Purex Crystals Dryer Sheets Review & Giveaway

What was I thinking??  Signing up to test our dryer sheets when we don't use our dryer that often:)  We started brainstorming all the alternatives of using dryer sheets.

I was told that dryer sheets have the same ingredients as magic erasers and can tackle soap scum on glass shower doors.  Ohhhh, I got excited to test that one out.  Evidently, our sulfur Florida well water is resistant to cleaning.  That didn't work for us :(

Purex Crystals Dryer sheets smell AMAZING.  The nice Spring smell was coming through the box.  And then it hit me.  I live with 5 smelly guys.  I put a dryer sheet in their dressers, in my closet and Kevin cut a dryer sheet in half and put it in his shoes.  He says he shoes smell great.  I will take his word for it:

Thanks to a very sick cat, we have had the pleasure of using our dryer this week.  I had forgotten about the nice, soft, warm and snuggly towels that come out of the dryer:

The smell on the freshly dried towels was very faint.  You really had to smell the towel to smell the scent left behind on the towel.  But they were warm and soft.

Want to see if Purex Crystals Dryer Sheet are a good fit for your family?  Purex was so nice to give me 3 coupons good for a FREE box of Purex Crystal Dryer Sheets to give to my wonderful readers.  Just leave me a comment and you will be entered to win 1 coupon.

This giveaway will end on May 16, 2014.  Winners will be selected using random.org and notified by email.  Coupons will be mailed out on May 19, 2014.

Good Luck :)

April 2014 Goal Update

Let's see how we did with our April 2014 goals:

 1) To not eat out or at least to not pay out of pocket, with the exception of tips. If we want to treat the family to a meal out, we will make sure we have a gift card to cover all of us.
We did awesome with this goal :)

2) Pay off 2 credit cards
We are getting close to paying off another credit card- yay :)

3) Not to use any of our credit cards for 2014. To pay cash for everything.
We did fantastic with this goal and paid cash.

4) To maintain our grocery budget. Our current grocery budget is $400 month for our family of 6. Our goal is to use up to that amount to feed our family healthy nourishing meals.  If we are lucky enough to come under our monthly budget, we will save that amount.
We did good in April~ we only went over by $16- not too bad :)

5) To create a monthly meal plan for our family, to use leftovers more efficiently and to make use of everything in our pantry and freezer.  Try our hand at freezer cooking.
Doing great with meal planning.

6) Lose weight- I need to get motivated to lose this baby weight- my goal is to lose 10 lbs this year.
Hubby and I have been running almost every evening.  I haven't weighed myself, so I don't know exactly how much I weight.  But on a good note, my jeans are loose and I bought jeans in a smaller size- WOOHOO.  Also hubby fit in and bought shorts that are 4 sizes smaller :)  I know that he has lost 20 pounds- GO HUBBY :)

7) Morning devotions, prayer time and more bible reading
Following a bible reading on my church's website:)

8) Monthly date night with hubby- whether we go out or stay at home, pop popcorn and rent a movie
We did have a nice evening and enjoyed a movie pre-screening, just the 2 of us :)


9) To spend quality family time together. With everyones schedule and us running all over creation, I would love to spend more quality time together- no tv- us playing games, talking, enjoying each others company.  I think we are going to claim Saturday's as family fun day:)
Our Saturday Family Adventures took us to the beach, an Easter egg hunt and an anniversary water balloon fight- we had some awesome adventures and are looking forward to many more :)

10) Not to use our dryer to save on electricity and lower our electricity bill
Doing great with this and haven't not used the dryer.  I am loving this weather.  I hang the clothes up on clothes racks and next day they are dry:)

11) To do 1 project a month and blog about it
We did get a chance to make hamburger buns.  I will be posting about that next week.  I am hoping and keeping my fingers crossed that we can fit making homemade pudding into our day tomorrow :)  We shall see :)

How did you do on your April goals?

Lowe's Build & Grow Clinic~ May 10, 2014

Lowes will be hosting a Build & Grow Clinic on May 10th at 10am.  My younger boys love doing them and the older ones love helping the younger ones with their project:)

If you are looking for a great free activity that you can do with your kids- you should check out the Lowes Build & Grow Clinics. Little Michael and Nathan love them. They love being able to do hands on projects with our help.  This Build & Grow Clinic is perfect for Mother's Day :)

To sign up for this Build & Grow Clinic, simply go to the Lowes Build & Grow Clinic website, which they have redone to make it more user friendly. I am loving this new website. You register all your information. Then when you visit the website to sign up for an upcoming clinic, all you have to do is sign in and check which kids you are signing up. Don't forget to print and sign the waiver. And you and your child(ren) are ready for a really cool FREE hands on project.

Once you and your child(ren) complete the project they will receive a neat patch to put on their Lowes Build & Grow apron. If this is your first clinic, your child(ren) will receive a free Lowes Build & Grow apron and goggles:) The more clinics you do, the more patches you get to put on your kids apron and they can show them off with pride:)

May 2014 Monthly Spending

Here is where I keep a list of our spending for the month of May . We have a $400 grocery budget for this month. We did OK last month and only went over by $16.00.  This is for everything for our family of 6 and 2 pets.  So, lets see how we do this month:

05/04/2014
$5.30- Dollar Tree
$10.40- Save A Lot
$17.92- Publix
$57.58- BJ's
$74.90- Walmart

05/10/2014
$1.98- Save A Lot
$10.36- BJ's
$10.47- Walgreens
$4.75- Walgreens
$14.22- Publix
$33.10- Walmart
$20.00- Farmer's Market

05/18/2014
$18.94- Walmart
$14.93- Publix
$1.39- BJ's

05/28/2014
$25.46- Walmart
$10.37- Save A Lot

$332.07- Running Total

$67.93- Left for the month of May- WOOHOO :)

We did great this month.  It really helped that we were on "vacation" for almost 2 weeks and didn't have to worry about groceries :)

My Shopping Day~ 05/04/2014

It was supposed to be an easy shopping day.  Thanks to having 14 days worth of meals already in my freezer ready to go, this month shopping should be a breeze.  Well, have you ever gone grocery shopping with a nasty migraine?  I was so nauseous and in so much pain by the time I got home.  It was so not fun but my family has to eat.  Hubby was so sweet to put away all the groceries while I cooked dinner.  After dinner, I crawled to my room and was happy with the dark quietness of the evening:)

Here are the shopping details for this trip:

Dollar Tree
$3.00- (3) pkgs toilet paper
$2.00- (2) boxes tissues
$5.30- Total

Save A Lot
$4.00- Avocados
$0.35- Banana
$1.50- Tortilla Chips
$1.56- Mac & Cheese
$2.99- Watermelon
$10.40- Total

Publix
$3.99- Yoplait 8pk yogurt
$3.99- Cascadian Farms Oat & Honey Granola
$1.49- Barilla Whole Grain Rotini
$1.49- Barilla Whole Grain Rotini
-1.49- Barilla Promotion
$1.49- Barilla Whole Grain Rotini
$1.49- Barilla Whole Grain Rotini
-1.49- Barilla Promotion
$1.49- Barilla Whole Grain Penne
$1.49- Barilla Whole Grain Penne
-1.49- Barilla Promotion
$1.49- Barilla Whole Grain Penne
$1.49- Barilla Whole Grain Penne
-1.49- Barilla Promotion
$1.49- Barilla Whole Grain Penne
$1.49- Barilla Whole Grain Penne
-1.49- Barilla Promotion
$4.99- Amrour Italian Meatballs
$4.99- Armour Italian Meatballs
-4.99- Armour Promotion
$4.99- Armour Turkey meatballs
$4.99- Armour Turkey meatballs
-4.99- Armour Promotion
$1.50- Nasoya Fettucine
$1.50- Nasoya Fettucine
$28.41
-1/2 Barilla Whole Grain Pasta cpn
-1/2 Barilla Whole Grain Pasta cpn
-1/2 Barilla Whole Grain Pasta cpn
-1/2 Barilla Whole Grain Pasta cpn
-1/2 Barilla Whole Grain Pasta cpn
-3.99 Yoplait 8pk when you buy Cascadian Farms Publix cpn
-0.75 Nasoya printable cpn
-0.75 Nasoya printable cpn
$17.92- Total

BJ's
$2.78- Lettuce
$9.99- Decaf coffee
$7.98- Land O Lakes Brown All Natural eggs
$7.29- Good Seasonings Italian Dressing mix
$7.39- Kraft Parm cheese
$3.49- Crushed tomatoes
$6.99- Ketchup 3pk
$17.49- Earth's Pride all natural burgers
$3.18- Bananas
$66.58
-1.50 Land O Lakes BJ store cpn
-2.00 Ketchup BJ store cpn
-3.50 Earth Pride natural burger BJ store cpn
-2.00 Good Seasoning BJ store cpn
$57.58- Total

Walmart
$3.76- Flour
$5.92- White Wheat Flour
$2.56- Lunchmeat
$7.92- Frozen veggies
$0.97- Spic & Span spray
$2.97- Boca chicken patties
$2.97- Boca chicken patties
$2.97- Boca chicken patties
$2.97- Boca chicken patties
$0.57- Cumin
$2.48- Black beans
$2.68- Potatoes
$3.28- Oatmeal
$12.12- (2) Whole Chickens
$3.36- Tortillas
$1.82- Cornmeals
$1.08- Jenni-O turkey dogs
$1.08- Jenni-O turkey dogs
$1.08- Jenni- O turkey dogs
$1.08- Jenni- O turkey dogs
$2.18- Cottage cheese
$3.76- Strawberries
$0.96- Mustard
$1.98- salsa
$2.24- Paper Towels
$2.36- Flax seed
$2.88- Kraft Olive Oil Mayo
$0.00- Kraft Olive Oil Mayo- ad matched from Publix
$80.00
-1.00 Boca printable cpn
-1.00 Boca printable cpn
-1.00 Boca printable cpn
-1.00 Boca printable cpn
-0.55/2 Jenni O turkey dog printable cpn
-0.55/2 Jenni O turkey dog printable cpn
$74.90- Total

This shopping trip has been added to our May Monthly Spending post, where I keep track of what we spend for the month of May.

Menu Plan for the week of 05/05/2014

Happy Cinco de Mayo :)

We hope everyone had a fabulous weekend.  Our weekend was fabulous and not so fabulous.  We were so busy, zooming here and zooming there, zooming everywhere.  But my highlight was Respite Night.  I had so much fun being a buddy to the same special, energetic girl I had last time.  Even though I was battling a nasty 3 day migrane, I still smiled and had fun.  By the end of the night, I just wanted to crawl under a rock.  I was in so much pain.  I was doing better on Sunday and then got a very strong whiff of someone's perfume or lotion.  I am hoping that she sat close us.  If not and it was that strong to me- oh my :)   Thank the Lord that I am feeling so much better today.  Also, special thanks to Laura from Heavenly Homemakers for doing her awesome freezer cooking challenge posts.  I have a lot of this month's food already in my freezer- yay :)

Here is our menu plan for this week:

Breakfast
Homemade Yogurt with granola and fruit X2
Oatmeal with fruit
Fruity Spinach Smoothie
Pancakes
Banana chocolate chip muffins X2

Lunch- Our usual
Salad with homemade ranch dressing and a banana for me and hubby
Sandwich with homemade bread, carrots and peanuts for everyone else

Dinner
Baked Spaghetti with corn and bread
Cheesy beef and rice with green beans
Lasagna Casserole with peas and bread
Cheeseburger Casserole with corn
Cheesy Beef & Pasta Casserole with green beans
Cheesy Salsa Enchiladas with peas
Ribs, mashed potatoes and green beans

Snacks
Homemade Pudding (hopefully)
Popcorn
Popsicles
Carrots
Raisins
Apple slices
PB crackers
Peanuts

What yummy menu plans do you have for your family this week?  

Our Family Fun Saturday

What did we get ourselves into this time??

It was our anniversary on Saturday.  It is hard to believe that Michael and I have been married 11 wonderful years :)  We weren't sure what we wanted to do for our anniversary.

We had hoped to go out to out for dinner just the 2 of us.  What do you call that?  Oh yea~ a date ~ LOL:)  It has been so long since we have gone out, just the two of us :)  Thanks to our very expensive van repair, any money we had saved up went to pay for that.  So, no go on that.

We decided to stay at home with the boys and just have a fun anniversary here.  After dinner we went outside and had the most awesome water balloon fight known to man :)  We had fun, got super wet (which had nothing to do with when we ran out of balloons, I may have gotten the water hose) and laughed to hard.  Now, I am glad we stayed in.

A few days before our anniversary, I got an email to see if I would be interested in going to an advanced screening of a movie.  Of course, I jumped at the chance.  And since I only got 2 passes, hubby and I had to go.  So, we did have a nice date and it was FREE :)  We even got free drinks and popcorn, thanks to some Regal gift cards I forgot I had.  It was so nice to go out and spend time with each other.

Here are some pictures of our super awesome water balloon battle:

Getting inventory ready

Ready??

Ready!!

Chris doesn't even realize he has a balloon in his hair

After the balloons, we filled these and let them have a blast.

 We had a blast.  I can't wait to see where our next adventure takes us :)