housewife!!

...and to add to another housewife trick...I made enough for the freezer, OF COURSE!!!

With instructions for reheating and date added we're all set for happy nuggeting.

Now...go be sneaky....your kids (and hubby) will never know.

A lesson in bee keeping

WHAT FUN!!!

Yesterday Brian was doing a routine check on the bee hive.

As we were holding our usual supervisory position inside the lanai, Dexter decided to give us a little bee keeping lesson. (I just love how you can see Brian showing his bee keeping skills over Dexter's shoulder while the lil' man talks bees!!)

(view full size video here) After the lesson we also came upon an awesome little find!! 

Papa was thinking that the bees were doing a good job storing a little bit of honey and repopulating the second brood (nursery) box. Then....surprise...he found....2 large frames FULL of honey in the brood box!

Since we were so proud of our girls...we left one for them to feed their babies....and took the other FOR US!!

Papa brushed the bees off the comb, settled everyone back to work and brought the comb inside for us to see and harvest. WOW...it's a beauty. Almost entirely filled with golden goodness.

In the fancy schmancy bee operations they use heated knives, spinners and taps to bottle their honey. NOT US, we're old school.

We just used a putty knife (nice and clean) to cut the entire comb off the base and then we squeezed the comb with our hands to get every last bit out.

(view full size video here) It was so much fun!! We are so so so glad we decided to add bees to our homestead menagerie.

....then an extra cool part of it... Brian put the scraped, but not totally cleaned off, base frame outside while we squeezed and bottled the rest of the honey. When I came out to hang the laundry....I found this...

(view full size video here and get another chance to see how funny my hubby is!)

AWESOME. Within 30 minutes it was totally cleaned off and ready to back in the hive!!

BEES ROCK!!!

Fall Firsts

We REALLY are enjoying this little cool front (I don't want to jinx it and call it Fall) that has come our way.

It's given us the opportunity to have some Fall(shhhh) first. The things we LOVE to do and the things that make living in Florida totally worth it. We're looking forward to many more months of this!

... opening up the windows to let the cool breeze in while also letting the stale air out!

 

...lunch on the lanai (Papa's famous grilled nachos, homemade yogurt cheese whipped with homemade spiced strawberry jam and honeycrisp apples. YUMMM)

 

... garden time!!! it will be even better when there's snacks provided by Mother Nature

...evening walks with the family (to check out the holiday decorations...yes, Dexter is now obsessed with the Halloween decorations just as much as the Christmas ones last year!)

  

... a bonfire in the backyard to burn of the late evening chill

... sleeping with a warm snuggly blanket after a full day of playing

AND MOST OF ALL .... spending an awesome weekend OUTSIDE with our little family!!

Let the germination begin

With a dramatically fast temperature drop, we were thrust into a Florida fall (at least for a few days) and that means....it's time to begin!!

...the garden...

 

With a new beach umbrella pulling double duty, we were off to a great family start!

 

 

...just for fun... a few posts from a year ago. here here and here

Confessions of an Urban Housewife....part 1

***After writing this post, I realized there are just some things that I now do that I never would have imagined myself doing...when I was single...or even before kids. SOOOO...it's time to come clean...I have a few more 'confessions' in my cluttered brain that I'll write about soon. I think it's kind of silly and I giggle when I see the title...and now on with Part 1 of Confessions of an Urban Housewife...he he he****

If you know me pretty well and have talked to me in the last few months....you'll know that I'm a Clipper Chick a.k.a. one of those crazy coupon ladies. YES, I am coming out ...I am a coupon clipper!! Really, isn't it pathetic...I'm such a... MOM ...now.

And after reading this, you'll want to be one too(a clipper that is). And you too will ramble on and on and on about saving money. It actually kind of turns into a game once you've done it long enough and you don't even want to think about stepping into a store WITHOUT A COUPON (for shame!). :)

OK...let me tell you...I started doing coupons when I was pregnant with Emerson just by reading all kinds of money saving blogs and using internet printable coupons once in a while. I thought it was a great grocery trip when I would save $10 or maybe $20. I did it for a few months and then Emerson was born so like everything else...my clipping time went by the wayside for a bit. 

THEN....My friend Teri started gushing to me about all her great deals and how she's saving more than 50% of her grocery bill and getting TONS of stuff for FREE!!! I was so amazed and so were lots of other folks. Since there was a great deal of interest she started up a local coupon clipping club called the Clipper Chicks! We meet once a week to review deals, but mostly it's to stay excited about couponing and share our great savings stories.

NOW... I'm saving like MAD!!! Check out a few of my great deals I did last week.

 

First off....Publix! 

Publix (a Florida grocery store chain) is the bomb when it comes to coupons. Mostly because they take competitor's coupons and you can use two coupons on their BOGO(buy one get one) specials.

Here's a great shopping trip(all items pictured above).....$88 worth of groceries for $25!! That's almost a 70% savings folks!

 Look...

Just buying the three pork tenderloins at full price would have been more than ALL the groceries I bought using coupons!

Secondly, I went to KMart.

(sorry no pictures) KMart is holding a double coupon promotion right now and I got 3 big bags of stuff equaling $28 worth of items for (drum roll please) $4.43!

YES, FOUR DOLLARS AND FOURTY THREE CENTS, AMAZING, I KNOW!!!  85% savings!

And just to further convince you that couponing is where it's at...

...I went through some of my old receipts and found some other great transactions.

Publix 

5/08 saved $69.91... paid $46.08 (59% savings)

5/18 saved $54.83... paid $51.72 (51% savings)

9/14 saved $41.05...paid $29.49 (58% savings)

KMart (during the last doubles event...where I was able to get some great x-mas toy deals)

in 3 transactions  $142 worth of toys, cleaners, batteries, juice, baby wipes and soap  ... for $50! (64% savings)

even... WHOLE FOODS

$27.35 worth of groceries for $15.35 (44% savings)

Now that you're convinced....here's a start...

Go to the Clipper Chicks website and review and subscribe to the money saving blogs in the right hand column.

Also, Hip2Save has been doing a fun video series called "Follow me Monday" all about couponing. (find it in the right column of her blog part way down) Check it out.

OK, now that I've rambled far far far too long. GO, CLIP/PRINT, and SAVE!

Welcome Fall

As October begins it's getting to be the most beautiful time of the year here in Florida! The temps are going down so it's a little more bearable to be outside, but still warm enough to do those summer activities that it was too hot to do during the actual summer season.

We're taking full advantage of it!

 

   

I can't tell you how excited Papa is that the temps are now considered to be 'bike' weather!!!

 

...and the best part about it is this past week we got to do all of it with our great friends, Jason and Julie!! We miss you guys already and can't wait until you're down here for good again!

Swamp Pops

Last week for our preschool co-op we were studying the swamp. So, I made one of my famous batches of swamp pops or green popsicles. These, hands down, are Dexter's favorite cool treat. I think part of the reason he loves them so is that I let him eat just about as many as he wants. 

...and now, come to find out....we have a second swamp pop lover in the house! With close supervision, lil' Em devoured 3 of these yummy frozen sticks of slime today.

SOOOOO...now for the secret of the swamp pop...

It's not the luscious ooze that covers your little tike's face and hands as they munch or the crazy brain freeze face that you can't help but giggle at...NO

...They are made of 100% good stuff and WAYYY cheaper than the store bought healthy pops!

1. I make a batch of my homemade crockpot yogurt.

2. Throw half of the finished batch (equivalent to 1 large container of the store stuff) in the blender.

3. Add in a full bunch of spinach, 3-6 frozen bananas and enough milk to make it blend (maybe a cup).

4. Whir it up until it's nice and smooth.

5. Pour into popsicle molds, pop them in the freezer and WAIT!!! This is Dexter's least favorite part of course. He will check on them every 10 minutes if I let him.

6. Unmold and enjoy!

I've found that my little guys much prefer a smaller popsicle so I scored this awesome ice cube tray at Goodwill for $.99 that I use as a popsicle mold. It's one of those tall, slender ice cube trays that are for adding ice to water bottles and other things in narrow mouthed containers. For us, it's perfect for pops...just add some sticks and you're all set. They're not so big that they melt too fast and the kiddo feel like he's getting away with something because he gets to eat like 6 sweet popsicles and mom doesn't even mind!

Emerson says: Now go and make yourself some swamp pops and eat slime!! (Because if you try to take his from those little sticky hands...you won't hear the end of it. Believe me, I know!)

Free weekend fun - BOY STYLE!

The last two weeks, Dexter, Emerson and I(and this weekend with Grandma FL) have headed out for a little FREE Saturday morning fun BOY STYLE!

Yup, that means hammers, nails, pounding, loud rooms filled with kiddos and smiles all around when he gets to bring home a REAL project that HE built! 

This week it was the Lowe's Build and Grow workshop that happens every second and fourth Saturday of the month! Last weekend was Home Depot Kid's Workshop that is always the FIRST Saturday of the month. So, that makes for almost every Saturday morning of the month to be a workshop!! Best part about all of it....they are ALL FREE.

Dexter loves them and he gets a little pin or badge after completing the days project to put on his apron. I have a feeling that it won't be long before his aprons are rather full of completed projects!! We've already been to 3 Home Depot workshops (one of which was his birthday party) and 2 Lowe's sessions.

It really is fun for everyone. It doesn't take too long to make the projects and I just really get a kick out of seeing my little guy pounding away and getting overly excited about a few pieces of wood that are a little wobbily nailed together!!

SOO..if you have a little one out there that's excited about tools....you gotta try this out. (I'm not getting paid or anything. I just think they are great!)

PS...and here's me helping out with my new $8 haircut which I love!

I'm so lucky...

...because they are both mine!
(I just love this picture and wanted to share.)