September 11

This year's anniversary of the 9/11 attacks seemed consumed, at least in the media, with whether or not it is ok to burn the koran and the predictable reaction their coverage created in the middle east. I couldn't help asking myself what would happen if the media told all their reporters to ignore that story and focus instead on remembering 9/11.

Here's my own attempt to change the focus. In 2002 I watched some clips from a documentary called 7 Days in September. This is before the conspiracy theories about 9/11, when we as a nation were still trying to digest the events of that day. This documentary is a compilation of clips from 24 videographers who spontaneously recorded what they saw in 2001. There are a number of poignant moments, one is when an iron worker breaks down in tears telling a crowd about pulling bodies out of the rubble for 2 days.

In trying to find that clip, I happened across a clip of him and his fellow iron workers a few days earlier trying to get to ground zero to volunteer.



Two days later, he is shown on the documentary breaking down in Union Square as he tries to cope with what he saw. His language is pretty colorful, so be warned.



Watching this again, I come away with the same conclusion made by the documentary. We still struggle to cope with this, as a nation, 9 years later.

Couldn't Help Myself

Take-a checka look outta THIS!

These items cost me $3.80 out of pocket AND I received $12 in ECBs (basically CVS's version of in-store credit) to use however I choose. And I've been smiling alllllll day about it. :)

Bryce will want me to insert here that I did have to spend $5 on a prescription for Travis to receive the $25 gift card that helped make this all possible. (I had a coupon that promised the gift card when filling a prescription at CVS.) So, if you're a stickler for these sorts of things, you could say that I spent $8.80 on the items. BUT I still got back $12 in store credit, so either way you look at it I still made money on the transaction. That's why they pay me the big bucks, folks!!

Moral of the story: save your coupons.

And then take pictures of your deals.

Freckles on my legs and other exciting tidbits

So, I have freckles on my legs right now. It has been so long since I last had freckles on my legs that I had forgotten I ever got them. Freckles = my skin's version of a sun tan, so that should tell you how much time we've spent outside this summer. Mainly at the pool. Yes, in all my preggo glory, I jump in the pool with the rest of Texas. What else are you supposed to do in this heat?? We sure have loved having access to a pool... and not having to maintain it. It's the best thing I can say about living in an HOA neighborhood.

I can't quite believe that this month is almost half over - summer is almost gone! Amazing. We've had a lovely one - full of family, weddings, birthday celebrating, swimming, etc. A few pics from the last couple months:

R & S's wedding celebration!

pooped out after partying hard with cousins

Sophie received a hand-me-down Tinker Bell backpack from Aunt Lindsey - thrilled is an understatement. :)
Travis' birthday loot - a boy toy!!! Doesn't he look happy about that?!

My fabulous mother made these curtain for our dining room!! They are beautiful and we love them! Thanks, Mom!! This room is currently under renovation. Will post pics when we're done. But it required Bryce buying a book on Trimwork. He was really happy about that. :)

Last week we had some of our dear friends come for a week-long visit!!!! It was awesome to see them again. Their two little girls are the same ages as Sophie and Travis and it was a non-stop party the whole time they were here. We even MADE DRESSES - as in, by HAND - for the girls (sorry, Trav). It's not something I would ever attempt myself and all the congratulations should go to Allison for getting us through the project! They turned out so adorable --- see for yourself!

We thoroughly enjoyed having them here - and are crossing our fingers they move to this great state next year...!!! Some of the festivities:

swimming (of course!)

after eating Sunday beans

the famous Texas donut!

the sprinkler park

snacking (and dancing) at the sprinkler park

everyone's favorite place to visit: Sam's Club! (these two are destined to marry some day)

and the Children's Museum!

It was a very fun week. :) In other news, Sophie has discovered pen and paper and there's been no separating the 3 of them these last several weeks. She's getting pretty good, too! Here's her portrait of her beloved Purple Bunny (thank you, Carrie!):

Travis has taken to flying as a new favorite pastime. He begs Bryce to throw him as high as possible any chance he can. Here he is mid-flight:

And we all know my favorite pastime of late: getting deals! Here's my loot from today's shopping trip with my lovely assistant showing off the softsoap. He wore that hat ALL DAY LONG today and bawled his eyes out when Bryce put it away at bedtime. Our very own little gilligan!
SO, all this SHOULD have cost me $11.93. I paid $13.73. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the mistakes (items rang up at the wrong price) until I got home and studied my receipt (2nd favorite pastime). I could go back and they'd refund me my cold hard cash, but somehow, driving to the other side of the city for $1.80 doesn't seem worth the gas or my time. But darn it!!! $2 is a lot of money when your total is $12-ish!! Next time...
Highlights: Kix cereal for $0.74 each; Cheerios for $0.74 (should have been $0.44!! this was one of the things that rang up at the wrong price); Chex cereal for $0.99; fruit snacks for $0.24 each; salad dressing for $0.32 each; and the Softsoap was FREE thanks to the tripled coupon! So fun.

The kids are also really into dress-ups right now. The other night they came downstairs in these get-ups. I about died of laughter. Doesn't Travis make such a pretty princess?? Sophie was very proud of having picked out and then helped him into his outfit.
A few more pics from swimming adventures. It's a good thing I got a mega deal on swim diapers b/c we are flying through them this summer! Travis looooooves getting to wear his fish diapers as he calls them - here he is modeling them for us:

Sophie is completely fearless in the water. This causes great fear in her mother, who now absolutely refuses to go to the pool without Bryce. Having a 1:1 adult to child ratio is much safer for the health of these kids - both of whom think they can swim. At least Travis will wear water wings, but still...

And now I think that's enough from me for tonight. Happy Thursday, all!

Shopping Trip!!

Guess what I did last night??? heh heh heh! :)
SO. I was able to get everything pictured below for...

$43!

Don't have my receipts in hand at the moment, so I can't give you an exact amount (which I know is terribly disappointing to you!), but it's right around $43. That does include a $10 gift card thingy from CVS, also, so I will be scoring some free stuff there when the prices & items looks appealing. Woohoo! There are a few items up there that we just needed so no awesome deals (bummer), but I was still pleased with the final total.

Highlights!
spiral bound notebooks -- $0.10 (Sophie goes through about 1.5 of these a day lately!)
Aquafresh kids toothpaste -- $0.17!
Snyders pretzels -- $0.24
Bagel bites -- $0.24 (I know these are totally junky and I promised myself that I wouldn't buy the nasty junky grossness that often goes on sale/has coupons... but did I mention they were 24 cents?? And I figure there will be some day when Bryce and I are going out and I need a quick fix for the kids and... these will be just the ticket! So there's my justification for you!)
Softsoap - $0.47
Juicy Juice box drinks -- $0.49
Activa yogurt -- $0.87

And here's my crown jewel!! The Pampers diapers were on sale for $22/box. I had $6 in coupons so ended up paying $16 out of pocket. But THEN received a $10 in-store rewards thingy (previously mentioned), so that brought the total down to $6!!! I would just like to say that I whipped out my little calculator and did a major happy dance when I figured that means each diaper costs SEVEN CENTS!!!!!!!!!!!!! And here I was ready to go to Sam's Club and plunk down cashola for diapers to the tune of $0.19/diaper!! Which is not a terrible price, either, I will say. But it is a far far FAR cry from $0.07!

Also bought Baby Girl her first gift = a pack of newborn Swaddlers. These weren't a screaming deal, but at $7 for the package it works out to $0.175/diaper. Swaddlers have treated us well in the past - hoping they're as good this time round, too. Oh, and the wipes happened to be on sale at the famous HEB and I had a coupon to match... so I bought them. Slightly cheaper than Sam's wipes at that price, so I decided to make it fit into the budget this week. The 3 baby items cost me $29.50, so everything else cost $13.50 together.

Ok, well there you are. Exciting stuff, no?!? And now, off to bed with me. We've been dealing with a flu bug over here and - as long as I don't get it... - I'm hoping we'll be in the clear tomorrow! Wish us luck!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Birthday, America!
To celebrate this wonderful holiday, we:

...walked in our neighborhood parade! Complete with lots of kids on bikes and in wagons, a fire engine & some other fire vehicle that brought up the rear (which we were very much in)!

...ate ice cream at 10am!!! We love holidays!!

...climbed on and in and around the fire engine that was in our parade.
They were very nice fire fighters!

...learned a new trick after the parade (probably due to the 10am ice cream...)

Cirque du Soleil, here we come!

Happy 4th of July, everyone!!

Remember these?

They taste good today.

happy Friday!

It's Ok to Laugh at me if you want...

I realize this is totally pathetic, but here I am posting about my deals deals deals two days in a row!!! (thought that needed 3 exclamation points, for sure.) SO, for those of you that care about this stuff, read on and be excited with me!! :)

Today was my "big" shopping day. I usually save that for Friday, after I've done all the uber-deals I think I'll get at Walgreens and Target (and wherever else, but mostly those two stores) and I know how many clams I have left to use in buffering the food storage pantry. But, this week I found some deals that couldn't be missed in last week's grocery circulars and today was the last day of the sale, so out we went! The kidlets and I hit the road early in the morning and it was a dream - all 3 of us were generally still in good spirits, no one freaking out b/c someone's arm was touching theirs, etc. We hit two grocery stores and came home with this haul:

And I spent: $30.74
Yippee!

If my receipts are correct, I saved 53% on this stuff. Highlights for me were purchasing:
toothpaste - $0.25
kikkoman teriyaki sauce - $0.42
kraft ranch dressing - $0.49
Dole pineapple chunks - $0.71/ea (not amazing, but not bad, either)

and...

FISH SAUCE!! $1.98 This wasn't on sale at all, but I am determined to try my hand at making Thai food and all the yellow curry recipes I've looked at call for this fishy stuff. I actually can't think about it too long b/c it gives me the urge to gag... BUT I cannot get Thai food off the brain and from what I've read, fish sauce is a must, so into the cart it went! ps - anyone with experience making Thai food?? Please drop me a line!!!

Anyway, back to the shopping... :) The 5 lb bag of potatoes and the grapes were free - hooray! And the bagels came free when I bought the yogurt, so that worked out to be about $1 each (yogurt and bagels).

Since I've already revealed how neck-deep I am in this couponing thing, I will also tell you that I've set up this system for myself where I rotate an area to focus on each week. This is more for the food storage side of my shopping than the coupons, but I give myself a rough amount of dough to use towards that specific area each week. I've divided up the month into these 4 areas: 1) paper goods/bath (basically anything that's not food), 2) sauces & dressings, 3) baking items, and 4) canned & boxed goods. This week was actually my sauces & dressings week, so I had planned to be purchasing some applesauce, molasses, a few other things that aren't generally on sale and that I don't often see coupons for. BUT, I noticed a deal on canned vegetables at the grocery store and decided to switcheroo, so I made this week my canned goods week. So all those cans up there were $0.50/each. The cheapest I've found around here is $0.63 per can (and we don't have those nifty case sales some areas of the country do), so I was pretty jazzed about it. Anyway, I really love my little rotating system. It helps me make sure our storage is rounded out and not 98% ketchup or something. It's also helpful to have a certain amount of money set aside specifically for storage items, so I can buy them a little at a time before we need them, saving myself from the freak out that comes when we run out of dried mustard (or even worse, chocolate chips!!!) and I have to go pay full price and add it to my groceries that week. So nerdy. So wonderful. I love it! :)

The best part is that having a loaded pantry has totally changed how I shop. Instead of menu planning and then going out to buy whatever I need for those menus, I menu plan using what's in the cupboards and end up needing very few items from the store. Leaving more money for getting DEALS! I know a lot of you are thinking, "DUH, Lisa! Where've you been the last x number of years?!" But this is life changing for me, ok people? This week, I menu-planned and found that all I needed for our meals this week were:
1 red pepper
3 limes
6 potatoes

Sa-WEET!!!!! I will also need to buy milk, eggs and a bit more produce, but that is all!

Oh, I could ramble on and on, but I really must go put those bagels in the freezer, find space for my canned corn, and add those chips to the pantry (so we can use them when I make Chicken Tortilla soup in a couple weeks -- which is DIVINE, by the way. if you want the recipe, let me know...)... Happy Shopping everyone!!