Aiden's Dairy Free Chocolate Birthday Cake

I can't believe it but my lil man turned 2! My life has been absolutely filled with joy every day since God loaned him to me. It is such a joy to be a mom and to have the opportunity to stay home and raise him according to God's Word. :)

Aiden hiding in his lil fort!

Last year for his 1st birthday he did not have cake - so sad I know! Aiden has had several different allergies since he was born and as a result doesn't get to enjoy all of the food that is available to him. So this year I really wanted to give him a cake! He currently is only allergic to dairy now so I decided to whip up a dairy free Bulldozer cake. :)  

I am not the best baker when it comes to Dairy Free foods so I decided to go to the box of dairy free cake mix for help! I used Cherrybrook Farm Chocolate Cake Mix from Whole Foods. It was pretty good - it had chocolate chips in the cake mix - but you could definitely tell it was dairy free - my son LOVED it though! For the dairy free chocolate frosting, I selected a recipe that I found at GoDairyFree. That has been a great site for coming up with Dairy Free foods for my lil man! For toppings, I bought a bag of Enjoy Life brand's Dairy Free Chocolate Chips and poured them all over the cake and then took some Oreo cookies, crushed them and made a big pile of "dirt". My son picked out the truck at Dollar Tree and I stuck it on top!

When my son saw this cake he said " WOW!" then he ate it and loved every bite! I might have to make this in cupcakes next time for him but really try to do it homemade.... :)

Our DIY Home Project: Gravel Driveway/Concrete Pad

I know it has been quite some time since I posted anything - but I have decided that my life is pretty busy! Between serving my family wholeheartedly, serving the Lord at church and other ministries that I love, saving money with extreme couponing, crafting, gardening, and getting my fixer upper house in order, I am pretty swamped. But I thought it would be fun to share with you our latest accomplishment:

My hubby and I were extremely blessed to be able to purchase a foreclosure last December for an amazing price. It had everything that we wanted: a lot of trees, a huge area for a garden, 2 acres of land, a lot of privacy, located near family, not too far from church since we are there 3-4 days a week, and a large enough house that we can grow into with a room for my hubby to work from. We didn't necessarily focus on those cosmetic things that we could fix later. There was a lot (and still is) work to be done inside, but I am just so excited about our MAJOR project that we did this past weekend that is outside of the home. I am so proud of my hubby - I am truly blessed to have a hubby that could essentially build a house from scratch all on his own :)

Project: Install a Concrete Pad and Gravel Driveway

We really needed a new driveway. When we purchased the home, the driveway was soooooo muddy! We are super clean people so we needed to have a solution - ASAP! Not to mention I wanted to start entering the house from the front door and not the laundry room :)

Here is the front of the house before:

After we laid down the gravel driveway, my hubby started digging out the space for the concrete pad and sidewalk. Once he had that completed, he started on the forms with his favorite little helper:

Here is what the completion of the forms looked like just before the concrete was poured:

Here is the final product with the new gravel driveway and poured concrete pad after many hours of hard labor: 

I am SO excited that we can now park our cars on concrete and not bring mud into the house or into the cars! YAY! Praising the Lord for being able to get this HUGE project accomplished!

Now all we need is a basketball hoop to complete the look :)

For Homeschooling: FREE Pumpkin PreSchool Pack

I came across a Facebook update from the 1+1+1=1 Blog yesterday about this Pumpkin Preschool Pack that she made. I thought it was great and super appropriate for the current time of year. :) It isnt just for "Preschool" I will probably use some of it for my 18 month old since we have already started on a few homeschool lessons.

Go HERE to download a FREE Pumpkin Preschool Pack.

She seems to have a lot of really great homeschooling ideas as well, so be sure to check it out more often for updates. If I see anything, I will post it as well.

For Homeschooling: FREE Educational Posters for History

I was checking out MoneySavingMom.com's blog and I came across these 2 posters that are great for homeschooling on explaining the processes of becoming a president and the purpose of the electoral college in elections. I am not homeschooling yet as my lil guy is only 18 months, however, we will be starting soon enough so I will get my hands on all the FREE materials I can get my hands on.

Go to these links to print and/or save to your computer:

How Do I Become a President? Poster

2012 Electoral College Poster and more....

Enjoy!

25 Ways to Wear a Scarf....

I LOVE SCARVES!! I always like a scarf for a fun and quick accessory to a great outfit!

With Fall here and winter quickly approaching, I thought this video would be appropriate for all the scarf lovers out there! I love how she shows how to wear the scarf in 25 different ways in less than 5 minutes! I would have to say I will DEFINITELY try to wear the scarf all 25 ways this winter! I have a fun stash of scarves so I can't wait to bust them out this season! :)

Hope you enjoy! :)

Something I Love: Wipe Off Weekly Menu Boards

 I have mentioned in the past how it is SO important to have a meal plan for the week based on the grocery store's current sales to be successful as a couponer.  I was just looking through some of the blogs that I follow and I came across this super cute Wipe Off Weekly Menu Board from the Little Birdie Secrets Blog. I usually just have my menu plan written out on a piece of paper but I LOVE this stylish way of displaying the menu for the week and the ability to reuse it with the use of a dry erase marker.

This is very easy to put together. If you are a scrapbooker, you might be able to find some leftover scrapbook paper in your scrapbook binder and use that for the background. I will be using a 12x12 frame that I have stored away and a scrapbook page that I found that goes great with my current decor. So I will be able to duplicate this great menu plan with a few things that I have around the house. 

Go HERE for the full tutorial!!

Start Using those Coupons on Clearance Items!

Question: Can I use coupons on Clearance Items??

That was a HUGE question I used to have. Whenever I go to Target, Kroger, CVS, Walgreens, or even clothes shopping for that matter, I always go straight to the clearance aisle/rack. I don't like to pay full price for anything! So I wondered if I could buy a clearance item and then apply a coupon to it for MAXIMUM savings!! So I tried it out and I got really excited when I gave the cashier my coupon for my clearance item and by golly it worked! Praise God for great deals!

So here is a fun example of a purchase I made with a coupon on a Clearance Item:

I was at Target, with a Starbucks in hand, on my Friday night date with my fantastic hubby and 1 year old and I found an Ironman Action Figure on the clearance rack. I had just printed a coupon for 'ANY Ironman 2 Figure' so I grabbed it and went on my way. Here was my savings:

IronMan 2 Action Figure:

Originally $10.69

Clearance Price: $5.34

Coupon: $3.00 off ANY IronMan2 Action Figure (printable cpn from Hasbro site, no longer avail.)

Final Price: $2.34

I use this particular example to show you that you can use coupons for anything, even toys for our lil bundles of joy! :)

Happy Couponing!