Coffee or tea drinker? Try two half pound boxes of Gevalia Kaffe or tea and get a coffeemaker and stainless steel coffee scoop FREE. Delivered to your home for $14.95, with free shipping! All yours to keep with no further obligation, just for beginning a Gevalia Membership. The coffee and tea is delicious and there are over 50 varieties to choose from. And the coffeemaker is actually pretty good quality.  My parents have had several of their pots over the years and they have all been great.

1. Choose a black or white coffee maker
2. Select what flavor of coffee and/or tea you want to try
3. Enter your shipping information
4. Pay the $14.95 and you'll receive your coffee maker, coffee/tea, and scoop within a couple weeks. 

About a month later, you'll receive 2 more boxes of the coffee/tea you selected. If you wish, you may change the quantities and types of coffee you receive at any time, the frequency of your shipments, or cancel at any time by calling 1-800-GEVALIA (1-800-438-2542). Gevalia is really nice about taking care of your requests. No hassles.

Prices of coffees and teas vary, ranging from $5.95 - $9.95 per package (with some specialty coffees priced higher), plus $5.95 shipping and handling unless otherwise noted.

At this price, this would make a great affordable Christmas gift for someone.

Adoption: How Are We To Help?

Mary from Owlhaven attended a conference on adoption a week or so ago and blogged about the various sessions.  I cannot seem to get her post on James 1:27 and the Church out of my head.  

I have several friends who are either adopted or going through adoption so I know how much it can affect a family.  I never gave it much thought before though on how it can affect a city.  What can you do to support those going through adoption or foster care?

School Lunch

This year my child is going to an all day pre-k program so for first the time, I'm having to pack a lunch for him each day. I'm only a few days in to it and I'm already bored with our choices.  Of course, it doesn't help that I have a picky child who desperately needs to eat calories.  Let's just say I'm glad we are not at a nut free school.

Today I came across this great resource called Smart School Time Recipes.  It is a free ebook full of healthy recipes. I'm anxious to try some of them out and see if I can expand our repertoire of food. If anyone else has good ideas, feel free to share them in the comments section.

Solo Photo Cup Contest

Solo is having an online photo contest through August 6.  The grand prize is $5,000 for posting the best photo featuring Solo products.  There are also two $1,000 runner-up prizes and daily and weekly prizes simply for entering.

Solo sent me a "Celebrate Summer with Solo" pack so we could enter the contest.  Included in it were some of the new Squared cups, items to decorate the cups with, flower seeds, and treats.  

My oldest is used to deliveries coming daily to our house due to this blog and Tupperware.  He asks every time if it is for him and sadly I have to almost always say no.  When this box arrived he was ecstatic when I told him he could use what was inside the box.  We immediately opened it and he couldn't wait to decorate a cup.  The above picture is him laying in our kitchen floor decorating the cup with a glitter pen.  He had a blast and was very excited to plant the seeds in his decorated cup.

Grab a Solo cup, take a fun picture, then head on over to the contest and enter your photo for a chance to win.  Hurry though as the contest ends this Friday, August 6.

Disclaimer: MomSelect and Solo provided me with the above prize pack.  No other compensation occurred.

Savings With Shoe Carnival

Shoe Carnival is offering a great buy one, get one 1/2 off sale right now.  On top of that, you can get a surprise coupon for additional $5, $10, or $15 discount.  This could make for some inexpensive summer shoes if you need some (and what girl couldn't use a new pair or two of shoes?).

Freezer Cooking Update

I'm not quite done with freezer cooking for this month but I have made a lot of progress.  If I had one long chunk of time it would make things easier but I take the moments as they come.

On Friday I made french toast sticks and hashbrowns.  I only did a small batch of the hashbrowns as I want to see how my husband likes them first.  If he approves, I will make more soon.


This weekend was busy as my husband was on call so I wasn't able to cook anything until today.  This morning I made porcupine meatballs and ground beef pasties.  Neither of these are things my husband would eat but I've been wanting to try them so I made them in order to have a quick dinner on the nights that he is gone.  Tonight, I made a meatloaf and I made the recipe that makes two.  One is in the freezer and we ate the other one for dinner.  I plan on sharing that recipe with you all soon.


I still hope to make banana bread, turkey enchiladas and roasted chicken.  Those will be made later this week as time allows.  It feels good to have a few things in the freezer though and my kids are already enjoying the french toast sticks.

Moms Nite Out

This is the second year for the National Moms Nite Out and this year the event is Thursday, May 6.  Our local mall is hosting a Mom's Nite Out and I encourage all of my local readers to head out to the mall for the evening.  There will be swag bags, discounts at several stores, a drawing for a makeover, food and beverage tastings, a fashion show, and more.  The event is from 6-9 pm so tell your husbands they get parenting duty for a few hours while you spend some much needed time with your friends at the mall.


To find an event in your area, check out the Moms Nite Out event page.  In many cities, the event takes place at Children's Orchard or a Simon Mall.  If there is not an event in your area, it is not too late to create your own in your home or use the power of the internet to have an online Moms Nite Out via Twitter or Facebook.

*I have partnered with my local Simon Mall and MomSelect for Mom's Nite Out.  I have received no payment for this post.  I will receive one table at the event to display information about my blog and my business.

Tickler File Tames The Paper Tiger

A few weeks ago I wrote about winning a phone consultation from Simple Organized Sanity (SOS) and I promised I would share some tips as I put them into practice. The first tip I want to share she actually mentioned the day before at our MOPS group but we talked about it in a little more detail on our phone call.  


Christie talked about using a tickler file to organize everyday paper that tends to clutter our house.  The basic concept is to fill a file box with 31 files - one for each day of the month.  Feel free to add more for special items as needed.  For instance, I have one for items that need to be filed as my office is in my basement and my life happens on the main floor.  I also keep a file for coupons.  Whenever a bill, permission slip, or any other item that needs action comes into your house, file it on the day that action needs to be taken.  An example is a bill that is due on the 24th - if I am paying this online I would file it probably on the 22nd so I would know it would be paid on time.


Each day, open the file for that day and take action on everything in the file.  As that paper is taken care of, if it needs to be filed in your office, move it to the To Be Filed folder.  Then, designate a time each week to file that folder.


This simple filing system has saved me time and is helping tame the paper tiger that exists in my house.  My house is still a disaster because I have not had time to completely clear all of the piles sitting on my counters but all new paper that enters my house is promptly filed.  I have high hopes that one day the remaining piles will be gone and you will be able to find my kitchen counter again.  I also like that I can tackle a task or two at a time instead of waiting until I have an overwhelming amount to do and trying to accomplish it all at once.  It has taken a lot of stress out of my daily life.

Busy Mom's Bible Review

Zondervan sent me the Busy Mom's Bible to review. I've been looking for something quick and easy for my daily Bible time and this fits perfectly with what I need at this stage of my life.  There are 52 thought starters spread throughout the Bible.  Each one has a quick one minute verse and topic to read.  It then has options for if you have an extra five or ten minutes.  At the end of each thought starter is a "word to take with you today".  I like this because one word is pretty easy to remember and I can think on this topic as I go throughout my day.


There are other great features besides just the thought starters.  First of all, the cover is made in a fun pink leather.  Since it is pink, I don't think I'll have to worry about my husband or boys taking it.  Second, it has great references such as weights and measurements conversions, a concordance, and colorful maps.


I'm looking forward to using this Bible daily and think it would make a great gift for any new mom.

Disclaimer: Zondervan sent me the Bible to review, no other compensation occurred.

Saving Money With Tupperware at Thrifty and Chic Mom

This weekend I have a guest post up at Thrifty and Chic Mom.  Ellen is going room by room through her house and sharing tips and items that work for her. This past week she has been in the kitchen.  Check out my post on saving money with Tupperware and then visit the rest of this series to see what room she is going to next.

Food Friday: Prep Work for Future Meals

Instead of a recipe today, I'm going to share my plan for another round of Freezer Cooking with Money Saving Mom.  As I've stated before, I'm not one to spend hours in the kitchen cooking for the month.  I usually make a double recipe of a dish instead.  However, last month I did more prep work instead of full meals and I found it very hand so that is going to be my focus this time too.  Here is what I hope to accomplish early next week when I cook along with everyone else participating in Freezer Cooking Days.


- Ground Beef - 4 lbs
- Chicken - cook up several breasts, marinate thighs/legs
- Pizza dough
- Muffin Mix
- Pancakes - I already have the mix made, I will be making a few batches to put in the freezer

Giveaway: Yophoria & Health Wise Yogurt

Hiland Dairy recently sent me some coupons to try out their new Yophoria Smoothies and Health Wise Yogurt. I was excited to try this because Hiland Dairy is in my backyard and I like to support local businesses. 

I first tried the YoPhoria Probiotic Smoothie.  I'm not a huge fan of yogurt smoothies but thought I would give this one a try.  I tried the Strawberries & Cream and it was ok - nothing out of this world but nothing awful either.  Something about liquid yogurt is not exciting to me but this was decent enough that I would pick one up again if it was on sale.

Next, I tried the new Health Wise Probiotic Yogurt.  I really liked this one.  I tried it in pomegranate blueberry.  Although a few more calories than I normally consume in a yogurt, Health Wise is still fairly healthy.  It is very creamy and does not taste healthy at all though.  Here is what Hiland Dairy has to say about this new yogurt:


Health Wise works to restore the good bacteria in your body, and with 15% of your DV of calcium per serving, you will be on your way to a healthier you!


I have two Yophoria and two Health Wise coupons for you to try!  To enter, please leave a comment below.  This giveaway will close at 9 pm CST on Friday, March 5 and a winner will be chosen via random.org.


For extra entries:

1. Subscribe to this blog.
2. Follow me on Twitter @LifeWithLess
3. Tweet about this contest.  

* Disclaimer: I was given an identical gift pack to try this product, however, no other compensation occurred.

A Swagtastic Birthday

Today is a day to celebrate - Swag Bucks is turning 2, my best friend is turning 30, another childhood friend is having her twin girls today, and my oldest turns 4 tomorrow.  I think this calls for some celebration. 


First of all, let me tell you about Swag Bucks.  I've been using this search engine for about a year and a half and I earn free prizes simply for doing everyday searches.  My favorite prizes to redeem are Amazon.com and Starbucks gift cards.  I've used the Amazon cards for the past two Christmases to purchase many of my gifts.  I save the Starbucks cards for those few times I actually get out of the house alone.  I "treat" myself to a yummy drink and enjoy savoring every sip.  

To celebrate today, Swag Bucks has rolled out a new website and converted their points from 1 point to 10 points.


Of course, a celebration needs cake. Here is a picture of last year's cow birthday cake.  In the post is also a link to my favorite chocolate cake recipe.  This year, my son has requested a Thomas the Tank Engine cake.  I'm a bit intimidated by it since I'm still learning cake decorating but I'm also excited for the challenge.  I made the face yesterday and it is pretty good for a first time effort.  If I had more time, I would do it again as I learned so much while making it.  I do plan to share pictures if the cake looks decent.


Finally, I will be posting a giveaway later today or early tomorrow to celebrate.  Stay tuned to see what it is.


Happy Birthday Tonya, Katie & Izzy, Samuel, and Swag Bucks!

OAMC - The Final Result

I wound up getting a few things made this weekend for the freezer cooking days.  If you will remember, I was cooking on the fly.

Friday, I made two batches of banana bread. I first made a loaf and decided  I wanted some as muffins too so I made the second batch.  Having made this hundreds of times I barely looked at the recipe.  Oops!  Turns out I left the sugar out.  Luckily, the bananas were very ripe and therefore sweet so the muffins are edible.  They aren't my best but they are still pretty good.

Saturday, I was supposed to have a breakfast meeting but it got canceled due to 6" of snow so I made waffles for breakfast and froze the extras.  Then, I made a ton of rice.  I froze this in smaller portions for chicken fried rice. That evening my oldest and I made chocolate chip cookies.  Amazingly, a few actually did make it to the freezer but we did eat quite a few of them.

I wanted to cook a few things Sunday but it didn't happen.  On Monday I set out to make taco bake but after I browned the ground beef I realized I was out of tomato sauce.  I froze the ground beef, green peppers, and onion mixture and I will finish the casserole another day.  I also browned up a bunch more ground beef for the freezer.  It makes weeknight cooking so much easier when I have cooked meat on hand.

I'm hoping to get pizza dough made sometime this week and then I'm done for awhile.  Yes, I could have done all of this at one time but I broke it up and simply added another task while I was cooking a regular meal.  It meant smaller amounts of time in the kitchen, yet I still accomplished some tasks that will help me out throughout the month.

Live Giveaways from Thrifty & Chic Mom

Remember last week when I wrote about using Twitter to win prizes? I recently learned of a great giveaway opportunity I wanted to let you in on.

I've been following Ellen, aka Thrifty and Chic Mom, for awhile now and she offers some great giveaways. I've even won a few myself. A few months back she decided to offer live giveaways on her blog every Monday night. It is fun to join in but gets a little crazy towards the end so she is moving the giveaways to Twitter every Monday night. For details on how to enter Monday Night Live Giveaways head over to her blog. This week she is giving away a Britax car seat, along with a few other great prizes.

While you are on Twitter, go ahead and follow me - @LifeWithLess. I'm having a blast getting to know some of you even better through Twitter.

OAMC On The Fly

This weekend, Money Saving Mom and Life as Mom are hosting freezer cooking days. I've watched the past few months as these moms have learned how to do this within their schedule and I always sit there with a bit of envy at what they can accomplish. I find cooking relaxing and would love to spend an entire day or two in my kitchen but it isn't really possible at this time in my life. However, I do stock my freezer by making double batches of items when I cook dinner.

My husband wound up not working today (more on that next week) and we are in the middle of a snow "storm" (predicted 6-12"but so far just a few have fallen) so I've decided to cook a few things. I've used all of my grocery budget for this week though and did not plan on participating so I'm not going to do a ton but every little bit helps.

This morning I threw some banana bread in the oven while my oldest was at preschool. The first batch I made as actual bread. I decided I wanted some as muffins though so I decided to make another batch. I should have double checked my recipe though as I forgot to add the sugar to the second batch. Luckily, I was using some extremely ripe bananas from my freezer so they helped sweeten the muffins. They aren't as good as usual but definitely still edible.

Later this afternoon I'm hoping to make a few more batches of pancake mix and possibly some muffin mixes.

Tomorrow for dinner I'm going to make a double recipe of something using ground beef. Not sure yet what I'm making but I hope to check out several of the other bloggers who are participating and using one of their yummy recipes.

If I find time or inspiration to make anything else I will let you know. Good luck to everyone participating!

Tweet Your Way to Prizes

I have gone back and forth with using Twitter for awhile now. I used it often when I was working but I was tweeting for my clients (social media was the majority of my job) so I didn't always want to come home and feel like I was going back to work. Recently though, I've participated in a few Twitter parties and have had a blast. I now have Tweet Deck on my desktop and I'm starting to participate more. What I'm learning is that a lot of great companies give out prizes throughout the day or through Twitter parties. I suggest you look up your favorite companies and follow them in order to earn great prizes and learn about their new products. You will also meet some great people online and form some fun friendships. While you are at it, follow me at @LifeWithLess.

Weightloss with Wii

For Christmas, my husband saved his money up and blew the budget by buying me a Wii,Wii Fit Plus, and My Fitness Coach. He found a fabulous deal on Amazon which helped a little. I've been asking for months for his encouragement with weight loss and have received very little encouragement but he thought the Wii might be just the thing that would help me. I've wanted a Wii and Wii Fit for awhile now but did not think I had time to add one more thing to my already busy day. It turns out it was a great investment.

My oldest loves to "exercise" with me. He usually stands next to me and mimics what I am doing. When he is full of energy and driving me crazy, we turn on the running game, put the remote in his pocket, and tell him to run around the couch. The first time, he ran 2 miles! Keep in mind he is just under 4 years old - now you know why I'm exhausted keeping up with him. At his preschool, they have Jazzercise once a month. He always dreads this day and usually spends part of the time in trouble. Jazzercise was this week and he came home all excited because he liked it now. When I asked what changed he said it was because he likes exercising with mommy. I thought that was precious and then realized what an influence I have on his level of activity throughout life.

I've even caught my husband trying out the Wii Fit games and he always jokes that he doesn't believe in exercise. We are both very competitive so we work towards beating each others score on all of the games. I'm praying the excitement continues once the newness wears off because I am enjoying seeing my whole family get into exercising and seeing them realize that exercise can be fun.

I also enjoy My Fitness Coach because it tells me which days to exercise and I can set up workouts according to the time I have available - as little as 15 minutes. When kids are underfoot and time is of the essence, it is great to know I can get a quick workout in.

Stay tuned as I continue through this journey of losing the baby weight. I feel I'm making a turn in this journey as I've been exercising 5 days a week now for two weeks and I'm actually starting to look forward to it each day. Next up, food challenges.

Back from a Break & Pantry Challenge

I had no intentions of being gone so long from this blog but life got in the way. Thanks to numerous holiday events and then a sick baby, there was little computer time left. During the break I cleaned out our office though so I now have a place to work on my Tupperware and blog. I'm still not sure how things will work out once my husband starts back to school in a few weeks but this is his last semester so the end is in sight!

I'm going to start off the year participating in the Eat from the Pantry Challenge that Money Saving Mom and Life as Mom are hosting. I actually was planning on doing something similar before I saw them post the challenge so this was the boost I needed to follow through. My challenge will be to eat from the freezer though. For my long time readers, you will remember that we receive a quarter of a beef every year for Christmas from my in laws. For the past few months I've been trying to eat more from the freezer in order to have space for the beef. Thanks to my husband emptying out the freezer and our other two smaller freezer spaces (more on that in a minute) we had plenty of room but we came across several bits and pieces of meals and random items that really need to be used up.

Back to the extra freezer space - A year and a half ago, we had a flood in our house when the water line broke on our fridge. Insurance did not cover the cost of the fridge and we did not have the money to fix it or buy a new one at the time. Fast forward to November 2009. We had decided we wanted to replace the fridge rather than fix it because there is no lock on the ice/water area and our oldest thinks it is fun to play with. We had been saving money towards this when an appliance store in town sent us a flyer advertising a one day sale. We went on a whim and wound up with a fabulous deal on a new fridge. We put the broken one in the garage as there have been many times we wanted an extra fridge. So, when we cleaned out the deep freeze, I put all the random items I want to use up in the garage fridge/freezer. Having it all in one space makes it a ton easier to find what needs to be used and motivates me to do something with it.

I will have to go to the store for fresh produce, milk and some pantry items this month as my pantry is only well stocked with barbecue sauce and beef broth. Somehow I don't think those two things will get me very far. My plan is to only shop the sales though and make do with what I have in my pantry. My goal is to only spend $100 this month. My normal budget is $200-250 so we will see how it goes.

We ran to the store for milk on New Year's Day and I spent $16 but I do not anticipate needing anything else this week so I'm off to a good start. I will keep you updated on how we do this month, as well as share tips and recipes using our pantry items.

Body After Baby: Week 8

This is the last week of the Body After Baby challenge at Mama Notes. I did very well last week with the water challenge but not so hot with the exercise. I did manage to get two days of exercise in though. Overall, I have lost 5 pounds during this challenge. As I've said before, I am a very slow loser while breastfeeding so I feel pretty good having lost five pounds. My challenge now is to keep those 5 lbs off during the holiday season. Congratulations to everyone on the challenge as I've seen some great results from many of you.