Annie and da Puddin'...

Don't judge - I ate the pudding (SUGAR FREE!) and gave Annie the empty cup to "play" with...She pretty much had a very nice time trying to get every little bit.

Here she is de-lighted to find that brown can be yummy, too...

Must. Get. ALL. of it...





Uh, Annie...you got a little something on your...uh...chin...

Poor girl, like her sister and mother before her, she comes from a lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ong line of chocolate lovers...

This has NOTHING to do with Cinderellas...or groceries for that matter

but...the Oscars last Sunday night had Ben Stiller and Natalie Portman presenting an award for cinematography and apparently Ben was impersonating Joaquin Phoenix in a bizarre David Letterman interview. And I had NO idea what it was all about. I had seen some random photos of Joaquin with a beard, but you know - Hollywood is all nuts anyway, so I didn't even think twice about it. So - I investigated a little bit to see why on earth this would be so hilarious to everyone and why he would even be doing it. Clint and I really enjoy Joaquin Phoenix as an actor - Walk the Line is one of our favorite movies and he was outstanding in it. Well - I screwed up the allergy testing I was supposed to have today because I forgot that I wasn't supposed to take my allegra for like 15 days before the testing, (yeah- don't get me started) and since I wasn't supposed to be to work till noon, I had some unexpected hours to fill - and, of course, rather than doing laundry, I decided to browse through you tube...and I found the whole interview.



IT IS STINKIN' HILARIOUS! Oh. My. WORD. I laughed till I cried. It's almost 11 minutes long and worth every second. I love David Letterman - I totally appreciate his humor and I felt so bad for him! I hope this link lives forever cuz it's hysterical. What is up with Mr. Phoenix??? I really must investigate if this was real or some sort of stunt. In hind sigh, - I'm sure it's entirely possible that Mr. Joaquin was high or drunk or heavily medicated, but come on...don't do an interview if you're out of it! So I chose to bypass sympathy and head straight for hilarity - as we Gilson's tend to do. I cracked up the entire 11 minutes.

Then I looked at my pile of laundry and was immediately depressed again. Sigh.

"It happens..."

is apparently Grace's new creed. Last night I was reading Beauty and the Beast to her for her bedtime story and we got to the part where the Beast and Gaston are wrestling and ultimately Gaston falls off the castle tower, which I can just tell, she is picturing the scene from the movie in her head, because it's not pictured in the book and the book really glazes over the death of Gaston --gotta love the condensed versions.

Anyway, she stopped me and said to me, "It's too bad Gaston fell off the castle and fell to his doom. He was naughty and he fell to his doom, Mama. Sad when people fall to their doom. But...IT HAPPENS."

GEEZ.

Not once is that phrase in the book we were reading. I know - I looked + I've read it about 50 billion times.

to which I then replied, "Falling to their doom happens, huh?"

"Yep," she said - "It happens"

and then we kept on reading. About Belle and the Beast NOT falling to their doom, but living happily ever after, because, you know - although some people fall to their doom, others live happily ever after.

Eh, it happens.

Gracie's Prayer

Grace has really taken off with her supper time praying. In the beginning it was:

"Dear Jesus, thank you for this day, thank you for day. And night. And day. And night. Thank you for Mommy and Daddy. And Miss Stacey. And day. And night. Thanks, bye-bye."

We have been working with her a little bit here and there and this was her prayer last night...the day after "pee happened."

"Dear Jesus, thank You for this day. Thank You for everything we got. Thank you that I went pee in the potty two times today. And that I tried to poop, but I couldn't. Thank you for Mommy and Daddy and that I had good day at Miss Stacey's. Thank you for our house. Thank you for our food. Amen."

Just talking to God you know?

How I filled my gas tank for 5 bucks...

Hear ye! Hear ye! If you can, get thee to Meijers before Saturday! Pick up a sales ad or two! It just may fill your gas tank! Right now, Meijers has a coupon in their sales ad for any new or transferred prescription you get filled in their pharmacy, get a 20$ custom coupon to be used on gas or groceries. Woot! Annie just had her *ahem* nine month check up *ahem* on Tuesday and it came fresh with a new script for vitamins...so off I goes to Meijer, coupon in hand, gas tank almost to E. With the wonderful insurance coverage here at the Oaks, my copay is only $5.00, so I slapped my 5 dollars in change down for the vitamins, got me a $20.00 coupon and went and filled my gas tank. I have another one (script and coupon) and am hoping to fill about 1/2 of the truck's tank next week :) for $5.00! So, if you have any prescriptions needing to be refilled or new ones and don't normally use Meijer pharmacy - give them a whirl. Just don't forget to pick up the ad. I don't know if the coupon will be out in next week's ad or not, but it is good until the end of March sometime.

Of course - while I was waiting for my script to be filled, I had some time to go browsing around. There were only 2 things that I needed, taters & red hot sauce - the rest were all perks.

Here we have pictured, along with adorable Miss Gracie Lou Who and my beautiful yellow roses from Valentine's Day that are starting to droop.... 5 lbs of taters, 1 bottle of red hot sauce, 1 bag of Quaker rice cakes snacks, 6 jars of baby food, 1 loaf of Aunt Millie's Healthy Goodness bread, 1 pack of Trident gum (just like my Grandma used to chew!) and 1 box of Crest Weekly Intensive paste <--which I'm interested to try out. Apparently there are 16 uses and it's just like the dentist's paste. Huh. Anyway - of course had a coupon for everything and my whopping total came to...are you ready?

.32 cents! That's right, baby.

Gum - free
Rice Cakes - free
Toothpaste - free
Taters - 2.00
6 jars of baby food - .40
Red Hot sauce - .49
Aunt Millie's Healthy Goodness Bread - .75

I had a 3.50 Meijer OYNO coupon and I thought I had it figured to where I was only going to have to pay .14, but I forgot to figure tax on the toothpaste (I always forget that!) - so another .18 cents added to my GRAND total.

Total on groceries for this week so far is 3.43. Not too shabby for a non pay week!

I tell ya, these prescription coupons that everyone has out right now, along with a generous supply of medical needs, and a smashingly low co-pay has produced some very much needed budget relief on the old girl. You should have seen what I did at Wags on Sunday...transferred a prescription from Rite Aid and got a $25.00 gift card. That, coupled with their baby sale produced the following:

3 packages of diapers
1 package of pull-ups
1 jumbo pack of wipie refills
1 small jar of formula
1 trial size baby oil
1 trial size baby wash
1 Advair inhalar
2 rolls of paper towels

Grand Total: 17.22 out of my pocket (5 for the script!) savings: 40.40.

Now for my last Rite Aid gift card to come in, I'll get some more cheap formula (I CAN'T WAIT TILL MARCH 25th!!! - NO MORE FORMULA --for a while at least! and no, I'm not pregnant)

So, my February budget is coming out MUCH better than my January budget for groceries. I even menu planned for a whole month just from my stockpile, so that perhaps next week will be a savings week too!

This turned out to be a much bigger post than I intended, but I just knew that stockpiling and paying attention to the deals would pay off and it seems that I'm getting there...

"It's okay, sometimes that happens.

Sometimes pee happens." <-- this is a direct quote from Grace after having an accident last night. I just about wet myself when she said it. Dad said he saw almost the same thing on a bumper sticker once. I said, "I know, it makes me seriously wonder if the girl can read."



Ah, 3-year old philosophies - so nice and refreshing.

In some respects there is a lesson to be learned from the "sometimes pee happens" mindset. There are many times I wish I could adopt one such an attitude when I have accidents (non-pee related) or when I make mistakes or when others make mistakes around me. Lots of things out of my control stress me out, lots of things that I can control stress me out as well. Wouldn't life be grand if I could just relax and say "It's okay - sometimes that happens?" --(help me out here Kate, question mark BEFORE the quotes? doesn't look right to me, but you know what they say...it's not what LOOKS right, it's what IS right - or was that just my dad?)

"Sometimes dinner doesn't turn out the way you wanted it to"

"Sometimes you're cranky for no reason"

"Sometimes you have to say 'no' to an obligation"

"Sometimes you forget to pay that bill"

"Sometimes you Snack on Sweets AFTER Seven on a Tuesday." (arg!)

Yup -that was my day yesterday and I sure could have used a healthy dose of the "Sometimes pee happens" philosophy at 8 AM, rather than 8 PM. But that's okay - I know it for today and hopefully pee won't "happen" again.

And if it does, I hope it "happens" on my laminate, rather than my couch.

I might be a little high...

So, I've decided to introduce Kroger into my "Grocery Game" - this week's ad is sort of a bummer, but lucky for me the Sturgis Kroger runs Tuesday - Monday - which is really odd, but I love it because I have also discovered (just today) that they RESTOCK on Mondays and I can get in on some spectacular deali-os...even if I only have 25 minutes to shop with. (I go on my lunch break)

So - anyhoo...here's what I got and of course, I just had to take a picture:

7 Rolls of Cottonelle toilet paper .99 cents each (had 2 - 1.00 coupons, 1- .25 e coupon and 5 - .50 coupons doubled to .99 - this is a regular deal at Kroger's that I had been dying to try)

2 boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios - (1- .50 e coupon and 1- .75 paper coupon)

1 box of Multi-grain Cheerios -( 1- .75 e coupon and 1- .75 paper coupon --that's 2.75 in coupons and they were on sale 3/5)

6 pouches of Starkist Tuna - (4-1.00 coupons and 1-B1G1 free coupon + they were on sale for .99 each)

2 bags of Kroger Tortilla chips - .88 cents each

Then I handed over my 3.50 coupon from last week's fruit snack extravaganza and after that blessed cashier finished scanning everything that precious little U-Scan machine asked me for a whopping:

55 CENTS AND it spit out a 1.00 OYNO coupon. "Holy Crap!" said I.

And then, I should have turned tail and lit out for the parking lot, but I wanted to price the Kroger brand diapers as I heard they were going on sale next week and had forgotten to do it in my lunch break haste. So, I quickly checked them out and as I was leaving I saw this clearance table filled with 12 count Pop Tarts. Not the healthiest breakfast option, I know, but I'm a sucker for the Brown Sugar Cinnamon. I had been checking them out as they've had them on sale for the past two weeks but even with my coupons I'd still be paying about 4 dollars for 2 boxes and I wasn't up to that. But - da da daaaaaa - they were clearanced down to 1.39 for a 12 count box. I had 2- 1.00/2 coupons. So I put 4 boxes in my basket, turned around and gave the man 3 dollars in coupons and paid 2.56 for 4 boxes which is only 6 cents more than the SALE price of ONE box. DUDE!

So - the TOTAL for all items purchased was 3.11 + the gas it took to get me there.

Come on - whose got props for Famous Amos and all the other coupon crazies out there? Come on now...

Well, obviously don't worry about giving me props, I've got enough for myself...I haven't even started in on my Meijer and Wags deals this week!

Sweet Valentines

More New Math

Double Allergy Meds + Antibiotic = Cleared Sinuses = Ability to Smell = Everything Tastes Better = NOT GOOD FOR THE "NO S" Diet resolutions!

Bah. Eating healthy was easier to do when everything tasted like cardboard anyway...

New Math

Warmer Temps + Grace Lynne = Exercise = Sleeping through the Night = Rested Mama = Better Mama

Who knew?

January Update!

I'd like to review my previous month's resolutions at the beginning of each month to kind of recap, see how I did and see if potentially helps me keep up with these resolutions that I don't ever remember once keeping for a whole year. That would be today - seemed like January was a very LO-O-O-O-NG month. Don't know why, it just did.

Okay - on to checkmarking:

R#1 - Wear make-up everyday. Check! The only days I didn't put myself together this month were Saturdays. We didn't ever do anything on Saturdays this month, but if we were going to - I would have! Yay - gold star for makeup.

R#2 - Contacts/Eyeglasses and an appointment with my allergist. Now - I have till the end of February to accomplish the contacts/eyeglasses. But I do get half my checkmark, as I went to see the asthma/allergist, got some VERY nice and extremely needed drugs (thanks, Mom!) and also got scheduled for allergy testing at the end of February. It's been about 20 years -'bout time for an update and as we're not getting rid of the d.dog anytime soon - I may have to look into allergy shots to see if they help keep things rolling along.

R#3 - 200-250$ grocery budget - including formula and diapers. Half a check. Diapers - easy peasy - the FORMULA is killing me - I'm so looking forward to March 25 - I'm now dubbing it Whole Milk Transfer Day (not really). Anyway, I went over budget on my groceries this month by about 100 bucks. Keeping in mind, though that there was 3 pay periods in January and some REALLY good sales that would have been stupid to pass up. Almost every shopping trip I took this month, I doubled my money - and received at least 500$ worth of groceries for half price. (I'll put in specifics when I get home.)

So, I've decided to revamp this resolution a bit, to inlude the two months of 3 paychecks. My new resolution is to budget 100-125$ per paycheck for groceries. I'm hoping with the great sales in January that there will be some light weeks in February to kind of average the two to actually make goal --of course, there's always saying "no" and only looking for FREEBIES or penny items...Will look for gold star at the end of February!

R#4 - Half a check mark. Making all my meals at home and having a date night for the dinner out. Hooray for me - I've done the best I ever have this month at this. Didn't quite make it perfectly, but here's what happened. Clint loves him some Whopper - twice he wanted a BK run on both the paydays. One I should've said "no" to, flat-out -but yay for me, I didn't order anything myself. The other was after Homecoming and all the poor man had to eat was popcorn and a pop... Side note: he said it tasted like crap - so that's a plus! Gotta get it out of our system! And for the dinner date night for Clint and I - we sort of mixed and matched - we took Grace to Chuck E. Cheese on MLK day and called that our date. But, we did get a baby-sitter so we could go to Homecoming by ourselves, although it wasn't exactly romantic for the two of us, as I yapped my freaking face off- it was pretty cheap and a night without kiddos. So - I'm giving us a half gold star on this one and resolving to do better in February.

R#5 - The No S plan. Stinkin' darn, poopy-headed time of the month - not that I really blame it all on that, but it was HARD. I really do feel like I crave chocolate and Diet Coke during this PMS week. Good grief. One day I had a whopper of a headache at work - had a Diet Coke and some chocolate Zingers from the vending machines (Soooo bad) and within a half hour was happy as a lark and totally energized. It was really weird. (BtW - didn't work a second time) So - I get no check mark as I did a little bit of sweets and soda and some mild snacking after 7. But - not a total loss, I'm still down 12 pounds from Christmas. Woohoo.

February Additions and Subtractions:

R5 Overhaul - Restart No S and stick to it FIRMLY. While adding 3 of my water bottles a day.

I'm also adding in parking in the far parking lot at work and using the stair cases, rather than the elevator at work. I've been so-o-o-o lazy for a while now! No more elevators for me, except the one I need to get up to my office. But, I do resolve to do THOSE staircases at least 2x this month. (They are killer! - everyone says so)

I'm also foregoing dinner plates - we are only going to be eating off of salad plates for our meals this month. Idea here is portion size - duh. I was finding out that even though we weren't taking seconds in January - we were taking some very nicely sized firsts.

And I'm also adding in some light weights for my arms after the girls go to bed at night. Just 5-10 minutes at least 4 times a week.

Hmmm...I really like revamping and starting new this month. Makes me feel like not such a total loser for abandoning all self-discipline and letting a couple of Zingers get the best of me!

YIKES! -Just double checked the grocery budget for January - 417.00 - saved 291.00! oy vey! Hmmm...no gold star for me...averages out to be 139.00 per pay check - so not terribly bad, as that does include diapers and wipes. February ought to be better!