"......", said K.

I love listening to K when he's playing and using his imagination. Right now he is sitting next to me with blocks. His most recent statement was..."Alright folks! Let's get ready for the competition!" He cracks me up! Where does he get this stuff? Folks? He then went on to tell me he's building the United States of America and he has to go very fast because he is running out of time! Yikes, what kind of schedule is he on?

In the car the other day he was playing with an airplane and Transformer. He was pretending with them and is always talking with his toys. His playing went something like this...the plane was flying through the air and K says "Wahoo! said Jon. Wahoo! said K." Mike then said to me, "Do you think he likes to read books?" :) That was the first time I've heard him use dialogue like that when playing. Maybe he'll be a writer someday!

He has a very vivid imagination and it is so fun to hear and see what he comes up with next. Next weekend we are going to Las Vegas. I cannot wait to see what he comes up with all the lights and sounds there. There could be some interesting stories and statements coming from him! :)

$95.00

That is how much I saved at the grocery store today! Every few months my favorite grocery store has a Mega-Sale. You get $5 off your total bill for every 10 items you buy that are part of the mega-sale. This is when I do my major stockpiling of cereal and granola bars among other things. I search deal sites and find printable coupons and look through my coupon organizer to match up with items included in the mega-sale. So, I was able to get $20 off my bill and then had a coupon for almost every mega-sale item I bought. (I also bought things not included in the mega-sale.) For example, Cinnamon Toast Crunch was only $1.39 with the mega-sale and then I had a coupon for $1/2. Therefore, I got each box for $.89. So I bought a lot of cereal, granola bars, and yogurt.

THEN, I found a spot near the frozen chicken that said $1...I looked and there Bertolli frozen meals that normally cost over $8.00 on clearance for $1. There were two so I grabbed the ravioli meals and then found a $1 off coupon on my organizer! Yep, TWO meals for $1!! I'm pretty sure that's the best deal I've ever gotten! :)

I'm going to stop at Safeway on my way to get K from preschool and get some more cereal and the new granola clusters b/c with their sale I'll pay about $2.50 for three boxes of cereal and two bags of granola clusters. All three of us eat cereal every morning and Mike loves granola bars to keep at school.

I LOVE GOOD DEALS! :)

Now I need to reorganize my cupboards (thankfully I have TONS of cupboard space) and get all my groceries put away.

Mondays

I enjoy Mondays! It's the only day of the week I absolutely do not have to drive anywhere or go anywhere. I have gotten quite a bit accomplished already today and hope to get even more done later this afternoon. K has been busy playing with cars and cutting things out. He has been helping me with the laundry too. He is having a very good day of making good choices and I'm praying it lasts!

I am still thinking about starting another blog to share recipes, deals, coupon ideas, etc... I need a fun name though! Any ideas???

Tomorrow is my first day helping in the school library. I am looking forward to helping and getting to know the school kids even more. Our weekday mornings are falling into a routine now and it's been great!

Mondays...home and getting stuff done
Tuesdays...K has school/me in the library
Wednesdays....K has gymnastics
Thursdays...K has school/I run errands
Fridays...Bible class for me/K plays at friend's house

We are counting down the days until my brother's visit!!!! Road trip to Las Vegas!

Nice day!

Today was Day 3 of preschool for K! He is LOVING it so much! Though the other night he did say he wanted to be done with preschool so he could be home with me all day. Oh yeah, my heart melted. :) I sure do love my little guy!

I am having a pretty nice day...
Great deals at Walmart this morning...$1 Thomas DVD and various CDs as well. Gotta love a good clearance!
Then I FINALLY got my hair cut. It looks great and feels wonderful! I just stopped at the first place I saw today (Cost Cutters) and the hairdresser did such a good job! I will be going back to her again!!
I have a new recipe cooking in the crock pot and it's smelling pretty yummy! It's Cheesy Potato-and-Ham Casserole!
I was asked to sub for two days in October so I'm looking forward to some extra moola! (I want to get up to IL to see my parents' new place!!)
My computer is working great again thanks to my wonderful husband!
The humidity is way down again so it has been much more bearable to live here! Our AC has been working really well with the lower humidity.
Two weeks from today my brother will be here! I am beyond excited to have him visit--this will be his second trip to see us. K has sooooooooooooooooo much fun with Uncle Kory!!

I have so much to be thankful for! :)

And more changes...

I'm toying with the idea of starting another blog...one that I would devote to sharing my coupon fun, online/in-store deals I've found, weekly menu ideas and recipes. There are quite a few blogs out there just like that so I don't know that another one is needed, but I think it'd be fun to share money saving ideas as many friends have asked me how I use my coupons or I get great deals. And, hopefully my friends and family would read it and be able to get in on some great deals as well.

Right now I'm "doing research" by reading lots and lots of other blogs and gathering ideas. I'm also asking myself questions...I haven't been all that great at keeping this blog updated regularly so would I be any better at another one? Do people want to know what my good deals are or what recipes I love? Do I have the time to do this? And do it well?

Stay tuned... (and feel free to comment!)

Changes

Things are changing in our home...we are settling into a new home, K is starting school, I have cut back on some commitments outside the home, and Mike has a smaller class this year (which hopefully means less correcting and a teeny bit more family time!). These changes, I think, have inspired me to make even more changes in our home:

I'm working on monthly menus. I have always done a weekly menu and shopped for those weekly ingredients. I am now trying a monthly menu with a rotating choice of foods to make life simpler and keep us eating at home more. I enjoy menu planning and am having fun putting together all my recipes too. My goal is to try a new recipe every week! We'll see if I can do it!! (I have lots of recipes I want to try.)

I am trying to make more things from scratch...both as a money saver and to make our meals more healthy. I love reading blogs and have found many, many great ones that share homemade recipes for pizza crust, pizza sauce, etc... It will be fun to try!

The budget! Ah, the dreaded budget! We have the usual debt and bills that all people do, but we also want to save up for various things...a new AC next summer, our Disney trip in 2011, summer family vacations, home improvement projects, etc... So, I'm working on a new budget to make bill paying easier and saving up for big things manageable as well. I'm looking forward to have more structure with our money. I'm hoping it makes things a little less stressful.

I've been a coupon gal and stockpiler for a long time, so this isn't really a change but I'm trying to be even better at it. I used to get the deals at Walgreens and CVS along with the grocery store, but then stopped making the rounds. I am determined to get back into since I'm going to have a free morning while K is in school (the other morning I'm volunteering at school). It's really a game, finding the best deals and matching up the coupons to make it an even better deal. I'm going to start devoting more time to finding those deals and getting our stockpiles up again.

I'm excited about the changes the occurring in our household. Hopefully, they bring down the stress level and increase our health and family time.

New recipes

Today I tried a new banana bread recipe and made black bean burgers for the first time.

The banana bread...so simple and quite tasty! K had fun helping me and we both agree it turned out rather well. I was so happy to have all the ingredients on hand!

The black bean burgers...very simple to make and pretty filling. I didn't hate them, but I didn't love them either. K thought they were hamburgers. Mike wants to use a little ground beef in them next time to give them a better texture. They are super cheap to make and I had all the ingredients on hand so those are definitely positives! I will most likely try them again and play around with ingredients a bit to change 'em up.

OH, supposedly the monsoon season has ended early and we will be seeing dry weather from now on! (BTW, it has been a super lame monsoon season!) The last two days have been dry and cooler so I'm hoping the weathermen are right b/c it has been great! Still in the triple digits, but much more bearable!!! Only a couple of months until cooler weather and summer can be a distant memory! :)

Growing!

So, K must be going through a growth spurt b/c he just can't get enough to eat! :) He's a little guy...only 30-1/2 lbs and 37" tall. This is what he's had to eat so far today:

Breakfast @ 7 AM:
waffle
yogurt
milk

He wanted some oatmeal too, but I told him to wait until 8 and see if he was still hungry

8 AM:
yep, he wanted oatmeal, but didn't eat it all (there was mention of playing in the sandbox and food was no longer interesting)

11 AM (lunch):
finished oatmeal (about 1/2 a bowl)
mandarin oranges
full bowl of cereal & milk (rice krispies, cheerios & kix all mixed up)
piece of turkey (from my sandwich)


Normally he'll do a bowl of cereal for breakfast and half a PB sandwich with some fruit for lunch. So, that's quite a bit of food for him. Plus, yesterday during lunch he said he was tired and wanted to go to bed (at a much earlier time than normal). He had a great nap and fell asleep rather early for bedtime too. Growing boy!! :)

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A relaxing Saturday

We are trying to cut monthly costs if we can, so are trying out Magic Jack for our phone service. It works through our computer's USB port and only costs $20 a YEAR! We've only had it for one day, but so far it works great and the calls are clear! The only things that are annoying about it is that we had to pick out a new phone number and must dial the area code for local calls. BUT, I can live with that for $20 a year! :)

We saw the new Veggie Tales movie "Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella" at our local theater this morning. The Christian radio station sponsored the movie so it was only $2 a person to get in. It was a funny movie with a good message. We enjoyed it! We then had lunch at one of our favorite spots--Cici's. YUMMY! Now the guys are napping and I'm about to read some more. A family at church just had a baby so we are taking supper over tonight. I'm making chicken enchiladas so I'll need to get those started soon. Supposedly the monsoons are coming back again this next week so we'll hopefully be getting some rain and cooler temps...the storms are always exciting as long as they are quick and not too destructive! :)