My gift to everyone this year.

My little family has had a crazy year! It's the kind of year that leaves your head spinning for years to come. It has been a wonderful year. I am completely happy with how this year has gone. But it has been a crazy ride. Lets just say that my husband and I started out the year with one child and are ending it with three.

Needless to say, that doesn't leave much money for christmas! What money we did have to spend on gifts we spent on our two older children. This will be the first year that either of them will possibly remember christmas.

We picked up a jumperoo at Salvation army for our youngest. She won't care about christmas at all. She has no idea what's going on. I made this mistake with my oldest daughter on her first christmas. I scoured the shelves for any toys that were for 3 months or younger, wrapped them, got all excited (it was my first child's first christmas, that's supposed to be monumental, right?) It actually made her angry when we tried to get her to pull the paper out of the bags. Us pressing all the buttons on all the noisy toys we found for her equaled major overstimulation. It was ugly. I was disappointed. But I did learn my lesson!!!

Anyway, for everyone else in our family this Christmas, I am cooking a huge, all from scratch dinner. Cooking from scratch makes it special, and cheaper!!! I have been suprised by just how excited everyone has been about this gift! I love to cook, so it's not adding any stress to me, and my husband is more than happy to watch all the kids for a full day (I'm blessed to have a husband who can handle the kids no problem) so that I can prepare a feast. Thanks to stockpiling certain items, I am going to be able to prepare a meal for about 20 people for only a few extra dollars worth of groceries! Check back in the next few days for my menu and a few of my favorite recipes!

Check out more ways people are saving money at christmastime at http://www.lifeasmom.com/ on frugal friday

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