Safeway

I went to Safeway tonight because I had coupons for the cereal that was on sale that were just too good to pass up, even though I probably have 25 boxes of cereal in my pantry! For 8 boxes of cereal and 4 boxes of fruit snacks, I paid $5.70. I was very pleased with that, but when I went to the car and looked at the catalinas I got at checkout, I was laughing out loud, I got 2 $1.50 off your next purchase and a $2.00 off of, yes, you guessed it, more cereal. So I paid $5.70 and got back $5.00 in coupons. I had figured I paid roughly .50 an item, but now I figure it's more like .05 an item!! I love great deals!

Then I ran over to Raleys to get some more juice, they had a really good deal this week and we go through a ton of juice over here. So I got 4 bottles of apple juice and 2 packages of apple sauce for $6.00.

So for $11.70 out of pocket, I got all of this! Hard to believe that full retail for this is $64.98, I can't even imagine paying anything close to that. I think that before couponing and just shopping the sales I would have thought that about $2.00 per item here was an acceptable price and probably what I paid for these kinds of things at Target or Winco, but that still adds up to $36.00.


ok, off to bed . . .

13

My baby boy became a teenager on Friday. Man, I feel old!!! And I wonder how the time could go by so fast, 13 years . . .

We celebrated quietly with family on Friday night, keeping it low key because of the SAT test on Saturday, so he will have a little party with friends next weekend.

THIRTEEN . . . .

He is loving his iTouch, notice the big ol head phones around his neck, I guess it really does all come back around, couldn't believe he wanted those big things!

He actually likes music . . . that hasn't always been true. There were many car rides he cried asking me to turn off the music because it gives him a headache. Funny thing is that the music he listens to gives me a headache!

Loves getting itunes gift cards so he can load up his iTouch with music and games. His latest song download is the "Pants on the ground" song.

Also loves his Air soft guns

Still skateboarding and now also rides the ripstick (gotta get some pictures of that now that he has it figured out)

Will only wear "skinny" jeans

Playing the Sax and in the Jazz band 2 mornings a week before school, not even having to be on him as much to practice these days, nice change!

Watches sports with his dad, pretty much all of it, because he wants to. He understands it and asks intelligent questions about things, Daryl has been waiting oh about 13 years for this to happen

We are so proud of him and can't wait to see what the next 13 years bring. We love you Trev!

And here he is Saturday morning on our way out the door for the test . . .


This was his second time getting up! I guess he was a bit nervous about the test. I heard him come out of his room about 11:00 and go into the bathroom, he didn't come out so I went to see what was going on. I look in his room and his light is on, his bed is made and he was in the shower! I'm trying to talk to him though the locked bathroom door to find out why he is in the shower . . . I wasn't for sure that he was even awake, given his little bouts with sleepwalking . . . but he thought it was morning, and was not to happy about being awake at this point! I went and turned his bed back down, turned off his light and headed back to my room, before he came out of the bathroom, I could hear the grumpiness in his voice and didn't want to be in his way!!! The next morning he remembered that he dreamed he woke up and it was 7:30 and we were late! We had to be in Clayton at 7:30, so we would have been very late if that were the case. Thank goodness we got up and out of the house in time and arrived in plenty of time.

I thought it was funny, I know I never sleep well the night before something big is happening, and I guess he can't either!

And he said the test was "boring". That it was the longest 5 hours of his life, I couldn't get him food quick enough. It said it was hard, but that is not surprising, he still has a good 4 -5 year of learning before he will take it to count for college, we are just proud that he took the step and took the test in 7th grade.

This morning

On the way to church, Meghan is looking at her bible, it's a little girls childrens bible, and she says that she needs a new bible because she has had this one since 2004. I asked her if she remembered who gave her the bible and she said yes, aunt Stefie. So I said that at some point she would get a new bible and that she could save this bible to give to her daughter someday. To that she responded, "why would I want to do that?". Sometimes she has more of her dad in her than I thought!!!




Picture is totally unrelated to this story!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Some couponing and some discipline

Trying to get back into the routine of things around here, but still working more hours at work which doesn't help me get things on track at home! Also doesn't help with this cold and rainy weather, all I want to do is curl up under and blanket in front of the fire and watch TV all night.

Getting through all of the birthdays this month, we celebrated with Mimi & Grampie on Monday night and will celebrate Trevor's entrance into the teen world on Friday. Although we will be celebrating very low key as he will be taking his SAT on Saturday, so it will definitely be an early to bed night for him! He does not do well when he doesn't get enough sleep! So I think we will have a little party with friends next weekend.

Been doing a little catching up with my coupon shopping, didn't do as much during the holidays and I missed it! Although I loved shopping out of my cabinets all month and not needing to run out to get whatever we ran out of. My stockpiling has paid off, although my husband is convinced we have enough cereal and peanut butter to last a life time! (we don't!).

I went to Safeway tonight to pick up a few things . . . I got all of this for $14.63 + a $3.50 catalina for my next purchase. I was happy!


Even though that was a great deal, it was not near as good as my CVS trip a few weeks ago, I paid about $2.50 for 6 cans of Oust and a package of cookies (Daryl picked those out), which is a really good deal, but on top of that I got back $18.00 (yes, that is eighteen dollars) in ECB (Extra Care Bucks) to use on my next shopping trip, which I used a few days later.


Trying to be very strict with what I am buying now, since I do have so much, I'm sticking to my lowest prices on items that I don't need now, makes it a little bit more challenging but I'll end up with greater savings in the end.

I think that I've finally decided on my word for 2010 - I've debated between Discipline and Balance. I don't like the word discipline, it seems like a negative word, a word I don't want to think about for an entire year, yet it is the word that keeps coming to the front of my brain, I keep trying to replace it with a nicer word, but it just doesn't feel right, so discipline it is. And I figure with a little bit of discipline maybe I'll find some balance?? I'm hoping anyway. There are so many areas in my life that can use a bit of discipline . . .

*what I eat and what I feed my family, committing to planning and fixing healthy meals for us
*exercise . . . enough said about that
*how much time I spend on the computer or iPhone, reading blogs mostly, and mostly coupon or scrapbooking related, but still, time can get away so quickly
*to use my camera more and to be better about my Project 365 photos (it's no fun going backwards to try and fill up a week I've slacked off)
*writing a daily to-do list, and actually looking at it everyday
*documenting more stories of our life, making creative time every week
*a reasonable bed time - I hate going to bed and I hate even more getting up in the morning, but it is a little easier when I've gotten enough sleep

These are just a few things . . . I'm trying to be more in tune with what I am doing and how I am spending my time so that I can begin to get a better, more disciplined routine in place. I know it helps me to keep on tract and it helps the kids too, especially when they don't have a grumpy mom who is trying to get things done last minute or on a deadline.

And this look explains it all . . .

Meghan has never had problems expressing herself, she does take after her father you know! Well, we celebrated Christmas with Papa & Gigi after New Years, the big boys both got iTouchs for a combined Christmas/Birthday present. Oh what Meghan would do to have her own iTouch! We actually thought that maybe we, ooppss, I mean Santa, should get her an iTouch for Christmas instead of the DS that we got her, some days she spends more time in my iPhone than I do, not to mention the games are .99 instead of 29.99! But somehow I just could not justify getting an iTouch for a 6 year old.

So when it comes time for presents Meghan opens hers and unfortunately the only larger set of Littlest Pet Shops that Meghan doesn't own and that I told Gigi that she would just LOVE, was given to her by the little neighbor girl for her birthday. I was very surprised that she got that from a little girl that we barely know. Needless to say when she opened that gift she wasn't as excited (read: distracted) as I thought she would have been since she already had it. She was a bit disappointed but we assured her that we would take it back and she could pick out something else.

And then came the rest of the boys presents:

Looking more surprised than Trevor! ok maybe this will go over ok ~

I only wish you could hear her screaming at the top of her lungs at this point
"THEY GOT ITOUCHES"
"THEY GOT ITOUCHES"

Feeling better now that we got that screaming out of our system!

But then it went to this look, followed by her socking Trevor in the arm!

It was funny and sad at the same time. Had she been able to open up her gift and play with it like it should have happened I don't think that her reactions would have been so severe! I did feel bad for her, oh what that child would do for her very own iTouch, if she is not playing with my phone she is begging Trevor to play on his Touch . . . I keep reminding her to get her DS, but apparently it's not a cool as the Touch!

Progress Report

Trevor brought home his progress report yesterday . . . how is it that a child can have A's in every subject and a C in PE you ask? Well, let me tell you about how the PE teacher grades.

I thought it was odd a few months ago when the first progress report came home, Trev had all A's and a B in PE, I questioned him as to why he had a B in PE? Well, unlike when I was in PE they have to do 2 additional assignments each trimester, so the teacher will not give any student an A on a progress report because the 2 assignments have not been completed. They have not even been assigned! How can your grade be penalized for an assignment that has not been assigned? Sounded a bit off to me but Trevor guaranteed that by the time report cards came out he would have an A in PE, and he did.

Then comes the 2nd trimester, the 1st assignment was assigned on a Friday and was due the next Friday before Thanksgiving break, this was the week Trevor had the stomach flu, so being the good mom that I am I kept him home from school as to not send him to school throwing up and spreading his germs. He had the assignment completed on Tuesday but hadn't turned it in since it wasn't due until Friday. Well, he got sick on Wednesday and stayed home the rest of the week. Unfortunately, he didn't give it to me to take to school with one other project to turn in and when he tried to turn it in after the Thanksgiving break, the teacher said he could not turn in late assignments.

So that is why he has a C, he has "missing assignments", and the 2nd assignment of the trimester has not been assigned yet. I was going to e-mail the teacher and have a little rant, I won't be happy if this prevents him from having straight A's when it is report card time. But it looks like he can make up the "assignment" by running extra laps everyday.

I'm still annoyed!

Welcome 2010

Wow! 2010 ~ wasn't it just Y2K? Seriously how has it already been 10 years?

We celebrated New Years Eve quietly at home. I was sick on Wednesday and still not feeling great on Thrusday so we had to opt out of our New Years plans and stay home. We watched some movies and barely stayed awake till midnight!


I woke up today feeling great! Yipee!!! I should, I didn't do anything for 2 days. But I made up for lost time today, got all of the laundry done AND folded, finished getting ALL of my coupons organized and into my binder (started that little project while watching movies last night) there are tons of coupons coming on Sunday so I wanted to get what I had cleaned up, made grocery list and went grocery shopping, so much easier to do with organized coupons! Cleaned out the kitchen cupboards, yes, almost all of them, amazing what happens to them when you don't pay attention to what the other people in your house are doing to them for a month or two, did some miscellaneous picking up and now I'm tired. It was nice to get the little stuff done around here without feeling guilty that I should be doing something else, such a great feeling, my head feels so clear and I love that. I should probably take advantage of that before I have to go back to work on Monday, blech . . .

We are looking forward to our 2nd Christmas with Papa and Gigi this weekend, then I will get Christmas put away, I figured we couldn't have Christmas without a Christmas tree, right? So while it's been nice to have an excuse to keep Christmas up, next week I will be wishing I had taken it down already!

Deciding on my word for 2010, I never did settle on one for 2009, but I've got a couple in mind so I just need to decide which it will be. I also decided to continue with Project 365 - even though I got behind in my layouts and sometimes a little bit in my picture taking, I've got a picture to represent all 365 days of 2009 and that feels like a huge accomplishment. Unfortunately I feel like I'm starting out behind since I need to finish up the 2009 layouts, I will get it done.

Here is my first picture of 2010, Meghan put her baby to bed tonight before she went to bed, was very cute, she held her and patted her back and then laid her down and covered her up, such a good little mommy (who was not to amused that I was taking this picture). She did take good care of me when I was sick, she is a good little mommy!!!


Here is to an awesome 2010, I can't wait to see how it unfolds!