Finding harmony in family, finance & military life

On June 25th Brent along with 7 of his military brothers from the Seymour Johnson K9 section participated in the Super Spartan Race held in South Carolina. SSgt Andrew Rounds wrote up a quick article about what they did and why they did it and I wanted to share that with all of you. So kick back and enjoy the read while trying to imagine the amount of grime all of us K9 wives had to wash out of our husbands clothes the next day! Just kidding I am so proud of our guys, the great job that they do and the sacrifices they make. K9 truly does lead the way! "The Super Spartan obstacle course race provides an 8+ mile battlefield of insane mud running with 15+ obstacles.The K9 section had a team of 8. MSgt Nathan Nash, SSgt Brent Reimers, SSgt Andrew Rounds, SSgt Dale Morgan Jones, SSgt James Bailey, SrA John Makripodis, SrA Joseph Swartout and SrA Matthew Halligan.  We ran this race in dedication to SSgt Ben Seekell and Charlie, our brother who was wounded in Afghanistan in Ma...

Can you tell I am having a busy summer? I know it has been awful quiet around here, but trust me it has been gloriously loud on the home front. So please don't give up on me yet I assure you once school starts back up in a couple weeks you will get sick and tired of reading posts from a bored out of her mind mom. It is always a strange transition going from 5 to only 2 kids in the house. I think I prefer the 5 to be honest. Plus do not forget my great coupon resource page and my recipe page! We did a half way cross country drive with the kids (yes all five) earlier this month and it was great! The first leg of our trip was from North Carolina to Kansas City, Missouri where I have an Aunt, Uncle and a couple cousins. It was an 18 hour drive straight through. The portable DVD player and DS games were our saving grace the entire trip I am very proud of how well the kids did. We had a great time! Brent went on a Harley Davidson Tour while the kids and I checked out some fun stuff at ...

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...