Kaake Family Blog

Picture borrowed from http://moneysavingmom.com/2011/09/get-a-jump-start-on-holiday-shopping.html/christmas-presents I love to plan my Christmas gifts starting in January.  This helps me not only save money but save sanity.  I save money because I have all year to look for those specific items and it saves my sanity because my family is not stressed about what to get someone.  We're prepared. Here's a few steps that have helped me. 1. First decide if you want to make all/some of your gifts.  If you want to make them, try to find neat and unique ideas online.  I LOVE pinterest.com for getting great ideas. 2. Is there someone in your family that has a lot of stuff?  For those people I get the same thing every year.  For our grandparents we do pictures in some form and homemade goodies.  For my mom and dad, I always get them a gift certificate to a Bed and Breakfast and add in something small for each one. 3. Make a list of everyone...

Some people think I'm crazy, some envy me and some do the same thing I do. Granted, everyone has those hard to buy for people. They change their mind like the changing of the wind. Those people I purchase things for last. However, for kids, some adults and parents, if you have an idea of what you want to do, why not buy ahead? Why? 1. $20-$30 spent here or there doesn't seem like a big deal. Hundreds of dollars in one month does. It causes many people to put things on credit cards or not hold up their end of a gift bargain if they have drawn names. Totally not fair for anyone. 2. It gives you time to bargain shop. I love finding special goodies in clearance sections, especially for my nieces and nephews. Then, I can get them more than I normally would have if I would have purchased everything at retail price. 3. It makes the season itself much less stressful because you've already done most of your shopping. Here are a couple tips: 1. Keep totes or bin...

Matt planting our $5 tree. It's 3 years old now and is gorgeous!!! A variety of basil panted in a container. Our lovely calendula. This is a family favorite grown from seed. Cherry tomatoes. Squash Another variety of basil. That was just a bit of what I grew a couple years ago. Bean plant. Lovely lavender! Many times I've wanted to plant a massive garden or have several plants I could simply not afford. Not just that but other things such as mulch, weed blankets and more. I hope you find the tips below as helpful as we have. Please feel free to add your own gardening tips. 1. Purchase trees at the end of the season. We've gotten a few trees for $5 and $10 at the end of the season. We planted them and they've done just fine! Talk about a huge savings! You can also do this with bulbs and other plants. :) 2. Use newspaper for weed barrier protection instead of the weed blankets. You'll want to do this fairly thick; anywhere from 5...

So much has been going on here in our household. Nothing that God can't handle and for that I'm thankful. First up, the reason I have not posted much is because ever since I've had my son, my health has been very up and down. Praise the Lord for his guidance as to what needed to be done. I'm still building myself up but I'm doing much better. The kids and I had been very sick for a couple weeks as well (not nearly as bad for about 9 of those days). I'm hoping the creeping crud stays away now. lol! Most interesting is that my son, Joshua is such a joy. He's an amazing little boy with such a great personality. He's always so happy and LOVES to talk. Him and his brother will have so much fun as they get older, I just know it. HE's so in love with each person in our family. Lyshie plays like a little mommy and takes good care of him when I need her for a few minutes. They sure love each other! As a family we're learning a verse p...

Today we went to Goodwill again. Thankfully it's only 3-4 minutes from my house. We usually don't find anything for Allysha but this time we hit the jackpot! We got her two pairs of jeans that fit perfect! That in itself is very hard to do. You can see the pretty embellishments in the picture above. We also got her the jean jacket you see in the picture and all the shirts as well as the little dress (which will be worn over pants). The dress, and one of the shirts still had the tags on them! The red hooded fleece jacket I got for myself. I got it a size or two bigger so that I can wear my son in a sling and still put the coat over him. It zips from the bottom up so that I can only zip it up as far as we need to. I'm super excited about that! Last but not least, I got Joshua the little hat and Allysha a picture holder. You know those pretty boards that have ribbon on them and you slip the pictures in? Well I got her one of those. It is purple with butterflies...

It's been so long since I've updated again that I thought I'd post a few fun things. First, my husband came home the other day with a huge bouquet of real (not hybrid) roses. Absolutely gorgeous! The picture above does not capture all their beauty. It was a much needed surprise that day as things had been hard. Talk about making my week:) With everything going on, the ER visits and other such issues, I had to start resting and putting up my feet more than I would have liked. So, because of that and the reminder of an amh friend that Christmas is only 6 months away, I started making up my Christmas list and doing a bit of shopping here and there as I saw things on clearance/sale. I'm totally done with my nieces, Lyshie and have something for my mom. I have figured out for everyone else except siblings what we'll be doing. For the nieces and nephews, with their gifts I'm giving them crayon cakes (all except 1 niece cause she's just too young)....

Just thought I'd share an updated picture since I hit the beginning of my 6th month and a picture of a diaper cover/soaker I made for my son Joshua out of fleece. I had so much fun making it. I can't wait to make more - Matt just has to fix my sewing machine. All in good time. I also just calculated how far the kids and I walked yesterday and it was exactly 1 mile. Lyshie was pretty excited about that. I hope to do more later but that's good enough for just starting out. I'll still keep up with my pg exercises - it feels good!

Here are the ones I've found lately that I like the most. They are easy for someone like me;) I have tried Rita's Rump, and the Sweater Pants and love them both. I also added a bib pattern. It works much better than other store bought bibs because it covers more. We even take extra long tea towels and just tie a loose knot around the back of their neck. It works great. Enjoy the links! Sweater pants/longies and soakers: http://www.borntolove.com/frugal -column2.html http://www.cafepress.com/thatski ndacool/864331 sewing all kinds of dipes: http://fernandfaerie.com/frugald iapering.html fleece soaker pattern: http://katrinassqs.blogspot.com/ 2007/10/free-soaker-pattern.ht ml http://www.geocities.com/Heartla nd/Oaks/1126/sewfleece.html Bib: here is a bib pattern - http://sewing.about.com/od/sewingf orbabychildren/ss/towelbib.htm Rita's Rump pocket pattern - http://handmadebyrita.blogspot.com /2007/10/classic-rrp-ritas-rum p-pocket-pattern.html ...

You've heard it said, if you currently drink a $2 every day, you could save a huge amount of money simply making it at home instead of purchasing it. After all, a coffee at that price daily would come to a total of $730 per year. Keep in mind, that's just the coffee, not bagels, muffins, etc.... What if you're like our family and don't go for the average American frills such as morning coffee, cable tv, 2 vehicles, etc.... We do save a lot of money, but is there more we could be doing? Here is a list of things we do currently to save money. Please feel free to post your ideas below in the comments section. First thing first....make a note of items you truly need and things you can do without. Almost any financial adviser would say to make sure you have something special or a little thing here and there that you don't give up - a frill. That way you don't go on spending sprees. If you need to do that, make sure this is a low cost item not done on a regu...

I found this idea at this site and loved it! What a great way to ease into a Monday after a busy weekend and use up some little bits of food here and there. The kids are totally loving it. Lyshie's Tin has the following: Baked Wheat Crackers Dates and Bananas Refried Beans Carrots Tortilla Chips Celery and Dip Jon's tin is a mini tin so it has duplicates in it: Cottage Cheese Baked Wheat Crackers Swiss Cheese Cubes Carrots Dates Refried Beans Bananas Celery

The kids and I picked up Matthew from a friends home after the retreat. We went to a nice dinner at Ruby Tuesday then went to Meijer to find something I had been watching to go on sale even further. It had the last time I was there but I didn't get it. Well, it was gone and I was really bummed. Matt told me that it's ok and that something better would come along. Fast forward 20 minutes later. I decided to go to Goodwill to see if I could find any linens, wool sweaters to recycle or anything else fun. Not quite 2 weeks ago I found the most beautiful picture with an old, antique frame. It was only 24.99 but I still didn't want to spend that on it. I had gotten my items to purchase and while in line looked across the other side of the room and there it was! I had looked earlier but it wasn't in the same place it was before. Since I knew I couldn't reach it and it was closing time, I asked the cashier if someone could see if it had a purple tag since purple ...