Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Hello!

So, obviously I haven't kept up with the blog. Sadly, it's been almost a year and a half since my last post. I have so many pics of the kids but it's a little too overwhelming to try to post them all right now but I will put some up. As most of you know, our family is expecting a new baby on 11/11/11. We are very excited. We did not find out the sex of the baby, which makes it even more exciting. I can't wait to find out if it is a boy or girl but I guess I will have to keep on waiting. I thought I didn't need anything for the baby but with the arrival of the baby nearing, all of a sudden I've realized I kindda need A LOT of stuff. I forgot I got rid of almost everything (except nursery furniture) after Hayden b/c I thought there weren't any more babies coming (at least for a much longer time). Now it is even more important to cut back and save as much money as possible. So, I've decided to start couponing again. It's a little time consuming as I have to find the coupons, match them with the sales, map out which stores I'm going to and have list and stack of coupons for each store. But I'm hoping it will be worth it.

Today the kids and I went to Walgreens, HEB and CVS. Walgreens did NOT go as anticipated. The kids were really good but I knew it was only our first of three stops and when they found the slap bracelets for $0.99 I gave in and let them have one each. My mom used to get them for me and it was a happy memory and I thought they may need something to occupy them for the rest of the morning. I planned on getting crayons for free and Huggies Wipes for $1.99 (reg. $7.99) for a big refill bag. Turns out they were out of the coupon books I needed to make the wipes deal work and out of the wipes as well. I got the crayons and got a $1 RR with it to use on my next transaction which was 2 Purex laundry soaps (reg. $5.99, paid $1.49). I had 2 coupons and the RR but didnt know you had to have 1 item for each coupon and RR you use so I had to buy another item. The kids were asking for these big suckers they found in the check out line and after I told them no, I let them get them just so I could complete my transaction. I ended up spending $6.46 total and most of that went to slap bracelets and suckers.


(Not pictured, 2 slap bracelets and 2 suckers)

Original Total: $17.75

Total OOP: $6.46

Total Savings: $11.29


Next was HEB. They were having a great pasta sale so I stocked up. I let the kids eat their huge suckers while we were at HEB so I had to buy some baby wipes. I’ve always wanted to try the 7th Generation wipes and since I had a coupon for them I went ahead and splurged on them.


Original Total: $17.62

Total OOP: $10.13

Total Savings: $7.49

Our last stop was CVS. I was most excited about this stop.



Original Total: $89.21

Total OOP: $28.73

Total Savings: $60.48 plus I got a $10 gas card.


Overall I would say it was a successful day of shopping. Hopefully I will start keeping up with the blog and post something a little more interesting than couponing. But hey, it's a start!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

December 2009-April 2010

So, I am a little behind on posting. A lot has happened over the past few months. Hunter had another set of tubes in January. My mom, Jarad and I ran the Austin Half Marathon on Valentine's Day. Then Jarad, Hunter and I spent Valentine's evening in the emergency room. Hunter fell and bit right through his lip and chipped his tooth. Since the cut was so close to the edge of his lip, they told us stitches would make the scarring worse so we decided against getting it stitched but we were also told that biting completely thru your lip is prone to infection since the inside of the lip heals faster than the outside so we got an antibiotic. His lip has healed well but it did leave a scar. Hayden is growing up so fast. She first stood up on February 4. She has been walking holding on to things and standing on her own for a while now. I just know she is going to take her first step any day now. She is constantly surprising us. Monday night Jarad and I were sitting on the couch and she just crawled up there all by herself. Hayden has also had some ear infections and has some fluid on her ears. We go to the doctor about every 3-4 weeks for ear checks and they are observing her ears to see if she may need tubes as well. We learned that she too is allergic to penicillin. Hayden is also eating table foods. She wont even touch pureed baby food. She wants to feed herself and she wants to eat what we eat. Hunter is potty trained. Yea! No more diapers or pull-ups. He wears underwear during the day and night now. Every once in a while we have a little accident but he has done great. He is talking so much more too. I think they are going to make us stop going to speech therapy. They pretty much determined it was his ears and now that he can hear properly, they think he will catch up quickly so they are saying he probably wont be admitted for classes over the summer but we will find out for sure when they evaluate him in a few weeks. Both kids are getting so big. They are amazing and make Jarad and I so happy. We love them so way totally much! Well, here are pics from the past few months.

Hunter patiently waiting to eat Christmas dinner.

All the food I cooked...yes, I did it all by myself. Had to make a few phone calls but I did it.

We finally used our china.

Hunter seems to like it.


Hunter and Jarad playing with bubbles in the house...really Jarad?!?

I made pies as well.

Hayden drinking out of her sippy cup Santa brought her.


Hunter dancing to music on his MP3 player that Santa brought him.

Jesus' birthday cake.




Jarad's 27th Birthday.








Hunter holding a sparkler on New Year's Eve.


Homemade pizza on Friday Family Fun Night.


Hunter pushing Hayden down the hall in the wagon.






Hunter turned himself into a piece of art.


Hayden's 6 month pictures.













Hunter's favorite underwear...NEMO!


Hay reading a book.

Hay checking out the toys.

Hunter trying to get her away from his toys. We are still working on the sharing.


Hayden's 7 month pictures. I didn't really get a good one of her. She kept rolling over.






Hunt and Hay love to be pushed up and down the hall in the little wagon. Hunt's a good big brother. He holds on to Hay to make sure she doesn't fall out.




Hunt wanted to change Hay's diaper all by himself. Needless to say, I stepped in but he is such a big helper...sometimes.


Jarad and I were lucky enough to win tickets to the rodeo and to see Billy Currington play. It was a lot of fun and the kids were really good. Hunter was dancing to the music and Hayden was all googly eyes over Billy. It was cute. Before the concert started we got to see a farmer milk a cow, pet the Borden cows Elsie and Beau, go to the petting zoo and see all the big green John Deere tractors. We all had a lot of fun.
























Hayden's 8 month pictures. It's getting harder and harder to take her pic on the rug. She just won't be still.





A new McDonald's opened up here in Kyle. We're moving up in the world now that we have a McDonald's. It's pretty neat inside. It is an upscale McDonald's, if there is such a thing. The play area is a music theme. It was actually clean too. Probably b/c it had only been open for a day or two when we went. The kids liked it and Hayden had fun playing the piano on the wall. Finally, a play area that children under 3 can play in.



Hunter hunted Easter eggs at IBC. He had more fun picking up the candy off the ground that had fallen out of the eggs.









Hunter was NOT happy at the restaurant.



We decided to drive around a bit and we found this church off Mopac that had the most beautiful bluebonnets and we just had to stop and get pics of the kids. My parents and grandma always stopped and took pics of my sister, brother and I every time we saw bluebonnets. Jarad wanted to pick some but I told him NO b/c it was illegal to pick blubonnets. After much debating on whether it was illegal to dig them up instead of pick them or that you could pick one for every 100, I finally googled it. According to TXDOT, it is NOT illegal to pick wildflowers, including bluebonnets. They say it is an urban legend. So, now that we know, next time we see bluebonnets, I guess we will pick some.














So we went to the grocery store and Hunter peed in his pants like three times. We used up all of his changes of clothes. His clothes were so wet that in the check out line, there was a puddle on the floor under the cart where he was sitting. So we cleaned up the mess and got to the car and stripped him down. So he got to ride home naked and seemed to like it much better than being stuck in the wet clothes. Hopefully he learned not to pee on himself at the store anymore.