In the mood for Chocolate...

I have been planning on making a dessert I haven't made in a while, and then inspired by a post at Life as Mom I decided to post a good CHOCOLATE recipe that is perfect with a glass of ice cold milk.... and it is super easy!

Delicious Chocolate Chip Cake (great for cupcakes too!)

1 pkg Duncan Hines Deep Chocolate or Swiss Chocolate cake mix
1 pkg Jello Instant Chocolate Pudding
4 eggs
3/4 cup cold water
1 cup sour cream
1 6 oz pkg chocolate chips

1. Mix all ingredients together except chocolate chips for about 2-3 minutes. Stir in chocolate chips.

2. For Cake: put in a square pan and cook according to cake box directions.
For Cupcakes: Put in cupcake cups with paper liners. Cook according to cake box directions.

No frosting needed - this is perfect just as a nice moist cake!

3. Devour with a nice glass of milk!

Grocery spending...

Ok, so I am giving this a try. I mentioned the other day that I was setting a goal to stick within a budget of $100 a week for our grocery and household items bill. Now, we used to do $150 / week and sometimes would spend less, sometimes more. But seeing as how it is a good time to watch where our money goes and to see if we're "throwing money away", I started doing some research online, and found lots of good resources for bring down our grocery bill without sacrificing quality!

I sure a heck am not eating hamburger helper, Kraft Mac & Cheese, spaghetti O's and ramen noodles every night for a few reasons. 1) I don't like that stuff anyhow. 2) It's far from healthy and a BIG 3) Josh's stomach wouldn't last a week on that kind of diet. He has enough problems as it is, and I do know the better homecooked meals he eats the less pain he is in....

BUT I do know we tend to buy a lot of things like tortilla chips, salsa, CheeseIts, instant oatmeal, frozen breakfast and dessert stuff, etc. And then I look in our nice big pantry and see so much STUFF that hasn't been eaten and needs to get thrown out because it's old and stale.... *WARNING* I am so not an overly organized person which is why I like to visit The Organized Junkie in hopes that she'll rub off on me a bit. Ha!

Now, I know at least half of the stuff on the top 3 shelves needs to be thrown out. Money down the drain.. So this was my first week at keeping out grocery bill at $100 or less. This week I managed $88 BUT (disclaimer) that was yesterday (Wednesday) to get us through Sunday seeing as how we ate with family the other 4 previous nights since Josh's cousins from Ohio were down. So I used the extra money of not buying meal food, to stock up on some of Publix's B1G1 stuff.... saved about $35 that way so I can't complain.

9:45am...and Dog surgery today

Is what time we slept in till today.... Myka & I that is! Whoa! I don't know when the last time it was that I slept in till then. Maybe one night when Myka was at a sleepover, but for him to sleep in that late is rare. As a baby and toddler, he was definately a late sleeper, but once he started preschool and had to be there at 8am, he has gotten used to getting up at 6:15 or 6:30. And on weekends we're lucky if we make it till 7:30 sleeping in. But seeing as how we did a lot of running around the last few days, and he was up later, I suppose he needed it! And hey, I didn't mind a little extra sleep.

Now Josh on the other hand had an unusually early morning. He had to have one of our dogs at the vet at 8am to remove something off his butt that is a growth from hormones I guess some dogs get. And to take care of two things at once, he'll have his teeth cleaned too cause most of the enamel is gone from chewing the doorknobs, the framing of doors, etc, etc. Long story... will save those stories for another day. So Wolfgang, is going under today and he is definately not the calm, relaxed kind of dog, so it will be interesting to see how we manage to keep his stitches untouched. But at least he'll have nice clean teeth! I do have to say he is the best looking German Shepherd though... isn't he?

SUMMER if finally here...

Myka at his end of year pool party!

Ahh I love summer! And it is so darn nice to be able to sleep in a bit too!

Myka is officially a FIRST GRADER! Can you believe it??? Where has the time gone. His last day of school was Friday, and so we have really just been hangin' out since... I know it is SOOOOO important for him to continue reading every day so he doesn't regress. He is such a great reader, and I think if he keeps it up, he'll be headin' in to first grade with flying colors. So what I have done is set up a "Myka's Summer Reading List" and we write down the books that HE reads to ME. When he gets to 10, he earns something - a small treat, etc. We'll see at the end of summer how many he has read! Status now: 5 books read since school got out.

Now, I still read to him too, and we have so many books (gotta love Scholastic Book Clubs) but a new thing we are hooked on now is this series for young readers called "Magic Tree House" books. There are tons of them! They are chapter books, and definately not something Myka can read on his own yet, but he loves them! It's about a brother and sister who discovered a magic tree house filled with books. Each book in the tree house (and thus each book in the series) takes them back in time to the topic of the book. We read about 2 chapters a night, and get through a book usually in about a week. We started at number 1, and just finished number 2 in the series, so we are on to number 3 "Mummies in the Morning"

In addition to getting summer started, I have spent the last four days backing up ALL of our pictures on my new FreeAgent 500GB Hard Drive - got a great deal on it from Office Depot last week and I feel so much better! I was stressing over my pictures. I had tons on an old computer we don't use much, and 3 CF cards full of pics, and knew I couldn't store them on our computer BUT we don't have a CD/DVD burner on my old work computer I am using so that was not an option. My laptop is broke and probably not worth fixing, so I came up with this more affordable solution until we can get a new computer one day. However it will probably take half a lifetime to use up 500GB in just pictures.



I plan to start doing some digital scrapbooking on the computer because it is really bugging me that I haven't scrapbooked in ages. I have TONS of supplies, but for some things, like Mykas school photo books, I think I am going to do digitally on the computer.



So, hopefully now that summer is here, I reallyhope to get this blog going. Plus I am on a new journey to lower our expenses so I will keep you up to date on that too. I lowered our weekly grocery/household buget from $150 to $100, starting now, so we'll see how it goes. I know it sounds like a lot, and from the research I have been doing, lots of people with familes of 4 and even 6 have a budget less than that, so we should be able to do it. And then get it down less before long too. Time to make sure we know where every dollar is going, and save as much as we can. I have some great links to post for anyone else interested in cutting down their grocery bills! Maybe I'll post those soon...



Love to you all!

My sweet boy...

Today is a great day! I got some much anticipated news regarding Myka's school - looks like everything will work out on the financial aspect so that we can keep him there! Yeah!!! I prayed a lot about this, and I know that God has plans for us, and it is such a blessing!

Mother's Day weekend was nice - and relaxing! Here are a few pics of what Myka made for me at school (sniff, sniff) and what he got me (thanks to a hint from me to Josh!)

Can you read it? Awwww....my sweet boy!

And my much desired STARBUCKS Create your own cup - I can add my own pics to this and use it for my morning glass of MILK.

NEW Look....

I am still working on it but not too shabby for my first time. What do you think?

Say hello to our little friend...

WELL he's definately NOT my friend to be honest. He's Josh's.

We were helping some friends move the last few days, and on Wednesday when we went to their new place, and opened up the garage, Josh and his buddy found several Black Widow spiders. Now - THEY thought it was cool - especially this one, because it was the largest one they have ever seen, and the QUARTER in the pictures can prove the actual size - yes, that is a quarter!!!

Now myself and my girlfriend Tiff on the other hand did not like the idea of these. Their new house had been sitting vacant for some time, so several of these guys moved in. So needless to say moving that day was postponed until pest control came out the next day to get rid of them and their eggs.

I am soooooo NOT a spider person - gives me the heebie jeebies.