The last two weeks has been a mix of success and fails!

Last weekend we headed up to Nelson, to the annual Rainbow snow fields snow gear market to collect the things we need for a fun winter in the snow. At the market they sell off old hire stock, as well as allowing others to sell their gear.  We also went to R and R sport.  Here is how is went:

Button's ski's: 2nd hand
Button's ski boots: 2nd hand
Button's helmet; Old display stock on sale
Button's snow goggles; new from r and r
Taboggan: new from r and r (on sale), I was hoping to get a 2nd hand one of these but they didnt have any at the market, and we know that button will have a lot of fun on this, and we will be able to use it on Deniston(a mountain near by) once the snow arrives.

My snow Jacket; new from r and r, but on half price sale. there wasn't something in my size at the market, and having a warm, water proof jacket is pretty essential!!

We also already had a jacket fr button, pants and gloves for me. And a friend gave us a hand me down pair of snow pants for Button.

I made two face wind breaks out of some soft microfleece i bought from the local fabric shop, in the shops they sell for $30 or more, this cost me $15 for both and i used some of the fabric to line my beanie, and still have some left over if i need it for anything else.

I also bought some waterproof fabric to make little over mittens to go over button's gloves.

So all we have left to get is a pair of pants and jacket for Hubby.  Which he could possible hire, but i have also been looking out for them on trade me.


Other current missions;

Telephone:  for now our phone seems to have fixed itself.  but i did go on a hunt, unfortunately all i could find was a couple of rather expensive ones at the trade store, that also has 2nd hand things.
 
Large casserole dish: have had a look at the nd hand stores here but haven't found anything.  I am thinking of writing a list of wanted items to put up on the local shop's notice board.


Food;
Button and i have been having a great time in the kitchen cooking and baking,  I have been making lots of new dishes for dinner that i haven't tried before, and we have made muffins, large pretzels, home made dips, etc.
I failed once and bought a sweet cake from the shop, was having a bad day and needed a pick me up!
I haven't been having any soft drink at all.  Button and I have one glass of cordial each on Friday family movie night.
In Nelson we ordered Japanese, i got the spicy beef and this was a fairly healthy option, when we home though we ordered Chinese food because i was too tired to cook...and i ate the sweet and sour pork, that was a bit of a fail, but there is not much healthy options at our Chinese take away.

Other buys:
We bought some lego for Button, to be used as rewards for toilet training.  This is a bit of a fail on the no buy rule.  I am sure with patience that eventually he would go(wee's are fine, but we have a bit of an issue with poo's), but hubby and i agree'd we needed to try something that would really encourage him to WANT to go.  Without too much pressure we would really like him to toilet trained before we start heading to the snow.

Personal thoughts:
Although i had a couple of fails the last two weeks, i still feel like i am doing ok.  Its definitely making me think about a lot things, about things we use and do unnecessarily. I am reminding myself to resist buying sweet treats, and random things we don't need.  Its made me a bit more creative in the kitchen, and button and have been enjoying spending time together making things.  Also we have been eating healthier snacks.  Lots of veggie sticks!
Not buying the new released Muppets movie was hard, we rented it out from the video shop for Friday night movies though.  In terms of movies, it is certainly more value for money to purchase these days, when the cost of renting it only three times would equal the same as the purchase price, I think this is probably why we started buying so many dvd's.  I think after the six months, we will still buy the dvd's of movies we know we watch multiple times, but reconsider buying as many as we do.