Frugal Friday #5

If you’re new here:  On Fridays I share a few frugal things I did during the week.  Then in the comments you to share a frugal thing or two you did during the week.  If you are a blogger feel free to link to your Frugal Friday post in the comments and we’ll come check it out.

Frugal Friday1. We ran out of butter.  Horrors!  It’s so expensive this time of year that I couldn’t bring myself to buy more than a pound at a time even though I was hoping to bake.  My mom went shopping with Heather and I, and we stopped at a grocery store to look for the sale priced pineapples.  They were sold out of pineapples but had butter for $1.99 limit 2.  All 3 of us went through the line separately to buy 2.  Let the baking begin!

Cranberry cookies 2. Heather and I needed dresses for our Christmas concerts this week.  We’ve both grown and nothing fits.  Happy for her, sad for me.  I found mine at Ross for $17 and hers at Burlington coat factory for $12.  They were both name brand dresses that retailed for $65+.  We also grabbed sparkle shoes at payless at a 50% off sale plus an additional 25% off coupon for members (About $12 a pair.)  I wouldn’t have had the coupon, but I did a quick google search to see what was out there before heading to the store.  I saved the code to my phone, just in case, even though it said “online only” and the cashier made it work.

payless sparkle shoes

3.  I used up a bag of frozen wild blueberries that had been in the freezer a little too long.  I used 4 cups of them to make blueberry muffins for snacks/breakfasts.  For half the flour, I subbed the crumbs saved from the bottom of the cereal bags over the last few weeks.  Then with the remaining blueberries and thawed liquid I made jello by adding stevia, plain gelatin and chia seeds for nutrition.  It’s delicious but the family won’t touch it–more for me ;).

blubeberry muffins blueberry jello

It’s your turn. Inspire us with some of your frugal activities this week.

We Increased our Food Budget this Month

Whew, Friends.  It is a BUSY week.  I’m in charge of 3 Christmas concerts and the doc temporarily increased my allergy medication which makes me slightly more functional than a zombie.  Two concerts are complete and the 3rd is tonight.  The rest of the weekend we are scheduled up to the minute with basketball games, church activities, and rehearsals/performances.  I’m not in charge of the rest of that (yippee!) I get to play taxi, read books, and cheer.  My favorite stuff.

I want you to know that we raised our food budget $50 for a total of $550 this month.  I thought we were doing ok on the old budget.  It was tough, but no one ever went hungry.  Then my 10 year old tried to give me $30 from his piggy bank (all he had.)  He noticed the cupboards were getting bare towards the end of the month and it concerned him.

I’m not ok with my kids worrying about family finances, or feeling the burden to provide themselves.  It was a no brainer for me to raise the budget enough to keep bread and milk in stock for his peace of mind.  At our new budget, counting 30 days in the month and 4 meals a day (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack) it averages $.57 per serving per meal.  When you break it down like that it still looks like a crazy low number.

If you are new here, we are a family of 8 with 2 teenagers, 2 tweens, and 2 younger kids that EAT. I’m on a special diet for health concerns, and my husband eats and eats and never gains weight.  I’m sure you can relate. (I mean all except that last one—I’ll never understand how he does that.) In this season of life, I’m working 3 jobs and am not as available in the kitchen as I once was.  Our finances haven’t changed, so my desire to raise the food budget means we reduced other budget categories until we can increase our income.

You can read past posts about our food budget here: How to blow your budget and end up eating stuff like “Ox Tail” but not starveDecember’s $400 challenge week 1Eating $400 in December$400 a month to feed 8New Food Budget Recommendations

p.s. January is grocery budget makeover month.  You’ll get step by step support and real solutions to spending less, especially when you’re busy–right here.  You can click the green bar at the top to sign up for free if you aren’t already subscribed to get blog posts to your inbox.

Frugal Friday #4

Frugal Friday

This is going to be a quick post!  I’ve got to get back to work so I can finish a present and run it over to a birthday party that’s already started.  I’m so happy that the party’s next door!  Having a best friend next door is every girl’s dream come true.

If you’re new here:  On Fridays I share a few frugal things I did during the week.  Then in the comments you to share a frugal thing or two you did during the week.  If you are a blogger feel free to link to your Frugal Friday post in the comments and we’ll come check it out.

  1.  I’m making a birthday present from items on hand.  Mine is a copy of this scarf with regular worsted yarn instead of super chunky.  As a bonus, I really needed some de-stress time and crocheting does that for me. We’re rounding out the gift with a fun new lip gloss from my Mary Kay stash.

Color Block Scarf Tangled happy

2.  We bought a car used with cash off craigslist.  We did a lot of research on KBB.com first and looked at all the available options.  We weighed things such as tire condition (a new set of tires is around $800) and when the next round of maintenance will need to be done–like replacing the timing belt.  Timing belts are around $1100 and if you don’t do it on time it can pop and act like a live grenade in the engine (a $3,000 mistake.)  We had our mechanic check it over for us before we bought it to make sure we knew what we were dealing with.

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It’s your turn. Inspire us with one of your frugal activities this week.

Frugal Friday #3

Frugal Friday

If you’re new here:  On Fridays I share a few frugal things I did during the week.  Then in the comments you to share a frugal thing or two you did during the week.  If you are a blogger feel free to link to your Frugal Friday post in the comments and we’ll come check it out.

  1.  My dad was hospitalized last weekend and had his gall bladder removed.  It was a little bit scary for awhile and Mom and I spent several hours together in the waiting room where they conveniently have a bistro/coffee shop.  We didn’t buy anything.
  2. It’s Black Friday and I’m staying home.  We don’t need anything, but really good deals tempt me anyway. That and the crowds make me cranky.
  3. I had to allergy proof my bedroom this week.  Turns out my intense rash was caused by breathing in fine dust particles created by dust mites.  They live everywhere, too small to be seen with the naked eye.  Some people are sensitive, some aren’t.  The doctor said if I was any more allergic I’d need to carry an epi pen, so everything in my bedroom was encased in dust mite proof wraps.  That itself was not cheap, but we saved hundreds by researching products online, reading reviews, and comparing prices.  One day I was mildly allergic, the next day SEVERE.  What causes a big swing like that?  Every doctor unanimously said, “Stress.”

It’s your turn.  What frugal things did you do this week?

The Ultimate Stocking Stuffer List

This is the best stocking stuffer list ever because all your ideas are going to be on it. I’ve started with what I can think of, then I’ll come back and add your ideas up here after you put them in the comments.  You can’t leave the page without adding an idea, got it?

This year we are only giving one gift to each of our kids.  The kids drew names among each other, so they will each have 2 gifts to open. Then there’s the stockings.  I wrapped up smaller gifts for the stockings and spent a little more on some items–up to $15. The idea is that these are things my kids actually need and will use, and won’t be clutter.  The more expensive things are items they’ve been asking for and waiting to get for awhile, but things that weren’t so important that they had to have them right away.  Things like a wallet or a watch or gloves with texting fingers.  I’d rather do fewer gifts that were useful, than fill our house with bargain clutter.  Either way I spend about the same.

I’ve linked to some items for your convenience, but they aren’t affiliate links.  My state is on the list of states that Amazon won’t work with.  

A lot of the items are generic.  I didn’t want to put the same item on each list, so I stuck it on just one of them.  I’m sure girls would like Silly Putty too and I’d be as thrilled with a protein bar as Darren would.

Food Items

Breakfast items–doughnuts, muffins, fruit, cinnamon roll, or single serving fun cereal (so the kids can eat without waking mom and dad)

Pomegranate

Oranges

Favorite Candy

Beef Jerky

Nuts

Gum

Fun food they don’t normally get to have, like Spaghetti-o’s

Restaurant Gift Cards

Dark Chocolate

Dad

Watch

Hand warmers

Wallet

Texting Gloves

Lip Balm

Pocket Knife/multi tool

Unbreakable Combs–big pack that would be good to split with friends

Protein Bars

Cough Drops

Boy

Toy Handcuffs

Nerf Bullets–big pack to share with friends 🙂

Mini Nerf Gun

Matchbox Car

Silly Putty

Mini Lego Set (or a special piece from the lego store)

Art Supplies

Playdough

DVDs (check dollar tree for these too, or even garage sales)

Glow sticks

Sidewalk Chalk

Bubbles (if it’s cold enough they will freeze in the air)

Printed Duct Tape

Ear Buds

Toothbrush

Flashlight

Bandaids

Tape

Batteries

Girl

Magic Baby Bottles

Hair Ties

Lip Gloss

Fingernail Polish

Coin Purse

Mini Wet Brush — wet brushes are our favorite

Craft supplies

Fuzzy socks or Gloves (Dollar Tree)

Cute socks–for mis-matching

Travel size items for sleepovers

Cosmetic bags for organizing

Cute School Supplies

Sunglasses (snow glares)

Stickers

Journal

Stationary

Mom

Water Bottle Carrier–this is my friend’s company and it is really good quality.  I love mine!

Texting Gloves

Purse size tissues

Kitchen Gadgets

Slippers

Gift Card for a pedicure

Washi Tape

Fashion Scarf

Earrings

Necklace

Bracelets

Wax melts

Essential Oils

AntiBac gel from bath & body works

Fingernail clippers/Tweezers

Essential oil diffusing locket

Shaker Bottle for protein shakes

Yoga Mat Spray

Pretty Tea Towels

Hand Soap in her favorite scent

Frugal Friday #2

Frugal Friday

Last week’s frugal friday was so much fun!  At first I thought no one would play along and then the comments rolled in.  That made me REALLY happy.  You inspired me to look for new ways to exercise my frugal muscles this week.

If you’re new here:  On Fridays I share a few frugal things I did during the week.  Then in the comments you to share a frugal thing or two you did during the week.  If you are a blogger feel free to link to your Frugal Friday post in the comments and we’ll come check it out.

I’ve been suffering with all over body hives for more than 2 weeks now.  My preliminary blood work shows “numerous active allergies” with more details to come.  In the past I’ve had an allergy to cats so they tested for that agin.  When the test came back negative my first thought was, “I need a cat.” My friend was giving away kittens on facebook—it would just take a second to send her a message….Then I saw this video on facebook.

  1. We didn’t get a cat.  Does that count as frugal?  Pet food, litter costs, extra cleaning, vet bills…..I’m saving big on those.  I really do love cats though.  We’ve been enjoying the friendly farm cats up at my in-law’s place.  There always seems to be a couple of kittens around there.  I’m reserving the right to splurge and get a kitten at some point…but for now, we are being frugal.  We also open our doors to family and friends for pet sitting.  Pet sitting is the joy of a pet for about as long as my kids have an attention span for them.

kitten

They are soooo cute though.

2.  Homemade hamburger buns.  I plopped a rump roast (bought over the weekend on a sale for $2.99 a lb) in the crock pot with a pinch of cloves, tons of garlic salt and a splash of red wine vinegar, for shredded beef sandwiches.  The original recipe is here at Taste of Home.  I was planning my day and how I would get to the day old store to buy buns and I thought—why not just bake my own.  It only takes a couple of minutes of hands on time.  Here’s my favorite recipe.  I saved around $5 and a whole lot of driving time.

homemade hamburger buns

3.  When I didn’t feel well, Instead of eating out we used some frugal convenience foods (Deli roast beef $5 lb, 3 cans crescent rolls $.99 each, and sliced provolone $2.50 for 12 oz) plus garden bell peppers to make Philly Pepper Steak Bundles.  I served it up with finger fruits and veggies on costco paper plates (bought on a coupon sale.)  I keep the plates on hand for the days I can’t cope with one more thing–on the wanna be takeout nights. The best part is the kids saw me making them and it looked so fun that they came over to help.

Philly Pepper Steak Bundles

4.  I used the library.  A blogger I really respect recommended a couple of books.  I was not sure if these books were ones I’d want to read once, or refer back to over and over again.  I requested copies from my library.  Once I read them I can decide if they are ones to buy for our forever library. Money saved $25

5. I used a discount prescription card.  With my Melaleuca membership, I could get a prescription drug discount card.  Our health insurance dropped prescription drug coverage last January to try to reduce costs and keep up with the new government mandates.  The discount card costs $5 a month ($60 a year) and covers all 8 of us.  I needed 2 prescriptions to fight my allergies.  Normally one was $40 and the other was $30.  With the discount card the new prices were $10 & $9. $50 saved and we’ve only had the cards 2 months so far :).

It’s your turn!  Inspire us with one of your frugal activities this week.

 

Roasted Autumn Vegetables

Yesterday I made the most delicious shredded beef in the slow cooker.  I worked all day knowing I had that meal ready to go.  When it was almost time for dinner, I slid our homemade buns into the oven and realized I didn’t have a side dish.  Not one. I poked around in the freezer and the fridge and saw we had frozen brussels sprouts, half a butternut squash, a bag of radishes, and a bag of baby carrots.

I threw them all together in a pan–the colors were glorious! Then drizzled and tossed with oil.  Sprinkled and tossed with a tsp of sea salt, and cooked for an hour at 400 degrees.

Gorgeous right?  The only problem was last minute and bake for an hour don’t go together well.  I let the family eat the roast beef sandwiches and some canned apple slices and by the time the veggies were ready, they weren’t hungry enough to be adventurous.

Stage 3 of my plan to make my family Butternut Squash lovers backfired, but it was really delicious.  I’m super pumped to have leftovers.

The recipe is simple, trim and cut veggies into bite sized pieces, toss with a little oil, sprinkle with salt and roast at 400 (up to 450 if not in glass) for an hour or until fork tender and golden.  For best results stir after 30 minutes.  Serve while your family is still famished–unless they already know that gorgeous food can be delicious too.

Butternut Squash Fritters

Remember yesterday when I told you I have a secret plan to make my kids like squash?  This is level 2.

We enjoyed these fritters (inspiration here) during last Sunday’s lunch with our oven baked chicken, but we kicked it up a notch in the evening by warming them back up in a skillet and melting cheese on the top.  We tried Monterey Jack which was good but sharp cheddar would have been even better. Next time I plan to stir cheddar right into the batter.  It might get crisp in the areas where the cheddar hits the griddle—there’s nothing wrong with that.

There’s quite a bit of shredding involved in these.  I decided that it was worth the hassle to get out the kitchen aid shredder attachment to do these.  I was so right.  It shredded up my giant butternut squash in less than 5 minutes.  If you try this by hand it will count as aerobic exercise.
If you don’t have an electric shredder (or food processor) then grab the kid who most recently used the word, “bored.”  Or the one who was asked to sweep the floor and then walked off with the chairs still pushed against the wall and the broom lying on the floor. He will love to shred the squash for you.  So will the one who made a sandwich and left the mayo on the counter with the knife still in it.

I didn’t have any trouble peeling my squash.  The hardest part was cutting it open.  I grabbed the longest, widest knife I had and that helped.  My regular vegetable peeler took the skin right off.  I’ve heard if your peeler is on the dull side, it could be more challenging.  Some have success stabbing the squash with a fork a few times, then microwaving it whole for 3 minutes.  That softens the skin without cooking the meat.

Butternut Squash Fritters

5 cups shredded butternut squash (deseeded and peeled but still raw)

2 eggs

1 tsp salt

2/3 cup flour (or 1/2 cup THM baking mix)

coconut oil for frying

Place your squash in a mixing bowl and sprinkle all over with salt.  Beat in eggs, then stir in flour.  Warm a griddle or frying pan and melt a little bit of coconut oil in the pan.  Use a level ice cream scoop to drop batter onto the hot pan and flatten with the back of your flipper.  Cook like pancakes letting the fritter cook halfway through and get toasty brown before flipping.  Then flip and cook the other side.

You know what else (besides cheese) would make these yummy?  Bacon. I’ve tried to think of things that bacon wouldn’t make better….like apple pie, pancakes, or ice cream.  Then I had to take it back, bacon would make those things better….

 

 

Frugal Friday #1

I’m going to try something new on the blog.  On Fridays I’m going to share a frugal thing or two I did during the week.  Then in the comments I want you to share a frugal thing or two you did during the week.  If you are a blogger feel free to link to your frugal thing post in the comments and we’ll come check it out.

  1.  $5 iphone app instead of a $50 macbook app.  If you are meal plan subscriber, you already know I lost my hard drive last week.  When we were reloading all my programs, I discovered that Windows purposefully uses disappearing ink on their activation codes.  They ask you to stick the activation sticker to the back of your lap top where the heat from the machine fades the code over time.  If you have a problem and need to restore the program, you have to pay $150 for a new code.   If you wrote it down in another spot, no problem, but if you trusted them….you are up a creek.  We trusted them.  They are not my friend right now.

I decided to rid my life of the Windows operating system.  The only trouble is I use Microsoft Publisher to stay organized with my meal plans and my blog.   I can find a new program going forward, but for now my entire brain is in .pub files that won’t open.  I searched the app store (surely other people have this problem) and found an app for $50 that will open the files.  It got TERRIBLE reviews.  Sigh.

So I tried searching the app store on my phone.  There was a $5 app for iphone that did the same thing.  I bought the app, emailed the files to my phone, converted the files to pdf and emailed them back to my laptop.  $45 saved.   I printed everything and will be using the old fashioned paper method for awhile.  Life is good.

IMG_2035

I already had the binder and dividers in my school supplies box.  They are plain, but the price is right and they work :).

2.  I went to Price Chopper and took advantage of their sale.  Life is so busy for us that I had settled into just shopping at Aldi with a Costco run once a month. The ad this week was so good that I couldn’t resist adding one more store. My goal at a conventional store is for the amount saved to be bigger than the amount spent.  I used no coupons, just advertised sale prices:

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I don’t normally buy instant oatmeal because it has sugar, but the kids can fix it themselves.  At $.79 a box it’s only $.08 a serving.  #raretreat

Eggs have been super high lately–at $3 a dozen or higher.  These were on sale for $1.50 a dozen, limit 2.

Frozen veggies were on sale for $.79 a lb.  I bought 9 in our favorites for winter soups.

Shredded Cheese was $1 for 8 oz.  Limit 4. This price was less than Costco.

Cuties were 3 lb for $3.  The kids like to pack them in lunches.  The roasts were $3.99 a lb (cheap for beef in our area.)

If I hadn’t waited until the last day of the sale I would have gone back a few times to get more of the limit stuff.  It’s just as well.

Proof that I saved more than I spent:

Price Chopper Receipt

3.  I made Greek Yogurt in my slow cooker.  I’ve been running out of grocery money earlier each month, so decided to try a few more make at home things that I used to do before I worked so many jobs.  Here are the instructions, and here’s my periscope on how I finish it to make it super smooth and creamy just like store bought.

Homemade Greek Yogurt

Here you can see the yellowish whey separated on the top.  I strain it off to get 1/2 gallon of whey (which I use like buttermilk in recipes) and 1/2 a gallon of Greek yogurt.  It cost $2.35 for 8 cups of yogurt or $.29 a cup (plus free “buttermilk”).  Fage plain Greek yogurt from Costco is $6 for 6 cups or $1 a cup. This is a 71% savings.  Who doesn’t like a sale?

4.  Tuesday our piano teacher asked if Heidi would babysit his kids for the evening.  He brought over a big pot of chili and I made veggies and garlic bread.  I bought an extra loaf of bread thinking we would eat more than we did.  So Thursday I made it into French bread pizza with leftover spaghetti sauce, some of that cheap cheese (#2) and Aldi pepperoni.

French Bread Pizza

This cost roughly $3 for 8 servings or $.37 a serving.

It’s your turn!  Inspire us with one of your frugal activities this week.

 

 

 

 

 

Nerf War Party

You know the mom that calls to invite you to the party happening in 2 days because she forgot to send out invitations? That’s me.  This year I decided I was going to plan ahead, and have invitations printed a couple of months in advance.   Then I set a google reminder to mail them a few weeks ahead. It worked!

Dub's Brithday Invitations 10th nerf war redacted

It might have been more frugal to make the invitations by hand, but for $.09 each and a lot less time I had them printed as photographs and then mailed out in photo envelopes.  (I designed them in powerpoint, my go to graphic arts program.  I can picture all real graphic artists cringing.) The only catch….the invitations came with the wrong date and time, and I didn’t notice it.  My son came home from school telling me that kids thought the party was a week early, so I went to the photo site and looked up the picture I uploaded. It was correct.  I was so confused.

After I heard from a few other families who had the wrong date, I started calling everyone to confirm the date—2 days ahead, just like usual.  One of them texted me a photo of the invitation I mailed out—wrong date and time.  Forehead smack.  I’m still not sure how it happened.

They were all very nice about it, but 3 of the boys could no longer come :(.  I still feel badly about that.

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My mom is protective of my health and stress levels, so she came over to help out.  We made 4 target practice games for the first half of the party.  All of these ideas came from Frugal Fun 4 Boys.  I LOVE her site.  The one above is made from a tri-fold board (like what you’d get for the science fair.) I used a package of Dollar Tree Star Cut Outs for all the games.  The inner circles are cut down from the cardboard that was cut out of the window. They are taped to Ikea Smoothie Straws (they are fatter straws) which just happened to slide over the leftover balloon sticks.  You can get more details instructions here.

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I used 2 packages of Dollar Tree River Rocks to weight down the bottles.  Then my mom wrapped them in orange paper and taped them with Black Duct Tape.  We stuck on more of the Dollar Tree Stars to give them point values.  The goal was to shoot off the ping pong balls off the top.  This game was easier than it looks and the boys really liked it.  Also, the package of stars is so big that we used one package for all the games and still have more.

Nerf Target Practice Games

The PVC pipe is our ballet barre, which we just happened to have already for the girls. I just taped jute twine to the top of the cup and stuck more stars on them with point values.  The fun is when the cups start swinging and to try to hit them anyway.

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The 4th game is made out of file folders.  We stuck them down to a foam core board ($.88 a Wal-mart) so it could be put away and used again easily. Our only regret is not making the cuts in the base deeper so they would stand up on their own.

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Decorations were super simple.  I just used the leftover balloon sticks from our Lego Party and made colorful balloon bouquets. Then let the cupcakes, gift packages, and targets be the rest of the decorations.

Nerf Gun Decorations DSC_0072

Target cupcakes.  It wouldn’t be hard to do better.  Darren suggested red and white might have looked more authentic. (I was using up leftover frosting from the fridge.)

Nerf Gun Table

Before the guests arrived, we filled each gift bag with 30 extra darts (from ebay, similar here.) I took the time to write each boys initial on the tip of their bullet so we could make sense of things when the bullets started to fly.  I’m glad I did!  Each boy also got a gun and took it home as a party favor.  We let them have the fun of opening the package and then put their names on their guns too.

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I invited all the boys to come and sit at the table and get instruction on how to aim their gun.  We talked about front sights and how to line it up, then did a demo and had them try it out. (Not all nerf guns have front sights, I’m so glad these did.) Then, I divided the them  into partners and sent each group to a station.

Nerf party

They took turns doing target practice and spotting each other to help add up points.  (The points meant nothing, but it was fun to keep track.)

nerf party 2

Nerf party 3

We spent about 30 minutes with target practice, then went to cake and ice cream and gifts.

Then we moved the party outside.  At this point I was done in.  One of the guests came an hour before the rest–the correct time, (because of the invitaiton snafu) and I thought no one else was going to come.  Then when the rest of the guests came an hour later (to our relief), there was a bit of chaos since I didn’t have a quiet sit down gathering activity, (like the coloring pages at the lego party.)

So, Darren took over the out door portion of the party and I rested.  We cut plastic table cloths into strips and tied them around on of each boy’s arms to create teams.  There was an orange team and a blue team and each had a matching bandana for their flag($1.29 at Hobby Lobby.)  They took their ammo and their guns out back to the school yard/city park that backs up to our back yard.

Nerf Gun Capture the Flag

We modified the rules to capture the flag to incorporate the Nerf guns.  Here were our rules.

  1. No head shots
  2. If you get shot below the neck you have to go back to your base and sing Happy Birthday to Dub at the top of your lungs before re-entering the game.
  3. If you get tagged with hands, you go to the opposing team’s jail and wait for someone to rescue you (your own team member to tag you back in.)
  4. You can’t shoot from jail.
  5. The goal is to find and capture the other team’s flag and take it back to your base.

A boy we had never met was playing all alone at the school while his mother, one of the kindergarten teachers, worked inside.  I grabbed one of the extra nerf guns and they invited him to play in their game.   They played the game for an hour mixing up teams each time they started a new round.  When the boys finally came inside, they were THIRSTY.  If I had thought ahead about that, I would have had some sport drink ready to go.

P.S.  Those little nerf guns go up and down in price all the time.  They were $5.50 each when I ordered mine and at the time of the article are $2 more.  You can watch the prices at camelcamelcamel and have them email you when the price reaches your target.

This is day 29 of our series 31 Days of Kids and Money