Happy Thanksgiving!

What are you thankful for this year? We are thankful for our family, our friends, our home. The boys and I sat down this year and made a collage of all the things we are thankful for and it is hanging in the dining room for everyone to see. (I have actually decided to keep this empty frame hanging up year-round and we will change what we display as the seasons change, or special occasions come around, stay tuned.)

{Sorry, I am having technical difficulties getting this picture to rotate.}

I love this time of year. This week I have baked chocolate chip cookies, with help from my assistants, lemon snowflake cookies, and made my, much requested, pumpkin cheesecake. I love baking and I love the delicious scents that fill my house as my treats are baking away in the oven. It is also a great time to get the boys in the kitchen learning valuable skills and I love how excited they get when they see their creations turn into a tasty treat before their eyes.

The Famous Pumpkin Cheesecake

From our home to yours, have a Very Happy Thanksgiving!!

I love a deal!

I have always been a coupon user, but the last few months I have been making a more pointed effort at using coupons and using them effectively. I have found a few blogs that have been helpful in matching store sales to the coupons available and I try to check in on them daily to see what they have found (Deal Detecting Diva and Penny Pinchin Mom are the ones I use the most.) I will say that it is very time consuming, and since I work full-time I have found that using these blogs to be most helpful in cutting out a lot of the research that is necessary.

As much as I love saving money on groceries and other necessities it is really fun to go out shopping and spend next to nothing on something for myself. JCPenney sent me 2 different "Save $10 on a $10 purchase" coupons over the last 2 weeks. So I made a couple of shopping trips and treated myself to a few goodies.

Shopping trip #1:
3 lace trimmed cami's - Regularly $18 each, on clearance for $3.57. I used my $10 coupon and paid, with tax, a total of 77 cents!! (The lady in line behind me was pretty impressed with the total, and I won't lie, I was pretty impressed too!)

Shopping trip #2:
Relic Handbag - Regularly $54, on clearance for $4.97, Liz Claborne Wallet - Regulary $36, on clearance for $4.97, and a reusable shoppping bag (since I had to make my total more than $10) $1.49. I used my $10 coupon and paid, with tax, a total of $1.55!! (Basically, I bought the reusable shopping bag and got the purse and wallet free!)