Six Year Picture

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I need your votes. Comment and let me know you're favorite. So.... those of you who read and never comment, now's the time!

PS - I took these. I know I'm not a professional!

Coupon Nerd

So I thought I would share a few of my favorite deals that I've done over the past few weeks as I am now at this coupon thing full force :)

Target last week:

Iams dog food 12.19
(3)Johnson's Buddies soap 2.97
5 pack spiral notebook 0.12 (75% clearance, yeah baby!)

-$7.00 Iams coupon requested from their website (thanks Dawn!!)
-$5.00 Target Iams coupon from afullcup.com
-$3.00 Johnson's $3 off 3 coupon

Subtotal before tax $0.28!!! Total $1 with tax AND THEN I paid that with the gift card I had received from the week before where if you bought 4 Kashi products for $11 they gave you a $5 gift card and I had $6 in Kashi coupons that time so I got those for free as well! I still have $4 on my gift card to play with next time!!

Walmart last week:

My favorite thing about Walmart (besides the low low prices) is that they are one of the only stores that price match. I've started going through every sale paper and I have a notebook (insert your nerd comment here) where I write the prices and then just do all my shopping at Walmart but get the other store's prices. Unless..... if the store has their own coupons that I can match with a manufacturer coupon I go there (hence the target dog food). Anway.......

Kotex .97
-$1 off coupon
= free!
(Kat - I think pads are going to be the thing I'm banned from "buying" soon)

Smart Ones
price matched to County Market for .99 each bought 5 = 4.95
smart one dessert 1.98
-3 off if you buy 5 smart ones
-1.98 from one free dessert if you buy five meals coupon.
=1.95 for five meals and one dessert!

CVS from last week:
Excedrin 3.99
paid 3.99
got 3.99 extra bucks (like cash for your next transaction)
= free

Aleve 3.99
(3)Purex Detergent 8.97
-.50 off one purex
-1.00 off two purex
-1.00 off Aleve
-2.00 off at 10.00 purchase CVS coupon
-3.99 extra buck from above
-4.00 extra buck from the week before
=.47 before tax
earned $6 in extra bucks for next time

I know this is probably boring to the rest of you but it is exciting to me. I can't believe that just a little bit of my time (and ink in my printer) can save me so much money. I have a trip to Walgreens mapped out for this afternoon that should be pretty good. I went there a few weeks ago and spent $39 for $107 worth of stuff and then they gave me $32 to spend the next time and those are expiring this weekend so I'm hoping to use those up today and get stuff and more rewards for next time.

Sorry to bore you with my nerdiness :)

Stay tuned for the Purdue and Colts game coverage...........

Wizard of Oz Festival 2008

We started a tradition last year of going the Wizard of Oz Festival in Valparaiso/Chesterton. When we found out about it last year tickets to "Dorothy's Birthday Party" were all sold out so this year I actually thought early and got some tickets. It was very windy that day because of the hurricane effects coming through so we didn't do much of the activities outside but we did get to enjoy the birthday party. They had pizza, cake, drinks and a photo-op with all the characters. Jack and I thought it was actually a bit cheesy but of course the kids loved it!

I took a few pictures of the kids before we left that morning. I can't believe Jackson actually looked at the camera and wore his hat!! Maybe there is hope for good pictures after all :)

Emma had a very tough time deciding whether she wanted to be Dorothy or Glinda but as you can see she ended up with Dorothy.
She even got to meet the "real" Dorothy ;)
Why not throw your little dog in a basket and call her Toto?!?

Sorry!

I'm working on new posts!!! I know I've been slacking, busy busy! Look forward to the wizard of oz festival, Emma's trip to the Purdue game and our trip to the Colts game soon!!!

Hot Air Balloon

Amanda came down to visit again this weekend (isn't she awesome?!?!). Anyway, the popcorn festival was going on in Valpo so we decided to go up Friday to check things out. We ended up getting a big treat!! There was a hot air balloon glow. We went to see them and they were SO COOL! The treat was that they were giving rides!! I had never been in one before and obviously the kids hadn't either. It was a very neat experience the only bad thing was that Jack wasn't there. He went to Promise Keepers over the weekend with a group of guys from our church. He had a great time too but was a little jealous of the balloon ride.







Here are Emma and Jackson checking out the balloons.

Emma was not so sure she wanted to go up but as soon as I bribed her with Cold Stone afterward and was all in :)

The pictures didn't turn out so great but you can get the idea of it at least. This is us right before we went up.




















Emma & Amanda in the air!!



















Beautiful Balloons.

















Us afterward. The kids loved it and wanted to do it again! OK, Amanda and I did too but we figured since we had to dig up enough change in our purses to be able to pay for the first time, that wasn't happening.

What a neat experience!!

Labor Day

This weekend we decided to head east to Jack's parent's lake house for the weekend. As the family grows, we're kind of growing out of the house they have so we decided to bring the pop-up that we had recently purchased to try it out. It worked out great!! It gave us our own space for sleeping and changing and let everyone else have their own rooms in the house. Since our camper isn't "new" by any means, we were glad it didn't rain so we didn't have to find out if it leaks while we were so far from home. We're planning to camp at the Dunes over the September 26 weekend and try it out again.

This weekend Jack decided to bring our Wii to play with everyone and we had a good time racing each other on Mario Kart and hoola hooping on Wii Fit. Jack and Kevin are desperately trying to get our wireless router figured out so that they can play each other while at home. It will be sad not to be able to hear Heather yell at the TV though :)

Here are a few pictures from the fun weekend. Watch out, some are X-rated!!

Emma was at it again this weekend. This girl can not get enough of the water!

CANNONBALL! (in my best Anchorman voice)



















My new baby niece or nephew. I can usually feel some kicks so he/she either likes me or wants me to go away :)

Boys are so much easier to deal with if they need to go potty RIGHT NOW on the boat. Sorry for those who are offended by this.

Emma & papa dancing in the water. (no that is not right where Jackson peed!)




















The boys (and Maggie) were a little tired for 8:30 boat church, maybe it was all that Mario Kart the night before!












The whole fam! Probably the last pic of everyone together before we have a new addition :)

Update on my first coupon trip

A few have asked how it went. so I thought I'd write a small update.

My Wal-mart receipt went from $117.52 before price match and coupons to 68.96! Woohoo!

Wal-mart deals were:
2 for $1 Bic pens then I had a printed $1 off two bic products = free

I had coupons for free cheese, crystal light, wheat thins, hot dogs out of the "All You" magazine if you bought three Kraft, Nabisco or Oscar Meyer products. I also had $2 off South beach pizzas and drink mixes. The drink mixes were $2 (so free) and the pizzas were 2 something so basically free and those qualified me for the other free stuff because they are Kraft products! For some of the other ones I used a $1 off yogos coupn so got them for .67 which made me qualify for the other free stuff from the "All You" coupon.

Purina dog food $4 off coupon from their website. Bought a $4.68 bag and got it for .68.

$2 off Honey bunches of oats from their site and a $1 off post coupon from Kat. They were $2.50/box so I got them for $1 each.

The Johnson buddies soap for free with the coupon (Dawn I think you told me about that one thanks!)

Target deals:

7-up 12 pack 2.50 each then 1.50 target coupon THEN one of the boxes had a $2 off four on it so I got 4 - 12 packs for $2.00!!

Airwick freshener system price cut to $4.99 and I had a $4 off coupon. total .99

Walgreens deal today:

Glad Plug in warmer on sale B1G1 and I had a B1G1 coupon so it was free! Then the refills were on sale 1.99 and I had a B1G1 coupon then got $4 (I think, might be $2) rebate which was super easy to do on their website. I think I'm going t be excited when they open a Walgreens in town here.

.99 coupon for Dawn dish soap so I got 2.

Thanks to my friends for your help!! Looking forward to some of the deals I've spotted this week!