Coupons

Do you use coupons? We sometimes do...if I remember to take them to the store...if I remember to clip them. I hear and read stories of women saving 50-80% on their family's grocery bills. If I really plan and shop fairly smart, we'll save a good 25%. I read that it takes several months to stock up on coupons and create a thorough price book. I follow several ladies on Facebook and occasionally read their sites:

http://www.couponmom.com/

http://www.livefabuless.com/

We were at Barnes and Noble today and I found Coupon Moms book on the discount table for $3.99. I guess if I'm gonna buy a book on cutting our grocery bill it ought to be from the discount table!

I'm reading the book this weekend and going to give it a try. I'll update my progress here and we'll see if we can start saving half! I'll share any great tips I learn along the way. Join me!

Etsy

As gift-giving season approaches I've been looking through Etsy. If you've never browsed this great site you should, especially if you'd like to give personalized, hand-made gifts. Here are a few things that caught my eye browsing tonight.

 I've heard these cloths are GREAT in the kitchen! Someone made some similar cloths at a Lottie Moon auction I attended for a ladies ministry. Everyone raved over them!

Isn't this fabric great? A few of these jelly rolls and you could make an awesome quilt. You, not me. I'd like to make one but I lose interest before I'm finished. It's quite a slow process!

How fun is this purse??? Tacky for a grown-up maybe but I love it! So fun and colorful! Let everyone else have their Coach bags! This is a lot more unique. Who wants to be just like everyone else anyway??

Love this little girl's skirt! I love "adult" colors and fabrics for kid's clothes! This also comes with a cute top.

You can find almost anything on Etsy. Check it out. It's a happy place!

Our studies

We are in our second week of studying Asia, Saudi Arabia to be exact. The kids have really learned a lot about the country and Islam as have I. We've learned about the five pillars and about the significance of the Middle East throughout history. The last lesson of a particular country assigns a recipe(s) for a traditional meal or snack. We will end Saudi Arabia by making hummus. Now, I love hummus but Saudi Arabia?? I thought it was Mediterranean! I did a bit of digging and, sure enough, the word hummus has Arabic roots.

What I am super excited about is India for the next two weeks beginning Monday. We signed up at My Passport to India to follow along on a trip hosted by Pastor Chris for - "an educational and exciting program designed to help your children discover more about the nation of India and engage them in reaching India's boys and girls by supporting Children's Bible Clubs."

The program started a few weeks ago but everything is online so we can do it when we are ready. This will be an incredible supplement to our study! Read about it and go through it with your children!

I love studying geography with them. It really gives them an appreciation for being an American. Just this week I was able to show them a small article in the paper. It was about the Yanomami. They are an indigenous tribe that lives in the Amazon Rainforest of Venezuela. The article was about a disease, probably malaria, that had killed over 50 and many more were sick. A health worker trekked for 3 days to reach the tribes. Grace and Colin were very touched by this. I think it hit home that these things we study about...they are happening NOW, not in the past. (You know, that dark ages when mom and dad were little and there were no ipods or Dsi games.) I was able to reinforce what we studied weeks ago with today's news. The fact that it took a health worker 3 days to reach them...that was a startling realization. I think it's a great thing to venture out of our cocoon and learn about others. It makes us all the more grateful for God's blessing in our lives.

I have a challenge for you. Check out this link. It is a website called Operation World. Click on Pray Today. It will give you a country to pray for each day including their prayer needs. Locate it on a map and learn some geography! Enjoy!

Oh, and by the way. If you read my blog or Facebook page and I talk of going places like India or China, I'm talking about studying those places! While I am so flattered that many of you think I would go to such extremes to teach my children, our budget does not allow for such travel. ;o) We have our little "passport" that we stamp with flag stickers every time we "enter a new country" but we are using our imaginations!

I have a confession

I've grown up and lived in the South all 37 years of my life except for 3 years in Spain. I've never eaten grits....ever. We always had sausage gravy, not grits. What could be better than gravy? Well, I found a recipe that intrigued me on Pioneer Woman's blog a couple of weeks ago. She served creamy cheese grits with chilies to accompany ribeye steaks and they looked so good. I had to make them.

I've been waiting to try these things called "grits" until we had steaks. We didn't have steaks last night. We had oriental chicken thighs but I couldn't wait any longer. I was so desperate to try this recipe that I made mexican style grits with oriental chicken. That's right. Desperate? Or confused?

Either way, they were wonderful! Even with oriental chicken! I called Mom, super excited about my new discovery! Wanna know what she said? She's never had grits either! Not in all her *ahem* a few more than 37 years.

You should try them. Hubby says they aren't like "regular" grits so I can't compare them to others but we'll be having these again...with ribeyes this time!

Creamy Cheese Grits with Chilies

Weekends at the Chastains

What do we do on a Friday night in the country? Well, for starters, most Friday nights are pizza nights. We have co-op in Panama City from 8:45 - 11:45. We usually have lunch, hit the library, and then Publix for groceries. Sometimes we'll run to Target or some other errands, taking advantage of being in Panama City and taking care of as much on that day as we can. So, we're usually pooped when we get home.

This Friday was no exception. As we ordered pizza the kids and Whitney decided a fire would be nice as it was cool out. Logic might tell you we had a fire in the fireplace but you would be wrong.

 We built this fire in the backyard. So, pizza and soda sitting in the backyard on Friday night it was. 

Ahhh..."good country living!" as Whitney has taught the kids to say! Can't do this in the 'burbs!

Happy Halloween!

We hit Panama City last night for trick-or-treating. It was a blast! The kids had fun but I think we had as much fun as they did. We've started a tradition...for the second year in a row we've trick-or-treated and then hit Coram's or Waffle House for breakfast. The kids have been planning all week.....trick-or-treating, then breakfast!

 Grace was a giraffe. She was warm and comfy!

 Colin was Ben 10.

 Eager and ready to get started!

The kids and dad.

Tired but full buckets. Ready for waffles, preferably without the orange vampire teeth! ;o)

Wonderworks on Panama City Beach

This was a great field trip! We had a blast! If you've never been to Wonderworks you really should go! It's a bit pricey to get in, especially if you want to do everything but they have great discounts for school fieldtrips which was how we went. If you've ever wanted to make education fun and interactive...this is it!

This is from their website:

"WonderWorks™ is an amazing Panama City Beach attraction where scientific principles and fun come together to provide an unrivaled educational experience. The laws of nature and probability interact with human skills and perceptions to create some of the most mind boggling, head scratching virtual challenges, mental challenges and physical challenges. Compete with yourself or friends in this unusual WonderWorks™ Florida attraction which has the largest interactive game facility and scientific displays anywhere. Over 100 exhibits and challenges await the eager participant. WonderWorks™ Panama City Beach is a four-story interactive fun lab housed in an eye-catching upside down building cradled at the “PCB Pointe,” where Middle Beach, Front Beach Roads and North Thomas Drive intersect – across from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!® Museum."


It's such a COOL building!


Here is Grace laying on a bed of nails. She's not too sure about the decision she made to try this!


Colin guiding a robot arm.



Grace and Colin using their powers of concentration to control the ball (HILARIOUS!)



Grace landing an aircraft.



And the whole family as astronauts. I think Dad looks COOL!



Check it out and visit if you can! www.wonderworkspcb.com Oh, and they also have Lazer Tag!