Money Saving Opportunities

I love saving money!! I especially love coupons for things we need. I feel that by using coupons for things we need we can then give moer and have more of the things we want.

I just found this out yesterday while shopping at Kroger.
1. Log on to Kroger.com/digitalcoupons singin/register your card.
2. Select digital coupons for your favorite products
3. Download directly to your card by clicking "load coupons to card".
Hope this helps you save more money on groceries.
Since these are loaded onto your card you can use these coupons and paper ones too!!

This is an offer exclusively from me. When you purchase 2 or more skincare products from BeautiControl's Daily Facial products (check them out here) you will receive a free skincare mini. The skincare mini is great for travel and meets airline requirements!!
This offer is only good today, December 30th and tomorrow December 31st. Minis are limited. Message below, e-mail or call me to take advantage of this offer!!

Food Savings- I found these in the October issue of Real Simple and these are just a few of my favorites!!

EatDrinkDeals.com looks like a great website to go to for money saving coupons when eating out

Livingsocial.com looks like a good website if you live in bigger town or some cities are good vacation spots.

Sign up for the birthday club here and receive a free treat on your special day from Cold Stone Creamery.

Project on a Cold Day

I love Hobby Lobby because they have great items at great prices!! Plus I love that, like Chick-fil-a, they are closed on Sunday. If you haven't read the book by David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby, it is a great read. You can find it here or check it out at the library (this is what I like to do because I don't have the space and it saves money).

I found this cute reindeer at Hobby Lobby before Christmas for 50% off. My more crafty friends could probably do this at home with items you already have but for 74 cents plus tax you can't beat that.

Working on his reindeer...


With the finished product the next morning after it had time to dry


I mentioned the snowglobe (post about that Friday) we made so I headed to Hobby Lobby to get some glitter with my 40% off coupon. While I was there I snagged the Christmas tray for 50% off and the jar for our snowglobe for 50% off. I was going to use a jar at home that once had pickles in it but when I saw this I decided it would be much less work to buy this one (not having to get the sticky off from the label or the smell out of the jar) at 50% off (making it 99 cents). The pickle jar went in the recycling bin.

See these 3 wonderful items...


Jar $1.99 but @ 50% off = 99 cents
Christmas Tray $2.99 but @ 50% off = $1.49
Glitter $1.47 but with a 40% off coupon = 88 cents
Tax = 27 cents
Drum roll please..... Grand total $3.63!!

Tree, Santa Breakfast and Merry-Go-Round

Merry Christmas!!

Here are just a few things we have enjoyed this Christmas Season.
T is at such a fun age for Christmas. O seeing Christmas in a child's eyes.

T loves the tree and he enjoyed helping decorating it. He also loved helping wrap the presents. (Our tree looks sad now without presents under it.)


With his creation from last year and 2 of his daddy's creations from years past.


This picture just melts my heart, he wanted to hold Baby Jesus and me take a picture of him and Baby Jesus. I wanted to cry he was so sweet about it.
Our nativity scene has Mary holding Jesus.
T with Mary and Baby Jesus.


This year we visited with Santa at the Marriot at Grand National. I highly recommed it!! The breakfast was delicious and very reasonably priced. You can check them out here.

T with Santa...he got a little nervous (in awe) when he was actually sitting in his lap.


Enjoying the yummy breakfast with Daddy


Multi-tasking... decorating his cookie at the cookie station they had set up while watching a Christmas movie they had playing on a projector.


It wouldn't be a cookie to T without sprinkles.


Enjoying the fruits of his decorating.


T and I are so glad to have Daddy at home with us today. We just returned from Valley where we road on the Merry-Go-Round. It was so fun we road it 3 times!! The Merry-Go-Round is a Christmas tradition in Valley for more than 50 years.

T by the pretty decorations while we were waiting in line.


More Merry-Go-Round fun!!






I am off to check on our snowglobe process (we had to let the glue dry on the figures). Post on the snowglobe coming soon!! We are going to enjoy our church's Christmas Eve Service, drive through Christmas in Camelot and make Jesus a Birthday Cake before Santa comes tonight!!

May Jesus be the reason for the season!!

Last Minute Gifts and Holiday Weight Gain

If you need last minute gifts check out these items via my BeautiPage that are on SALE!! If you live near me I will wrap and deliver your items to you!! That's right, no driving and standing in line. I will bring them to you!!

All of this Christmas "celebrating" can result in unwanted weight gain or water retention. In addition, we are all running ourselves ragged preparing for the holidays and can use an extra BOOST of energy to keep the "Sparkle" in our step. This oddly unique Spa Treatment combines some of our BeautiControl products with an unusual twist to help flush excess fluids, slim and sculpt areas of concern and increase energy. As strange as it sounds, it really does work...


The best part, both sculpt products are on SALE!!

Cookie Decorating Party

T's sweet friend Libby invited us over for a cookie decorating.

Decorating...




T's version of playing dress-up...being the king


The cookie decorators...


Addie has great pictures of the day on her blog here.
Thank you so much Addie for having us over and to SaSa and Bese for helping us decorate and for the delicious cookies!!

I love where we live because we have great friends here and a wonderful church plus I love that there is always something going on. Christmas has lots for families to enjoy. We enjoyed the Christmas Parade, the driving tour of the Victorian Front Porch Tour, our neighborhood Christmas party, Christmas in a Railroad Town (post about that coming soon) and the Collinwood Luminaries. Soon we will be going to the Merry-Go-Round and Christmas in Camelot!!

Gingerbread Cookies

For the past two years my sweet mother in-law has given T a gingerbread advent calendar.

This year the lady has retired from making them so my mother in-law, sister in-law and I set out to make a batch for our boys. T and I were in E-town for a visit, at the first of December as I had a BeautiControl Spa Escape there that night, so this was a fun project for the girls to do why the men were at work.

T loved helping make them...


Letting the icing dry before we wrapped them


T and F waiting for the cookies to dry


The boys with the finished product...


T and me with the finished product...


Enjoying his cookies at home...

A Little Organization

A few months ago (All in the same week as my sweet husband did the table for our din...I get a organizing/decorating bug every so often and then I have to take a break.)

Chance was going to build a shelf but then decided we should support a local business and our friends at Wood You (check them out here). Chance didn't quite have all the tools or the time to make it. It was a great price on the shelf and just what I wanted long and low for T's room.

Then we headed to Lowe's because I wanted to paint the shelf white with a grey background. With the shelf, paint and plywood for the back this little project was under $180. Thanks to my friend Addie for letting me know about the little sample paint that you can buy. It was the PERFECT amount to paint the plywood to go on the back. I got a gallon of the white paint to also use to one day (in the near future hopefully) paint our bed. The white paint is Valspar's String of Pearls and the grey paint is Olympic's Silver Dollar. This is a shelf we can keep for a long time and it was so worth it to organize T's room and give him more floor space in his room.

Before... (I am ashamed to share how bad this had gotten. It got to a point where I knew the shelf was coming and I just quit cleaning it up.)



During...


After...




I am so glad we did this, especially with Christmas right around the corner.
I love when everything has a home.

Half Price!!!

BC Spa Pedicure Set ON SALE for HALF PRICE

Have amazing feet from home!!

These 4 products would regularly be $80 but each product is on sale this month making it ONLY $40!!

Great Christmas present for you and any one on their feet!!

O Christmas Tree

Christmas time is so much fun especially when you are married to Mr. Christmas and he has passed that love on to our son. I tease Chance that the reason he loves Christmas so much is because his birthday is on the 19th and he gets a double whammy.

I am so glad Chance wanted to go and cut down a tree the first year we were married and thus started our family tradition.

On December 1st Chance used one of his vacation days and we went to cut down our tree, decorate it and get all of the Christmas decorations out around the house.

Here is the tree T wanted... We tried to explain to him that we would be like the Griswolds if we tried to take that big of tree into our house. We are pretty sure it was at least 9-10 feet. He told us it was the best one out there and we really needed it (by best I think he meant biggest).


T and Daddy with our tree in the field


T and Mommy with our Christmas Tree loaded on Daddy's truck


If you are looking for a place to cut your own tree Lakeside Christmas Tree Farm is a WONDERFUL place to go. They are so nice there and T loved riding on a wagon (pulled by a tractor) out to where the trees are.

Then that afternoon I had the privilege of judging our local Christmas parade along with these two ladies.


Thanks to the Irish Bred Pub downtown for allowing us to judge from their 2nd story balcony!!

Glisten Up

I read this recently and wanted to share a way to add a little shimmer to your Christmas season with one of BeautiControl's fabulous products.

From Health December 2010... Put some shimmer in the right spots for a sophisticated effect that lets you sparkle without looking like a disco ball. The secret: Just do your regular everyday makeup, then apply a shimmer to give a subtle sheen in 3 areas: the tops of your cheekbones, just under your brows, and on the inner corners of your eyes. This creates an all-over glow that's super natural.

From Blakely's Website...

BC Color Highlighting Shimmer


Star Powder Highlighting Shimmer uses a glimmering gold green to help create looks that are perfect for this fall.
Check it out here.