Money Saving Mom®

With help from Mandi from Jungle Deals & Steals, we’ve now added a snazzy new Amazon Search Alert feature to MoneySavingMom.com!

The Search Alert tool allows you to not only search for your favorite products in an easy-to-use interface, but it also lets you create a wishlist of your favorite items and notifies you when those hit your buy now price!

You can find it in our dropdown menu under Deals & Steals. Just click on the Amazon.com Search Alerts link as shown above.

One you’re on the Search Alerts page, simply type in a search term in the box below, something like “Bob’s Red Mill” or “Melissa Doug”.

Then, when you find the product you want to add to your wishlist, click on Set Alert. Type in your email address and your alert price and click Save.

You’ll receive an email when the Amazon.com price drops below your alert price. Or see all of your wishlist items by clicking the My Alerts tab.

That’s it! You’re all set up and good to go!

Silas woke up this morning and the first thing he wanted to do was make Snowman Cookies. I’m not exactly sure where he got the idea from… but he was really sold on it.

It was a busy day today, my to-do list was long in preparation for my trip tomorrow, and making Snowman Cookies — especially so early in the morning — wasn’t really on the agenda.

But I’m working on learning to say “yes” to the mess, so I agreed that we should make them. And we had a blast making them together.

Watching my little Silas roll the dough, intently cut the snowman, and carefully put them on the baking sheet warmed my heart on this chilly November morning.

These are the moments that matter most. These spur-of-the-moment times when I say “yes” to something that might seem a bit messy and inconvenient.

These are the memories I’ll treasure long after there are no more little hands eager to help me in the kitchen.

I may not have gotten everything done on my to-do list today, but making Snowman Cookies on a whim with my 3-year-old was a whole lot more important than most of those things anyway.

P.S. Sadly, I completely forgot to take pictures this morning while we were making the cookies… and every single last Snowman was eaten by tonight. But I thought you’d enjoy these pictures of the kiddos having a little afternoon tea party today. If you can’t tell, they have quite a bit of fun together. 🙂

She was working on a project for school. She was sitting on the fairly-new, suede couch. She was using scissors.

{You can guess where this is going already…}

Unbeknownst to her, in her concentration to get the project cut out just right, she also cut the suede on the couch.

Not once, not twice, but five times.

She didn’t even realize it until we were cleaning up the papers from the project. I saw the cuts firsts, then she saw them.

I wanted to get upset. After all, the couch wasn’t anywhere near free and it was something we’d purchased intending to keep it for many years.

But before I could become upset, a little voice whispered to me, “It’s just a couch.”

It’s not worth anger or frustration — especially since it was just an accident and she was immediately very sorry and upset about what she had done.

The accidental cuts she made on the couch can be mended with a needle and thread. Cutting into my daughter’s heart with my words can’t be undone.

It’s just a couch. It will fade, tear, and get stained with years and use, anyway. It won’t matter much in 25 years from now.

But my relationship with my daughter and how I respond to her — even in the little things like this? That will matter tremendously in 25 years from now.

photo courtesy of Big Stock Photo