Deals deals deals

Gotta love a good deal. I have been learning all about couponing over the past week or two. And let me tell ya its addicting!! Love it!!
Here is a pic of my deal of the day today. And a list of the items that I purchased.

Here is what I purchased and the regular price for each item
10 boxes of Kellogs cereal - avg price is $4.30 per box
(Rice Crispies, Frosted Flakes, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops)
4 loaves of Brownberry Bread - reg. price$3.85 per loaf
Box of Pop Tarts - reg price $3.00
Box of Nurtigrain bars $3.65
Rice crispy treats $4.45
Danamals $2.49
Stackers $2.75
Fruit Roll ups $2.75
2-ind wrapped Chips Ahoy (12 in each box) $7.75 each box
4 pkg - Oscar Meyer shredded Ham lunch meat $3.95 each
2 pkg - Kraft sliced 2% American cheese $4.00 each
2 pkg- Hubba Bubba gum (for the boys) $1.19 each
4 cans of mandarin oranges $1.00 each

So total before Preferred savings, coupons and catalinas was $123.17
and I spent out of pocket $ 37.42
WOW, that's a whopping savings of $85.75

Preferred savings total was: 48.45
manufacturer savings/coupons $25.55

That's my deal of the day.

Did you wear red today???

Happy St. Joseph's Day today!!!

I have always known that St. Joseph's Day is March 19 and it a hugely observed by Italian's, but never knew what exactly SJD was. I didn't even really know that it was in honor of the man who raised our Lord, Jesus. So I decided this morning to take a few minutes and read a bunch of stuff about SJD. Ahhhhh, the conveniences of the Internet.

From Wikipedia (online encyclopedia)
Saint Joseph's Day, 19 March, the Feast of St. Joseph or Solemnity of Saint Joseph is in Western Christianity the principal feast day of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[1] It is a Solemnity in the Roman Catholic Church, a feast in the provinces of the Anglican Communion, and a feast or festival in the Lutheran Church. Saint Joseph's Day is the Patronal Feast day for persons named Joseph, Josephine, etc., for religious orders, schools and parishes bearing his name, and for carpenters. It is also Father's Day in some Catholic countries, namely Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Italy.
This date was already dedicated to Saint Joseph in several Western calendars in the tenth century. It was accepted in Rome in 1479, and in 1621 it was inserted into the General Roman Calendar for celebration throughout the Latin Rite. Since it always falls within Lent, Episcopal Conferences may, if they wish, transfer it to a date outside Lent.[2]
The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates Saint Joseph on the Sunday after Christmas.[3] Between 1870 and 1955 the Roman Rite had another feast in honour of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church, a title given to him by Blessed Pope Pius IX. This "Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Patron of the Universal Church", referred to also as the "Patronage" feast to distinguish it from that of 19 March, appears in the calendars of those years for celebration on Wednesday of the second week after the Octave of Easter (i.e. the third Wednesday after Easter) and was celebrated with an octave of its own. Pope Pius XII abolished this feast in 1955, and at the same time established a new feast day, that of Saint Joseph the Worker (a Double of the First Class), for celebration on 1 May, a date chosen to coincide with the celebration in many countries of Labour Day (May Day). Since not every country celebrates May Day as Labour Day, the Memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker was made optional in 1969

So now that I have all my knowledge about SJD, I think I'll make a good Italian dinner tonight. I was thinking I might take a stab at Bricole or just stick with making my tried and true chicken Parmesan.

Have a Happy day!!!
Fran

Hearts at Home conference

I got back from the Hearts at Home conference yesterday. WOW, so many inspirational women in one place was amazing. Jill Savage, founder of Hearts at Home, sure knows how to throw a huge party. The moms night out performances and speakers were awesome!! I'm going to go through which workshops I went to with a brief overview of what I learned in each workshop.

Friday Workshops

Finding the Hero in Your Husband
by Dr. Juli Slattery
This was a great workshop in an area I need some work on. I am a self proclaimed control freak and its hard for me to give up control to my sweet hubby. I am a first born, what do you expect. So I found this workshop full of great info and tips on how to make my hubby the hero in my life.

Dr Juli explained the needs a wife has in a marriage: they need to feel valued and cherished and need to feel protected by their husbands.

She also explained what the husband needs are in the marriage: He needs to feel respected, he needs a companion/partner - help meet, and he needs sex.

It was important to hear about those fundamental needs for the wife and husband. It made me put my relationship into perspective. I had an "Aahaaa" moment in the classroom. I actually finally got it! Got what my husband needs from me. And I needed to stop being selfish. It had never been explained that way to me.

She also went over a ton of more stuff and here is a link to her book where she explains it ALL http://www.drjuliannaslattery.com/books.asp



Red Hot Monogamy
by Bill and Pam Farrel
Oooohhlaaaalaaaa.... This workshop was AMAZING!!! I loved it so much, I bought the book and the audio CD for my hubby, John to listen to. The speakers Bill and Pam are a married couple and they sure know what they are talking about. They could bring back the sizzle in any ones marriage. They gave ideas like:

• taking 10-20 minutes out of your day (everyday) to just sit and chat about things other than the bills, kids or housework. Just talk to reconnect for that day.



• invest in a weekly date night



• monthly get away for 8-10 hours each month to really stop and focus on your husband



• once a year escape for a 2 night getaway to remind each other of the precious love between a husband and a wife.
  

They also had a great list as to why marriages with Red Hot Monogamy are a gift:
Procreation, recreation, reconnection, rejuvenation and proclamation. So who wouldn't want to go to a workshop that was going to teach us how to spice up our marriages!!

When You feel like Screaming!! Help for frustrated Mothers!
by Sue Heimer
WooHoo!! Loved this one. Mrs Sue was a great speaker, she was just like a regular mom.
She assured us that screaming and yelling (even raising our voices) at our kids is a habit and it can be broke (hallelujah). It took a while to get to the point of yelling, so it might take a little while to break the habit of it, but it is doable with a few changes. Sue gave us a few tricks to break the screaming habit

• be a confident, controlled mom - plan ahead, be prepared, stop rushing around, don't over book our social/school/sports calenders



• balance - find a hobby for ourselves as women. Our lives don't always have to revolve around the kiddos. We should try to find something we like to do. And as we do, we are calmer and happier beings.



• consistency - mean what you say and say what you mean. When the kids are not listening to you or they are being mouthy be consistent with the consequence/punishment. Kitchen timer when you want to give the kids a time limit to get something done and if they don't complete it before the time is up then they get a time out. When time out is completed, they go back and do the task they were originally asked to do. Swearing jar with coins for when the kids use a bad word money is taken out of the jar. those were her suggestions. And I think they were great ones.
  

Its important for us as parents to be compassionate to our children. When they do something that is not appropriate we need to deal with it, give them a consequence and when all is done, start fresh. Don't hold it against them. The Lords compassion's are new every morning.

She's Gonna Blow: Real help for Moms dealing with anger
by Julie Barnhill
This was one of the workshops I was looking most forward to. Mrs Barnhill went through the four types of anger moms go through. Some warning signs, reasons why we might be angry, and ways to help with getting rid of the anger. She was very candid in sharing her personal stories with the moms in the workshop. She was funny and very relatable.

Some advice I took away from this is when I am feeling overwhelmed and want to yell at my boys I should stop, speak very slowly and lower my tone of voice. And this way I cannot scream and yell like a crazy women. And always remember that God changes our hearts and we should pray for guidance on how to be the mom He wants us to be.





Mom's night out - with performances by GO Fish (gofishguys.com) and 4ever. And comedy act by Sally Baucke, she is such a barrel of laughs. This Moms night out had us up on our feet, singing, dancing and praising our Lord.














Pic of the Go Fish guys. Singing their awsome kids songs.



Saturday

Keeping your ducks in a relative Row
by Karen Ehman
This workshop was all about cleaning, organizing and de-junking your home, menu planning, grocery shopping. Basically getting your home set up to be a successful hub of your life. There was a lot of info in this workshop.

One of the things I LOVE LOVE LOVED about this workshop was Karen's suggestion about "speed cleaning" she had gotten from the founder of thecleanteam.com. basically having all the supplies your need on your body while cleaning the house from top to bottom. She wears this cleaning apron with a bunch of pockets and two loops on each side of the apron (right next to her hips) and those loops hold cleaning solutions such as Windex and Pledge. It was a genius idea, and I have no idea why I didn't think of it myself. I think this is going to be a HUGE time saver for me.

And I loved her idea of Mom's brain in a binder. Keeping all the families short term papers in a binder (such as kids permission slips, bday invites, class monthly schedules, etc) and in the binder you would have a folder for each person in the family. Everything is in this binder instead of on the counters, stuck to the fridge, in your purse.

I really could go on and on about this one.



From financially frantic to financially free
by Marybeth and Curt Whalen
Loved this one. Marybeth and Curt are very down to earth people whom I totally related to. They told their story and gave us great tips on how to start a budget and keep to it.
These 5 tips are the foundation to the success of seeking and keeping financial freedom:

• Live with a budget (for the first time in our relationship, hubby and I started a budget in January and its going very well, not as hard as we thought...lol)



• Get rid of credit cards (thankfully we have done this a long time ago)



• Learn to be givers and to tithe - God asks that we give 10% of our paycheck. Kinda hard to think about giving that much, so pray about it. God will show you the way.



• reduce spending - stop going out to eat, buy clothing at consignment shops/Goodwill, reduce your cable/Internet bill, etc.....



• Keep a positive attitude, cuz it will be hard at times. Saying this will help: We Are Gonna Get Out of Debt!!!!

Discipline that connects with the Heart of Your Child
by Jim and Lynne Jackson
This workshop basically gave tips and ideas on how to discipline your kiddo's through love. And they gave some really detailed info on these four steps

• foundation of discipline,



• connection through love,
  


• pro action learning and growing skills for each individual child,
  


• correction which is the consequences to the benefit of each child.
  

There were lots of options for workshops, not just the ones I mentioned above. These above are the ones that I took personally.

I can pretty much sum this weekend up, by saying it was a great time!!! I will defiantly be going back next year. I feel rejuvenated, refreshed, and inspired to be a better wife and mommy. One of the best parts was my hubby, John had the entire house clean when I got home and had done a little grocery shopping too (Capri-sun's ☺). What a great guy he is!!! And thanks to him for keeping our little guys busy all weekend. Or should I say thanks to our little guys for keeping daddy busy!

Me and my sister Nikki at the H@H conference

I know this was a long one, but I had lots to say...
Have a blessed week,
Fran

MPM March 9-15

Good morning and Happy Monday!! Once again is been a crazy busy week here and will continue to be busy. When does life every slow down. My boys have both been sick with colds on and off over the past two weeks.

I am slacking on my workouts, I only worked out twice last week (slap on wrist) but my goal is to get back to 5 times this week. I've lost a total of 12 pounds (yaaay!!!) and hope to lose an additional 13 before we leave for our trip.

So, now onto our menu for the week. I am challenging myself to make dinner with food that is already in my cabinets. I want to use up the food that has been in there for 3,4 or 5 months. Needless to say, I'll have to be a little more creative with my menu this week.

I am leaving for the Hearts at Home womens conference on Thursday and will be gone until Saturday evening. Thanks to my very sweet hubby for taking care of our home and children while I am gone. And I am going to try to keep the menu very simple, so he isn't slaving away in the kitchen making meals while I am gone.

Breakfasts
pancakes, berries
cereal and fruit
eng. muffin, eggwhite and veggie omlet

Lunches
Lean cuisines, tortilla chips or salad
BLT sammie cucumber, celery and ranch dip


Dinners
lemon chicken, rice and veggie
turkey sausage subs
homemade pizza, homemade bacon fries
meatloaf, mashed potatoes, greenbeans
pasta and meatballs, salad, and garlic bread
asian pork tenderloin, mashed potatos and seasoned green beans


Snacks
apple and peanut butter
popcorn
grapes and granola bar

Hope everyone has a blessed week. If you want more on MPM check out orgjunkie.com
Fran