A lot of green!

I found a great tip that truly works on Pinterest - canning lettuce!!

We eat a lot of salads in this house and lettuce only stays fresh after washing & cutting for a couple of days.

I found a site that showed me this idea & it has changed my salad prepping ways!

I cut & wash about 6-9 hearts of romaine lettuce & then let it air dry about 30 mins.

Pack it all into quart canning jars and suck all the air out with my FoodSaver.

My lettuce lasts TWO WHOLE WEEKS - seriously love this tip!

 You do need a jar attachment for this to work-

 Just put the rings on and pop them in the fridge! Yummy crisp lettuce ready to mix into a salad :)

I've only tried it with romaine - not sure how other lettuces would work

Latest deals

Luckily my kids don't read my blog or they would seriously kill me for my coupon posts. But I just get a little giddy about my finds - so read on or just ignore the nerd post ;)

Both of these photos are from this week at Walgreen's.  I got:

6 - 6 packs of Viva paper towels (my favorite kind) - $6.99 ea.

6 - got 2b hair products ($6.50 ea.)

4 - Tylenol cold ($6.99 ea.)

2 - personal items ($3.50 ea.)

2 - Neosporin Lip health (Marisa loves these - $5 ea.)

20 - UP2U gum - $1.49 ea.

6 - movie theater candy boxes ($1.39 ea.)

So my total retail price should have been about $164.00 without coupons and deals.

I paid out of pocket about $25 and I still have $5 rewards to spend next time!

I heart coupons!

Rodeo 2012

Latest coupon deals

So here's my latest really good couponing deals:

I bought:

8 boxes of Rice Krispies ($2.50 ea) 

(I see treats in our future!)

4 bags of M&M's ($3 ea)

6 Right Guard Totally Defense 5 deodorants ($4.50 ea)

160 (that's not a typo!) packs of UP2U gum ($1.29 ea)

(I only put 60 in the photo-there's another 100! You might wonder if that's excessive - I have 100+ cute girls to buy treats for for girl's camp!)

The retail cost on all of this would have been about $265 plus tax!!

Guess what I paid total?!  ONLY $12  I kid you not :)

Tess and The Lorax

Tess is turning 11!! Her actual birthday isn't for a couple of weeks but it always falls during Spring Break. So we have to try to get friends to a party while they're all still in town :)  This year she wanted to see Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax" movie badly. So we themed the party around that and took all the girls to see the movie. It was really cute and we had a great time. The girls had so much fun and after we got home from the movie, they played tag in the house with the lights off - it was so funny listening to them and all their shrieks! Thankfully my sister is in town and helped me out since the rest of my family ended up at sporting events they were in!

The invite I made up and sent out to the party guests:

These were all the goodies they got in a backpack to take to the movies

 The thank you goodie bags that went home with the girls

The table setting for the girls. We had dinner before heading off to the movie :)

Girl's Camp 2012 Kickoff

This week was my big Girl's Camp 2012 Kickoff meeting with the announcement of this year's theme~

SPARK your Spirit!

It is all about the SPARK inside you - full of light and hope. It's that SPARK when you think, I am a Daughter of God!

 I made this banner to hang up at the meeting and camp - it's about 6' long. It's made of foam core and wrapped in colorful crepe paper. Then I made different lollies to attach to each letter (see below). 

I made these little boxes for all the leaders who came to the meeting. Each side of the box had the words "SPARK YOUR SPIRIT 2012".

 Each box was filled with Dove chocolates and a cute pinwheel on a pink candy stick with the theme's inspiration tied around it. I think they turned out pretty cute :) 

 Of course I had to have matching water bottle labels! 

Since it's almost Valentine's Day, I made them a special little treat of peanut butter blossom cookies with Reese's hearts on top - YUM!! Don't you wish you had to attend my meetings? ;) I can't wait for camp this year!

Paperbag Scrapbooks

This past week at Faith in God we made paper bag scrapbooks. They turned out really cute. This was for the requirement of "learning and living the gospel". The girls decorated all the pages with cute and colorful scrapbook papers and embellishments. They will fill their scrapbook with family pictures and memorabilia at home to document their own family histories. 

Journals

 This past Activity Days was really fun and turned out so cute! We were learning how to "Live the Gospel" and talked about why and how to journal in our lives. The girls decorated composition notebooks (the ugly black and white speckled ones) with papers, stickers, and flowers. I made them a cute little glittery pen with a fun squishable pom pom on top :)

 I printed each girl's name on clear sticker paper so they could place it however they liked on the from "created by" tag

Inside the front cover we put a pocket with index cards that have journaling prompts to help the girls be more creative with their writing

Inside the back cover, is a note, "Why should we keep a Journal?". It has quotes and stories from Prophets and other leaders. I love that Pres. Kimball advises "the angels may quote from it for eternity".

 These two cuties made coordinating journals - so cute!! I love this calling in church - best age and so much fun!

My Walgreen's deal!!

Lately my kids have been calling me a coupon nerd. I've just started to do some couponing the last couple of months - nothing extreme (I've never even watched that extreme couponing TV show) - just coupons of things we use or could use.  On average this past month, I've saved $40 - $70 a week on groceries. It has let me stock up on staples and such with really good prices - so I can just "shop" from my own pantry now.

Walgreen's can be a couponer's total jackpot - it can be a little confusing at that store so I've never ventured into trying it. But this week I mustered up the courage and followed some directions and this is what I got - all for only $1.98 - I kid you not!! If I had bought them all without deals, it would have cost $86!!

Now that's a deal I can handle being called a nerd for! :)

F.I.G. Spa Day

  I'm a Faith in God (Activity Days) leader in our church. This is a program for the 8-11 year old girls. We have two activities each month for them to "pass off" different goals in areas like living the gospel, service, etc.

This past week we had a really cute activity. We had a "Spa Day - New Year~New You". I made the girls a little reminder invite with an emery board attached.

I made up goody bags for the girls with an eye mask, gloves (put on after lotion), emery board, and massager in a cute polka dot bag. I found all these things on serious clearance around town (Michael's Craft mostly)!

The girls learned how to give themselves a manicure correctly. Here they are relaxing in warm water with bath salts and listening to spa music playing - so cute!

Then the girls washed each other's feet and learned about how Christ did that to show the example of loving and serving each other. They got to use an electric foot massager/bath and had lotion massaged into their feet!

Super fun and cute girls!!

Remembering

 Remembering my mom today. It was two years ago that she left her disabled physical body behind and returned to live with our Heavenly Father. I have so many special and sweet memories, feelings, and sentiments of my mom  - those will be kept in a more private spot - but I wanted to share a few pictures I came across of her doing the things she loved most - being with grandkids and baking :)  We love you mom and think of you so very often! 

 Almost a decade ago with Marisa & Tess

Marisa & Grandma at the rodeo in Utah

 At Tim's home in Utah - she always had something great baking in the oven or cooking on the stove!!

Christmas Day 2011

Favorite Things Party

Each year a great friend, Melanie, hosts the most fun party - "Favorite Things!"

We are put into groups of 6-7 girls and we bring our fave thing(s) for each member in our group. It is so fun to see what everyone loves - there is makeup & hair supplies, kitchen goods, jewelry, crafted items & all sorts of fun stuff! This year I made a "Girl's Night In" goodie bag for all my ladies - you can see it below. 

It was also a great night because Rebecca came into town from Amarillo for it - extra bonus :)

These are the treats I brought to the party. I think everyone loved them except Rebecca who hates coconut. But Mel doesn't like coconut and really liked them - go figure!

Christmas Card 2011

Christmas Activities

We made a few bags of yummy Snickers Kettle Corn to pass out to some neighbors. We actually scaled back on our recipients this year - I sure wish I had the time to make some to everyone we know!

Just wanted to share an little idea for something fun to make and eat this holiday season!

Is there anything better than chocolate, kettle corn and Snickers? I think not.

I hosted our church's women's Christmas dinner this year. It was a lot of fun - we moved couches and chairs out of the way and brought in tables into the family room (below) and the sunroom. We had almost 50 women over -  the food was so yummy (traditional turkey dinner)!

 Some of the ladies serving out dinner - yum!

Halloween catch up

This was the cute plate of goodies that Tess made in my Halloween Treat class back in October. We also made a cute candy corn pudding parfait that I didn't photograph. Nothing says Halloween like caramel apples, a cute vampire cupcake and some individual s'mores :)

Santa came already?!

Look at this beauty that followed me home tonight!! Don't you just love having something to look at all day that makes your heart sing (since my kids and hubby aren't home)?  Even better - proceeds go to breast cancer research! I love the glass bowl too - I just love everything :)  

The picture reads brighter than "she" really is. Yes,  I think she deserves a name - I'm taking suggestions (Ruby, Pinkie, ??)

Halloween 2011

We had a really fun Halloween this year. The weather was perfect - cool but not cold. Sometimes we can get humid and yucky Halloweens but this year was great. All the kids scooted out to Trick-or-Treat with friends. I never mind having older kids coming to our house for candy as long as they've taken an effort for a costume. Marisa has gone out every year and said she couldn't miss her senior year! Tess was a really cute 50's girl - that's actually a skirt I made Marisa in Kindergarten (you can see Marisa even wore it this year to a party - see top left photo!). Tess and I met up with her best friends in the neighborhood and had a fun time going around - she got so much candy. Her school has a donation that goes to kids in Reynosa, Mexico - so thankfully we'll be sending a bunch there!

Marisa YW Medallion

Marisa earned her Young Women's Medallion today! She completed all her Personal Progress goals and 8 different projects of 10+ hours each. We're so proud of her and all her accomplishments and talents she had cultivated. For those not familiar with this award for the young women in our church, it is equivalent to a scout receiving his Eagle award. She received a cute collection of Value books, a beautiful flower bouquet from her YW President, Sis. Morton, and her silver medallion.

 I wanted to make a special dessert to celebrate with all the girls at church. So I made two six-layer rainbow cakes that had all the Value colors represented.  The frosting is made from a white chocolate ganache and decorated with roses on the top. It was really cute and pretty easy too :)

BYU in Dallas

Yesterday we drove to Dallas for the BYU vs. TCU football game. It was played in the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. Jose got tickets for us all in one of the suite boxes - yummy food galore! Marisa couldn't attend since it was her homecoming game at school so Ryan brought his good buddy, Keith.  We had so much fun being there even though our team lost :(  That stadium is amazing and it was like visiting the Mother Land for Jose since he's a hardcore - lifelong Cowboys fan! We stayed overnight and drove back today since Marisa had her Homecoming dance/date tonight - luckily her school team won even though BYU didn't :)

Ryan, Keith, Tess and Jose outside "Jerry's World" (Stadium)

American Girl Glamour witch

I taught a couple of American Girl Doll classes this month. The girls made "Glamour Witch" costumes for their dolls. They turned out so super cute. They made a dress with two glitter tulle overskirts, a bat necklace, a trick-or-treating bag, and the cutest hat with feathers, flowers, ribbons and more! I also bought all the dolls some silver shoes to finish of the Glam :)

 All the girls showing off their models (Tess in the middle)

I loved having all these pretty little witches lined up for a picture!