My Backyard Garden

I finally got my garden started! I'm so excited! I'm just not loving the fact that I'm going to have to work my butt off for a couple of months before I really see any results. I chose a container garden so I wouldn't have to dig up the yard because we are only renting right now. From top to bottom in the picture, I have a tomato plant, 2 buttercrunch lettuce plants, a zuchinni plant, 2 red bell pepper plants and some rosemary. The two long planters are green onions and sweet onions. Not pictured are the basil, cilantro and flat-leaf parsley. Should be yummy!

Justice for Girls Clearance Sale!

Justice for Girls is having a Last Chance Clearance Sale - Online Only. There are some tops starting as low as $2.99! Lots of great deals, but it's very hit or miss on the sizes. Use Coupon Code 817 to save an additional 30% on the Clearance prices!

Plus, if you are a member of Ebates, be sure to go through that site to earn 4% cash back on your purchase! If you're not a member of Ebates, click here to sign up! You'll automatically get $5 when you sign up and make your first purchase, plus you'll earn cash back on your purchases at hundreds of online stores!

Happy Shopping!

Earth Day Deals!

My good friend HeatherMama has posted some awesome Earth Day freebies on her blog! Go check it out!

Good Shopping Day!

I ran a few errands when I picked the girls up this afternoon and I think I did pretty well! I went to The Plant Shed in Keller in search of a few more plants for the veggie garden I'm planting tomorrow. I picked up 2 buttercrunch lettuce plants and a rosemary plant for under $4 total. Then we went to the Rufe Snow Farmer's Market to pick up some fresh veggies and I found a big bucket of about 8 pounds of over-ripe bananas for $2. My friend and I split the bananas and we're gonna make up a big batch of banana bread to freeze.

I also stopped by the Mrs. Baird Thrift Store on my way home and cashed in my punch card that I filled up last week to get a free loaf of bread and a free snack cake. And since I purchased a few other items and my total was over $6, I also got to pick a free loaf of bread from their "free item" table! I ended up with 3 loaves of bread, 7 cherry cinnamon rolls and a package of english muffins for $6.88. I'd have done a lot better without the cherry cinnamon rolls but they are a rare treat in our house.

All in all I thought it wasn't too shabby for a few impromptu stops!

Going Green!

With the new house comes new recycling rules! The City of Fort Worth is much more strict about their recycling policies than Watauga. They provide much larger bins for recycling and many more opportunities. These recycling rules have inspired me to implement some of the changes I've been wanting to make our family more "green".

We've definitely been making better efforts at recycling. In addition to the recycling, I'm making more of an effort to reduce our waste in general. In order to cut down on the amount of paper towels we use, I purchased some dishcloths to use as cloth napkins. I prefer the dishcloths over traditional cloth napkins because they are more absorbent. I'm also keeping an eye out for boxes and things that we can reuse instead of discarding.

We had already changed out our regular lightbulbs for those compact flourescent bulbs. We've all been making an effort to conserve electricity by turning off lights when they're not in use and opening the blinds to use more natural light. I'm also going to make an effort to turn off my computer when not in use because I'm really bad about leaving it running all the time. I'm trying to find a good setting on our thermostat to keep it comfortable while using the least amount of energy. It's hard on the weekends because Luke is home more and he's rather hot-natured. I was quite comfortable today but he was complaining about being too hot.

I'm also going to be starting a garden! My main motivation for that is to save money on groceries and have a new hobby but I know it's also good for our environment. More on that tomorrow!

Easter Fun

Easter was pretty laid back for us this year. My mom had to work so my parents stayed home but my grandmother did come over to spend the day with us. I got up early and put a big pork roast in the crockpot with some BBQ sauce to make BBQ Pulled Pork. Then I boiled the eggs for the Easter eggs. I let the girls have free rein of dying the eggs. I also had some plastic eggs I had filled with candy last night.

We hid the eggs in the front yard and the girls had fun finding them all. Jessica's getting a bit old for that stuff and wasn't near as enthusiastic about it as Ashley was. She knew we'd pretty much divide things evenly, plus she still had her Easter basket from her dad's house, so she just kinda took it slow and let Ashley find most of them.

I made homemade Au Gratin Potatoes to go with the BBQ Pork, but sadly it didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped. It wasn't really bad, just not really great either. I think I'll stick to the boxed version from now on. Everyone loved the pork and it was so easy to make. I pretty much just threw it in the crockpot with a couple bottles of the Kraft Honey BBQ sauce I got for 39cents a bottle at Albertson's a few weeks back and let it cook for several hours. Once it cooked long enough to start falling apart, I shredded it with forks and served it up! Yummy!

For their Easter gifts this year, I let them have their choice and both girls chose to pick out items at the store rather than get one of those big Easter baskets from Wal-Mart. Jessica got a new belt, a wrist-band and a bag from Hot Topic. Ashley headed to the Hallmark store to pick out some Webkins but she found these things called Shining Stars instead. They are similar to Webkins, stuffed animals with a code for access to an online world, but in addition you get to register and name a star with the International Star Registry. She has talked non-stop about the 2 stars in the sky that she now "owns".

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Moving: Overwhelming but Exciting!

We are now completely moved out of the house in Watauga and settling into our new house in Haslet. I'm very excited but feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the boxes right now. I know it will be great once we get everything unpacked. It's a 4 bedroom house so the girls each have their own room and I have a separate room for my office. I'm really excited about that part. And I'm just thrilled about my kitchen! It's a very open floor plan so I still feel like I'm right there with the family while I'm preparing meals. The cabinets are so much bigger and there's even more counter space! The house was built in 2006 so the appliances are fairly new and it's very well insulated and energy efficient.

Since it's so close to the end of the year, the girls are going to finish out the school year at their current schools. It's kind of a pain driving them back and forth everyday but it's a lot better for them this way. They'll start the new schools next year. Hopefully they'll meet a few of the neighborhood kids over the summer and not be completely lost at their new schools next fall.

Well, I'm off to do some more unpacking and such. I'll try to post pics of the house once we get things in order.