I still have a list of items to get before the baby is born, however, I’m coming very close to being finished.  In between cleaning and organizing and getting my birth supplies ready, I’m continuing to stock up on food and fill my freezer.  I guess you never come to a point where you are [...]

We love crepes!  Crepes make breakfast all the more wonderful!  We make crepes several times each month, sometimes once a week and I don’t think I’ve made them the same way twice. 
You can top crepes with most any type of fruit topping.  I usually use frozen fruit, like strawberries, add a little water and sweetener and let them boil into [...]

I was able to get some great cheap school supplies this week not only for the school year, but for replenishing our supply of crayons and glue sticks for the little ones.  I like to keep extra pens, crayons, glue, markers, paper etc.  in a bucket in the top of one of the closets so I [...]

I’m slowing quite a bit in this last 6 weeks of pregnancy.  I have a few, actually a lot, of household goals this month that I still am wanting to get accomplished before the baby comes as well as getting my pantry stocked a bit more this month.  So I’m taking some time off from blogging over the next month [...]

It’s Monday and I had grand plans for getting my house in order on Monday morning to start the week off right.  Pregnancy does strange things and in my case, it makes me completely intolerant of chaos.  I guess it is that nesting instinct going into hyper-drive.  However, all my good intentions of getting the house [...]

I’ve been working my way through all the corn I bought at the produce auction last week.  I ended up giving several grocery sacks of corn and zucchini away to several different friends.  I froze more off the cob corn and I gave the pigs a treat by giving them almost the entire last bag to grow [...]

With summer time here, squash and zucchini are abundant.  We’ve been eating a lot of squash and zucchini lately!  In addition to canning and freezing squash, here are some ways I have been using it up:

Steamed:  Squash and zucchini are great vegetables to steam.  I add some crushed garlic and sliced onions and steam it [...]

It’s summer time and that means it’s time for preserving food for my pantry and freezer with all the good, garden produce available.  I love going to the local produce Amish auction.  It’s an amazing place to find bulk food for great prices in my area! 

The Plow Boy Auction is open from May to October [...]

This week has been a long week of focused food preserving around my house.  I still have lots more food to can and freeze, however, I ended the week with lots of frozen corn, lots of shredded zucchini, some peaches and was able to get a good start on my canning for the season. 
I put my [...]

I don’t know about you, but I hate buying jelly or jam from the grocery store.  Almost all of the grocery store jelly has high fructose corn syrup. 
Our solution is that we make our own jams and jellies for much cheaper and with an incredibly impressive taste. 
Today, we started making peach jam with some of the [...]

Perfectly imperfect, organic, round zucchini!
My food preserving week continues….There is nothing quite like preserving your food at home.  I love canning!  Today, I have been working on canning up yellow squash, zucchini and tomatoes together.  I’ll use these jars for making squash casserole later in the fall and winter. 
I started with washing and cutting these [...]

We also started tackling the peaches on day two of our food preserving week here.  There is nothing quite like sweet summer peaches!  We’ve eaten a whole lot of fresh peaches over the last month!  I just picked up two more 3/4 bushel boxes of peaches and they are scrumptious! 
These bulk peaches cost me $14 [...]

It was Day 2 of my food preserving week around here at my house!  Here’s the post from day one  in case you missed it.  I’ve been putting up a ton of food in my freezer and pantry from the incredible deals I was able to get at the local Amish produce auction. 
Today it was Zucchini, Corn [...]

Well, I’m finished with my first 50 pound bag of corn from the  produce auction!  I have 4 more bags to go!  I was able to get 5 bags of corn (off the cob), 10 bags of cob corn with each bag containing 9 to 12 servings and we ate 12 ears of fresh corn for supper and lunch.   I was [...]

Despite being very pregnant, I took my 8 children to the Plow Boy Produce auction, a local amish produce auction, to see if we couldn’t find a deal on some bushels of green beans.  Last year, I was able to can a lot of our own home grown green beans but, unfortunately, this year the few green bean [...]

Disposable baby diapers can be a huge expense for new parents, especially if you are paying full price for disposable diapers. 
I’ve run the gamut of buying diapers full price, cloth diapering, buying diapers from Costco and buying diapers at grocery stores, discount stores and pharmacy stores with sales, coupons and rebates.  I’ve found that I save [...]

Most samples come with higher value coupons than normal.  I’ve received “Try Me Free” coupons or high value coupons from anything from dog food to shampoo.  If you want to start receiving samples, here are a few starter tips.
Tips:

Never use your primary email address when signing up for samples.  Sign up for a yahoo, hotmail [...]

You can go here and request a sample for a free  free 2-pack sample of Purex 3-in-1.
(Thanks, Pirates of the Supermarket)

Sometimes I feel like I run a school cafeteria.  The amount of food we go through is amazing.  Often times I can get overwhelmed and bogged down wishing that the meals I make would go farther.  With two teenage boys in the house and 7  more to follow, the amount of food my family requires isn’t [...]

I’ve decided that I don’t make a good gardener being 7 months pregnant in the heat of summer.  I haven’t been able to work in the garden very much this year which is quite discouraging to me.  However, I’m become more ok with that fact.  After all, I am growing a baby this year! 
My children [...]