It's all crossed. Finger, toes, eyes, hair...

Claire is sleeping in panties for the first time.

The First Day

We got our new camera in the mail today.














Jason's already laughing at me. He told me this evening that the Internet isn't big enough for what I have planned. :)















It's a Nikon SLR D 80. Whatever all that means.


















I'm going to read the entire manual until I can figure this sucker out.
















And I will figure it out.
















And then I will save up all my babysitting money for the next 70 years so that I can buy PhotoShop.


















And then,mercy! The things that I will be able to do!
















But of course my hands will be old and shaky so all the pictures I take will be blurry.

That's just the way it goes sometimes.

Dancing in Diaperville

Coupons 301 or 103

The last advice I can give it to check http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ and http://www.thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/ on a regular basis to get the best deals. On Sunday, The Centsible Sawyer posts most of the week's deals. This is my favorite coupon day. These two ladies seem to have it down to an art. They are very impressive at what they are able to come up with. If you have a CVS or Walgreen's near you I would encourage you to read this, this and this from Money Saving Mom. Very helpful material. I would not have been able to figure out how Walgreen's works if I hadn't read her articles first.

Happy Coupon Clipping!!!

Coupons 201? 102? I don't know.

Organizing Coupons

Once you start collecting all your coupons you will soon realize that you need a good way to store them. I am going to paste an insert here from http://www.moneysavingmom.com/. From what I have looked at, her way of organization seems the most simple and complete.

I'd recommend you start out with a few envelopes - one for each store you shop at, and then one larger one for your extra coupons. As you collect more coupons, you could expand to an index card box with dividers for different food/item categories.
If you collect coupons like me, you will quickly outgrow an index box and need something more substantial. My solution has been this:

A few months before I got married, my mom made me a coupon box just like hers and gave me some of her coupon stash to get me started.

It has worked wonderfully for me.The individual envelopes were made by using small letter envelopes (No. 6 3/4 - 3 5/8 x 6 1/2 in.), cutting the flaps off, and stapling an index card standing up inside.The envelopes are organized alphabetically with the main categories and then multiple envelopes for each main category.

Something like this:

Baby -

diapers

products

wipes

Bags -

containers

foil, plastic wrap

trash

And so on. Here are the rest of the categories along with some of what are in the categories and the separate envelopes in parentheses:

Baking (mixes, oil/sugar)

Batteries, film

Beverages

Bread

Candy

Canned (meat, soup, vegetables, fruit)

Cereal (envelopes for each brand)

Cleaner (all purpose, bathroom, dish detergent, disinfectant, laundry, furniture polish, floor, glass)

Condiments

Crackers

Dairy (beverage, cheese, sour cream/cream cheese/butter, snacks, yogurt)

Frozen (beverage, bread, ice cream, meat, snacks, vegetables/fruit/potatoes)

Health Food

Hygiene (band-aids, deodorant, face, feminine, hair, lotion, medicine/vitamins, shaving, soap)Jelly, Peanut Butter

Meat

Mexican

Office Supplies

Paper Products (facial tissue, cups/plates, toilet tissue, towels/napkins)

Pasta

Rice

Salad Dressing

Sauce

Seasonings

Snacks

Syrup

Toothpaste

Toothbrushes

I put restaurant coupons, other coupons for non-grocery stores, rebate forms, and any receipts on one side of the box. On the other side, I'll put coupons which need to be organized. The front of the box has envelopes for each store I shop at.
When I make out my grocery lists for each store, I put the coupons I'll be using in these envelopes, along with the lists for the store. I always bring a calculator and a pen in my box, too.The size of the container fits into the front of the shopping cart (the child seat section), and if you don't have a child sitting in there, this works well. We usually get the "car carts" at Kroger - the kind with the little car attached to the front - and Kathrynne "drives" while we shop! Kaitlynn is in the sling or the ERGO, so we have space to put the coupon box upfront.
I usually only take my whole box in when I go to Kroger, since I often find extra deals and reduced items that I have coupons for which were not advertised in the sale flier. At Walgreens or CVS, I just pull out the envelope in the front of the box which is for that store and head in. If I find some special deal that I know I have coupons for, I can always run back out to the car and get them.

Coupons 101

I've had a lot of questions from several different people about how to collect coupons, how to organize them, etc.. and although I am still a newbie at this I will try my best to point you in the right dirction.

Where to get coupons:

The best place to find coupons is from the inserts in the Sunday Paper. Collect as many copies as you are comfortable dealing with and keep them until they expire. Choosing which coupons to clip is up to you. I like to cut out every coupon (except the animal coupons.) An example of why I would do this follows:
Last week there was a coupon for Orajel. I decided not to cut it out because Eily has a tube already and I didn't think I would need it by the time she finished teething. Well, that same week Walgreen's had it on sale where with the coupon it would have been free and it was one of the Walgreen's rebate items for the month and along with the coupon there was a rebate form in the paper from the Orajel company. I would have made $9.00 and I would of had a tube of Orajel that I could have given to someone else. I now clip all coupons.

Not all stores take Internet coupons but many do. Wal-Mart does and most Targets do. Ours did until a week or two ago. They only take Internet coupons from the Target website now b/c people were making illegal copies of the other Internet coupons. Stupid cheaters. I'm pretty sure Kroger takes them also. The best place to get Internet coupons is http://www.coupons.com/. Every month they upload a new supply of coupons and you can print as many as you need. Also, I recommend checking in daily to http://www.freebies4mom.com/. There is an amazing amount of free samples out there and usually there is a coupon for the item in with the sample. I also check http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ and http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/ for other Internet coupons.

No comment

Yesterday, Audrey came over for a couple of hours to play and was in the dining room playing with the toy kitchen. I watched for a minute or two and she was being so attentive and caring to the "babies" (aka Elaina and Claire) so I asker her, "Audrey, what do you want to be when you get big? A mother?"

"Um, no. I want to be a store manager."

Thinking I had heard her wrong I asked,
"A what?"

"A store manager."


To each his own.

See. Me.

Elaina read her first two words tonight. Tear Sniff Sniff

Right now she is "drawing beautiful" and "not going outside the lines!!" Here's a picture of the masterpiece. Notice the frayed edges accomplished by the upside down scissor technique not known to many adults.

Since you asked...

The items in the below photo would have totaled up to 42.03 before coupons.

I've updated this, if you are interested.

I have really been in to using coupons these days. Today, I went to Wal-Mart, Walgreens and Target. This is what I got for a combined total of 20.65. Not to shabby, eh?

Just a few misc. pictures

Our home on a normal day. Let's look closer....

Go....who, again?

My brother-in-law is the head football coach for the small town that borders my parent's small town. My family (not including us. Too may small ones) usually is very supportive and tries to attend most, if not all, of the games. Last night, Dad asked if we wanted to join him for the basketball game since it was in (another) small town close to our home. I had worked (for the last time) at the grocery store in..say it with me..my parent's small town and was tired but thought it sounded like a fun idea. I stopped by the Blankenship's house to get the girls. I had to change Claire's clothes after I got there and I was holding Eily so I asked Sarah if she wouldn't mind going to the car and getting the sack of clothes out of the back. She wasn't able to find them so she locked the doors and came back in. We saddled up and went out to the car to find the keys locked inside. We went back inside.



Phillip was kind enough to meet Jason at our house and drive him to his house so that he could unlock the car for us and we could go to the game in one vehicle. We stopped by and picked up Mom who was only going to support Josh.



We arrived at the game first and took our seats in the section of the bleachers reserved for the Away team. boo hiss



I started looking around and noticed that the girls that were playing the home team were blue and white and we were red and black. Hmm. I pointed this out to Mom who pondered the whole situation with me. We eventually decided that we'd better just call Dad and inform him that he had gotten the wrong information and Magazine must be playing in another town altogether. His answer? "Nope. I just wanted to see County Line play."



So we cheered and watched and received curious look from the parents of the away team. And we drank coke and ate M&M's and had a maahvelous time.

You're Invited!

You're Invited to: A Let's Get Stuck! Party

Where: Under Elaina's Chair, on top of the Kaboost
When: About every 15 minutes
Involves: Picking up and eating throughout the day all of the food Elaina has so kindly left

Valentine's Day Photo Shoot or We Were Insane

Whoops!

It was kindly pointed out that I should have written, socializer. Not, socialist. Oh well. What can I say?

Birthday Party!

Today was cousin Aaron's birthday party.
Elaina has been soooo excited about this event.
She found out Wednesday that we were coming to this after she slept 3 more times.
Every night we would restate how many sleepy darks were left.
Last night she was so eager to go to bed. Even around lunch time she was asking if she could go to bed. This morning she woke up raring to go. And when we got there?...


This was her attitude. She is NOT a socialist.

But they brought out the party hats and everything got better.

And they played outside on Aaron's new swing set/jungle gym.

And then Anna rang the dinner bell and we all had Mac-N-Cheese with hot dogs and birthday cake and ice cream! Yum!

Then Aaron got to open all his presents.

And then Claire got upset because she couldn't ride for forever with Aaron on his Gator.

And we went home.