His Favorite Thing

He even takes his friends socks off.

A Quarter

One of the things I hate the most is debt. Even if it's just me paying my mother back for a book she picked up for me. I don't like owing people money. So far I feel like Mark and I have done pretty good staying out of debt but we realized at the end of last semester that we wouldn't be able to make it through the next few months without some help so once again we are in debt. As much as I don't like it, there really is no way around it so I've been working hard to make sure that we keep our expenses to the minimum! At a relief society activity we had a class on budgeting and it was mentioned that he area that we cut our spending the most is in our grocery budget. So that's what I've been working on. According to my research I've found that Walmart and Costco are the best places to shop and I have my lists of which items are cheapest at which location. I try to only go shopping twice a month to make sure I stay within our budget and I try to make a meal plan so less food is wasted. I also make my own bread. 

I've been making bread ever since Mark and I got married (and we welcomed our Kitchen Aid into our home) but I never really realized how much of a money saver it was! That is not until yesterday. I finally decided that I was going to break it down and figure out how much it cost for me to make bread. You wanna know?! It costs about $1.50 for 6 loaves! 

Thats $0.25 a loaf! YUM!

Let me break it down for you...

I had just bought flour, sugar and yeast recently so I dug through my receipts and found how much each cost. 

Flour 20kg (705.48oz) - $12.49
Sugar 4kg(141.10oz) - $5.87
Yeast 32oz - $4.49

I pulled out my handy-dandy kitchen scale and weighed a cup of flour (5.25oz), a cup of sugar (6.875oz) and 2 tablespoons of yeast (0.75oz). Then I did the math. I usually make 6 loaves of bread at a time using about 13 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of sugar and 2 Tbs of yeast. So according to my calculations for 6 loaves of bread. 

flour (13 cups) costs $1.21
sugar (1/2 cup) costs $0.15
yeast (2 Tbs) costs $0.11

I also add a little oil and a little salt so I guess you could throw another 

10cents on there just to be safe. 

Isn't that exciting!!! It probably made my day.

Spring?

Spring, where are you?! 

We had a couple days where it was starting to warm up and the city was slowly turning into a lake. We went for a walk one afternoon and it was a challenge to stay dry.

We took this picture on our walk, it's one of the roads near our house.

Seriously, I don't think I can wait any longer! BUT... even though it's not all that warm outside I am enjoying the longer days. I love not having to turn on my lights but instead just open the blinds and curtains. It's not very bright but I just love natural light! Hopefully soon we'll be able to get out of the house and enjoy some nice weather. Until then I get to stay cooped up with a pretty cute 

8 month old!

Max is pretty funny. 

• He's found his voice and makes some sort of noise most of the day. He's got "momomomom" and "dadadadadada" down. Now we just have to teach him what it means. 
• He flaps his arms and claps his hands and it's the cutest! 
• He's getting a second and third tooth and wants to be held most of the day. He actually reaches out with his hand to you until he gets picked up.

• He's a very friendly baby. He loves people and so far has been happy going with anyone unless he's hungry or tired than he'll usually reach for me. 
• He's enjoying solid foods. His favorites are carrot, sweet potato and avocado. 
• He's never on his stomach for more than a couple seconds. He rolls onto his back almost immediately and then after being on his back for a minute he starts doing crunches (that are actually quite impressive) and whining until someone sits or stands him up.
• He's also working on walking. I guess he heard his cousins are doing it and doesn't want to waste time with this crawling talk. He holds onto our fingers and pulls himself up and walks around. He's got a long way to go when it comes to balancing but he's figured out that if he moves his feet he gets places. If we would let him, he'd walk around all day.
• I usually cover his car seat with a blanket to keep him warm but he's figured out how to pull it up so he can peek out. He doesn't like to miss out on anything!

• He still naps at least 3 times a day and they last anywhere from 30min to 90min. At night he's been waking up around 4am to eat and then sleeps till 7.
• After I maul his incredible cheeks with kisses he usually turns to me with his mouth open and I offer him my cheek and call it a kiss. Sometimes he does it out of the blue and who knows, maybe he's just hungry but thinking it's a kiss is a lot cuter!
• When he gets tired he gets cuddly and will rest his head on my shoulder. It's never for more than a moment but I love it when it happens! 
• He loves playing with magnets!

I came home from a RS activity to find this.

• His hair is getting so long and it's super fine like mine (poor kid). I'm contemplating giving him a real haircut.
• I've given up putting socks on him unless we're going somewhere or if he's grouchy (pulling them off and sucking/biting them make him happy). He even likes biting other people's socks which usually have toes in them.
• He gives gentle high fives.

 Shopping with Mom.

 Wimmin' and Blashin'

This is what happens when Dad gets him dressed.

It was Elder Moojalsky's birthday on Saturday and there was an Elder from here that was being transferred to Winnipeg to actually be his new companion and so I made this beautiful cake to take with him. Well it ended up that the Elders weren't able to pick it up and we couldn't get a hold of them to drop it off so the cake never got to Braden. So we ate it and it was delicious! I think Mark may have set the whole thing up...

 Last weekend we were lucky enough to have visitors. Nana, Hub and Natalie made the trip out to Saskatoon. It was fun to have them here. Max loved the attention! and the new toys! We all enjoyed having them here. Thanks for the visit guys!

 Watching conference.