Review guidelines:

1 Fork = I would rather eat dog food.
2 Forks = I would eat there if I was starving.
3 Forks = Not bad; someplace I would occasionally consider eating.
4 Forks = A good place to eat; I will put it into my rotation of places I dine frequently.
5 Forks = One of my all time favorites!

One caveat to note – I am allergic to fish and seafood, so if you are looking for those recommendations, you will have to consult someone else.

Because I have a daughter-in-law with Celiac and a really good friend who is Vegetarian, I will try to point out whether those options are present when I review a restaurant.

This coming June 12th will be mine and Jon's 10 year wedding anniversary.  So, over the next for weeks I'll be writing blogs about our wedding and what my mom and I did to try and keep costs down.  I'm going to start with the center pieces I made for our guest tables.  If Pinterest was around 10 years ago, who knows what I might of had for center pieces.

I bought several of these heart shaped glass dishes from Walmart.  At that time they were $0.99, but I think they are selling for $1.50 now.  I wrapped flower garland that I bought from Michaels around the dish and cut down to size.  I had the leaves tucked under the dish so the flowers would not move once they were set on the tables.

Our colors were green and purple (both of our favorite colors).  I didn't want to have clear water in the dish so we put grape Kool-Aid in with the water.  At that time, Kool-Aid didn't have any green colored drinks or I would have used that as well.


I had found some green and purple floating candles at Michaels that we actually lit for ambiance.  I wanted more than just plan floating candles.  I found these little green and purple flowers at, I believe, Walmart.  These candles were not lit because of the size, they probably would have been gone by the time everyone got to the reception.  This is were having green colored water would have made it even better.  I rotated between the tables on which got green candles and which got purple.  The water would have been green with the purple candles. 

Around the center pieces, I placed the CD wedding favors that Jon and I made.  I'll write a post about that later on.

I don't remember how many tables we had, but we had two regular floating candles and two flower floating candles in each heart shaped dish.
 
Hope this gives you some ideas on how to make a nice looking center piece without breaking the bank.

I did the Meal Planning a few days before we got paid, but knew that it would be a little tighter than normal due to some financial changes.  So, all the meals are cheap and not carry overs.  Here's the list:

1. chicken fajitas (already had the chicken and the fajitas kit)
2. hamburgers
3. hot dogs
4. French bread pizza
5. spaghetti
6. alfredo

This week I had planned on getting the prices at each store for all the items, but we had a not so pleasant toddler and just wanted to get in and get out as fast as possible.  I'm thinking of going by myself next week so that I can do the actual comparison.  Here's the list we had for Walmart:

• spaghetti sauce  $1.88
• hamburger buns  $1.18
• hot dogs  $2.98
• hot dog buns  $1.18
• alfredo sauce  $1.88
• loaf of French bread  on sale for $1.00, normally $1.68
• poster board  $0.33
• stickers  $1.97 and $0.98
• spray bottle  $0.98
• gallon of distilled water  $0.88
• apple juice  $2.48
• green beans  $0.98
• pizza sauce  $0.98

As you can see, we added some items while in the store (the ones in green).  Jon had forgotten that he needed distilled water for his C-pac machine, I had forgotten that we were almost out of apple juice for Michael, since they were out of green beans last week I got a can this week, and we noticed that the pizza sauce was cheaper at Walmart than at Wegmans.  The total spent at Walmart was $20.33.

Even though we had a cranky little boy, I wanted to get all the grocery shopping done.  So off to Wegmans we went.  Here's the list we had for Wegmans:

• spaghetti noodles  $0.99
• onion  $0.86
• green pepper  $1.03
• 1lb hamburger  $4.35
• gallon of whole milk  $3.59
• pizza sauce
• mozzarella cheese  $2.79
• potato chips  on sale for $1.99, normally $2.50
• OJ  $2.49

The total spent at Wegmans was $18.55.  Making the shopping trip total $38.88.  The weekly budget was $40, making us under budget by $1.12!  We also earned $0.50 for the milk purchase through Ibotta.  How are you doing with meal planning and staying to the budget.  We don't find it hard staying to the budget anymore, it's the staying to the meal plan that we have a heard time with.

I have always loved Disney movies and long before we ever had Michael, we were making sure to have a nice Disney movie collection.  We've been buying Blu-Rays for years because they are suppose to last longer than a regular DVD.  We buy the combo pack because we only have a DVD player in the playroom and a travel DVD player for long car trips.

Last week there was a day that was a beautiful day to be out playing in the backyard.  Michael and I had gone to the dollar store a few days before and saw this huge bubble wand.  Michael loves bubbles, but the bubble wands that we had just didn't work well enough and would frustrate him.  Also, he had accidentally spilled his smaller container of bubbles.  I thought this would be perfect for him.  I had a large container of bubbles that we've been using to refill his bubble container for his bubble lawn mower.  I put the dish down and just put enough bubble solution to cover the dish, which was more than enough.

It's a special restaurant review from my step-mom, a dinner and a show!  When Jon and I were first married, we went to several dinner theaters up in DE and really enjoyed it.  She mentioned that they have children performances so maybe sometime we might take Michael to it.

In the past when I would make pork chops, I would just put them in the oven and bake them.  My husband was not too fond of it so I decided that I would continue to make them the way I normally do, but added some BBQ sauce to them.

So, today is Mother's Day and instead of being waited on because of that, I'm being waited on because I'm sick.  We had done half of our grocery shopping Friday before we left for our nephew's birthday party.  Here's the meal list for this week:

1. Spaghetti (carry over)
2. Grilled Chicken (already have everything)
3. Tacos
4. French Bread Pizza

Friday we did our Walmart shopping and because we needed to buy Mother's Day cards, we ended up spending more that what we normally do.  Here's the list and the individual prices:

• 6 Mother's Day cards  $32.82
• olive oil  $2.38
• tic tacs  $1.04
• Cherrios  $2.97
• sugar  $2.38
• tissue paper  $0.97
• distill water  $0.88

At the time of going to Walmart, we didn't have a plan for our meals and just got the items that we needed that we were out of.  I had a $0.50 off coupon for the Cheerios and bought the tic tacs because I was trying out a new app on my phone.  I got the whole $1.04 back through the app.  We spent $45.08.

This morning we figured out what we were going to do for dinner for the rest of the week and, even though some items are cheaper at Walmart, Jon and Michael went to Wegmans for the rest of our shopping.  Here's the list with the individual prices:

• gallon of whole milk  $3.59
• 1lb hamburger  $4.03
• loaf of French bread
• shredded mozzarella cheese  $2.69
• shredded taco cheese  $2.69
• pizza sauce  $1.49
• pepperoni  $2.29
• tortilla shells  $0.99
• OJ  $2.49
• butter  $3.49
• Goldfish crackers  $7.49
• chicken strips  $4.39
• cereal for Jon  $1.99

Jon crossed off the loaf of French bread because he said it cost a lot more that what it costs at Walmart and will get a loaf of French bread on his way home.  He did add two packages of cookies for Michael and I for an additional $5.00.  The total spent at Wegmans was $44.71.  The total amount spent for this week's grocery trip was $89.79.  To be honest, I have no idea what our budget was after filling up two cars and getting lunch on Friday.  Jon said that we had gone over our budget by $24,71.  Jon had some cash on hand which helped pay for the overage.

Next week, we'll be back on track and I'll start posting the prices of all the items at both stores so we can see if there's a difference in prices or not.  I hope all the moms out there had a great Mother's Day.  Even though I'm sick, my little guy has come up to check on me several times today.