Halloween!

I think Luke and I were equally excited about Halloween this year.  This is the first year since I was 11 that I have lived in a neighborhood.  Thus, it is the first year since then that we've had trick-or-treaters and that we've gotten to trick-or-treat on our own street.  It was exciting!

 

We decided that, given Luke's love for Peter Pan, it was only fitting that he be Peter, and Anna be Tinkerbell.  After all, like Tink, Anna is tiny, and she adores "Peter."  She didn't so much adore the beautiful outfit that Gaga made her (from a 4T costume and a onesie!), but she got used to it. 

Both kids loved  Trick or Treating.  Luke's only hang-up was that he wanted to eat the candy immediately.  He got over that quickly, though, as he realized that he was just going to keep getting more and more candy! Anna was totally content the whole time playing with her glowstick.

Our neighborhood gets very into Halloween, and every house we went to on our street and the adjoining one participated in handing out candy.  Most had fun Halloween decorations, too.  It's funny:  I read in some anti-Halloween article the question of, "What are we teaching our children that they can just go around and expect people to give them candy?"  They seemed to think it was teaching selfishness and entitlement.  While trick-or-treating tonight, it seemed to me that it was teaching about community and neighborliness.  I'm so thankful that our children live in a community where people celebrate together and are generous with their resources.  We must have asked Luke a dozen times, "Don't we have such good neighbors that they are giving you all this candy?"  Yes, we do.

When we got home, the carnage began:

Anna says, "Funny--I thought this would be more satisfying."

Never fear!  She found what she was looking for:

A feast of suckers!

Wretched excess:)

As you can tell, Anna very much enjoyed her first sucker(s).  She'd better savor the flavor because I don't see that happening again, soon!

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Our Savings Project, part 2

*Note: This blog is not our typical type of blog and is more as a response to some specific questions I’ve received about saving money. If you aren’t interested in “CVS’ing,” you might as well skip this one, b/c it probably won’t make too much sense, and it will be pretty boring:).*

So I wrote a post back in July about how I have a little money saving project going, involving coupons, CVS, and Walgreens. In my little circle of moms at my church, budget issues have been a hot topic of discussion, as we are all learning to make our dollars stretch. There are some areas, such as my grocery budget, which are not going as well as I had hoped. However, my CVS and Walgreens experiment is going quite well. Whenever I recommend “CVS’ing” to others, though, the suggestion is often met with some skepticism. The two questions I get asked repeatedly are, “Are you sure you aren’t spending more money b/c of all the sales and ECB’s?” and “Don’t you have to buy a lot of things that you don’t need?”

Both of these questions are good questions, and I asked them myself when I first heard about it. In terms of spending money, it is important to set aside a strict amount that you can spend at CVS and/or Walgreens each month. My amount is no more than $50 combined at the two stores. Secondly, you can confuse yourself about how much you save. My mantra is, “receipts don’t lie.” It’s easy to tell yourself, well I spent $30, but I got back $20 ECB’s, so really I spent $10. No, you spent $30. The ECB’s will help you on your next trip. I write down all of our receipts so that I can keep up with where our money is going. B/c I have the receipts, I also know what I bought. So, I’m going to show you this month’s CVS and Walgreens activity in an attempt to provide a practical, real-life answer to both of the questions mentioned above. I’m listing the amount I spent out of pocket at each store, and what I bought. Also, I’m distinguishing between the kinds of things I bought. The bold items are things that I “needed” and would have bought regardless. The italicized items are things that I didn’t need, but they were free, and I’m glad to have them. Even though I wouldn’t have paid full price for them, I use them regularly. The regular font items are things that I neither needed nor wanted, but they were money-makers that allowed me to get the things that I did want.

Walgreens

Total spent out of pocket: $4.02

1 Jumbo pack Huggies Pull-ups
Almay One Coat mascara
4 bags Hershey’s miniatures candy
2 boxes Snuggle dryer sheets
1 bottle Windex
1 bottle Pledge
1 Quilted Northern toilet paper (9 “big” rolls)
1 Avent bottle
L’Oreal Cleansing Towelettes
Lysol Neutra Air Starter Kit
2 Scrubbing Bubbles wipes
1 Scrubbing Bubbles Action Scrubber
1 Scrubbing Bubbles Freshmatic Starter Kit
1 Scrubbing Bubbles Bathroom Cleaner
1 Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner (regularly $24)
1 Glade Fabric and Odor Eliminator
2 AA batteries
1 box Shout Wipes
2 Reach floss
1 Glade Scented Oil candle
Rimmel Mineral Foundation
6 bottles Dimetapp
2 Glade Wisp flameless candles
2 bottles Pert Plus

CVS

Total spent out of pocket: $13.66

1 jumbo pack Huggies diapers
1 jumbo pack Pullups
1 mega pack of Playskool diapers
3 packs of Playskool wipes
8 bags Nestle’s miniatures Halloween candy
4 boxes Sudafed
1 bottle Complete contact solution
1 bottle brush
2 plastic Halloween trick or treat pumpkins
1 300-ct Q-tips
1 package Bic Soleil razor refills
1 eyelash curler
2 bags candy corn
2 mini flashlight/glowstick things
10 toothbrushes
2 tubes Colgate toothpaste
1 musical Thomas toothbrush
1 bottle Johnson’s shampoo
2 Nature’s Bounty vitamins
1 bottle nail polish
1 CVS Vitamin D vitamins
4 boxes Bic Comfort 3 disposable razors
2 glucose meters

Plus I have $41 in ECB’s, and $4 on a CVS gift card.

As you can see, I came in well under budget.

The diapers alone, had I just bought them on sale with coupons, would have cost me $34 plus tax. I got them, plus so much else for under twenty.

To me, this was a good month, and it shows why CVS’ing is totally worth it. I donate the things I don’t need, and even some of the italicized things. For example, I don’t need ten toothbrushes (though I did keep two), and though I use toothpaste, I have plenty to donate also. I keep thinking I’m going to take a box to the local homeless shelter, but most of my supplies have been snatched up by other charities (a Children’s Home collection at church, an inner city free “store”) before I’ve gotten a chance. Believe me, you will have no trouble getting rid of your overflow:).

At Walgreens, the only way to get these kind of deals for so little money is through their rebate program, which I totally recommend. Get all the free-after-rebate items you can, use coupons if possible, and make even more money. Then submit your receipts online, and get them to mail you a gift card. If you have it put on a gift card, they’ll give you 10% more as a bonus, which will more than cover any tax you pay. It takes a month of “investing” by paying out of pocket for all the free-after-rebate items, but then you can use your gift card for the next month. By shopping the deals and using Register Rewards, your gift card should last you through the month so that you’ll pay very little out of pocket. Be sure to also buy that month’s free-after-rebate items (again, using coupons if possible), and in that way, you can keep “rolling” your gift card from month to month.

I have found that this is a great way to save money, and it has literally saved us hundreds of dollars each month. I’m posting about it b/c I believe it can be a big help to anyone who takes the time to figure out the drug store savings programs and who uses them to the fullest. If you have any questions about how to do this, please don’t hesitate to ask me!

Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled

 

 

 

This is what Luke recently got from Granddaddy  He LOVES driving it up and down the road.  Usually, Anna loves riding with him, and it is too cute, but she wasn't in the mood today.

This adorable sweater and hat are one of the many, many, MANY clothes that Anna recently inherited from a little girl in Macon.  She is stylin' now:).

And this past weekend, my parents came in town and watched the kids while Greg and I went out to eat and to see a movie.  They even funded the outing.  Then, on Sunday, they stayed home with Luke, who wasn't feeling well, and when we got home from church, my dad had grilled us steaks, and my mom had fixed baked potatoes and broccoli.  Finally, they let me have a looong nap on Sunday afternoon while they watched the kids again.  And my mom vacuumed the upstairs.

So needless to say, we are all a little spoiled around here:).

Nine Months and Potty Training

Yeah, Anna's nine months and Luke is potty training. We aren't crazy:).

I tried to get some cute pictures of Anna on her nine month birthday yesterday, but a constantly moving baby and a camera-ignorant photographer don't really go together to produce beautiful shots.

Dark as they are, at least the pictures give you an idea of what she looks like:).

Anna has been such a source of joy. Nine months is truly a magical time for babies. Though she keeps us on our toes with her burning drive to crawl, climb, and conquer, she also continually amuses and impresses us. She loves to babble "dadadada," and really seems like she has important things to say when she does it. And what an explorer! You cannot turn your back on her for one minute, buddy, because she will be off getting into trouble, whether that be cramming something totally inappropriate in her mouth or trying to climb/maneuver into a less than ideal location. She never misses a thing.

She's also incredibly tolerant, and a good sleeper. (She had been sleeping through the night, but since our big trip, she's back to waking up at least once.) She's very much like her mama in that she's incredibly ambitious while she is awake, but when she gets tired, baby, she's done.

[Warning: in the following paragraph, the word poop is mentioned no less than four times. So if you are eating, you might want to come back to this blog. However, if you are a mom and are eating, it won't bother you a bit:)]

In between chasing Anna down, we've been potty training Luke for almost two weeks now. It's definitely been an interesting experience. For one, I didn't actually read anything about potty training besides the occasional article in places like Parents magazine. I just talked to a couple of friends from church and followed their lead, with some improvisation of our own. So two Sundays ago, Luke, Anna, and I went to Wal-mart, bought 18 pairs of little boys' underpants, a little potty, and a big bag of suckers (I know, I know, no bribing with food. Whatever:)). And then that Tuesday, we just started him in his underwear and went from there. Luckily, he liked peeing in the potty, and even pooped in the potty his first day. Unluckily, he didn't mind peeing all over himself, either. The wetness did not bother him one iota! Thank goodness he caught on to the whole peeing thing in a couple of days. Now we go everywhere with him in underwear, and he's never had an accident away from home. We've also never gone back to diapers--only Pull-ups during naps and at night. The bad side is, he never tells us when he has to pee. We just make him go about every hour. If we don't make him go and we are at home, he will wet his pants. And here's the big one: since that first day, he has only pooped in the potty one other time, and that was by accident. Usually, he just hold his poops until he's in his Pull-up and goes then. But we have had 2 or 3 accidents in the underwear, and it is not pretty. I won't go into to much detail, but there have been times in the past couple weeks where I feel like my life revolves around feces. SO, if anyone has any tips on getting kids to poop in the potty, I'm all ears. We've been trying some different stuff, but no luck.

Oh, and we used the suckers for the first couple days, but now he only gets them when he tells us he has to go or when he poops in the potty. So in other words, he doesn't get any suckers anymore:).

The "Big Week": Thurday

On Thursday, Mom, Dad, Luke, Anna, Mike, and I went to the Georgia Aquarium.  They say it is the biggest in the world, and I don't mean to be flippant, but for the biggest aquarium in the world, it's really not that big.  We knocked out the whole thing in about two hours, and that included lunch.  And granted, we were guided by a Luke-size attention span, but still.  The whole experience was a blast, however, and the aquarium was pretty amazing. 

At the entrance to one of the areas.

Anna is mapping out our route.

This one wants to say hi.

We are in this tunnel where you are basically surrounded by fish tank.

Okay, so maybe it is a pretty big aquarium.

Touching the anemone, where Nemo lives.

Lunch time!  Yes, my daughter is chewing on a pizza crust.  Don't judge me:).

Buddies.

Anna had to take it all in.

We also saw a 3-D movie, compliments of Uncle Mike.  It was Luke's first movie theatre experience, and he wasn't so much a fan of the glasses.  Or the "special effects" of water and air shooting at you.  But other than that, he enjoyed it.  The aquarium as a whole, though, definitely got two thumbs up from Luke, who had a blast hanging out with Uncle Mike all day and seeing all of his friends from Finding Nemo!

The "Big Week": Monday night-Tuesday morning

I was wiped out after the zoo, so I took a nap while the kids napped in the afternoon.  When I woke up, I felt horribly nauseated and just knew I had a stomach virus.  All of our immune systems were down, and I have a knack for catching stomach viruses.  The thought filled me with such dread...but about 45 minutes later, I was feeling better.  I began to think that maybe I didn't have a virus.  That got me to thinking, though, what if we did have one?  We were supposed to leave in the morning and drive 12 hours back to Summerville.  We were completely dreading that trip, but how much worse would it be if one or more of us were sick?  And we definitely didn't want to get stranded in Indiana.  We especially didn't want to do that to Chris, Jill, and Jack.  So after much talking, we decided to do something seemingly crazy:  leave that night for Macon, GA, to my parents' house.  We could drive through the night and then crash in the morning and have child care.  Plus, it would only be nine hours instead of twelve.  I called my parents, who were predictably ecstatic about this idea.  My dad, in fact, called it "crazy good."  So that's what we did.  It was our first "through the night" trip with kids...

...and it went better than expected.  For one thing, Anna was making a bid for sainthood or something because she was an angel the whole time.  She slept, and when she wasn't sleeping, she just chilled.  She would be drifting off, and Luke's crying would repeatedly rouse her, but did she cry?  No.  She just looked at Luke confusedly.  Luke did fairly well, as well, but he just can't stay asleep in his carseat for very long.  And as I said before, it does look like the most uncomfortable thing in the world.  In fact, I think I have a picture from the way back from the zoo.

That just looks painful.  Jack looks much more comfy.

Until almost to Nashville, Luke avoided the pain by staying awake and watching DVDs.  Unfortunately, our DVD player only holds a charge for about four hours, and its car charger doesn't work.  We were already powwow-ing about whether to stop in Nashville for an emergency upgrade, when Luke beat us to the punch by announcing he didn't want to watch anymore.  Specifically, he didn't want to watch Peter Pan.  Why, you might ask?  "Because Peter Pan makes me sad.  Peter Pan is bad for me."  Wha???  Luke's talking ability has been a trip for us, and one new dimension of amusement has been the excuses he comes up with for things.  We cracked up by his solemn proclamations about the dark side of Peter Pan, but we were also glad to be able to put the DVD player away with a little "juice" left for later.

From there he fitfully slept, with intermittent fussing.  I became an expert contortionist as I shifted from the front seat to the back center seat--in between two carseats--to comfort Luke.  And then, of course, trying to silently fold myself back into the front seat when he went to sleep.  Our one hiccup was that Anna did not like me back there when she was trying to sleep, and Luke had to have me back there.  (Poor Anna is thrown off by the presence of others as she drifts off, so used is she to going asleep by herself in her crib.  We're still working on that with Luke!)  This was only an issue one time, though, around Atlanta, when Anna decided she had had it, and Luke decided for the 15th time that he had had it.  I tried to comfort Luke to sleep, while Anna blew angry rasberries at me for invading her personal space.  When I tried to put her paci in, she spit it right back at me.  She meant business, buddy!  I don't remember how, but they eventually both conked out.  We got to Macon a little before 5:00am, and predictably crashed.

Greg left later that day b/c he had to be back in Summerville for work, and I decided to stay with the kids until Friday. 

Only two more posts to go, and then this blog series will be over!

It Has Begun

This is how Anna entertained herself this morning while I cleaned up the dishes from breakfast.

Hello, chaos:).

Two other signs that we are going to have our hands full for the next little bit (also known as "True Confessions of Bad Parents"):

1.  This morning, I took Luke to the downstairs potty.  It is tiny in there, and the door opens to the inside, so Anna has to sit outside.  She always makes me nervous with her little fingers around the open door (Luke could kick it closed, or I could accidentally bump it), so I was a little bit relieved when she crawled off after a few minutes.  Luke quickly did his thing, flushed, and washed his hands.  I had heard Anna babbling the whole time, and she sounded like she was nearby.  When we came out of the bathroom, where was Anna?  On the landing of the stairs!  She had climbed up half the flight of stairs, and was gearing up to take it to the top!  I had no idea an almost 9-month old could move like that!  Note to self:  ALWAYS close the safety gate.

2.  The other day, Greg was keeping an eye on the kids while he was eating breakfast and I was taking a shower.  Luke had climbed on a dining room chair, and Anna was pulling up on the same chair.  Greg didn't have his contacts in, so he couldn't see what Luke grabbed off the table.  Luckily, Luke then announced his intentions:  "I'm going to cut your hair, Sissy."  That got Greg's attention!  Sure enough, Luke was holding the scissors I had been using the night before.  Luke got a stern talking to about playing with scissors, and I got a reminder not to leave scissors out. 

Yikes.  That's all I have to say:).