11.19.2008

It's only Wednesday?

Sheesh - this week is dra-a-a-a-a-a-a-agging along! Here are just some random musings I find myself thinking about after I drop the girls off to their babysitter and have about 6 minutes of peace to myself on my way to the Oaks...

"Grace is really being clingy when I drop her off...the worst part about being a working mom is having to drop your kids off and wake them up while they are still sleeping. Breaks my heart."

"Annie did the sign for milk last night! She's such a biggie girl..."

"Can't wait for next week! Thanksgiving, day off and a reunion!"

"I hope the rumors about Walgreens aren't true..."

(rumor has it that Walgreens is going to stop letting us stack IVC coupons with Manufacturing coupons)

"It's going to really suck if I have to start paying for stuff..."

"I should really get my hearing aid fixed. I just had a whole conversation with 2 other people and I have zero idea what we were talking about" (okay -that wasn't in the car, that was just now...)

"Grace is really emotional lately...honeymoon on having a 3 year old is over..."

"I wasn't ready for the snow we got last night...but it shore is purty..."

"All they do is cry on the Biggest Loser...apparently losing mass amounts of weight in a condensed portion of time makes you emotional..."

"What the heck will I blog about today???"

Random, I know - but what can I say?

11.15.2008

Couldn't help myself...

but I actually ran out at 9:30 tonight - girls and Clint snoring because I had missed a deal at Wags this afternoon...

This is a non-check weekend - so not a lot to spend - no worries, makes the game that much more fun...


Yup that's four cans of soup, two Hershey bars (mmmm) 2 bags of chex mix, 12 rolls of t.p. and the piece de resistance...the Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer -which is the deal I went back for. All this for the low, low price of 11 coupons and $2.23 -and that includes tax! Grand savings of over 25 dollars...psycho right? I think the razor deal will be back to Wags in December if the rumors are true...I'll let ya know - ha ha - can you say "Stocking Stuffer?"


Yeah - this is a 12 dollar razor - all I had to pay was the .42 tax...come on, give it up!










Are they cute or what?

Classic Annie :) -she's just recently figured out how to stick out her tongue, I'm patiently waiting for the right shot!

Talk about your Diva action! Feather boa from Auntie :)

Queen Annemarie...She's finally getting some hair!


Snow White about to blow out her candles




Cute little Strawberry!



Getting the Dora-do






In her crib - biggie girl!







11.13.2008

Wow!

Has it really been almost a MONTH since I last blogged??? Good grief - well, October totally got away from me, that's for sure. I've never seen a month go by so quickly before! I had a post written on 10/23, but the pictures turned out weird -really small - and I never got around to fixing them at home. (I'm NEVER on the computer at home, there's no time!) I just reread the post and it's about stuff that already happened, so *delete*!

Crazy days with Halloween - We dressed Grace up like Dora and Annie was a cute little Strawberry. I refuse to pay more than 5 bucks for a Halloween costume, because anything expensive for 2 hours is just ridiculous. We bought warm clothes in bold colors and put make up to darken her skin. We bought a black haired wig at Wal-Mart and cut it to make it short like Dora. Popped her pink back pack on and away we went. Annie's costume is the same strawberry costume we dressed Grace in her first Halloween - a hand me down from Clint's sister. She wore it well! I hope to update with pics later!

Grace did a really good job at trick or treating. Two fun things: We walked up to a little old lady's house. Little old lady complete with straw hat and front porch - Grace went up and nicely took a piece of candy, Clint reminded her "What do you say?" "Thank you!" she piped and then reached out and gave that little old lady a kiss on the cheek! The l.o.l. was so surprised, "That's the nicest kiss I've had all day!" - we haven't yet had the talk about not kissing strangers...

Second funny thing: We went to Clint's mom's house and camped out there a bit. Grace helped to hand out candy to some of her trick or treaters and a couple of girls, about 4 years old, came to the door dressed as Snow White and Cinderella. Of course, Grace was just enthralled. She grabbed her backpack and we headed out the door to do more candy hunting and she just took off down the street: "I want to talk to Snow Whi-i-i-ite!!!" She shouted. Poor Snow White was ahead of us, getting her candy and Grace was just spinning for her - not interested in candy at all. She was determined to talk to Snow White, so there I was about 2 paces behind trying to catch up and convince Grace to leave the poor girl alone and go get some candy. Snow White is one house ahead of us and the WHOLE time Grace is shouting "I want to talk to SNOW WHITE!" The father of the group that Snow White was walking with kept looking at me like, it was funny the first time...I'm tired of pretending it was cute." Finally about 3 houses down, Snow White stopped and looked at Grace and Grace went up to her and told her she liked her dress. She stalked that girl the whole rest of the street.

We ended the evening doing something unexpectedly fun - on our way to R&B's house, we passed by the old Riviera theatre - (Kate, you'll appreciate this!) that has been recently restored. They were playing a 10pm showing of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" -which I had never seen before. R&B watched the girls while my brother, his wife, Clint & I all went and saw a late movie. Do you know how LONG it's been since I've seen a late night movie??? The theatre was a tad chilly, so we did manage to stay awake. It was cool to watch an old movie in an old, restored semi-historic theatre!

After Halloween - it was time to think about Grace's third birthday. I can't believe I have a 3 year old! We actually celebrated that birthday 3 times. Once with my family the weekend before, once by ourselves on the actual day (first time at McDonald's playland for Grace!) and last weekend we celebrated with Clint's family. We just don't have enough room in our house to invite everyone over all at once. So - the birthday saga dragged on and on, but of course she loved it. We are in the process of redoing the second bedroom - we've transitioned from Winnie the Pooh to Tinkerbell. That way we didn't have to repaint, because the Tinkerbell sets at Walmart are purple and green. We were given a brand new toddler bed and mattress from someone we don't even know, spray painted it green and moved Grace out of her old bed so we could convert it back to a crib for Annie. Finally got her moved out of the dining room *ha!* and into a bedroom. It's been three weeks and so far it is NOT going well. Annie is a tremendously light sleeper and wakes up EVERY night between 2 or 3 for a bottle, which wakes Grace up and all three of us end up on the couch. Plus, Grace has been coming into our bedroom every night since we switched her, wanting to sleep in our bed, even if Annie hasn't made any noise. I think she's afraid or not adjusting to the switch. I'm giving it till the end of the year before I decide that we may have to do something different. 5 hours of sleep for Amy just isn't enough. And, at some point, I would enjoy sleeping in my own bed, underneath my sheets, next to my hubby.

We've successfully phased out the pacifier. That was a major hurdle and we were quite nervous about the 3 year old milestone and the loss of the plug that would entail. But, I've spent about 3 months gearing Grace up for it. Telling her that when she was 3, the plug fairy was going to come and take all her plugs and leave a present behind. She's been pretty cooperative, but on the 4th, when it came time to put the plugs under her pillow, she got very reluctant. We put them all under her pillow and in the morning, there was a new video (the new Ariel one) there for her, which she's been wanting to see. We have only had 2 major meltdowns since then, but we just tell her - "don't have them! Plug fairy took 'em" and she moves on. I haven't heard about them for the past couple of days. Although at one point, I do believe I heard the words "I don't want to be 3!" come out of her cute little mouth that was trying to cope without a plug. Annie is not so attached to the pacifier and after what we went through with Grace, I am not encouraging it one bit. That thing drove me nuts.

Annie has got her bottom two teefers! Has been sort of fussy with runny nose and painful mouth this week, but the first one cut through on the 8th and the second one cut through 2 days ago. She's such a fun girl! She's going to be my happy, sensitive kiddo. Grace is pretty independent and doesn't need much comforting, but Annie is going to need lots of nurturing and hugging, I can tell already. She's so alert and always watching everything everybody does. I think she'll be pretty smart. I KNOW Grace is smart. Her vocabulary is out of control. Saying things like: "Pass the Parmesan cheese, please..." yeah...we REALLY have to watch what we say now because she absorbs everything.

We're gearing up for the holidays. I'm still couponing my little heart out. In fact, that might be a reason why I didn't blog for a month. I've been completely obsessed by a certain deal at Meijers this past month and I tell you what - it was borderline exhausting and I'm a little ashamed to own up to the whole thing. I haven't yet decided if I'll include it in the blog. Let's just say, I'm pretty sure I made about 75$ in Meijer groceries and have 5 bags full of Glade products. I may just leave it at that!

10.16.2008

The Wags Lady...

...keeps trying to trip me up! I swear she thinks I'm ripping the place off!

Has it really been 2 weeks since I blogged last? I need to catch up here. Things are starting to settle down around our home. Through the month of September and first week of October, Clint worked 2 weekends and I worked 12 hour days on Monday and Thursdays - that's a LOT of overtime for the two of us, and the checks were/are nice, but talk about EXHAUSTING. This week has been nice though, our babysitter's kids got sick, so I took Monday & Tuesday off to stay home with the girls - a MUCH needed break - and Clint took Wednesday off - so we had a nice little week of seeing what life was like when things weren't at a breakneck pace and how happy a family could be when it's properly rested! Very nice :)

Let's see what has happened these past couple weeks:

Well, Annie can now sit up by herself! Whoot! Whoot! It seems like she got really strong and grew a ton last week. She's eating fruits now. Have done nanas, pears and applesauce on her cereal. And, hey, don't even think of giving her plain cereal now - she will SCREAM...

Grace - in the grand tradition of Madison Hammond, also attempted giving herself a haircut. Yup - we caught her in the bedroom, she had found Gramma's spray bottle and scissors and did everything perfectly right - sprayed her hair soaking wet and began snipping. Fortunately for us she started with strands underneath, and didn't get very far - actually layered the one side up a little bit and I think it looks kind of cute! Ha! A subtle difference. So - I guess that's one perk of having hair cutting genes.

Was TOTALLY stoked yesterday to find that my WAGS rebate had come - only 2 1/2 weeks! That's not bad - I opted for the gift card loaded with my rebates (19.50) because they give you 10% extra for loading the rebates on to their gift card. Yeah - I've already used 12 dollars of it. This afternoon I ran to Wags on my lunch break and got 1 Cross Action Toothbrush toothbrush (for 4.49), 3 boxes of Kotex tampons (9.00) -just call me the Kotex Queen, and 4 Glade Plug-Ins. This all came up to about 22 dollars before coupons, I think. So I hand the cashier who doesn't like me, the coupons (3 $1.00 Kotex coupons, 2 B1G1 free Glade Plug-in coupons and 1 $3.00 RR from last week) and knocked my total down to 12.00. Swiped my Wags card and out spits 7.50 in RR :) whoo whoo - 4.50 for the toothbrush and 3 dollars for the Kotex. I'm also going to submit the Glade Plug-ins for rebates for October (that will make them free) so -in a manner of speaking - I really only paid $3.00 for the Kotex! Ha ha!

Everytime I have Wags Woman ring me up - she tries to say I did something wrong - "you won't get your rebates if you use a coupon, you can't use more than one IVC coupon, etc..." and today it was you can't use 3 coupons on 2 boxes of tampons. And I look confused at her, so she spells it out very slowly for me and I reply - "I have 3 boxes in there"

"You do?" says she. "Oh! My brain is fried"

Yeah - she's trying to trip me up. Does she think I don't know what I'm doing??? Come on - now, she's rung me up about 6 times now and everytime I'm doing it right. See - there are a lot of couponers out there who don't play by the rules, but I PLAY BY THE RULES, dude. And I'm thorough, so "Humph!"

I don't know why she can't be like Wags Boy who works nights - he gets a kick out of my and my 13 tubes of FREE Crest - you read that right. AND my 7 MASSIVE bottles of dirt cheap Fructis.

Just you wait, Wags Boy - just you wait - more to come, more to come.

10.03.2008

*Smile*

I read a rumor online that you should never buy toothbrushes or toothpaste at full price because you can almost always get some for free or next to free. Well, it's proving true so far. I've got a toothbrush and four tubes of Colgate in the "stash" that cost me about 2 bucks altogether. This upcoming week, I'm going to amp up my dental stash:

Next week at Wags there is a deal on Crest - 6.4 oz tubes for 1.99 - they have a $1 off IVC coupon. Most Wags all you have to do is have 1 of these IVC coupons and it takes $1 off each item of that kind that you buy - the one in Sturgis did - who by the way has an awesome cosmetics counter cashier! Heather :) - the one in Three Rivers, I'm not sure if it does it or not...anyhoo - doesn't matter, you can print off 10 of the coupons online. In the Gazette this past Sunday there was a PG insert with some awesome coupons - 3 of which are for Cres! One is get $1 off any Crest tube 4.1 oz + and the other is get a $1 off of 2. So - I went online and there are lots of people selling this particular coupon! In bunches of 10 or 20. So, I emailed the gal I bought the Fructis coupons from and asked her, since we live fairly close, if I could send her 2 bucks in cash and she could mail me 10 of the $1 off coupons. She agreed and by this time next week I'll have 10 of those babies, plus 3 of my own. That's 2.00 off a tube of toothpaste that's on sale for 1.99! I figure all I'll have to pay is .12 each for the tax. Ba dum dum. That's 12 tubes of toothpaste for 1.44 dude + 2.00 for the coupons + .42 for the stamp...comes out to be .32 cents a tube!...and I won't have to buy toothpaste for about 4 years, I'm thinking... Grace will be SEVEN by then and in the first grade! ha!

Now my big decision - do I bite the bullet and get them all at once...or spread it out...hmmm....

Go on do it...try it for yourself!...you know you want to!

10.02.2008

Things that just are not right...

Things that just are not right:

WaMu credit card applications in the mail...are they serious??

Clipping coupons in your sleep...stay tuned for a post on how to obtain 10 tubes of Crest toothpaste for 27cents a tube

Working 12 hour days...I'm almost done with this

Grace decorating the toilet with stickers...yup...Dora flowers...

Discussing "The Office" with former 4th graders of mine...this one makes me feel old!

Taking pictures of poopies...That's right...sick, I know, but that's just how excited I was this morning when Grace announced that she had indeed pooped in the toilet! I may or may not have also made up a song to the tune of Super Why's "Hip, Hip Hooray"...I believe there were also "Potty Candies" involved

My 3 year old rolling her eyes at me about all the fuss I was making over her morning poop.

It is also not right that this completely made my morning!
 
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