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~ This deal sounds a little bit too good to be true, but Tara from Life With Our Five Kids let me know about it…and she checked with Vitacost to be sure that the price was accurate – so here goes!  You can get a 32 ounce jug of Organic Maple Syrup at VitaCost for only $3.92. That is a crazy, amazingly good price and I don’t know how long it will last.  AND, if you are a new customer with VitaCost, follow this referral link before you place your order so that you can receive a $10 gift certificate to get you started.  With that price on maple syrup, and your $10 off code, you’re looking to get a steal of a deal.  (I trust Coombs brand of maple syrup to be very high in quality, by the way.)

~ Get two 15 ounce containers of Nutiva Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil for only $15.30 at Amazon with subscribe and save.

~ Enjoy Life Soy Free Chocolate Chips are still available at Amazon for $21.65 for six packages.  The supply on these typically runs out quickly, so I was thrilled to see them still available, and for a great price!

If you're new to Heavenly Homemakers, you may want to subscribe to receive free updates through RSS feed or by Email. Thanks for visiting!

Need some fun Valentine’s Day ideas? Too bad I don’t have any for you. Just kidding.  While I’ll never claim to be super crafty, I do have a few fun ideas that I’ve shared through the years here that I thought I’d remind you about.

First up, I’ll show you the “You’re The Bomb” Valentines we made last year.  They were a hit with all of our friends, who thankfully, embrace the fact that we are a household full  of boys who like the idea of blowing things up.  ;)

This year, we printed these fun, free Valentines from Diva Entertains to share with friends at our Valentine Party.  Simple, inexpensive, done.

Any excuse to make Homemade Soft Pretzels works for me.  No one in my family minds if we celebrate February 14 with fresh pretzels shaped like hearts.

I’m not sure why I don’t think to make these Chocolate Caramel Truffles and Peanut Butter Truffles other times of the year beyond Valentine’s Day.  Any random day should work, don’t you think?  It’s always great to celebrate a regular Monday afternoon with truffles.  Someone remind me of this in June.

My boys obviously liked the above ”bomb” valentines more than these flower valentines, but hey, I like flowers and pink hearts, and I live here too, so there.  Here’s a Valentine in “Mint” Condition, which uses a York Peppermint Patty in the center.

And speaking of York Peppermint Patties, you might have fun making Homemade Peppermint Patties this year as a special treat.  Call me if you do – I’d be happy to help you eat them.

What better way to end this post than by showing a picture of myself looking rather like a dork?  These “The Better to See You With” Valentines are very easy to make and are fun for your kids to give to their friends.  You’ll find the pattern here, and also see a picture of my oldest almost a foot shorter than he is now, and also with much shorter hair.  Where has the time gone?

Are you making or doing anything fun for Valentine’s Day this year?

Friday, February 10,  is the final day of our eBook Overload sale.  Grab it now for only $25!  There are 10 eBooks in this package, which means you’re getting a great deal on a great big package of healthy recipes.  Read more details about this package and all that is included here.

Heavenly Homemakers Ebook Overload
$40.00
$25.00

It happens constantly at our house.  We use a glass, we forget where we set our glass, we get our glasses mixed up, we get a new glass.  It’s even worse when we have guests.  My incredibly smart sister-in-law came up with a plan to use an erasable marker to write our names on our glasses when our family is all together.  This idea works well enough, but the ink gets smeared sometimes.

Enter:  DrinkBands.

What a very smart idea.  The folks at DrinkBands took the popular wrist bands and cleverly turned them into a great way to distinguish one glass from the next.  They come in a package of 8 bands – and fit easily around your glasses, making it easy to spot which glass is yours.  I don’t have to wash as many glasses this way, nor are we sharing germs as easily.  I love how the DrinkBands help cut down on clutter.  One glass, per person on my counter – I love it.

Oh, and guess who gets the pink drink band at my house!  Oh yes, that would be me!!  Makes me so happy.  No one has to wonder which glass is mine anymore!  Mom’s is the pink one – every time.

I highly encourage you to check out DrinkBands.  They are a very inexpensive way to simplify your life, save you dirty dishes, and keep your family from spreading germs.  They are even offering a 10% discount for all of us through the end of February.  Enter the code HHFEB12 at check-out to receive the discount.

In addition, you have a chance to win a free package of DrinkBands.  Three sets are being given away here!  If you’re interested in winning, leave a comment on this post.  For additional entries, like DrinkBands on Facebook and/or subscribe to DrinkBands to learn more about what they have to offer.  Please leave a separate comment for each entry.

I’ll draw three random winners on Monday, February 13.  Please watch for a post stating the winners as you will be responsible for contacting me if your name is chosen!

As we reach the end of this Real Food – Low Cost Challenge, I have concluded that if you are ever wondering if you’re spending too much on healthy food - do a price break down.  It’s a bit of a headache.  It might make you a little crazy (or maybe that was just me having issues).  But the effort is worth it.  To learn that most of my real food recipes can be prepared for an average of $1.00 per person – that was very encouraging to me!

To finish up the cost break down on the remaining items on the challenge list, I’ll let you know that Italian Pasta Bake costs about $8.85 to make, breaking down to $1.48/person in my family.

Cheddar Ranch Burgers came in at $11.93 for eight burgers – $1.49 per burger.  Not super cheap, but made with the finest ingredients and very filling.  Throw some veggies in and we’ve got a complete meal for around $2.00 a person.

But enough about my recipes and the costs that come with them.  I’ve been very anxious for today to come so that you would have an opportunity to share some of your favorite real food recipes that are low in cost.  Help me prove that eating healthy does not have to be expensive!!!

If you have a blog, and have some Real Food – Low Cost recipes to share with us, link them up with us here.  Be sure to link back to this post so that your readers know where to find more healthy recipes!  If you don’t have a blog, please feel free to post your recipes in the comments section of this post.  If you care to share the cost break down of your recipes – even better!

Let the Real Food – Low Cost Challenge Recipe Sharing begin!

Beware - while reading this post, you will notice that I jump all over the place without making my paragraphs flow together and really without pausing to take a breath in between thoughts.  All this exercise I’m doing is either giving me a crazy amount of extra energy, or perhaps it is just simply making me crazy.  Or maybe it’s a little bit of both.

While breaking down the cost of my real food recipes, I have definitely learned that our breakfast time meals tend to be very, very inexpensive.  We can often eat for around $0.50 per person at breakfast, making it easier to spend a little more for our lunches and dinners.

It is kind of funny to me that I break the food cost down per person in my household, when clearly, we don’t actually all eat the same amount of food.  I would have to say that Malachi (our youngest at age seven) and I (the oldest at age 38) eat the smallest portions of food these days.  Therefore, maybe Malachi and I can eat breakfast for $0.20 and everyone else eats for $0.70?  Eh, never mind.  I don’t feel like getting that technical.  We’ll just keep it at an average $0.50/person for breakfast.  I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know how much it costs to feed my soccer playing, basketball playing teenager right now.  ;)

So check it out – my Homemade Poptarts cost $3.13 for one batch.  I figured that if one batch of homemade poptarts makes about 20 poptarts, that means the cost is around $0.16 per poptart.  I haven’t purchased poptarts at the store for a long time, but I’m pretty sure I’m not only feeding my family a much healthier poptart, but I’m saving money too.  Sixteen cents for a poptart made with real food ingredients?  How about that?

Who is it that said that eating healthy food is expensive??? (Oh yes, that was me a few years ago.)

I should have become a real food calculating geek years ago.  This is fun!!

(Pausing for breath.  Does reading this post make anyone else tired, or is it just me?  And here we go again…)

My Warm Vanilla Soother recipe breaks down to $2.87 per batch.  This really only makes about four servings though, so the cost per person is $0.72.  Not bad at all for a mug of hot, steamy, delicious, nourishing comfort.  I mean really, can you put a price on comfort?  No I don’t think so.  But just think about the cost of a hot drink of non-nourishment at your local coffee shop.  Pretty sure you can’t get that for $0.72, am I right?

And speaking of coffee – because it does appear that all the exercise I’m getting these days is indeed giving me extra energy - I believe it is wise for me to stay away from drinking coffee very often, even if I did enjoy my one cup of coffee with real Chocolate Caramel Cream.  I don’t think giving me additional energy from caffeine is really a good idea right now?  What do you think?!

Make plans to join us tomorrow for a Real Food – Low Cost Link-Up!  Get ready to share your real food, low cost recipes.  Cant’ wait to learn about your tried and true family favorites that are easy on the budget!

The winners of the CK Bakery Shop Cakes in a Jar giveaway are:

1) Amy Bradsher: amybradsher@
2) Janet: jbaehrel@

Ladies, email me and I’ll forward on your information so that you can receive your fun prize!

Be sure to check out CK Bakery Shop if you want to send a fun treat to someone you love.  :)

You are all cracking me up with all of your emails and requests for me to share what kind of running shoes I got!  I figured none of you would care since all of us have a different variety of feet, otherwise I would have shared the information in the first place.  But hey, if you want to know more about my (fantastic, awesome, super comfortable) shoes, far be it from me to keep you from the details!

The shoes I purchased are Reebok SolarVibe Running Shoes.  I got them in Black/White and I love them.  However, so many of you were smart enough to recommend that I buy a second pair, and Matt and I decided that this was a great idea.  Therefore, today, I purchased the same shoe in Tar/Silver/Blue.  I’m very excited.  And maybe a little bit obsessed.  But whatever.

I believe I found the first pair at Finish Line in the mall.  I found the second pair online.

Keep in mind that all feet are different so what’s comfortable for me may not be comfortable for you.  Nike, Adidas - none of the others were working for me that day.

So there you go.  Reebok SolarVibe Running Shoes.  I love them!

It’s borderline ridiculous that I am gushing over and dedicating my Gratituesday post to my (fantastic, awesome, super comfortable) new running shoes, but here goes anyway.

You know how I started exercising?  I’m really starting to love it and crave it.  All has been going great and I feel like my friend and I are making great progress in our exercise routine.  But my feet have been killing me. I’ve never spent much money on my shoes and never have felt the need to do so until now.  However, Matt and I decided that since I’m serious about this exercise thing, good shoes are a necessity.

I must have tried on at least twenty pairs of shoes.  I lost track of how many stores we checked out.  None of the shoes I tried were comfortable - not even the more expensive pairs.  I thought it may be because my feet were blistered and sore.  I had just about decided that maybe truly comfortable shoes were out of the question and that I’d just need to settle on a pair and go home.  I was almost at the point of not even caring about the price of the shoes, so long as I could find one that half way sort of worked for me.  And I was definitely beyond caring about the color of the shoe.  Bring on the neon orange with purple stripes for all I cared, as long as they were comfortable.

Finally, I put my feet into these:

If I could have done a happy dance without embarrassing myself and knocking over the display of athletic socks, I would have.  True comfort – on my feet.  Really, it was possible.  And could it be that the shoes were on sale, making the cost actually below my target price?  Sure enough.  And joy upon joy, they weren’t hot pink with green and yellow stripes.

I haven’t taken them off since last Tuesday (except to sleep – I think).  I love these shoes.  They are incredibly comfortable and have made exercising so much more enjoyable.

I know there are more important things in life, but today, I sure am thankful for my new shoes.  Comfortable feet rock.  :)

Share how God is working in your life on your blog, then come link up with us here. If you don’t have a blog, be sure to leave a comment letting us know what you’re grateful for!

If you are linking up a blog post for Gratituesday,
please copy and paste the following sentence into your post! Thanks!

Join us for Gratituesday at Heavenly Homemakers!

Since we’ve been talking about breaking down the cost of our Real Food Recipes lately, we decided it would be fun to go with the Low Cost theme and offer a big discount on our Heavenly Homemakers eBook Overload package.  We figured you wouldn’t mind receiving a big discount on some real-food recipes.  :)

As I’ve been figuring the cost of many of my recipes, I’ve loved learning how inexpensive most of them are.  A good portion of the recipes I use on a regular basis can be found in the eBooks in this package.  All of these recipes are kid friendly, use real food ingredients, and are simple to make.

The eBook Overload package is already discounted down to $40.  However, today through Friday, February 10, we’ve knocked the price down to only $25!  There are 10 eBooks in this package, which means you’re getting a great deal on a great big package of healthy recipes.  Read more details about this package and all that is included here.

Heavenly Homemakers Ebook Overload
$40.00
$25.00

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