Baby Food

The homemade baby food making days are back in full swing at our house since Brynley has recently started eating baby food.  I started making Landry's baby food when he was little at the suggestion of our pediatrician.  He told me it would be a lot cheaper and make for an easier transition into table foods when he got older.  He was right!  I wish I had a way to total up the savings.

If you are interested, all you need is a food processor or blender.  I use a very inexpensive food chopper that I received as a wedding gift.  It can be purchased at Walmart for less than $10 and I use it for so much more than making baby food.

The awesome thing about making baby food in the summer time is that you can buy fresh produce for a reasonable price.  If I can't buy it fresh, I try to use frozen vegetables or fruits.  The pediatrician recommended steering clear of canned vegetables as much as possible to avoid the unneeded sodium. 

I usually try to set aside an hour to make up at least a couple of weeks worth of baby food to freeze.  I recently made frozen peas and carrots and fresh yellow squash and avocados.  I also made fresh peaches, bananas, pears, and blueberries (a few pictures below).  All you need to do is cook your vegetables in the microwave as directed on the package or cook them until they are soft if using fresh vegetables.  Then place them in your chopper and chop, chop, chop!  You may need to add a little water to get to a baby food consistency.  The fruits are the easiest.  All you do is peel and chop.  Most of the time, no water is needed since fruits tend to be a little juicy anyways. 

Once you get done chopping, spoon the mixture into ice cube trays and place in freezer to freeze.  Allow approximately 4-6 hours to freeze.  Remove, place in labeled Ziploc bags, and throw in the freezer.  All you have to do is zap them in the microwave when your little one is ready to eat or if you are on the go throw them in a small container to take with you.  More than likely they will be thawed and ready to eat when you are ready for them.

I would recommend trying it at least once to see what you think.  You will be surprised at how much money it will save you and how easy it is!  If nothing else, you can make the simple switch from applesauce baby food to unsweetened applesauce in a jar.  And if your babies are anything like mine, they will love the real food even more!

Microwave Caramel Popcorn

One of my favorite treats for movie nights, ball games, or just a sweet snack is microwave caramel popcorn.  I have been known to sneak it into the movie theaters even, because I think it is so much better than theater popcorn.  If you haven't tried it before, it's really easy to make.  Beware...it is addicting!

I use my stir crazy popcorn popper and combine 1 cup yellow popping corn with 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil.  Plug it in and let the popping begin.  If you don't have one, I would highly recommend it as an alternative to microwave popcorn.  It pops the corn so fast and you can add your own toppings for a fraction of the cost of microwave popcorn.  I know there are other versions of these that will work as well.

 Microwave Caramel Popcorn

16 cups popped corn

1 cup brown sugar

1 stick margarine or butter

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Place popped corn in a large brown paper sack.  Combine brown sugar, margarine, syrup and salt.  Place in microwave and bring to a boil (approximately 3 minutes).  Once boiling, boil mixture for 3 minutes, stirring after every 1 minute.  Remove and stir in baking soda well.  Pour mixture over popcorn in brown paper sack and mix.  Place sack in microwave for 1 minute 15 seconds.  Remove and stir/shake.  Place back in microwave for 1 minute 15 seconds; stir/shake again.  Place back in for 30 seconds.  Remove popcorn from sack and enjoy! 

I am having trouble posting comments on other blogs and my own.  Does anyone know what I may be doing wrong?  It just keeps telling me there is an error...

I hope everyone is having a great week.  It has been another hot one around here.  My baby girl turned 6 months old today...once again time is just flying by!

Pampers Snob

I have a confession to make...I am a Pampers snob.  One might think that since I am always looking for ways to save money, I would buy the cheapest diapers.  However, my philosophy is to not buy cheap, but to buy quality at a reasonable price.  After experimenting with many different diapers for Landry, I found Pampers to be the most reliable at keeping the mess in.  I have found that it is very important for a diaper to be reliable 99% of the time, especially when you are on the go a lot.  I've had a few too many "Huggies blowouts" at some not so convenient times.  (If Huggies work for you, please don't take offense to this.)  Thus, my kids only leave the house in Pampers.  I have found the Pampers Baby Dry to be very effective...and they are the cheapest Pampers!

It wasn't until about a year ago that I realized I was throwing away some money saving codes.  Many of you may know this already, but all Pampers products have "Gifts to Grow" codes on them.  They are printed on stickers found within your diapers or wipes packages. 

You can create an account on Pampers and enter the Gifts to Grow codes.  Your points will accumulate and you can redeem them for a variety of gift cards and items.  I just recently redeemed some of my points to receive a 20 page 8x8 photo book on Shutterfly for free ($29.99 value)!  Not too bad, considering it takes a matter of seconds to enter these codes in.

I will leave you with a couple of pictures of Landry and Brynley watching their TMX Elmo.  It has provided hours of entertainment for both of them.  Happy Friday everyone!

Landry is 2!!!

I'm not sure where the time has gone, but somehow my little boy turned 2 yesterday!  It seems like just yesterday that he was born.

And it couldn't have really been a year since his 1st birthday...

Having children has really made me realize just how fast time does fly by.  One of my favorite books, by my favorite author, Karen Kingsbury, is "Let Me Hold You Longer."  It talks about all the firsts and lasts that pass by with children.  If you have children and haven't read it, I highly recommend it with a box of tissues.

Well enough reminiscing about the 2 years that have passed with Landry, Saturday we celebrated his birthday with family.  Since he seems to be obsessed with balls yet again this year, we went with a football theme.  And since he has a lot of football things, I spent next to nothing on decorations.  I absolutely loved his cake...and no I was not the talented decorator.  We used his football toy box as a cooler for the pop and a few things from his room to decorate the cake table. 

*Just to add a money saving note to this post, I found the sports table cloth, napkins, and plates on clearance for $.37 each at Dollar General.  So if you are planning a party or just want to stock up for future use, I would recommend checking your local store.  They had a wide variety on clearance at our store. 

There was definitely a Toy Story theme to most of the gifts because Landry's new obsession is anything Toy Story since we took him to see Toy Story 3 in the theaters.  It was his first movie theater experience and he came out of there with a major love for the movie and all the characters. 

I pray that God will bless Landry over the next year and that he will give us patience and wisdom.  "Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn away from it." -Proverbs 22:6

Have a great day!

Here Goes Nothing

After much encouragement from my friend Angie and several others, I have officially entered the world of blogging.  I have been an avid blog reader for about a year and a half now.  My blog addiction started out with Money Saving Mom and has just grown from there.  I have found it to be a really fun hobby and a way to save money for my family.  Now before you go stereotyping me as a "penny pincher," let me tell you about my outlook on bargain shopping and couponing.  If I can save money in the little areas, then I can spend it on the things that I really love in life (ex. traveling).  It makes staying at home with my kids even that much more financially doable.  I will try to share with you some of my money saving methods along the way.

Speaking of my love for traveling, here is a picture of Landry and Brynley on our recent trip to Riviera Maya, Mexico. 

A great place to start with coupons is to just look online at A Full Cup and Coupons.  Even if you don't want to commit to being an avid couponer, you can easily make your grocery list and then search for coupons on these two sites.  I would highly recommend Money Saving Mom as a place to start just to get an idea of how I started and to learn about the coupon lingo.

Here is a random beauty tip for you.  At my last eye doctor appointment, my doctor recommended using Johnson's Baby Shampoo to remove eye makeup.  This may not be new to all of you, but it was new for me.  Since I seem to have an over abundant supply of this from baby showers, I decided to give it a try.  I was pleasantly surprised how well it removes eye makeup and lives up to it's "No More Tears" tag line.

Welcome to my journey of random blogging!