Jiggling

Jell-o was giving away Jell-o jiggler egg molds yesterday at the grocery store. They caught Gracie's eye right away, so I decided to give it a try.

The kids all picked out different flavors of jello...it will be a very colorful display of eggs.
Just dissolve 2 small boxes of jello into 1 1/2 cups of boiling water.

Have a handsome fellow stir until completely dissolved.


We all ready had this handy dandy small funnel.


We had ZERO mess, even with a lot of helpers.

It took about three hours to completely harden.

There was a little jello left after filling the eggs. We poured this into a flat bottomed dish. This hardened in about an hour and was super fun to peel off the bowl and wiggle and jiggle it, before it was gobbled up.

One batch complete, one more to go.

These literally took 5 minutes to make.

Removing them from the mold was a breeze.

I think Luke is a little excited about finding the bowl unattended.

I sliced the eggs like I would hard boiled eggs, and then we had a taste test.

Everyone agreed they are very yummy!

Perfect for an Easter treat. (These were our test eggs--more will be coming next week to Grandma's house)

There were many techniques in eating our jigglers.

Luke's method was the slurp.

Kimblerly wasn't too sure about Amy's jiggler monocle.

But what the heck...it's all fun.

Extreme couponing or just trying to survive??

It seems at though couponing has been getting a bad rap lately. I believe the tv shows have everybody picturing wild shoppers, clearing shelves and building up stockpiles of years worth of toothbrushes and toothpaste.

But this is not how the average couponer shops.

In today's economy I don't believe we could shop for 7 kids at home and 2 adults without heavy duty couponing. It definitely has been a budget saver for this family.

On a regular weekly shopping trip I generally save an average of 50 percent off the total cost of all our groceries, toiletries and dog care.

I have been managing to take care of the family of nine on about $600.00 a month, plus, I try to purchase a bit of food for the local food pantry weekly.

Most of my coupons are found online and in the Sunday newspaper. I have created a binder with baseball card holders for all my coupons.

Some great online sites for printable coupons and general couponing information are:

The Krazy Coupon Lady

We Use Coupons.Com

My CNY Mommy

Inside my binder.

I probably spend about 3 to 4 hours a week, printing, cutting, organizing coupons, and planning my shopping lists. I visit our 2 local grocery stores and 1 drug store every week.

All in all, 4 hours a week is well worth the $400 to $500 dollar savings I acheive each month.

We couldn't make ends meet without coupons!

A drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains

Hiking the Appalachian Trail.....

Pat and I enjoyed an amazing drive today through the Blue Ridge Mountains along Skyline Drive. I had to make him stop so I could say I hiked on the Appalachain Trail....

The beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.

You can notice in this photo the leaves on the trees at a lower elevation. There was a distinctive green line, where the leaves stopped and the bare trees remained.

Family photos...coming soon....

Kimberly-5