Deal of the Day

I thought I would try to start sharing my best deal every time I do my grocery shopping.

This week Martin's has 16 oz. International Delight Creamers on sale for 99 cents. I do all my big grocery trips at Walmart and they price match any competitor's ad, so they matched the 99 cents and then I had two $1 off any pint or quart size International Delight creamer. So I got 2 French Vanilla pint creamers for FREE and actually made 2 cents!

All together, with coupons and price matching, I saved between $13 and $14. I have a long way to go to be as good as Courtney, but I'm pretty happy with myself! ;)

Grandma, Bailey, and Wifely Things

I am wanting to get to bed very soon, but since I've been MIA for over a week, I thought I'd do a quick post.

First of all, my grandma (Mom's mom) passed away yesterday afternoon. She was not doing very well, so it was expected, but of course, any death is still hard. Though I can honestly say, I feel like I have done less greiving over this grandmother than any of my other grandparents, and that is because I just feel so happy for her, that she is in heaven now. Just yesterday morning she had told my aunt that she was tired and basically ready to go on to heaven and my aunt told her that it was okay if she went, and then she passed later that same day. So just to know that she was longing for heaven, seems to make it so much easier for me to deal with. She is not tired anymore, or in anymore pain, and she is with Grandpa and Jesus now. I just find myself rejoicing more than grieving. But please pray for my mom. She is leaving tomorrow going to Indiana and will be there for a week. I know it helps my mom as well, to know that Grandma was ready to go, but I try to imagine myself losing my mom, and just can't imagine how hard it would be. So mostly, pray for her. The viewing is Wednesday and service is Thursday.

In other news, Bailey turned 8 months on Thursday! Hard to believe. She is really just all over the place, crawling, pulling up on things, and cruising a little bit. And on Wednesday night at church, she crawled up 2 stairs to get onto the stage in the youth room! Also, she has her first tooth that has poked through. She is usually such a happy, fun baby to be around. I just can't imagine life without her, and can't wait to see all the growing and learning that her future holds!

And lastly, before I head to bed, I have really been trying to increase my bargain shopping when it comes to groceries, by using sales, coupons and price matching, shopping at Sharp Shopper (a grocery outlet), and meal planning every week. Not only does it save us lots of money, but I really feel more satisifed with my life through doing this. It makes me feel like I am doing my "job" as a stay-at-home mom and wife by making the most of the money that Anthony earns and making sure he has good meals to eat every night. It is just really satisfying and I think everyone should give it a try! I plan to dedicate a whole post to this subject soon.

Zoe-isms

I just wanted to share a couple of funny things that Zoe has said to me this week.

On Monday, I was over at Mom's watching Zoe, and we were playing "vet". I was the vet and she was the pet owner and she was paying me and she had asked me how much something would be and I think I told her $2, and she pulled a $1 bill out of her little purse and said "This is the smallest bill I have." Haha! I'm not even sure if she knew what that meant, but she's probably heard her Mom or Ganny say that before.

Then yesterday I had her again, and we were running around town and a couple of times she said about different things "It was perfectly fine." For instance, we went by this piece of land that they were clearing for some reason and there were bulldozers and other equipment sitting there, and she said "It was perfectly fine" referring to that spot, like she thought they shouldn't be clearing the land. And then she proceeded to ask me what they were doing there. Haha.

I love that kid. :)

On the Go

Bailey is just all over the place these days. She crawls everywhere, pulls up on anything, and even cruised along the dishwasher a little bit today. She is also clapping now! Food-wise, I've decided she is a vegetable girl - she loves green beans, peas, and the spring vegetable mix I gave her yesterday, but has not liked anything else I've tried. She is eating cracker pieces, biter biscuits (think I already talked about that), and she tried a small piece of corn today!

Here are a few pics of her "on the move"!

Like I said, she pulls up on anything that is low enough for her to reach. I am sure she'll be cruising all over the place soon.






















She loves being in the water, but she was very distracted by a weed growing up through a crack on the deck. I let her skinny dip, and luckily, we had no accidents! :)







































This is tonight after dinner. She had eaten her vegetable mix, and then I let her chew on a biter biscuit while I was trying to finish my dinner but she didn't want to finish it was was getting fussy. So I gave her a little piece of corn to eat. She gummed that for a minute and then was just kind of dazed, and just closed her eyes and went off to sleep. Anthony asked me if I was sure she was sleeping and had not choked on something! She never does this. And don't worry, I knew she was breathing. :) She probably slept for 15 to 20 minutes. I'm not sure why she was so tired, but I think it could be cause she was really crawling all over the house today! Maybe she'll wear herself out enough that she'll sleep all night. Haha, yeah right. :)

Randomness

Just thought I'd give a little life update while I was thinking of it. Nothing too exciting going on here. Anthony has been back at school for a week now, and the kids come back tomorrow. So our summer of fun has come to an end. :( It was really a great summer. Even though both of us were working part-time, I feel like we got some great quality time as a family, and we got a lot of our "projects" taken care of as well. I guess I'll be back to feeling like a single mother some of the time with Anthony being so busy (school, quiz bowl, other school stuff, his grad school class, etc.) but at least he is only taking one class instead of two like last semester. And it's good to know that it won't be like this forever since he will be done with grad school in a couple years.

Bailey and I are going to have to find things to keep us busy so we don't both go crazy being stuck in the house! We're definitely going to do story time at one, and maybe two, libraries. I would really like to be able to volunteer somewhere, but I'll have to figure out how to do that with Bailey in tow. Maybe at Ridgeview once a week or something?

And speaking of Bailey... she is getting around like an old pro now. She crawls everywhere, and moves from room to room now. She is also pulling herself up to standing on anything and everything that is within her reach. And on the food front, she likes to eat Ritz crackers (cracker pieces that is), and had a biter biscuit at Mom's house on Sunday for the first time. She put a hurtin' on that thing! I haven't really been trying any new baby foods with her, since she is satisfied with oatmeal. Although I did give her green beans again yesterday and today and she likes those just fine. So I guess she likes vegetables (green beans and peas) better than anything fruity. Strange little girl. :) She is just usually such a happy girl and more fun all the time. I LOVE that I get to stay home with her.

Had a great time at girls' night at McAllister's this evening. Then I went to Target with Courtney, who I have affectionately dubbed my "coupon mentor"! :) Oh and I wanted to mention my steal of the day in my grocery shopping today: Kroger had a "buy 10 qualifying items and get $5 off" deal going on, so I price matched that at Walmart, and 6 of my items were Hamburger Helpers, so my total on each of those were .89 a piece, and I used 2 coupons for buy 3, get .75 off, which brought my total to .64 a piece for Hambuger Helpers! That's more than half off people! :) Bargain shopping is such a rush.

Okay, off to bed now.

Not Me! Monday

I've always wanted to do Not Me! Monday but could never come up with things (or didn't really want to think about it that much) but I finally did! So, don't know if I'll stick with it, or even do it ever again at all, but today, I'm going for it. :) If you've never seen Not Me! Monday before, it was started by MckMama and if you have never read her blog before, you definitely need to go check it out. Here we go....

Last Tuesday, when Mom and I were out on the town and Bailey had pooped and gotten some on her outfit, I certainly did NOT just wipe the poop off with a wipe instead of putting a new outfit on her. Moms don't do things like that until they are on like their 4th child or so.

I really do NOT bring Bailey into bed with us almost every morning when she wakes up at 5:30ish because I am way too tired to even sit up in the rocker to nurse her. And on that same note, when Bailey and I nap together (which we do NOT do, by the way, my baby always sleeps in her crib for naps) and she wakes up only 30 minutes into the nap, and I'm not ready to be awake, I do NOT just "pop it out" and nurse her back to sleep so I can catch some more winks. I would never bribe my child with the breast, or anything else for that matter.

Last Wednesday, when I went to Sonic before doing my grocery shopping, I definitely did NOT reach in the trash can to get a receipt, that was not mine, that had the free Route 44 survey opportunity on it. I did NOT do this on Friday when I went to Sonic as well. It's not like seeing those receipts lying there in that trash can is like seeing $1.79 lying in a trash can or anything. Only a hobo would do something like that.

And then I did NOT start to feel a little guilty after some prodding from my husband and decide that it would be a sin for me to use those receipts since they weren't meant for me. So I will NOT be throwing those darn receipts back in the trash where the stupid consumer placed them in the first place. When my money-saving inner self wins over my conscience, my husband steps in! Maybe I should go stand right after the Sonic drive-thru and flag everyone down and make sure they know about the amazing free drinks that can be theirs with just one phone call! :) Haha.

What about you? Is there anything you would like to get off your chest?

Soaking Up the UV Rays

Five points to the first person who can guess why I gave this post that title!?

And please make sure to enlarge the last picture so you can see the mud!