The Best Things in Life are Free (or 31 cents)

Free roast beef sandwiches (with coupon) at Arby's and 31 cent ice cream at Baskin Robins! Mmm, it was a delicious day. They were even giving children balloon animals at Baskin Robins (notice the blue leg of my balloon poodle in the lower left). I was the only person over 10 that she gave one to...

It's easy to get things free using coupons and watching sales, but you don't generally get a coupon that says "Free" something or other (mostly because what is a something or other?). So it's exciting when you get coupons that are for completely free things without having to pair it with a sale or other coupons. Some free things we've gotten lately include: 2 things of coffee mate creamer, a frozen pizza, 2 pouches of uncle bens ready made rice, 2 suave professionals products (but I'm still waiting on these coupons to arrive by mail), two 12 packs of Pepsi, and a few things I can't remember. I'm still waiting for another free italian greyhound coupon. 

Ew, guess who. Spit bubbles and snagle tooth. 

First Big Step

We made our first big baby purchase for when we do foster care. The sears by us was having a close-out sale and we found a great price on a 3-in-one crib.

I've gone a little baby-crazy since then buying clearance baby and kids clothes.  I think I will have serious baby fever when we move and I can actually start setting up a bedroom and a playroom. And I was so pleasantly surprised to find such a cute wooden cookie set on sale at the craft store for a dollar. I really want a wood kitchen play set. I'll have to get creative and see what I can come up with. I've also been stalking craigslist and store ads for sewing machines so I can whip up an abundance of felt play food.

We'll also be starting the foster care paperwork, classes, and home-study process once we find a home! We've looked at a few, but haven't found the right one yet. We I have a huge list of wants/needs for our next place and hate to settle for anything less. It's probably a little ridiculous to have such high expectations for our price-range, but I think God will either find us the perfect house or change our idea of what the perfect house is.  Tomorrow we'll be looking at a one level 2 bedroom with a great location relative to shopping and  a big yard, and a 3 story 4 bedroom with a great location in relation to school and parks. I'm really hoping that we love one of these houses so we can get started with everything else!

April Showers Bring April Flowers

It's been pretty rainy out here lately (but without any of the good strong storms, unfortunately). Rainy days are perfect for baking! I saw a really cool idea for rainbow cupcakes, and thought we could  use a little rainbow at the end of our rain so I decided to try them out. You just add food coloring to cake batter and layer the colors. Pretty easy as long as you don't mind using and washing a lot of bowls. It turns out I didn't have any cake mix, so I thought I would be all baker-like and make one from scratch. It didn't go over so well, but at least now I can say I've baked a cake from scratch. I had to make a meringue in the process and I spent quite a while whipping those little eggs with my electric beaters, which made me think 'how did people EVER make a meringue before electric mixers?'.  Mine was not achieving the desired consistency, and I was getting bored after a few minutes of whipping where all I had to do was hold a mixer. I can't imagine how tired my arms would be (or what good shape my arms would be in) if I had to do it by hand.

Yes, this is a cupcake.

There are lots of cherry trees here, and in the past week they all started blooming. It is really magnificently beautiful. There are whole streets lined with cherry trees. Seeing trees covered in white, but not from snow, is so gorgeous. It is such a peaceful sight. I love when the wind blows through them and makes dozens of white petals float through the air. I'm hoping that their blooms will last long enough that I can get some pictures of the pink trees too.

Chicken Nuggets and Rice

I'm getting more and more excited to start doing foster care. As soon as we find a new apartment or house that has more room we can start the application process! Our current lease is up in a couple months so we're starting to look for homes. We've been talking about doing foster care for a long time, but now it seems like it's just right around the corner. I've slowly been collecting kids friendly recipes, craft ideas, reading foster care books, and doing additional reading in child psychology. Sometimes during my break at work I just sit around and organize fun things for when we're foster parents.

We recently found our freezer overtaken by bargain priced meats, so I decided it was time to try a kid-friendly but healthy meal. Chicken Nuggets (baked, not fried) and tofu nuggets! I've never made my own chicken nuggets, and it was fun. It was more work than I'd probably like to do unless I made a big batch and put them in the freezer. But they tasted just like chicken nuggets (so not too exciting unless you love chicken nuggets) - but I think a picky eater would definitely eat these up! When I make them again I might try grinding up the chicken and then making them into fun shapes (because there weren't already enough steps involved?). I'm sure it'd be cheaper (time-wise) to just buy chicken nuggets, but that would be less fun and less healthy. The tofu nuggets were also very good, and will be made again.

Smokie has such long legs that it's hard for him to reach his food. The result - how far out do you have to stick your legs out until you can reach your food? And yes, he is eating rice. Right now he's crying because he can smell rice but doesn't have any. Sometimes we find that if we leave our rice cooker open he cleans it for us if we don't watch him carefully. Naughty weasel.

Hooray!

Yippy! Today we paid off one student loan! It was the smaller of my loans, but it still feels good. One down, one to go!