Lily

IMG_3383, originally uploaded by WeeBeaks.

We haven't had a family photo in a little while on the blog, so here is Lily modeling her new mama-made pants. She is still so small that 1/2 yard gets a pair of pants for her and a little extra for the scrap bin as well.

If you read my past posts, you know most of Lily's clothing comes from a cousin and a friend of a friend. As she gets bigger of course, we get a little less because kids get harder and harder on their clothing! So consequently there is less to hand down. We see this ourselves in passing clothing from our oldest son to our middle. Anything left from that then goes to a cousin, but by then it gets pretty sparse.

In any case, because we have a donated wardrobe we have some pieces that just don't have anything that reasonably matches them. So what I'm doing is pulling out clothing for this season and the next size up and matching up outfits. Then anything hanging around left over I'm looking at my stash fabric and seeing if I have a good match there. Then I sew up a coordinating piece. This cute striped top had nothing to go with it, so I did the brown pants for her.

This past week, she got 3 new pair of pants to go with existing tops. We also have trouble with pants given to us because she wears cloth diapers and typical clothing for toddler girls barely has room for a diaper at all let alone a cloth diaper. Besides, she likes her pants roomy for all that climbing, crawling, cruising and preparing to walk!

Happy New Year of Savings

Have you read the JANE4girls blog? If not and you are a frugal minded person, you have to give it a read. She is an amazing person who is feeding her family on $800/yr. Yes, a YEAR.

A lot of people follow her blog, and I have joined a newly formed yahoo group of frugal minded people seeking to lower our grocery expenses for 2009, inspired by her blog. Most of us have not picked nearly so low of an annual sum as her, but we are all striving to stay within budget and spend less this year than last. For those of you interested it is "FrugalChallenge" on yahoo groups.

In that spirit, I will share with you our frugal purchase today. My DH LOVES Post Trail Mix Crunch cereal. At $4.xx a box it is not very frugal at regular price. However, it is on sale B1G1 free at CVS this week, and there is a new printable $2 off 1 box coupon at the Post website. It allows you to print two. Take your two coupons in to CVS and match up with the B1G1 free sale ($4.59/box regular price) and you get two boxes of cereal for 59 cents. Woohoo for savings in the new year. Happy shopping.