aaahhhh . . . things are getting back to normal

With Trev being gone for 8 out of 13 days life around here just felt a little out of whack. Needless to say I'm glad to have him home and having things get back to normal, whatever that is.

He had a great time with Papa & Gigi in Arizonza (I mean at Baseball Camp) and he loved hanging out with his cousin. They went to a ball game on Saturday, swam, swam and swam some more, till they were literally BLUE! I guess Papa's pool was about 60 degrees but it didn't seem to bother them. And lucky for Trev he is on Spring Break for the next 2 weeks, so we are hanging low for a few days so he can recover from all of his travels.

So, I registered Miss Meghan for Kindergarten last week. After much turmoil of trying to figure out what the best situation for us will be, considering that I have no idea what Daryl will be doing by the time school starts in July, I ended up just getting her registered in Oakley. I had considered trying to get her into Belshaw since it is closer to work and Mimi's, making it easier on picking her up in the afternoons, but it was just to stressful. First Oakley would have to release her, which based on work & childcare they should be ok doing that, but Antioch would not let us know if she was in until 2 or 3 days before school starts in August, which is problem #1 since Oakley starts school in July, so what do I do for the first month? Then Antioch could not guarantee that if she got into the District that she would actually get to go to Belshaw, they would place her in ANY school that had space, well, there are a bunch of schools in Antioch that I would NOT want her to go to. So, I requested afternoon kindergarten, which starts at 10:45 and goes till 2:35. So, I think for most days I will be able to pick her up at school and then get Trev, solving the other problem of getting Trev to and from school. So, now I'll just need to figure out the mornings. Meanwhile, I can't believe that my baby is going to kindergarten!!!

And because I don't like posts without pictures, here is one I took of Meghan the other morning, what WAS Santa thinking bringing all of this Barbi stuff???? I don't remember having this many little pieces when I had Barbies ~

Project 365

Here are my layouts for the last 2 weeks:

Mustard weeds

Have I mentioned how much I love the mustard fields? Yea, I know, I think I have. We got out with three cute girls yesterday and did a little picture taking and I think I got some exercising in too, man those girls can run fast through those weeds, me, not quite so fast. It was pretty cold and very windy, but I think that we still got some cute pictures!


Oh, and the bouquets, those were wedding flowers.

ok, off to the airport to get Trevor!

It's a much better day . . .

I was informed this morning that the "good girl" had returned last night. This a good thing, when Meghan isn't behaving she often says that the "bad girl" is here. It's kinda funny, kinda scary, but I'm going to take it as 5 year old behavior and let it be! She had a better day at school, after telling Ms. Jeannette and I this morning that the reason she didn't want to go to school this week is because 2 of the kids were calling her names. So, we got that taken care of and hopefully now ending the battle I've had all week with her.

On the way home today we stopped for a little bit of shopping goodness at Home Goods, I had almost forgotten about the gift certificates I won at Bunko last month. Here are my finds ~


I fell in love with the pink & brown polk a dot box, it's perfect in my scrapbook room, and I love the wire basket, don't worry, the tacky Pine Creek sign will be removed as soon as I can find some pliers! We also came home with a cute little bunny purse for Meghan. Since the box had a few red pen marks on it, I asked the cashier if she had any others, knowing she probably didn't, but she did take $4.00 off, so my trip today was like shopping for FREE!!!! and I even had .88 left over.

I found some mustard weeds around the corner the other day, I LOVE mustard weeds, I want to jump out in every field I see and take pictures, I took Meg over for a little impromptu photoshoot, here are a few of the cute ones ~ I have a few more places staked out to go this weekend, well, if I have a willing model that is!


And one last picture to share, I got this plant from my dad 2 years ago, looking pretty sad, very droopy, no flowers, alive, but barely! This plant was my grandmothers, she passed away when I was 16, so it's been around awhile. I can't take any credit at all for the way it looks today, Daryl is the one with the green thumb and the one who does an awesome job of taking care of our yard and plants, but I was so happy to look out my window the other day to see this ~

Momma said there would be days like this . . .

It started out rocky and it ended pretty rocky. The time change has not made the mornings easy this week. Meghan did not want to get out of bed and she did not want to go to school today. Pretty unusual for her, she begged me to let her stay home with Dad, I told her that dad needed to sleep today, she assured me that she would be a good girl and that he could sleep, she would just watch TV all day! Yea right!!! Then she whined saying she didn't want to stay and take a nap at school and could I pllleeeeaaaaassssseeeeeee pick her up before her nap. Needless to say getting out the door this morning wasn't easy and I was 15 minutes late to work, again.

Things didn't get much better once we got home, the whining started about one thing or another. We left to go to the store so I could pick up some Linguisa for Trev to take to Dad tomorrow, since he can't find it in Arizona, the whining and not listening and sassy mouth continued all the way home, so it was a no TV early to bed evening here. On her way to bed she got out a piece of paper and wrote this for me ~

it says:

Mom I'm sorry

Meghan

So sweet, hoping that a little extra sleep tonight will make for a nicer tomorrow.

Tomorrow Trev also leaves for Arizona, with his cousin, on an airplane, by themselves!!! Yikes!!!! I know that they will be fine and Dad has promised to call me as soon as he has possession of them. They will have a great weekend I'm sure, they are going to a Spring Training game on Saturday. Oh, and as far as Meghan knows, Trevor is going to "Baseball Camp" this weekend. So I think he is all packed and ready to go.

It was one of those busy weekends, Zac & Gina and the kids drove down on Saturday, so after running errands all afternoon, we headed over to moms for pizza and to visit for a bit. Mimi & Grampies was just a pit stop to their final destination of Disneyland!!!! The kids didn't know it until Monday morning, and then they headed out Tuesday morning to visit the mouse!


Sunday was church and bagels, back over to Mimi & Grampies for lunch, Anth, Cari, Hayden and Gabe also came, and I took no pictures! On our way home that evening we got a call from Tidwells that our long lost friends, also here visiting from Oregon were heading over, so after a quick trip home to let Max out we headed over there for awhile, it was great catching up for a few minutes and the kids had a great time. Rachelle used to watch Trevor, and he and Micah were buds, I know Trev enjoyed hanging out with him for a bit.

Micah, Cole, Trev & Josiah

Meghan & Selah

It took a few minutes for the shyness to wear off, but after that they were instant friends! Selah just turned 4. I asked Meghan if she had fun and she said "When I first talked to her it was awesome!" I thought that was so cute. I just wish they didn't live so far away! We got home way to late Sunday night which was probably the start to the rough week. But sometimes, that is just they way it has to be.

I think this weekend I will try and keep it a little on the quiet side!

Couponing . . . Part 2

Half way through yesterdays post I realized that it was getting much to long so I thought I'd finish off today after everything from yesterday had a chance to settle in!

When I first started using this site it was like learning a new language. What the heck is a RR, or an Easy Saver Coupon, an Ad Coupon, then there is the RP or the SS and PG. The first part of this applies only to Wal-Greens, as there are a lot of ways to make the most of the sales at this store. And I will tell you that I really really dislike this store, I almost never shopped here before last October and I don't really look forward to going there, but, for the amount of $$$ I have saved there using the sales/coupons and the fact that I save money because I'm not going to my favorite store, which has everything under the sun that I could possibly not really need but think I do. The good thing about Wal-Greens is that I have my list and I very rarely get something that is not on my list (unless my daughter is with me that is!), it is nice to go in there and know about what you are going to be spending.

Wal-Greens has a weekly newspaper ad, within that ad are coupons good only for Wal-Greens, you must have the coupons to get the sales, and usually those coupon items are not marked in the store, sometimes making it interesting to figure out exactly what is on sale, but . . . it's worth it to figure it out, and if you get the wrong item, the coupon won't work and then that's alway fun for the cashier to figure out why!

On top of cutting out and using the Wal-Greens coupons you can also use a manufacturer coupon, one per item if you have multiple coupons, thus increasing your savings. This is what coupon mom does for you and that is where the RR and the SS and PG come in. RR stands for Red Plum and SS stand for Smart Source, these are the weekly coupon inserts, once a month there is usually a PG for Procter & Gamble.

Wal-Greens also has a montly rebate book, in this book are instant rebate items and also mail in rebates, I personally like the instant rebates best, but I'll take the savings any way I can. And it's not just mail in rebates any more, you can do your shopping, come home and enter your rebate items in your account on-line, accumlate them over the month and then submit on-line at the end of the month, pretty easy, I just got my first card with some rebates on them. The rebate items are usually marked in the store, making it much easier to find the items your looking for.

The rebates work just like a coupon, again you can double up the rebates with a manufaturer coupon for additional savings, one of the best items I've gotten doing this is razors, for almost nothing. The mail in rebates obviously you get after you submit the required information.

RR stands for Register Rewards. These are like little refund coupons that can be used for a future purchase, usually they are good for 2 weeks, so be sure to not let them expire before you use them. You can get Register Rewards for buying certain items that are shown in the weekly ads, like the toothpaste. These rewards print out once you have finished the transaction, be sure to get them. The very first time I did this I got to the car and relized that I didn't the $5.00 RR that I earned, so I had to go back, which is a pain, but was worth the $5.00.

According to my print out's for Wal-Greens this week I should save about 70% on my 2 trips, I think that is definately worth my time spent printing the list and finding the coupons.

The grocery store coupons work the same way, it is just much simpler since there are not so many ways to save. Although, since I've been watching the Safeway ads lately, they have been having additional coupons in the ad that you have to actually cut out to get the savings, in addition to using your club card. But it's the same principle, find the items that are on sale and then find any additional coupons for more savings, it really does add up.

I hope this make sense, if not let me know and I will try and clarify. I'd love to hear about your deals too!

He's Home!!!!

***I started this post on Friday and am just getting back to finishing and posting, where does the time go?***

And I feel like all is complete in my little world again. He had a great time, lots of nature walks and hikes, apparently the one yesterday was brutal, (those were his words) they climbed from an elevation of 150 to about 850. He was worried about who would be in his cabin but was happy that there were a few kids from his class and he really liked his cabin leaders Josh & Macaulay. It sounds like there were 2 cabins connected, but separated by a 1/2 wall (I asked if he took a picture of the cabin and he said no. Mental note: need to do some picture taking coaching before his next trip!) and Macally goes to our church, so that was cool.

He said the food was really good, I had warned him that it might not be! So he said since he had low expectations that he thought the food was good! They went on a night hike and did all sorts of cool things involving colored markers and covering their eyes up to help create "night vision" and had the option of kissing a banana slug, he opted out, I don't blame him!


So, here he is, all safe and sound with the cute (don't tell him I said it was cute!) bandanna on! Now we are getting ready for his next adventure, he and Hayden are flying to Arizona to visit Papa & Gigi, and I'm sending him with a good camera and not a disposable! We had the pictures developed, it said there were 27 exposures, only 20 developed on each camera, and it cost me $12 bucks to have the film put on a disk, so, this trip he's taking a digital camera, hopefully he will have better luck!

A little more on couponing . . . Part 1

The house is still WAY to quiet, I can't wait until tomorrow and Trev gets home. I'm sure he's having a great time and I can't wait to hear (and then blog) all about it!

I've had some people ask about this whole coupon thing, since I just finished making my list for the week I thought I spell it out here, there are some great deals to be had this week at Wal-Greens and some at Safeway, although I'm waiting until Saturday to go to Safeway because there are a few items only on sale Saturday & Sunday. I will be making 2 trips to Wal-Greens this week, I try not to do that because I want to waste my time going back and forth, but there are a few things worth making another trip for this week and since they are coupon items I can't do it at one time.

The first thing I did was find a cute binder, and yes, it has to be cute to make me want to look at it over and over every week, but I'm weird like that! In the binder goes all of the weekly coupons that come in the Sunday newspaper, we get the Contra Costa Times so when I started doing this I figured I was good, but what I found was that the SF Chronicle has much better weekly coupons, strange as they are the same ones, just a different version I guess. So every Sunday we are on a mission to find a Chronicle, which we usually do, sometimes it just takes more than one stop. I thought about getting a Sunday only subscription but it was more than just buying it at a store, and I am buying the paper to save money not spend more than I need to!

I take those weekly coupons and mark the front page of the packet with the date and which paper it came from, three hole punch it and put it in the cute binder. Sometimes I thumb through them to see what's in them but usually I don't, I rely on couponmom to do that for me at a later time, I'll forget by the time I need them anyway! This process makes couponing work for me. I love saving money, but I hated clipping coupons, filing coupons, finding coupons once I got to the store if I actually remembered to take them with me, and then usually once I did, they were expired! So, taking the whole packet and filing it in the binder is so simple and no little coupons to keep track of.

Although there is another web-site that I do print individual coupons from, it's www.coupons.com. There are usually good cereal and yogurt coupons and some snack stuff. These coupons are replenished on the first of each month. I guess each coupon can be printed so many times, once it's reached it's limit it's no longer available. I have figured that out the hard way, I wouldn't print the coupons when I saw it, thinking I'd wait until I needed it (therefore not having to keep track of it and file it!) and then I would go back to it and it would be gone. Well, now I know, print on the first of the month anthing you think you might need and file it in the binder. For those loose coupons I get from printing on-line or ones that are inside a package, I got some photo album pages at the office supply store, you can see in the picture of my binder. I have a real casual filing system with those pages for anything loose I come across.


So now that everything is organized and has a home, I log on to www.couponmom.com
and bring up the list of the weekly ads on her site, just a little disclaimer: it is not always 100% accurate, but considering it's a free service I don't stress over it. She has the Ads for Safeway, Wal-Greens, Wal-Mart, Target and probably a few more, but these are the ones I use. Target and Wal-Mart don't seem to have big savings as a rule, at least on the items I use. I find great savings with Wal-Greens and Safeway.

I scroll through the list usually with the weekly ad also in front of me, I'm more of a visual person and I want to see the little picture of what is on sale, not just the words telling me what it is. I check the little box of anything I think I might be interested in and then print the list. Now this is the great part about the list, first you have your list ready for when you go to the store, and second, it will tell you which ad and which date there are additional coupons. Having kept the coupons in order by date in my binder, it is now very simple to locate a coupon that I want want.

Here are a few examples of items I'll be picking up this week. Without this process I would have NEVER been able to get these deals.

Wal-Greens

Colgate toothpaste, the cost is $3.29, if you buy one you will get $3.29 back in register rewards (more on that later) making the toothpaste free, + I also have a .75 off coupon that I will be using, so now, Wal-Greens is actually paying me .75 to take this toothpaste.

Nabisco Crackers, on sale buy one get one free @ $1.99. So with the sale that is a $1.00/box. There is also a newpaper coupon for $2.00 off 2 boxes, so now my crackers are also free, love that! And we eat a ton of crackers in this house. The best part is that because I get 2 papers each week, both of the ads actually had that coupon, so I can now get 4 boxes of crackers free.

M & M's, I can never have enough of those! The are on sale 2 bags for $7.00, there is an easy saver coupon (more on this also later) for $3.00 off, making it 2 bags for $4.00, pretty good deal. But there is a newpaper coupon for $1.00 off of 2 bags, so now I'm paying only $1.50/bag of M & M's. And I have 2 of those coupons too!

So, you get the idea? I know it all sounds a bit overwhelming, but after a few weeks of doing it it actually goes pretty quickly, the first few times I did this it probably took an hour or so to get through it. I've been really paying more attention to prices too. In general Wal-Greens is more expensive than Wal-Mart or Target, so it is helpful to have an idea on prices to make this work the best.

Couponing Part 2 tomorrow!

Way to quiet around here . . .

Trevor left for Outdoor Ed Camp this morning, sniff sniff! Such a great experience for him and he was so excited to go, although there was a little bit of yawning this morning, that is what is does, and has done since his first pre-school programs, when he gets a bit nervous. He is spending Tuesday - Friday here. We first heard about this trip at orientation at the beginning of the school year and he said he was going, I was surprised since he was at a new school and only had 1 friend who didn't want to go. I figured sure, what the heck, and I'm sure they will need chaperons, Daryl can go! Well, no, they don't need parent chaperons, they have past students who are now high schoolers be the counselers! ok fine, I guess I have to cut the stings a bit sooner or later. So last week some more paper work came home and they were asking for volunteers to drive up today and help get everyone registered and then go on the first hike with them, perfect, I was sure he would want his dad to go, right??!! Nope, wanted no part of it. Yes, I was a bit crushed that he didn't want us to go with him, but I guess this is the first big thing he is doing without family, and yes, I know that he will be fine, but man, I miss him already! And they can't even call home all week!!! But I did send him with 2 disposable cameras and am hoping that he uses them wisely and will bring me home some nice pictures so that I can make him a little album about his week.

Since I didn't win a spot in the photo editing class over at Jessicasprague.com, I had to sign up! I've only gotten through 1 lesson but I'm loving what I have already learned. Here, let me show you ~

This is the picture out of the camera. I didn't think it was too bad, needs a little bit of a color adjustment cause it seems a little dull, but I didn't think of it as bad.


This picture I edited using levels. Levels has been about the only thing I really new how to adjust, and it can do a pretty good job on a lot of things, obviously doesn't fix everything. Looks better, I probably would have been happy with that.


And this is after doing 4 or 5 little things (color correct white balance/levels/curves/shadow/highlight/saturation) that brought out some amazing color. What a difference.


Sometimes I think that less knowledge is better! The more you know the more you want to know and the more I think I need to edit every picture I take! I am trying really hard to learn how to take the best picture I can SOOC so that I don't have this need to edit everything. I can see that I can get to wrapped up in editing I'll really never get any scrapping done, and how do you decide which to edit and which not to edit?

Now I'm off to start lesson 2 and see what else Jessica can teach me! I know I've said this before, but if you haven't checked out her web-site and classes you really should if you want to learn more about digi scrapping and photo editing and picture taking, I have learned so much from the classes I've taken in the last year.

Project 365

Here are my layouts for the last 2 weeks. Doing pretty good at actually taking a picture everyday and getting my layouts done at the end of the week, 2 months down, 10 more to go!