The Blog has moved!

Im blogging again!  Modern Florida House Wife

This is where I am sharing life tibits, the adoption process, baking, house diys.  Homeschooling will still be here on blogger for the moment.  I am working on keeping at least 1 new blog post up a week on either the school blog or my more personal blog page.

Please come on over and check whats been happening over there on the new blog page

Organizing January - Holiday Decor Part 3

Happily a Housewife put out the challenge of spending the month of January getting things in our life organized.  I'm taking that challenge with my own spin on it that fits my families life.  Basically not going to do all of the days as I just don't have time to do them all and school our son and put in inquiries on kiddos.

How I organize our holiday decor after the new year!

 On the 1st of the year I pull out all our holiday bins and line them up along the wall in our dining room.  Not that I actually take things down and put right into the bins.
Nope I pile things on the table first and something's stay up until I'm ready to  take them down. I still have a couple things up just waiting for me to head to the store to buy two more bins.  The day after Christmas I always wake up early to get Christmas décor for the next year.

So once I have bins out and I've added some caffeine to the system to keep going since now my house looks naked.  I start putting things away and labeling bins of what's in them.  I try to keep things together as best as I can.  I seem to have found my niche for how I like to decorate our home for the holidays.  This is only our 2nd Christmas in our home.

 

 This is how I label our bins.  Good ol'washi tape.  I have a label maker but I love how I can make them somewhat festive as we are slowly moving all our holiday décor to the same bins.  I do try to get color lids to go with the holiday but as you can see from picture above we have some white lids in there.

Christmas secret has things that are to be hidden from kids who believe still.  I speak of Kids as more than 1 but we only have 1 kid as of now (we are in the adoption process though).  I keep our family Santa bag/Elf/Elf reindeer and special things that I bought after Christmas to be used with Elf's return next year.   Basically once everything has its place and the bin is labeled we haul everything into the garage and store on the shelves.

 Nothing fancy but practical and things are easy to find when we're I mean I, am ready to decorate for Christmas.  So that is how we keep our Holiday décor organized and easy to find year after year.

Hope you have enjoyed this post.  Click over on the side bar to subscribe

See you for my next Organizing tip

Merry Christmas from our family to yours

Merry Christmas

This is late but we had to wait until everyone received our card before posting it on the blog.

It was a great November day when we got the best news ever.  I got word and shared it with our K who just melted in my arms crying.  He was so excited that he cried happy tears which made me cry.  K than called his dad and told him the news.

We have also been busy sending out our homestudy on kiddos.  cant wait to expand our family

Weekly grocery haul - Lots of different stores this week

This week was a wild one.  Son got Strep throat for the first time in his 10 years of life.  He wasn't a happy camper.  So basically Tuesday we had our last homestudy visit before our homestudy is written.  About an hour later we went to grab some food and K said his throat was hurting.  As the night went on it was only getting worst.  He tried to sleep but he was struggling with that and told me he needed to go to the ER.  I calmed him down finally about 2 AM.  I was online seeing if we had a walk in open for him and found nothing.  I knew it wasn't ER important.  Finally got him to sleep around 3 AM and I laid with him.  Waking up every hour checking on him.  At 8 I was up and calling the ped's office to get him in.  Yup, what I thought it was.  STREP THROAT!  Got him on medicine ASAP and loaded up on soft foods and drinks. 

 

As you can see in the first photo there are LOTS of soft types of foods.  Think we only got 2 things in this first haul that actually goes with meals on the weekly menu.

So Wednesday and Thursday when K didn't feel like eating much hubs and I just ate subs and salads.

Friday we went to Disney so we ate in Orlando.  - 21 burgers and K was feeling much better and apparently very hungry for burgers as he downed the whole burger and fries.  That's odd for him we almost always need to take the rest to go.  Maybe the burgers we're just AMAZING.

 

 

First Photo is from Publix $12.76, Wal-Mart $30.16 and Target $29.13 <-- got storage bins and dish soap as well.
What we got
T-Raviolis
P- Cheetos puffs
P- 2 lemonades
T - Pumpkin spice bagels
W - banana's
T - 2 Gatorade
T- Snap pea crisp -YUM!
W - Motts apple juice
W - Cadbury Chocolate
W- Feta Cheese
T - Kerry Gold Butter
T- Ice cream topper (Just ran out so getting a replacement)
P - Triscuits
W- pop tarts
W- cheese blocks (Colby and Mozzy)
W- String cheese
P and W - Yogurt
W- sleepy time tea
W- Pizza
W-Gogurt
T- Kid zone protein bars
P- Pudding
T-Leachable treat trays (For Halloween week)
T- 4 Mac and Cheese
T- 2 Plastic containers
T- 2 Dish Soaps

Publix Savings $4.63, Wal-Mart savings $0.00 Target Savings $3.74

After Disney we headed to Dinner and some grocery shopping at Wholefoods.  Ok mainly there to get honest Lemonade.  Its my favorite so when we're in Orlando I get a couple.  We also like to stock up on Kid z bars.  Yeah we could buy them in boxes at target but we like to have a variety and for $.69 a bar at wholefoods we actually save money. 
Saturday errands included a trip to SAMS for a couple of things we were running low on.

Wholefoods $33.45
Cat food (No wheat, byproducts or corn cat food) Not in photo
Cheap bottle of water for ride home.  Not in photo I drank it :o)
2 Blackberry water -YUM!
4 Lemonade
Pumpkin pie spice.
8 kid Z bars

SAMS $43.42
Ground Beef
Nutella
Raspberries
Romaine Lettuce
Block of cheese not pictured
Halloween Book.  This was impulse but we really enjoyed the Christmas book last year so when I saw this one we wanted it.


                                       This weeks Grocery/household TOTAL $148.92

                                                    See you next week!

Weekly Grocery/household Haul - Target

 

Target (non-super center)

9/30

 

Things were just off for me as I was breaking routine and going a day early.  Didn't think much about it but you could just feel the change in routine.  K was with me as his dad happened to work over time and couldn't watch K.  The reason I went a day early was that we were having our 2nd homestudy visit the next day.  That ended up getting changed as well.  That's just another story when I write about our adoption process.

 

So K and I went shopping and found almost everything we need to complete dinners on the menu for the week.  We ended up with lots of fall treats as well.

 

Here is our Weekly shopping haul

 

Motts juice- the deal was really good this week.

Garlic pwd -Got to keep the vampires away ;o)

Milk

Apple cider -This just screams FALL

Fun size candy and M&Ms for all the fall baskets around the house

Hotdog buns

Triscuits - you'll see these almost week.  A staple for son and I

Pop-tarts

Brats - planned meal

Tilapia - another planned meal

2 trail mixes - Snack drawer

Pumpkin bagels - YUM!

Chili

Yogurt

Dish tabs - because we ran out

Kandoo - great for kids bathrooms

Baby wipes - For the van for the sticky fingers or messy faces

My little treasures

Cute pencils for my desk, note cards to send (RAKS and selling old school books) <-- blog about later. Cute PINK polkadot socks.

 

                                                Total = $74.92 (before Cartwheel)

                                                            Paid = $49.42

Don't know about you but that's $25.50 that we can spend on other things for the family

We did grab produce else were which came to be another $15 (Asparagus, Sweet potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, raspberries)

Total spent on grocery's this week $65

                                                        See you next week with our grocery haul!

New Fridge review

Introducing our brand new fridge.  So excited to have our first brand spanking new fridge.  Something about having that shinny thing in the kitchen.  Since our family cooks most of our meals from scratch we needed more room for our growing family.  We did have to make the wall next to the fridge larger to get the old fridge out and this one in.  Now just need hubs to finish a small part of the wall.  He wants to do that when we update the kitchen.  We'll see, just depends on when that project starts.  We've had the fridge for 5 months now and we are still in love with the room we have.

Come with me as I show you in side this GEM

Door has filtered water, ice, door alarm if door is left open, and best thing is a measuring feature.  Son uses that feature a lot.  He loves going in and getting so many ounces to drink.  I love it because it encourages son to drink more water.
                                                   

The top of our French door fridge is the fridge.  No bending down or cramming things into a side by side.

Can I hear the Angels sing when you just look at this fridge.  I am blessed to have such a nice energy saving fridge.  Produce actually last longer.  Old fridge if a produce wasn't used within 3 days it was wilting or turning colors.  Not in this fridge!  We can take advantage of the salads from Sams now and not worry about them going bad so quick.  Best of all we have enough room in our fridge that we can grocery shop once a week and see what we have.  That last part is the best thing "SEE WHAT WE HAVE" We now reach for those left overs and everything else. We even have a deli drawer and we use that A LOT.  No wasted space in this fridge.
 

 The 2nd best part of this fridge is coming next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wait for it!

 

 

 

 

 

Wait for it!

 

 

 

 

 

Ta da!

 

The Snack Drawer

I fill this weekly where its lacking.  Yes, I did just fill the drawer!  I try to keep somewhat healthy options for us to grab quickly.  This was a major selling point for us.  Some of you may know that we are in the adoption process and we wanted to have a drawer that the kids can open and grab what they need.  The rule for this drawer is that "if your hungry you can grab something from the snack drawer"  As you can see we do have Soda in there but that can change if that gets out of hand.  Love the fact that son can grab something to eat when he's hungry and its leaving the main part of the fridge still closed.  Energy saving drawer.

 

The freezer

We don't keep the meat and frozen veggies in here.  We keep quick breakfast meals, fries, corn dogs etc. in the drawers.  Pizzas in the pizza slot in the door.  Ice cream, popsicles, frozen fruit, smoothie packs etc. in the bottom drawer.  We keep our meats, veggies, freezer meals in another freezer that we only open maybe once a day to take something out.  This helps keep the kids out from leaving the freezer door open searching for a treat.

I wouldn't change a thing.  If you don't have a 2nd freezer than the drawers might be a little shallow if your like us and cook a lot.
 

Weekly grocery Haul -Target

Target Grocery shopping

9/24

 

This week we are trying to clear out the meats we already have so only needed a few staples this week to complete meals.  Most of this will be used in the next couple of weeks not just this weeks menu.

What we got

6 Frozen veggies

Cheese ravioli

Tatar tots - for Tatar tot casserole

Hash browns - Breakfast burritos for the hubs to take to work

yogurt for my yogurt loving child

Pumpkin yogurt - because I am in love with pumpkin

shredded cheese

ground beef

box of sugar. Oh I mean Trix

Pumpkin spice bagels - Umm these are AMAZING!

tortillas in two different sizes

trail mix - I divide this up into snack bags and throw into the snack drawer (future post)

Pesto - We love our pesto chicken

salsa

plain bread crumbs

pumpkin pie pop tarts

Mac and cheese - not planned but a nice staple in the pantry for THOSE days you don't feel like cooking much.

Black beans - Staple

Red beans - Staple

Gatorade and some chews we got for free

Cute clipboard needed for school (me)

 

                                                Total -$75.92 before using cartwheel App

                                                                         Paid - $67.59

Weekly grocery haul -Publix

      Well I'm going to give grocery hauls a whirl.  What can I say I'm a mom and I love to see what other moms are buying.  Yup sometimes I just want to be snoopy. Not competing with them just like to see the behind the scene of other families.  So lets get to it!

 

         This weeks haul didn't consisted of any meat as we are trying to clean out the old freezer.  The freezer products we did get don't go into that freezer are only snacks/lunch food.

Our every 2 weeks grocery budget is $150-$200 for a family of 3 and I'm  not afraid to use coupons.  If I can save money. I'm all for it!  Couponing takes me maybe 20 mins a week to gather what I need.  I use sites that do all the matching for me.

 

What I got this week (9/17)

 

Chili frozen meals -perfect for lunches but wont buy again due to the high sodium

Fries - are a staple in our house.  At least once a week we have fries

Grapes

Pizza rolls - Great deal only reason we got so many.  Will last a while.

3 mix veggies

2 yogurt - for my yogurt loving child

Mashed potatoes- for those nights that I don't have time to whip them up from scratch

crackers  -  Son loves these

Kerry gold butter- on sale for a lot less than Wal-Mart and its the only butter we use

dry pasta - a staple for those nights you don't feel like cooking much

Fresh pasta - a couple of planned meals

Bushes beans -Mexican dinner nights

 

 

Total After deals and coupons

$45.27

 

Saved

$49.76

Goodbye 2013 Hello 2014

Goodbye 2013 Hello 2014

               2013 will always be a year that we will always remember.  We bought a bigger home where we can build our family via adoption.  We went from a 2 bedroom 1 bath home that was 800sq ft to a 1500 Sq ft home with a 500 sqft garage 3 bedrooms 2 bath rooms with a school room/playroom.  We have gained awesome neighbors which was a positive to the new house for the year.  Hubs was kept on with his job when they closed the plant.  Such a blessing in our life.  Getting back on our Debt free financial track since moving and getting caught in all the moving expense's and learning a whole new pay schedule. <--- just threw me off for a month or 2.  Had to retrain myself to what bills came out when.  We had our first home remodel of opening up the kitchen so that I could be in there cooking or cleaning and still see what the child/ren are up to.  Now to just finish the kitchen but that is on the back burning until after the adoption process.

                       Speaking about the adoption process - we are fully funded for the home study.  Huge thing when adopting.  I wish I could say I'm not nervous but I am.  Not loosing sleep over it yet but its not yet scheduled.  We are scheduling by the end of Jan, 2014.  So exciting but so nerve racking.  Goodness I hope this is a normal reaction to having a first time home study done.  K is excited to having brothers and sisters join our family.  This is going to be a huge adjustment for him so we are trying to talk him through the process as its happening.  We've had lots of talks about how he's going to have to share his parents and he says hes fine with that but I know once they are here the adjustment for him will start.  Praying this is our last year as a family of 1 child to love.  We have room in our hearts for as many as GOD feels our family can handle.

My personal goals for 2014 is to

House - Finish the Kids/guest Bathroom, Have Kids rooms painted, Girls room closet put together
Health - Eat breakfast
Family - Go out on a date with the husband at least once a month, welcome a son or daughter or both :o),
Pets - Get Ponce Fixed
Blog - Write more
Baby steps - Fully Funded emergency fund

Stay  posted for more updates on the happenings in the family

Photo's in front of the tree

Some of my Favorite Photo's taken in front of our Christmas tree

 

K's first half marathon 1.31 Miles

 

K ran in this first kids half marathon, the long doggers.  He was super excited but mom and dad were a little stressed as we got a late start leaving in the AM.  Race was at 7:30 and we live an hour away so we had to leave early.  K was all smiles even at 6:30 in the morning.  We made it in time to start the run on time.

 

K wanted his dad to run with him so I got to stand on the side lines and cheer them on as they came in and hand K his number as we didn't have time to get his number on before the race started.

Here they go (don't see K or Isaac) but the buzzer just went off to start the race.

 

K and daddy coming in to finish the race holding his number up so they know who he was

 

Rehydrating after the race with some Gatorade

So proud of his Medal and getting ready for the next marathon.  We are planning on working towards the family run at Disney in Jan 2014

Off to Disney after the Race

 

His stats

 

Place:19    Place by Gender:16  Race number: 2871 Name:   Gender: M  Age: 08 City:   State FL         Time: 10:53.3 Pace: 8:19

 

Way to go Little man!  Keep it up and getting stronger with each and every run

Love you K!

 

You make Mom and dad really proud with all that you do

Easter 2013 in Photo's

Easter 2013

 

Our first Easter in the new house. We celebrated with a local church who dropped eggs from a helicopter 21,+++ eggs were dropped.  Loved the Easter service.

 

Kitchen Project..Part 1

We are opening up the kitchen. 

When we found this house we knew that this was the right house.  With saying that we also wanted an open kitchen which this house didn't have.  Well, we put together a plan from what we wanted and have started the project of opening the kitchen. 

 

K has been asking us to crash something so as you can see he's part of this transformation of the kitchen.

 

From the starting to tear the walls down to rewiring wires needing moved. 

                      Look at how much just opening the walls makes the living area look much bigger.  The part one is completed and just waiting for the arches to be formed and dry walled. 

Stayed tuned as we finish the wall kitchen project.  This will not be a FACT Kitchen project as we plan on doing this with Cash.

Moving in

Moving in

(2/13)

 

Flora has found the best place in the house.  The kitchen walls since that don't go all the way to the ceiling.  Hubs joined her up there.  TV is still on the floor as we have yet to find a TV stand we can agree on.  Spices are finding their new home in the cabinets.

 

Moving is so hard he's crashed on the sofa.  K's bed hasn't arrived yet so it's just the mattress on the floor.
School room is slowly coming together

Our Closing in photo's

Our Closing day in Photos

 

Closing happened so fast as in we found out that we were closing the night before that there was a good chance to close that Friday.  We knew for sure Friday morning when we did our final walk through.

 

As we waited for everything to be finished we sat here with butterflies in the gut.  So what else do you do but snapping photo's.

 

Papers are signed and all cash has been handed over.  Can't say that is when we got our keys though.  LOL!  Our realtor handed them over when we did our walk through that morning along with our gift baskets.  We got a gift basket from our realtor and our broker.  What did we do right after closing?  We ran to the old house grabbed blankets and our dogs and went HOME!

 

Welcome home M. Family!!!

Mom and Son mini vacation

 

St. Augustine with my little man.

 

We had a field trip with our homeschool group up there so K and I made a mini vacation out of it.  Best decision ever!  While relaxing by the pool watching K swim there was just a sweet peace of being away from our every day stress that was just so relaxing.  After we were done at the pool it was time for dinner so we headed to a Pizza joint.  Pizza was so YUMMY!  After dinner K wanted to go checkout the beach.  On the way back to the hotel K asked if we can do this again.  I think it's something I want to do on a yearly basis is a 1 on 1 mini vacation.  We both needed the carefree 24 hours.

Once back at the hotel we snagged some fresh baked cookies when son asked to go swim some more before heading up to the room.  Of course we could swim for a while.  Ended up going back up to the room for a little bit to call daddy at home.  After that headed to the fro-yo shop across the street.  Not the best Fro-yo but we were having a great time.  K wanted to ride his scooter so we headed down to the pier to take a peek.  We both stated that we need to bring Daddy back here.  We are now planning a family vacation here.  We feel bad K and I have been to St. Auggie 3 times in 8 yrs. and hubs has never been here. We have to change that soon.  Enjoy the photo's 

All Homeschool Field trip photo's will be posted on our school blog

New house Tour

As you all know we Moved in February.  With the move and homeschooling I have had NO time for the blog.  As our homeschool year is wrapping up and we've been here for almost 2 months and things are finally settling down. 

 

Lets get down to the tour

 

Row 1: Our garage and sidewalk to our screened in front porch.  Front of the house.  Love the little details like this window combo to give the roof line some dimension.

Row 2: Our front door (Not in love with) Our living room entry way and coat closet.  3rd photo is the Hall way Lien closet.

 

Row 3: Our Kitchen Bay window.  Our closed in Kitchen.  Hello late 80s kitchen.  3rd Photo is our dining room.  Love having a dining room space.
Row 4: Master Bathroom with a HUGE walk in shower.  Love this, family room that is being used for our school room.  3rd Picture is the kids/guest bathroom.  It's a little yellow from the lighting.

it's a 3/2/2 1500sqft house not including our just under 500sqft garage.  With Citrus fruit trees :o)

Well that is our house.  Stay tuned as we move in and make this house our HOME.

Getting REAL here

Getting real here

 

 

Here is one of our kitchen counters about 5 minutes ago.  It's what I call has ground zero.  Unopened apple sauce needing to be put away, a lunch bag,a pile of random papers, a unread news paper, current spring candle etc.  YIKES! 

 

Even this Type A personality has a dumping ground currently ;o)

 

 

Mind you we are still unpacking

 

We've Moved

 

Wow!  It has happened we've finally moved into our new house.  Isaac and I have worked so hard to make the dream of being home owners a reality.  Closing was amazing.  It was quick and so amazing.  The nerves didn't hit until I was about to step into the escrow office to sign papers. 

 

Our awesome Realtor was there to hold our hands..Ha!  No we just all joked around for the most part.  As I stated before closing went fast and guess who forgot to take a picture of the signing paper work.  Yeah, that's right I did. Oops but we rushed to the CB house to grab our dogs and head to the new house for the night.

 

Oh yes we did.  We had KFC for dinner on the floor of our new living room watching wreck it Ralph.  Come bedtime we all crashed on the floor in the master bedroom.  We all had such a rush all day that we were out by 10.

 

 

Kayden's first time riding in a big truck and 1st move that he remembers.

 

Stay tuned for more house updates

The Best email ever

"I wanted to let you know we received loan approval from the lender late Friday! Your loan is approved with the lender, which is great news! And Even better, they are not asking for any additional information from you! " Sent to us from our broker

I read this first thing this morning, and the first thing I did was text hubs to call me.  K happened to walk to into the room and he said "WHAT"  I guess he knew something was up.  I told him and he got the biggest smile ever and gave me the biggest HUG ever.  He's excited to get a bigger house that we can start our adoption journey in.  He than went running around the house laughing.  Hubs called and I got to share the news with him.  I could hear his huge smile over the phone.

The family is excited and now we are just waiting to schedule our closing date.  Sooner than later at this point.  Can't wait to move in and start the journey of making our new house our home :o)


All the glory to GOD

SQUEAL  SQUEAL SQUEAL