Arbor Day School Program

Today the triplets' class sang an Arbor Day song for the Arbor Day program at school. As always, they requested that I video it. To think they think I only video or take pictures upon demand. I would do it anyway!

My new sewing project

D's baby is due at the first of May and she is wanting to use re-usable diapers. So I purchased a pattern and compared other patterns and then made some personal adjustments and came up with this:



This is for an 8-16 lb baby. With a few more adjustments I think I can make it to fit a larger baby.

This is an "all in one" diaper. It has a waterproof outer layer made from black out curtain material, several layers of flannel, a folded wash cloth as the inside soaker and t-shirt material for the inside layer that will go next to the baby's skin. This diaper cost me almost nothing other than my time. I purchased the black out material from Joann's remnant section for $2 and I should be able to get a total of 6 diapers from it. So that makes the outer layer $.33 per diaper. The flannel was from scraps from a previous project which originally cost $4. I will be able to get at least 2 more diapers from the scraps. That makes this layer aprox $.50 per diaper. The wash cloth for the soaker was a well used one we had that was fixing to head to the garage as a rag for Jay's projects and the t-shirt material came from a free t-shirt Jay had gotten from a previous employer. The amount of Velcro and elastic probably equaled $1. So I was able to make this real diaper for less
than $2. Let's hope it works!! I will keep you updated.

Future Bull Riders???

At the county fair, the kids rode a mechanical bull and I am surprised they wanted too. Needless to say, I captured it all on video. Our friend J and her daughter, V, went with us and I videoed V too!

#4




#2 #1 #3



V

Fair Results

#1, #3, #4 and I entered our creations into the county fair this year. I entered two baby/toddler dresses and four digital pictures. All three kids entered a drawing and #1 made a nightgown and #3 made a rag pillow sham.

All of recieved a participation ribbon for each entry and all three kids received an honorable mention for each picture and nightgown and pillow sham. I recieved a first and second best in class for my dresses.

It was very exciting to find our entries and see ribbons on them!

I will post pictures when I pick up our entries on Tuesday.

March Savings

I did ok last month on my savings quest. I went over my $225 by a couple hundred dollars. This may sound not so good but in reality, I did so much better than I do any other month. I normally spend at least twice that much! But the main thing I did was to use what we already had as often as I could.

This was also my first month using coupons every chance I could. I quickly out grew my accordion pocket coupon organizer and tried to go with two index card boxes to file my coupons but I out grew that before I even finished. I am now into a shoe box.

I thought I knew The Grocery Game without having read the "rules" but now that I have read the rules, I have to say oops. Even though I saved a ton of money in March, I am down to a point of having to restock. I should be stockpiling, using one store (I was willing to drive to all the stores in my neighborhood) and basing my weekly meal plan on what I have not what I buy. I bought Terri Gault's book Shop Smart Save More. It is full of tips of the trade for shopping and I think next month (May) I will be well versed in "the game" and do better. But for this month, I will continue to use my coupons and working on playing the game.

As a side note, with all the prescriptions I transferred to CVS to get a $25 gift card with each transferr, Walgreens sent us a "check" to get $25 if we transferred a prescription back. Here comes another transferr!!