Chicken Noodle Soup

Does anyone have a great recipe for homemade Chicken Noodle Soup?? If so, please share!! I don't expect you to leave the recipe, but e-mail me and let me know!!

Cricut

I had the joy of playing with a cricut machine for my very first time this week. WOW! Thanks to my sis-in-law, I was able to begin "Noah's Book of Animals" I suppose it will become "Ellie's Book of Animals" one day too!

Since Noah loves animals so much, I thought it would be fun to use her Kingdom Animal cartridge to make my first die-cuts. Once I got the hang of it, I was creating and printing in no time!

Here are some of the animals I have for the book (please excuse the poor picture quality):

(This one has a dark green RIBBIT that I must have misplaced. :) )There was no sound for Elephant so I just printed out the word ELEPHANT to put below.

I really look forward to playing with the machine again (and, of course, hanging out with my sis-in-law). I can't wait to finish this fun book of animals.

TAG! I'm it.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

4 things...
I was tagged by my friend Julie to do this...fun!
Here we go...

4 THINGS I WAS DOING 10 YEARS AGO:

1) Working the night shift at Von's while going to school

2) Getting ready to visit Julie at APU (I'm pretty sure it was mid-october when I came out...that was a fun time!)

3) Figuring out what exactly I wanted to do with the rest of my life

4) Working with HS students at my church

4 THINGS ON MY TO-DO LIST FOR TODAY:

1)Make lunch

2)Relax (I've spent the morning knocking off most of the real to-do items from my list!!)

3)Enjoy time with my mom when she arrives

4)Make dinner

4 RANDOM THINGS I LOVE ABOUT MY HUSBAND:

1) I love that he's dutch and still pronounces certain words with a little accent. (most people don't notice it, but if you're around him enough you'll start to notice. ;))

2) I love his sense of humor. He's the funniest person I know.

3) I love that he completes me. We are a perfect match! :)

4) I love that he is a constant source of encouragement to me.

4 JOBS I HAVE HAD:

1)Blades Sports Grill

2)Vons

3)Sunridge Community Church

4)Teacher- Arrowhead Christian Academy

4 MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED MORE THAN ONCE:

1) How to Lose a guy in 10 days

2) Meet the Parents

3) Elf

4) Miracle on 34th street (I tend to watch several Christmas movies each holiday season)

4 PLACES I HAVE LIVED:

1)Pittsburgh, PA

2)Turlock, CA

3)Granda Hills, CA

4)Chicago, IL

4 PLACES I HAVE BEEN:

1) Hungary

2)Hawaii

3)Austria

4)Czech Republic

4 PLACES I WANT TO VISIT:

1)The Netherlands

2)Amish Country

3)Hawaii (I know i've already been, but I want to go back! :))

4)New England

4 TV SHOWS I WATCH:

1) Cold Case

2) The Office

3) 20/20 or Dateline

4) CSI

4 THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT ME:

1) I was a cheerleader in high school

2) I spent two months in Hungary with Campus Crusade

3) I love to make homemade cards and scrapbook (when there's time....:))

4) I would love to learn how to sew

4 people I tag...
1) Janna (when she comes back to blogland)
2) Julie I.
3) Misty
4) Amy

That felt good!

I just returned from grocery shopping and boy was it a great trip. I determine the success of a trip based on how much money I was able to save from coupons/club card sales. My total b/f coupons and club card savings was $134.10. I paid $60.42 that is a total savings of: $73.68!! YAY!

I did not buy anything that I did not need (I went in with a list)
I did stock up on a couple items that I had a coupon for and were on sale. For example:

-Lawry's Marinade: Regular Price: $3.89, sale price $1.66, or 3/$4.98 I had a coupon for $1 off 2 So I got 3 for $3.98 a savings of $7.69!

-Prego Spagetti Sauce (my personal favorite...even over homemade!) 4/$5, I had a coupon for $1 off 3...I purchased 3. I paid $2.75 for 3 jars.

-Mott's Apple Juice: Regular price: $3.79. I had a raincheck for 5/$7, I had 2 $1 coupons that I was able to use, I paid $5 for 5 64 oz. jugs of Mott's Apple juice! A savings of: $13.95

-Yoplait Yogurt: Regular price: .90 (RIDICULOUS!!!) Sale price: 20/$10 (with an additional $2 off if you spend $10) 20/$8, I had 3 .40 coupons that i was able to use. I paid $6.80/20 yogurt cups or .34/yogurt cup. a total savings of: $11.20

In addition to some other savings, here is one last deal I have to include. Albertsons had several coupons on the back of the add that gave you $2.50 of free halloween candy w/ certain purchases. So, in addition to the Lawry's Marinade savings above, I also used the store coupon that gave me $2.50 off any halloween candy for buying the marinade. I used one other free candy coupon (for the ice cream I bought) so I had a total of $5 off the purchase of halloween candy. Well, the halloween candy was on sale for 3/$4.98 and I had a $1 off 2 bags of candy coupon, so I only paid $3.98 for the candy but had $5 off...that means I got 3 bags of halloween candy for free plus $1.02 in coupons toward the rest of my bill!!

So that, my friends, is how I saved $73.68!

Talking

You'll notice that he says, "buck" or sometimes just "buuuu" for truck. I think that he does that because I always say, "BIG truck". Maybe he just combines the two. I think its super cute. He will point out every truck, RV, bus or van that passes by...he'll repeat, "buck" until we acknowledge each and every one. And, no, it doesn't work to say, "Yes, Noah, I see all 5 of those trucks up ahead." :)

Some cute pics were uploaded to my dropshots account: www.dropshots.com/jhylkema

Playdate

Earlier this week Noah and I went over to the In't Hout's and had lunch and playtime with Julie and Eva. We always have a wonderful time with them! It was so much fun watching Noah and Eva play...they have so much fun together. Julie has posted some pics on her blog, check them out. You'll get a sneak peak at the baby love that's blooming between them...haha. :)

My little cowboy

Sorry in advance for all the pics...Noah's just so darn cute. ;)

Friday night we had our biggest Junior High outreach of the year. It was a western theme this year, and we had so much fun! This year as our entertainment we had Danny Ray come out and perform....OH MY GOODNESS! This man is incredible. He is an illusionist, (a member of the Magic Castle in LA) performs all over the world, loves the Lord, shares the gospel...and came to be with US!! You have to check out some of his stuff...it's mind boggling. We had over 60 visitors and over 30 students that didn't attend church...awesome! We're so excited for how the Lord will continue to use this event in the lives of the students who were there.



Noah got to join in the fun for a bit (then mommy put him to bed and had a babysitter come for the rest of the night :)) and boy did he love all the excitement (and all the attention he got). He was the cutest little cowboy there (even though he refused to wear his cowboy hat!). Here are some pics:

Learning how to rope:


Hanging out with some cowgirls:

Looking handsome for church today:

Strike a pose:

Getting ready to jump:

i G uess I should R eveal my L atest news!

Can you guess?






That's right, Elliana Joy will be joinging our family in just 5 short (haha) months!

We're excited...and shocked (jodie) and can't wait to meet this sweet little one. I guess we'll have to invest in some head bows. :)