Busy Day

This morning I went for a walk by myself. This is quite unusual because there are usually two little boys following me. But my husband was kind enough to let me enjoy the morning by myself.

This Tuesday morning there have to be tons of garbage cans swarming our neighborhood because it is a popular day for pick-up. There are non-stop garbage trucks all morning and afternoon. Crazy.

So on my morning walk, since it was garbage day, I stumbled upon this Little Tykes playhouse. It was all broken down, so I had to get the car to come back and get it. It was really dirty, and needed a good cleaning.

I took it upon myself and my little boys to give this little house a good cleaning and see if it had all it's pieces. I hate to see things thrown away when they can be re-used and even sold again.

Here's a picture of the house we cleaned up:

Another busy day with the Fishers, looks a little like this:

We have a 3 door garage, and there were no cars/trucks filling the space today!! We used that to our advantage, and made a race track in our garage. The boys LOVED it! They found all their favorite toys and went at it. All I had to do was draw a track and move some heavy things out of their way, and they played for a couple hours in there. What a great time they had!

Goodwill and Home Depot Trip

It has been a long time since I've been to the Goodwill in town, so today, I left my husband with the kids (while they were napping) and took off. I was in luck because they had ladies sleeveless shirts 75% off! I found these 3 tank tops for around 60 cents each!

I also searched the pants section and found this Calvin Klein jean skirt hiding in the rack. It fit! I spent $3 to get this skirt.




Also in my time away from the boys, I had this coupon for being a part of the Home Depot Garden Club. It was a buy one get one free coupon for Spring bulbs. I had been saving my monies that I had made from odd jobs, and so I used that extra money on the bulbs. I paid $18 for the two packages below. Hooray for new flowers in the Spring!

Colorado Vacation Adventures

I now know that I have visited the most beautiful place in the United States, Estes Park, Colorado. It was seriously the most gorgeous place I have visited. We stayed at the YMCA of the Rockies, and this was the view from our cabin:

Here's a photo of our cabin that we shared with 4 other families.

This is our group of friends from Greenville College, and have been meeting together for the past 8 or 10 years (I can't remember). It was great to catch up with everyone and see how life is going. Luckily all the kids were in bed when we took this photo, otherwise it would have been crazy.

We had planned beforehand that the girls would have a day out without children, and then vice-versa, where the boys would have a "guy day." The girls decided to go out and get a 1/2 hour massage, while the boys went on a "hike.".

Here's a photo of me relaxing on the hammock before our massage.

While the girls were out window shopping, we spotted an elk that was eating out of a dumpster. After a car made him move, he headed our way. We were so close! This photo is without the zoom!

Here's my husband and our boys on a day hike with the guys. Isn't it just beautiful?

So, overall, our vacation to Colorado was so much fun and we'd recommend the YMCA of the Rockies to anyone! It's good to be home at the same time, and back to our normal routine.

Green Hour

I've checked out a new book from the library, and it's titled The Green Hour, A Daily Dose of Nature for Happier, Healthier, Smarter Kids. This book is written by Todd Christopher, creator of the National Wildlife Federation's, GreenHour.org.

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this book, I just know that I should take my boys outside more often. It has been so terribly hot and humid out here in central Illinois, that it's so tempting to stay inside in the nice, cool air conditioning. But, alas, I know that my boys need to be out in nature, even if we are sweating by the time we get home.

So to share with you what we did today for our hot and humid green hour....we rode our bikes to a local pond! It was really great, because there were lots of trees to give us shade. And every once in awhile there was a breeze to cool us down.

I took some pictures to inspire you to get outside for an hour and spend some time with nature.

My Avocado Pit

I've always wondered if I could grow an avocado tree from an avocado pit. I looked it up online while my sister was here (since that's where I got the pit from), and it's totally possible. So here's what has come of the avocado pit. It's growing! I will have to pot it soon, because I don't know how much longer it will survive in that little cup.

I'm excited to grow my own tropical tree indoors. Even if I don't even like avocados!

Reusing Water

I have come to decide that my family and I are very much into reusing water. Which is a great thing! I think this is one of our passions, because we know that there is so little fresh water left on this Earth. So here's some of the things that we do to save or even reuse the water that we use.

Take for example this summer and filling up our pool...it takes ALOT of water to fill it up, so when we are done playing in it for a couple of days, what do we do with that water? Reuse it!

Our car has been dirty for awhile now, so the boys were excited to help us peel the bugs off!

Z-man was getting frustrated when we filled up a huge water gun for him...it was too heavy. We used that water gun to rinse the car off.

We have about 10 of these 5 gallon buckets around the house, to catch rain water, to pull weeds, or whatever we need them for. They are also great for watering flowers!

So this is just one way that we try to reuse the water that we use. Do you have any ways that you try to reuse things lately?

Grocery shopping this week = $41.75

Target = $4

I got the pizzas and Clean and Clear wash for free.

The Peanuts were $3, and the gum was $0.99.

County Market = $17.74

I used a lot of in-store coupons from a mailer this week.

The 8 lb. bag of potatoes were Free with $10 purchase!

Cereal was 3/$9, and that produced a $3 off coupon on fresh fruit.

IGA = $13.89

Lots of meat on sale this week, so I stocked up!

Aldi = $6.12

I needed to stock up on a couple of things.

Total spent for this week = $41.75

Target Grocery Shopping Trip = $37.00

I was very pleased with the Target trip for grocery shopping this week. Once again, we didn't really have a need for anything in specific, so we went with what was on sale. I take that back - we did need some vitamins. :)

Total spent for the above items was $37.00 exactly. I had a stack of coupons for my cashier, and I was a little nervous about using that many coupons, but they were all for items I had gotten. I seriously had about 30 coupons. (Target and manufacturer coupons).

I wouldn't have been able to make this trip without the help from Money Saving Mom. So if you're headed out to Target this week, make sure to check her list before going!

Trash to Treasure

Sometimes I cannot believe what I find in people's trash. I feel awful having people throw away perfectly good things. Take this for example, I found this outdoor rug that someone was going to have the garbage men haul away, so I saved it, and am selling it on Craigslist as I type.

It's in perfect condition too!

Another example of how people are just throwing good things into the landfill is this nice cookie jar:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. I think people just don't want to have to bother to take things to Goodwill, and just toss it. That's a shame. There were even wrapped up Biscotti's in the jar!! (no, we did not eat them!)

This same people who were tossing their cookie jar was also tossing 4 huge tomato cages! Which is a blessing in disguise, because I have been on the lookout for some free ones for our garden. Woo-Hoo!

I can't help but think, "why not have a garage sale, and save all those things that you're tossing, and make some money off of it?" Here's what we found at garage sales this weekend for under $3. The garden hose was only $1, the basketball net you hang from a door was $0.25, the garbage can was $0.50, and the pots were $1.

Another thought, why buy full grown plants when you can buy a whole packet of seed for under $1? Here's what we picked up at the local Dollar General. I love to watch things grow, so I was so excited to see that they had all their seeds 50% off. We're planning on growing a second crop of peas when the weather cools off a bit. My boys love growing peas in our backyard!

So thanks for reading some of my thoughts about people tossing out perfectly good trash that turns into my treasures.

Target Deals this week!

Just a heads up, if you're planning on taking a trip to Target sometime this week, there's a lot of deals to be had! Be prepared to print alot of coupons. Remember that Target accepts one Target coupon AND manufacturer coupon per item. I was able to print out 2 of each Target coupon.

Check out the list of free or cheap items from Target at Money Saving Mom's blog.

Butterflies in my Garden!

While my sister, April, was here with me, we saw a couple beautiful butterflies visiting my newly made butterfly garden! Of course, my sister had a much better camera than I, so her pictures are the ones that I'm posting.

The first butterfly that came along was HUGE!! I later looked up what it was called, and it is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Isn't it beautiful? (and our grass looks so green here!)

The other butterfly that we saw was more of a black and blue one. This one is called a Red Spotted Purple Butterfly. I'm not sure why it's called that because there's not really any red on it.
Both of these butterflies were grazing on the butterfly bush that I got at a local nursery. So I think I'll have to take note of that and see when they go on sale.

I just wanted to share with you all the excitement I felt when I actually saw different butterflies in my butterfly garden!

BOGO: Baskin Robbins

It has been so hot and humid out here in Illinois that I wanted to share some relief with you all.

Baskin Robbins has a coupon out for a Buy One Get One (BOGO) free soft serve ice cream cone.

Click here to redeem your coupon.

Ahh, sweet relief!

Gardens

I just wanted to share with you some photos of our produce from our garden, and show you photos of my mother-in-law's garden. It's insane! I tried to help prune back some of the tomato plants, and it took me almost 2 hours to prune back 3 bunches. They have so much overgrown veggie plants, that they can't even see or get into the plants to pick their produce. So overwhelming, can you tell?

And yes, those are BUSHES of tomatoes! Woah!

The corn is doing quite well, and let me tell you, it's delicious!
Here's my mother-in-law saying she didn't want me to take her photo:

Here's the pumpkins that I gave her.

They were growing out of our compost pile, and needed a better place to live.

Eww, a mushroom growing in the backyard! It's huge!

Here are some gorgeous flowers that she planted from seed.
Wildflowers of some sort. Maybe Zinnas.

Aren't the colors gorgeous?

And last but not least, a bucket full of tomatoes that I just picked from our garden! There are so many, I can't wait to show them to my husband!

Here's a close-up!

That's all for now. Have you gotten anything from your garden this summer? I'd be curious to find out!