Some shopping before my camera busted.

My camera is probably done for this time. The battery holder was loose before, but now it doesn't register that batteries are in there at all...no matter how much you mess with it. Bummmer! So...a few pictures of this past week's shopping before my camera bit the big one.

Walgreens: $3.76 (guess on the cents here) used $1.50 RR and got $10 back! Used free Breathe Right Coupon from last WAGS visit, bought baby forks and spoons on clearance $1.09 and snickers (last minute as filler to use RR) $0.69. More Maalox for the raging heartburn within me:)

Fred Meyer: $13 (approx) after $3 catalina from coffee mate. Cheap Broccoli, eggs, butter and $0.75 Ronzoni Smart Taste, which I primarily bought for the $1 of Classico peelie attached! (those make for $0.69 Classico at Safeway this weekend!)

Snacktime fun

Our morning schedule includes a 9:00am snack time. Its probably the girls' favorite food of the day...and one of the healthiest. Generally I do 2 veggies, a fruit, some protein (usually cheese or nuts) and some sort of carb like crackers or cereal. Once in awhile we do green smoothies and cheese, but they love the snack tray so much I rarely get away with that (although my green smoothie is usually shared so I make extra!). Yesterday I decided to stretch my creativity (of which I have very little!) and make the snack into a person. Here the result:

At least the toddlers liked it, ugly or not! :)

Dance Dance Dance!

Favorite past-time around here: putting on dresses and dancing! And we recently discovered that one of grandma and grandpa's channels plays kids' music.




My, life will be different when there is a boy around here!

Menu plan for Jan 24th, 2011

Here's what we will be eating this week:

I haven't done much grocery shopping yet this week since my main goal is to stock up on oatmeal at Albies and I am awaiting my coupon order from ebay. By the way if you are local I ended up buying 40 coupons, so I have some extras to sell (unfortunately they were not cheap... $0.50/each for $1.00 off coupons! But it was worth it since we go through so much.

Breakfasts: oatmeal, toast, eggs, baked oatmeal, lazy granola

Lunches/snacks: leftovers, sandwiches, soup

Clean out the freezers week...since I am almost out of grocery $$ and we have full freezers!

Dinners:

Monday: Spagetti Carbonara, using ham, green beans or mixed veggies

Tuesday: Taco Soup, Cornbread

Wednesday: Pigs in a blanket (homemade blankets!), salad

Thursday: Quick Chicken Divan (a favorite in this house!) with some tweaks

Friday: Frozen Pizza, veggie sticks

Saturday: Chicken and Bean Quesadillas w/ all the fixins'

Sunday: Clean out the fridge and leftovers!
What's on your menu this week?

Now I know why Liv is starting to enjoy Sunday School....

Yes, those are brownies all over her face.

And Ritz crackers. The girl had three teachers all to herself last week! Goodness... what a rough life.

My Nurse-Maids

Today is my glucose screening test...prayer appreciated! And we are still unsure of who we'll be able to have the baby with...just a tangle of insurance stuff we have to wade through and midwife availability. They still don't make it easy to VBAC...even if you've already had one! But, God is in control!

Either way, I am in good hands...the Lord's and my faithful nurse-maids pictured below:

Menu Plan for 1/17/11

Here's what we will be eating this week:

And...here's the shopping trip for this week.

Breakfasts: oatmeal, toast, eggs, leftover whole wheat buttermilk pancakes , leftover breakfast cake
Lunches/snacks: leftovers, sandwiches, soup

Dinners:

Monday: Sloppy Joe Shepherd's pie (a creation combining leftover sloppy joes, lentils and topped with leftover potato soup), salad

Tuesday: Chimichangas, quacamole, chips, veggie sticks

Wednesday: Pizza , italian cheese bread (my folks are having friends over that are bringing pizza, but its just for their peeps, so we'll make our own)

Thursday: Baked Potato Bar w/ broccoli, chili (free from Rite Aid!), cheese, sour cream, etc.

Friday: Spagetti Carbonara, using ham, green beans or mixed veggies

Saturday: Spinach Quiche

Sunday:Leftovers, Winter Bean Soup, easy homemade rolls

What's on your menu this week?

Grocery Trip 1/15/11 (loves me some grocery bargains)

I finally was under budget! My last couple of weeks have been over (when counting toiletries etc.) so I was happy to even things out a bit this week. Albies' doubles helped ALOT.

Total Spent this week: about $37
Below: Albertson's (3 doubles transactions), Food Pavillion mostly for produce, and Safeway.

Albertson's again (3 transactions of doublers). The Kikkoman cat did not print for me. But, somehow they were still free with coupons and doublers, so a good deal for something we use a lot of.

This week is a good illustration of why couponers can pay very little for groceries and not just eat junk. We have a few treats (juice, whole grain crackers w/cheese filling, a few butterfingers) but mostly real food like produce, yogurt, veggies, nuts, hummus, meat and several reasonably healthy cereal choices.

Around the house

Favorite activity: playing dress-up

Now that we sold the piano, the girls' room has tons more space and light. The hide-a-bed(that we are also trying to sell!) is a favorite reading spot...and the girls have adopted the window ledge as prime reading real-estate.

I am "trying" to read "the problem of pain" by C.S. Lewis. Love Lewis, but sometimes my attention span with two littles is lacking for his depth:)

Menu Plan for the week of 1/10/11!

Here's what we will be eating this week:

Breakfasts: oatmeal, toast, eggs, leftover whole wheat buttermilk pancakes , cranberry struesel muffins (to use up canned cranberries leftover from our turkey meal last week)

Lunches/snacks: leftovers, sandwiches, soup

Dinners:

Monday: Turkey Divan over brown rice

Tuesday: Jerk Turkey Soup, yeast rolls, salad

Wednesday: Cheesy Beef and Rice Casserole(didn't get to this last week), green beans

Thursday: Vegetable Bean Soup & Salad for the ladies Bible study (everyone who comes is on a very strict diet of some kind right now...pretty much veggies only are safe:) and grilled cheese for the kidlets and hubby/dad

Friday: Chili Rellenos or Enchiladas (mom said she would buy the chili rellenos stuff to make...but if we have a blizzard that might not happen!

Saturday: Pizza and breadsticks, carrots

Sunday:Leftovers, meal out or one of Saturday's meals

What's on your menu this week?

Food Pavillion shopping trip

There are some *hot* deals at Food Pavillion this week, but unfortunately they panic if you use a single coupon. That is what happened to me and I did just that...use ONE coupon:). So the store was dead and they called for backup to look at my one Special K printable...so I ended up with a line of 8 behind me! Talk about encouraging shoppers to come back! Anyway, I got some great produce deals.

Total for all above: about $15. There is enough fruit there to last our family of 6 for a week and a half plus 4 huge heads of Romaine lettuce ($0.58/each!). Milk was $1.67 with in-ad coupon limit one.

Baby Bump: 24 1/2 weeks

Yes, I know I look 8 months pregnant already! But overall I am feeling good and still exercising (mostly walking or aerobics about 30 minutes a day 4 days a week). The holidays were bad news and I gained 7 extra pounds. So all this week I've started to write down everything I eat and that seems to curb some of my extra snacking or sugar overload. Baby boy kicks all the time and is measuring right where he should be for a late April/early May arrival.

The plan is to move to Bremerton mid-April so we can have the baby in Seattle again. Praying for a little quicker labor this time (less than 44 hours would be nice!;)

Cooped up but still having fun

The girls playing with their video machine (thanks CeeCee!!!) hand-me-down in the parents' walk-in closet.

Liv playing with the same video machine, but chilling out on the top stairs that goes down to grandpa's man-cave.

I cannot resist the cutenest of those cheeks! By the way, the girls' leggings are from Wal-mart...Christmas clearance for $1! They aren't "Christmasy" either.

M and her huge puzzle from the grandparents (so fun!)

These cold winter days cooped up inside test my mothering creativity to the max. And my organizational skilz(of which I am working very hard on developing!) are getting a workout. But here are some fun things the girls have been doing, especially over winter break when the grandparents have been vacationing too (or as in this week, which finds my mom home from work with a bad cold).

Weekly Shopping Trip (loves me some grocery bargains)

Rite Aid and Walgreens: $15, but I have $10 in RR for WAGS next week. The special K was less than $0.30 a box after bogos and UP rewards. We are SO stocked for breakfast!

Freddies: $25. This was my last stop late at night but I scored a few freebies and good deals. I FINALLY found Toby's products and got some tofu dip with two free coupons I've had for almost a year. Also found a breathe right free coupon in the coupon Xchange. The Adam's PB was $2 each (not an amazing deal) but I found rebate sheets in front for buy 2 Adam's PB get a $10 gift card! I thought that would come in handy sometime for the hubby:), $0.49 FE salad kit, $1.50 for string cheese, $1.49 for Jimmy Dean Delight breakfast sammies (a treat), and cheap oranges, bananas, pickles round out the big trip.

Albies: $7. Most of this was from the Newspaper $2, eggs $1.99 and the Sprite $2 for $3. We have sickies here who requested sprite so it was an okay deal for me. The Fiber Plus, Wholly Guac, and Xtra detergent were free, bestlife spread was $0.50 even w/o a double.

I finally ran into some other serious couponers last night @ Albies. A bunch of cute young ladies (mommies?) were comparing notes and transactions and the bagger gave them a new sheet of doublers after each transaction! I knew I was in the right place:)

Spent $2 @ Wal-mart today on white beans and brown sugar so that brings my total for this week (and also the new month's total) to $49.

Snowin' and blowin' up bushels of fun!

Grandma and Daddy took the girls out for some sledding fun in the backyard last week and they had a blast! Grandma and Grandpa have a paved driveway and it was perfect for sledding fun:).



This girls got some serious speed going on and LOVED it. Takes after grandma Karen:)


The tragic end to Liv's sweet ride:

Menu Plan for January 3rd, 2011!

Happy New Year!

Three of us are sick right now (and I had some random dizziness/stomach bug last night for several hours) with ugly colds. So my ambitious plans to get my coupon bag organized, up my exercise quotient and start some simple pre-school activities with the girls may need to be a little flexible.

Here's what we will and have already been eating this week:

Breakfasts: oatmeal, toast, eggs, whole wheat buttermilk pancakes (have already made these with two variations--blueberry and chocolate chip...very good!), eggs in a window

Lunches/snacks: leftovers, sandwiches

Dinners:

Monday: Chicken with fruit salsa in the crockpot over rice

Tuesday: Spagetti, Peas, breadsticks

Wednesday: Cheesy Beef and Rice Casserole, green beans

Thursday: Turkey, stuffing, carrots

Friday: White Turkey Chili in the crockpot

Saturday: Pizza and breadsticks or Fried Rice and Salmon

Sunday: Leftovers, meal out or one of Saturday's meals

What's on your menu this week?