Couponing...Ahhh

Their new coats, hats and gloves from Old Navy! And just in time for the cold weather!!

I told you I was going to do couponing this week...and I did some today at Walgreens...and it felt great!!! I have to say this as a challenge...I have not couponed in many months and yes, my supply has dwindled...but I am amazed how long my stash has lasted. I am excited to build it back up and get more great deals and save our family money. :)

So, this is the breakdown.

Dawn dish soap. $.99 with Walgreens coupon. Used $.50 MFR coupon. $.49 each.

Pantene shampoo and conditioner. On sale 2/$7. Receive $2 Register Rewards. Used $3/2 MFR coupon. $1 each.

Walgreens diapers. On sale for $5.99. I have no stash of diapers left so this was the best deal this week.

Ester-C Gummies. On sale BOGO Free $7.49 each. Used 2-$2 MFR coupons. $1.75 each bottle. I was excited to get this deal. My daughters don't care too much for their vitamins and they recently got bad colds. I am hoping this extra boost of gummy vitamin C will keep them well. :)

I also received FOUR Freebies through Register Reward deals! I was very surprised because I always seem to miss them even when I go on Sundays.

Softlips lip conditioner

Cold sore treatment cream

Foot rehab cream

Max Muscle Rehab (The last two are for sore muscles.)

These four items totaled $22 but I received all four for FREE!

I was working on my coupon binder tonight and I have a stack of coupons that expire tomorrow...so I am thinking I should go tomorrow so I am sure I don't miss out on any deals. :)

Tuesday...

Did you have a good Monday? I did. :) I tackled all those LITTLE things that I have been putting off...the little nagging ones. Yep. Sure feels good to go to bed after accomplishing those things. :)

It seems all I have been doing is cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning! I always want my house ready for our house showings...well, I was in the middle of doing the dishes and doing the girls' school folders and making the bed and doing the laundry...you know...where nothing is completely done? LOL! I received a call at 11:25am..."You will have a showing at 11:30am"...yikes! Well, all I could do was leave it. So this morning, I shall clean and clean first... :)

I also have to run some errands after school today. I have already started my list of the places I need to go.

This evening, we are hosting the teens from our church. We are the last stop of the progressive dinner for the teen activity tonight! So being the dessert portion, we are having ice cream sundaes. :)

Well, that is all for this morning...I hope you have a great Tuesday!

Small Steps...

I am determined to put a little more time...and get back to couponing. Even if I don't come home with 35 amazing deals and freebies...I just need to start back somewhere.

So I made two strides today...after buying my two papers...we arrived early to the church service tonight. And I was able to cut out today's Sunday paper coupons. They are ready to be put in my binder. :)

I also stopped by CVS this morning before church (yes, we always arrive at church very early :)...and I picked up one sale item. It was contact solution. Pay $8.99...receive $8.99 in Extra Bucks...making it FREE. :) Hallelujah for small steps.

Have a great week!

It's The Little Ways...

So what a week! Here was the deal...last Saturday, our family were out doing a little shopping. We were in need of new winter coats for the two oldest. We actually bought them new ones last year...the cheapie ones from Wal-Mart :/...not a good idea. The zipper broke and got stuck...they always looked dingy and dirty...they looked horrible. I threw Addie's out even before the season started and soon I threw Autumn's away after my husband's comments of her looking like a homeless person. LOL!

The lady at Old Navy told us about their upcoming Black Friday deals...if you got their Old Navy Card you could shop there early on Wednesday. This was my plan. 1. Get a card. 2. Go there on Wednesday and buy their coats 50% off. I thought $20 was really not a bad deal for a nice coat..you could certainly pay more!

Well, Sunday night our friends were in their accident. And the rest of the week, I didn't have my van. So I just gave up the deal and thought...I will find coats somewhere else. Sigh.

Last night, I was checking my e-mail and saw a Groupon deal for Old Navy. If you do not know what Groupon is...it is daily deals that you can purchase online for great deals! Coupons! This was a Groupon for Old Navy - Pay $10 online and you will receive $20 of merchandise when you use it in the store!! Perfect!! I bought 3 of these deals...paying $30. I threw on my coat and drove to Old Navy. The first one I went to only had brown coats left...my daughters had requested the pink and blue ones. So I went up to the cashier...asked if they could call the other two stores in Reno and ask if they had the other colors. One store did! I went to the other store...

I got two winter coats, 2 sets of matching gloves and hats...for $30!!! $15 for each set! I am SO thankful that after a long week of doing for others...the Lord encouraged my heart in this way. He is so good to love us in these little ways!

Recipe: No-Drippings Gravy

No-Drippings Gravy

From Betty Crocker

I have not fully mastered a perfect gravy. LOL! Every Thanksgiving, I stress over this. My husband deep fries one turkey and smokes another...leaving no drippings from the turkeys either. So this year, I used this recipe and I was pleased. It is a very simple and tasty...so hooray for a score on the gravy! :)

2

cups Progresso® chicken broth (from 32-oz carton) or homemade turkey broth

2

teaspoons chicken bouillon granules

Dash of pepper

1/4

cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

Browning sauce, if desired

• 1In 1-quart heavy saucepan, heat 1 1/2 cups of the broth, the bouillon granules and pepper over medium heat, stirring constantly, until bouillon granules are dissolved.
• 2In small bowl, stir remaining 1/2 cup broth and the flour, using wire whisk, until smooth. Gradually stir flour mixture into broth in saucepan. Heat to boiling. Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened and bubbly. Stir in a few drops of browning sauce if a darker color is desired.

Our Friday

Today, we put up our tree. :) It was such a beautiful day...60 degrees, warm and sunshiny...a perfect mild fall day. It made getting the decorations from the garage a lot more pleasant! :)

This is a set I found at the thrift store this fall still new in the box...placemats, napkins and rings.

Of course, one can't get in the Christmas spirit without a glass of egg nog. :)

My husband's Christmas village...

Addie wanted to set up the train...

After decorating and a few Christmas movies, we played Sorry and also this game...Walls of Jericho. This is one of the games that I inherited from my grandma when she passed away. We played this game and many more with her as kids. :)

This was also one of her puzzles that we did as kids as well.

In addition to decorating, I did 5 loads of laundry, rearranged the living room, swept, vacuumed, dusted, ate Thanksgiving leftovers :), did the dishes and played games with the girls.

Now to a piece of apple pie with perhaps a cup of coffee...and the movie It's A Wonderful Life. Because it truly is.

Thanksgiving 2011 Pictures

Thanksgiving 2011...Tastet home...My husband and I

Papa Vern and 3 of our daughters...Autumn, Sierra and Addie

Daddy and Sierra cheering for the Miami Dolphins in the Thanksgiving football game with their Dolphins' jerseys :)

David and Danyelle in their Packers' garb :)

Papa Tastet

Papa and Autumn...Autumn lost one of her front teeth and the other is loose. :)

After dinner...watching the Miami game.

Hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving holiday. :)

Memories of Thanksgiving Nights...

Today...my thoughts seemed to be in a different place. A different time.

We are not blessed to live within driving distance of my family. So we are not able to spend holidays together. But my thoughts and love truly go out to all of them.

My Grandpa Holt passed away when I was in 8th grade. My favorite Thanksgiving memory of Grandpa...was Grandma trying to keep us quiet so that we would not wake up Grandpa on Thanksgiving night. She would say..."The next person that I hear will get a dose of castor oil!" LOL!

My Grandma Holt passed away this past summer. This is our first Thanksgiving without her. Even though I am not in Ohio where she used to live...I miss her. My favorite Thanksgiving memory of Grandma...was our annual Thanksgiving night sleepover at Grandma's house. All of us grandkids would stay at Grandpa and Grandma's house after all the adults left after a day of feasting and fun. We would play games...have ping pong tournaments...eat leftovers...listen to Christmas records (yes, I said records :) and play freeze to the Christmas tree lights...decorate Grandma's Christmas tree, house and windows...have special treats such as homemade caramel corn...and as we went to sleep on the living room floor - we would have sock fights in the dark. In the morning, we would have homemade cinnamon rolls and milk.

Even after our extended family get-togethers were too large to be held at Grandma's house...and we were in college...we would bring home scores of college girl friends for the Thanksgiving break and holiday. Our house would be full of fun and laughter...and dinner with all our traditional favorites.

Then we started bringing home our boyfriends from college and they were added into the Thanksgiving traditions.

Those boyfriends turned into our husbands. :) Then we began adding the grandkids - our kids.

I wish sometimes that my daughters would be able to live close enough to their family to have Thanksgiving memories like mine. I wish they could have Thanksgiving nights with their cousins like I did. I wish they could come to Thanksgiving dinner knowing there will be green bean casserole and punch pop.

Just because that is what we always do. It is what we always have.

It is our tradition. It is our family.

Who knows? Perhaps one day...we will be together again at Thanksgiving. We will eat green bean casserole and drink punch pop to our heart's content...we will laugh and tease...our kids will spend Thanksgiving night decorating the Christmas tree, listening to Christmas records and playing board games...and my sisters and I will shop Black Friday together. :)

Tomorrow, I will make special Tastet traditions with my girls. We have no school...we will stay in pajamas...we will decorate our Christmas tree...while we drink our first egg nog of the season...we will eat Thanksgiving leftovers...we will watch our favorite Christmas movies...ending with my favorite - It's A Wonderful Life...

For that is the meaningful thing in life...living your life to have those wonderful memories to look back on.

I am thankful for those Thanksgiving memories of time past...of those who are truly dearest to my heart.

Thanksgiving...

Happy Thanksgiving! I pray you all have a blessed day.

My thought from today comes from Psalm 23:5..."Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over."

Today is the first Thanksgiving without my Grandma Holt. I am sending a special prayer to my Dad as well as his sisters - my Aunt Connie and Aunt Sandy. This is their first Thanksgiving without their mom.

Many fond memories of the holidays at my Grandma's house...her house was not very big but we stuffed it full. :) We always had the "kid" table...and we were so excited when we graduated to the adult table! Dinner was always very traditional...I suppose that is why I love traditions and having many of the same dishes every year.

I am thankful for the memories of Thanksgiving time with my family.

Preparations and things you can't prepare for...

It has been a busy week...a good busy serving the Lord.

When we returned home from church Sunday evening, I checked Facebook and saw that friends of ours were passing through Reno and were involved in a car accident outside of Reno in a town called Fernley.

We started making calls trying to find out information. They were taken to Renown - one of our hospitals here in Reno. My husband and our youth director went to the hospital. Junior had a broken foot and would be prepped for surgery. Jessica was not wearing her seatbelt and was thrown from the car out of the passenger window and across the road. She suffered lacerations across her stomach and face. She was given 80 stitches. Later, they also found some cracked ribs.

My husband stayed with Junior until 2:30am Monday morning. On Monday, I went shopping for some clothes and other items for them. They did not have their belongings - Jessica didn't even have her clothes that she was wearing because they had cut them off. I delivered the items to the hospital. We later came back and made a visit together with my husband that evening.

Tuesday, Jessica's father was able to fly in from Detroit. That evening, Jessica was released and my husband took them both to stay at one of our church member's home - Jake and Megan Allen.

Today, Junior was released and they are resting comfortably at the Allen's. Please keep them in your prayers as Junior has his surgery and goes through therapy. Also pray for Jessica and her healing.

Junior and Jessica are on deputation right now. They were returning home from meetings in California. They are raising support to go to Peru.

Today was a very busy day. I did a lot of cleaning and set up for Thanksgiving day. We also had 2 house showings (of all days!) :). I did a lot of food preparation for the Thanksgiving meal. I baked 2 pumpkin pies, 1 apple pie and made chocolate delight and pineapple cake dessert. I also made a Tex-Mex dip with chips, peeled 10 lbs of potatoes, made 3 pitchers of sweet tea and 1 pitcher of lemonade, made a cheeseball with crackers and 40 deviled eggs. And did boatloads of dishes. :) It made a good dent in tomorrow's work...and now I shall go to bed.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Caughlin Fire in Reno 2011

What a day yesterday! It was one of those days where you couldn't concentrate on really anything worthwhile. The Caughlin Fire 2011 was the big event of the day. The fire had begun around 12:30pm Friday morning. When I woke up, it was continuous local news coverage of the fire in Reno. It was one of those things where you just can't stop watching it. When the girls got up, they were feeling very much under the weather. They had a slight fever with a sore throat and such. Poor Summer has been battling a terrible runny nose and cough. They spent the day on the couch in their pajamas and blankets with a cup of hot tea and later some chicken noodle soup.

Continuous high winds on Friday was one of the main causes of the quick spread of the Caughlin fire. They do not know what started this fire as of yet. It just quickly grew out of control from the firefighters because of the wind.

For the entire day, there was 0% containment. At last report, there were approximately 25 homes destroyed and 2,000 acres burned. Good news, firefighters were able to save 4,000 homes in their efforts. Only one death had been reported - an elderly man was trying to evacuate and experienced cardiac arrest and passed away.

There were 450 firefighters on the scene coming as far as Sacramento and Elko, NV. Two high schools were opened up to create centers for evacuees for the Red Cross. Many hotels offered free or discounted rooms for the night for the evacuees. Many casinos and restaurants offered food for those people as well. It was last reported that 10,000 people were evacuated. And then, there were people who could not return home because their power had not been restored yet. The Reno Livestock Events Center was available for those folks to bring their horses and livestock. Many places also offered places for pets as well. It was a great outpouring of care and concern in our community. My husband commented to me last night that Reno is so wonderful about caring about its community.

We do have many people that live in the south area of Reno that attend our church. I am so thankful that they were not affected by the fire. Also, our church building was in the evacuation zone for the fire. It was only around 2 miles away where the fire burned but our building and supplies were kept safe. Praise the Lord!

And after a day of fires across Reno, we received a call from my father-in-law last night. One of the unfinished homes across the street from our neighborhood was on fire. My husband and I went down to see it. The entire structure was engulfed in flames and billowing with smoke. Fire fighters were already on the scene fighting the fire. The above picture is the home taken with my phone.

Today, I am thankful for the safety for my family and the folks of Reno. And am hoping for a more normal day. :)

Reno Caughlin Fire 2011

This morning, I woke up to the news of a large fire in Southwest Reno. Here is a picture taken before dawn that was on our local news -KOLO 8. Twenty homes have been lost so far. All county schools have been closed and they are using them for evacuation centers. Over 400 acres have burned in this area.

We have had a very wet winter and spring...and then a dry summer. So the vegetation grew and grew and then dried out and helps to spread this fire. We also have very high winds 50 MPH and even up to 70 MPH...this is making it spread rapidly and also makes it very hard to fight and contain. The high winds are supposed to continue until late this afternoon when a cold front begins to come through. So this fire will continue all day.

They are not sure of a possible cause. They are certain that it was not caused by lightning in which most of our fires are started. It is possible that perhaps a downed power line has caused it.

Keep the families in your prayers that have been affected and will continue to be affected. Thank you!

Character Sightings 4...

In between the royal coronation and the princess story telling, Cinderella came out to greet people. Yay! We hadn't met her yet so we got her autograph and picture. :)

Terrence from Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell in Pixie Hollow

Snow White in the princess story telling time

One of the sirs and ladies of the court...Sir William and Lady Jennifer

One other lady of the court

Sleeping Beauty in the princess story telling time

Rapunzel in her tower from the movie Tangled

Disneyland...Day Five

These are shirts that our friend, Shannon, had made by her friend, Christyi, for our trip. They are Minnie Mouse with each of their names on them. They wore these on Friday for our last day.

When we arrived at the park, we found out that they were doing the Royal Coronation ceremony. It was a lot of fun for the girls. They learned how to curtsy as a princess and do a royal dance.

Then Daddy snuck off and came back with princess Mickey ear hats for them. :)

Waiting for the princess story telling time...

The famous ride...It's A Small World opened on Friday...

So cute!

My hubby and I on It's A Small World.

LOVE the nutcrackers! :)

This was so cute with the sombreros!

Merry Christmas in Hawaii!

One of my favorite - the Southwest. For my sister, Rhoda. :)

Autumn helping me eat the rest of my taco salad. LOL! She loves salad.

This was a fun place for the kids - I think it was the Pirate's Lair Island.

I see a pirate ship! One of the attractions we didn't get to ride...but we wanted to! Just ran out of time. :)

We all rode on the Indian canoes.

We found the gold!

At the end of the week, we stopped at the old fashion ice cream parlor. They make their own waffle cones in front of you. Sierra and I shared a butter pecan waffle bowl. Mmm!

It's A Small World opened back up on Friday. It was all decorated for Christmas and was beautiful!

The fireworks were slightly delayed so we decided to ride a ride. We all got on the Teacups and right as we sat down...Boom! The fireworks lit up the sky! We got to watch them from the teacup ride! So neat! When the ride ended, we walked right to It's A Small World...watching the fireworks and also the colored light show on the small world building...they played Christmas music as the fireworks were displayed.

It was all so magical...watching the fireworks...watching the light show on It's A Small World...listening to Silent Night...

As the fireworks ended...it began to snow! The entire crowd just stood there...the kids catching the snowflakes with their tongues...snow coating everyone's jackets and Mickey ears...all the adults looking up in the sky. It was so, so neat. It truly ended our Disneyland vacation in a very special way!

We then walked over to Adventure Land and watched one last show - Fantasmic - on the shores of the river.

So ended our Disneyland vacation! Hope you enjoyed the pictures. :)