Finding harmony in family, finance & military life

I wanted to take a moment to post the commissary coupon policy for all of my military readers. I also want to share a wonderful resource for both military and civilian couponers. If you have expired coupons or coupons that you know you will no be using before they expire please send them to Coups For Troops PO Box 147 Winnabow NC 28479 http://www.coupsfortroops.com/ Troops stationed overseas can use coupons up to six months past the expiration date and would really appreciate your donation. I also wanted to point out that while the policy states you can not combine coupons on the purchase of an item I have been able to stack coupons with no problem at my commissary. This meaning I have used a coupon that is either a "Buy one get one free" or a "$ off on the purchase of two" and combined it with a "$ off on the purchase of one" coupon.  Coupon Use In Commissaries Question Answer Do commissaries accept coup...

I have a three year old son named Justice who is the busiest child I know. Today for example I needed him to sit down and watch a movie with his little sister so I could get the budget balanced and then make lunch. I do not think they watched very much of the movie at all. Kady actually ended up following me into the office while Justice bounced from one room to the next finally deciding on causing mischief of the electronic sorts. He figured out a long time ago how the Xbox and Wii work or at least the basics of it so he took out the DVD that was in the Xbox and put it in the Wii I can only assume for safe keeping. He then grabbed one of our new Kinect Xbox games and put it in the Xbox promptly loosing the case for the game. Cue mommy walking in at that point looking for Kady's cup of water so I could snuggle her. Forget snuggling I had to rescue the Xbox remote that Justice was shaking madly at the TV saying "It won't work" and get the game out of the Xbox that he...

Last night was the night to make that cheesy noodle recipe with the frozen egg noodles I did not use on the night we ended up eating fried chicken. I planned a meatless dinner since we are getting to the bottom of our freezer stash and the only meat left in there was a bag of chicken nuggets we are eating tonight. When I told Brent it would be a meatless dinner he actually gave me the pout lip and so I had to come up with something better. I told him the only other meat we really had was bacon and he said hey that actually sounds good so Daddy Mac n Cheese was born. What you need: 1 Stick of butter 6 TBSP flour squirt of mustard dash of salt and pepper 4 cups of milk 1 pound of cheddar cheese shredded plus a little more if you like it cheesy I added in a little bit of Wisconsin cheddar I had sitting in the cheese drawer. 2 bags of the 16 oz frozen Ms. Reames Egg Noodles about a pound of thick cut apple wood smoked bacon cut up into little pieces To start get the water boil...

So I am a bragger big time especially on facebook. I have been sharing my ideas, frustrations, successes and lots of pictures from my kitchen with all of my friends that literally has them drooling. So today I am going to share a bit about the last two great meals that I posted about and the recipes to go with them. First the fried chicken I said I was going to make last night turned out great. I have to confess though I hate making fried chicken, at least the bone in kind, I just can not get it to taste quite right ever. I can make killer fried steak, I can fry up a mean catfish but for some reason chicken has not been kind to me. Last night I searched for tips on how to fry chicken found one that I liked and got started. Now the breading is simple my own concoction I mixed about two cups of flour with a lot and I mean a lot of Old Bay seasoning in a big ziplock bag took the freshly rinsed and dried thigh put it in the bag shook it up real good then dipped it in a wash made of 1 1...

Today was supposed to be chicken and noodles over mashed potatoes day according to that nice 21 meal menu I shared with you all earlier in my posts. Well I apparently bought bone in skin on chicken thighs instead of the boneless skinless kind I prefer to use in chicken and noodles. So I am changing up the menu. I am frying us up those thighs with a little old bay seasoning in the flour yum! Still gonna mash up the potatoes I bought at the store this morning and serving raw baby carrots on the side. I will steam a few of those for baby Kady though so she can enjoy dinner with us. I also whipped up a quick cheesecake too! I call it a Mock Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake because it reminds me of the Godiva Chocolate cheesecake I had from the Cheesecake Factory. However it is actually called Chocolate Velvet Pie  the recipe is actually found on the back of some Nestle Toll House packages and it is so simple. All you need is 1 3/4 cup melted milk chocolate morsels,  8 ounces so...

 It is summer break oh what to do? Sleep away the hours or spend them all with you. Pour over a book, watch a great flick, get lost in imagination yup that should do the trick. I will not think about school or work only play and lazy days is how I will spend the summer away... This afternoon was the first weekday of summer break so after spending the morning cleaning the house... Wait what did you say!? Yes, I cleaned the house with all five of the kids at home crazy as it sounds I actually seem to function better when they are all home with me. So as I was saying after I picked up the house, vacuumed, swept, mopped, laundered and loaded dirty dishes I made a lasagna with Skylar. It was the first homemade lasagna I have ever made. I know, I know pretty crazy thing to have on my first ever list but I have a very good reason for never making it from scratch "TIME"! I have never had complaints about a frozen Stoufers Lasagna so the desire to make one from scratch was never r...

Last month we got to go on a weekend adventure to D.C.! Brent and I have been meaning to take the kids to D.C. for awhile we just never had the chance to do it. Since our good friends Ben and Meagan Seekell were staying at Walter Reed we finally had a great excuse to just get up and go.   D.C. is a lot like every other big city in the fact that it is over crowded, very busy and booming with industry. However you feel something different as you make your way through D.C. that you do not often feel anywhere else you feel PATRIOTIC! I do not know how else to explain it, the feeling over comes you as you enter the city and transforms you as you explore every part of it. American history is oozing out of every inch of the place and the biggest part of our history is our military. We enjoyed checking out art exhibits and one of the many fabulous and free museums. We walked the mall from the History and Science Museum all the way to the Abe Lincoln Memorial. The Washington Monum...

Rite Aid has made a few changes to their coupon policy. The most upsetting change to me is that we are no longer allowed to match a BOGO coupon to a BOGO sale. Lets face it they are not loosing any money by allowing us to use the coupon with the sale since the manufacturer is reimbursing them the price of the item we got for free with the coupon so really they should not be putting this limit on their shoppers. I know I will be watching for good BOGO sales elsewhere to match future BOGO coupons to. Sorry Rite Aid but this change took you down a couple notches on my favorite places to go coupon shopping list! Here is a link to the full revised coupon policy so you can print it out and keep it handy the next time you need it shopping at Rite Aid. It says August still in the link but it takes you to the revised May 2011 edition. http://content.riteaid.com/stores/CustomerCouponAcceptancePolicyAugust2010.pdf