As some may know, we went to Walt Disney World at the beginning of December 2014.  We thought that it would be the best year to go since it had been ten years since the both of us had been.  Yep, Jon and I went to Walt Disney World for our honeymoon!  Our original plan was to actually be at Disney on our anniversary and for Michael's 3rd birthday, but decided against it due to finances.

With the holidays behind us and a new year started, we are back on the wagon on meal planning and trying to stay in our weekly grocery budget.  The way we got the weekly budget of $50 is that Jon gets paid every other week $100 for his oncall pay.  For right now, we've decided that we would use that for

We did it, we finished the Christmas countdown on time!  Just had to read more than one book each night.  Here's the books for the final week of the countdown:

The third week of the countdown the whole family was sick so, we didn't get caught up like we had hoped.  Here's the books that were read that week:

The second week, we were still on vacation and travelling.  Once we got home, the plan was to get up to date with the countdown, but Michael has been sick and has been only up to reading one book.  Here's what Michael picked for last week:

We haven't been doing as well with this countdown as we have the past couple years.  Being on vacation during that week didn't really help.  Here's what Michael picked out:

Just within the past few months, Michael has been all about getting a bedtime story read to him.  Because of that, this year's countdown has been more exciting than it has been the last two years.  You can read about last year's countdown here, Twenty-four Days of Christmas Books.  I had completely forgot to take a picture of all the books before my mom wrapped them for me.  Most of the books used last year are being used again this year.  I will post a weekly update of what was picked out and read.

Michael loves to hang out with me in the kitchen, even plays with his play kitchen while I'm cooking.  He always wants to help, but I didn't have any kid friendly kitchen utensils that he could use.  I happened to run across a company that specializes in just what I was looking for, Curious Chef.  I put the foundation kit on Michael's wish list and my step-mom ended up getting it for him for a birthday gift.