JJ Models and New Pictures!

JJ had his first modeling gig last week you can check out the pictures at Chic it Baby. My mom and I also got new pictures of JJ taken last week at Sears they turned out sooooo cute! I just can't believe how big he is gettng it seems like I was just trying to get pregnant.

Jesus Loves You!

God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life. Real love isn't our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. 1 John 4:9-10

Free Money (I hope!)

I just signed up for this new thing that says you get paid to read your emails. I signed up for it today so I am not to sure if it is for real I will keep you updated though. For signing up I recieved $10 for free. If you sign up let me know how it goes.

Here is the info:

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Harris Teeter Super Doubles!

I just heard yesterday that Harris Teeter will be doing super double coupons the week of June 24th. They will be doubling coupons up to 1.98 instead of the normal .99. That gives me about a week to start clipping and sorting my coupons out for the big event next week.

VBS this week

JJ and I have been attending VBS all this week. The kids are so cute. I am helping with the first graders and JJ gets to go play in the nursery with the other little ones. The theme this year for VBS is boomerang express- it all comes back to Jesus. I think that it is awesome being able to see the children learn about Jesus. I remember when I was in elementary school and got to attend VBS how much fun it was. I just hope that the children will learn a lot about Jesus and how much Jesus and God loves us.

My little boy is getting so BIG!

JJ is getting so big and his personallity is really coming out. First thing in the morning after I take him out of his crib he will run around the house and into mommy and daddy's bedroom and look to see if daddy might still be in bed. He will stand by the edge of the bed and will look and yell dadda. Several times I have gone into his room in the morning or after nap time to find JJ without a diaper on and he will be in the crib smiling and laughing.
JJ loves animals and when he see's an animal he will bark at the animal no matter what kind of animal it is. I am going to take JJ to the Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville (North Carolina) probably in two weeks. For those that don't live around here and now what the Lazy 5 Ranch is it is a place where the animals (zebras, pigs, peacocks, deer, ostriches, etc...) run around the park freely while you drive in your car or you can choose to do a hay ride and you can pet the animals and also feed the animals. My mom and I went a few days before JJ was born and had lots of fun. JJ and I will have to be careful not to feed the zebras because the get greedy and will try to steal the feed bucket out of your hands.
I am very happy that JJ is not a picky eater like his mom. JJ will eat anything that you put in front of his face. He will eat collard greens, beets, brussel sprouts, spinach, tomatoes, asparagas and lots of other stuff. The only thing he does not like that we have gave him is pickles and cantalope. I will keep trying with those though and we don't use the words "you don't like that".

I love couponing!

Harris Teeter has become one of my favorite grocery stores to shop at. It has been confirmed that they will be doing triple coupons again starting on the 27th of May. The only bad thing about them doing triples is that I have yet to get all of my coupons organized.
I buy 4 to 6 newspapers every week and it is hard to keep up with them all. The way that I do my coupons consume a lot of time to organize but it makes it easy when it comes time to go shopping. My coupons that I have cut are in a binder with baseball card holders as organizers then I have the coupons placed in the binder by location in the store so I have one section for beverages, medicines, refrigerated, frozen and misc. My refrigerated, frozen and misc are broken down even further. I have mini sections for each of those breads, cereals, cheese, meats, gum, etc. For the coupons that I haven't clipped yet I have a file folder system in place so I can still find my coupons easily.
On a positive note coupons save me and my family a lot of money. We went from spending 600 at the grocery store every two weeks plus more on going out to eat and extra stuff that we ran out of to spending 150 every two weeks for everything that is a shopping expense (cvs, wags, harris teeter, bilo, target, etc...). For example last night I went to bilo I purchased 10 bags of Knorr sides they were on sale 10 for 10 then bought 6 packages of bar s hot dogs. Total before hand would have been 16 dollars plus three dollars back to spend on your next trip (from the knorr/unilever deal) I had 5 coupons for the knorr that was .75 off of two knorr sides but bilo doubles coupons so that was 1.50 off of two bags of knorr. So I spent .25 cents on each bag of knorr sides then the hot dogs were 1.00 each and I had a coupon for 1.00 off of 2 packages making them .50 cents each.
After I get done with this next round of triples at Harris Teeter I will post a picture with price breakdown of my shopping trips and will also post a picture of my stockpile.
Yay for free or very cheap food.

Kmart Doubles First Trip

Kmart has been offering double coupons up to and including $2. I got some pretty good deals but could of gotten more if I was able to start out my shopping trips on Sunday when the deal started instead of Wednesday which is when I got home from my vacation to Utah. I have made two trips to Kmart thus far but I only have the one receipt with me because the other is in the car and my husband drove the car to work today. My first trip my total before coupons was 111.55 I spent 35.40 and saved 76.15!
Here is what I got:

• Soft Scrub Scrubby Pads - 4
• Can of Lysol Disinfectant - 1
• Lysol 2-in-1 Toilet Cling - 2
• Cascade Action Pacs (20) - 1
• Dawn Plus Hand Renew 19floz - 1
• Renuzit Renew - 5
• Lysol Bath Cleaner 4-in-1 - 1
• Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner - 4
• Pearl Scents Renuzit - 2
• Wet One's -5
• Febreze Air Effects - 5
• Air Wick Air Refresher -1
• Lysol Disinfecting Wipes -3
• Sparkle 3 pack Paper Towels -1

Now I guess I have no excuse not to clean my house

My trip to Utah

I just got back from my month long vacation in St. George, Utah. It was nice to be able to visit with my family and friends but I am happy to be home sleeping in my own bed. My trip didn't start off to well. I flew into Las Vegas from Charlotte and had a layover in Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX on American Airlines. The people in Dallas somehow lost my stroller when I gate checked it and left it at the location that they told me to leave it at. Then when I arrive in Las Vegas and they told me that my stroller was lost they asked me if I would like a wheelchair to use to haul around my carryon luggage and a 16 month old baby. Are you kidding me? How are they expecting me to manuever a wheelchair and a 16 month old at the same time. I flew into Vegas on the 17th of February and I still haven't seen my stroller or any compensation as of yet. Then while I was there JJ and I both got sick. We both had the flu and JJ got an ear infection and after I finally got rid of the flu I went to the ER with a bladder infection that moved into my kidneys and now I have the cold. What a month. Besides all the being sick and such I did have fun but am happy to be home.

My Grocery Savings This Week

I spent 15.73 on this transaction and saved 51.87

I paid 17.02 for all of this and saved 47.02 on this transaction

This was not actually 38.54 I didn't get credit for my coupons as

double or triples. The store refunded me 21.90 so I paid 16.64 for all of this

food and saved 44.21 on this order.

Harris Teeter offered triple coupons this weekend for up to 99¢ face value. I went to Harris Teeter a total of seven times I spent 200.74 but I saved 314.34 without my coupons and vic card I would have spent 515.08! The price that I actually paid also includes 6 gallons of milk (for one week- JJ and Jason drink a lot of milk), butter, 2 packages of bacon, sour cream, cheese and eggs which I did not have coupons for any of that. I am going to go to wal-mart and CVS tomorrow and see what kind of deals that I can find. I didn't take pictures of all the food that I bought but I have a few pictures that I took.

I am wore out!

In my attempt to get healthy Jason and I decided to buy a wii along with a wii fit. Let me tell you that thing is awesome! I worked out on that thing for an hour today and it was actually fun. My favorite exercise on the game is the step aerobics that is so much fun. After you unlock a couple of the activities you are able to do the step aerobics while you watch your regular tv shows. I think Nintendo was very smart on making the wii system to help people like me finally get off of our butts to get a daily workout in and making it a fun experience. I have found that the only downfalls to the wii are that some of the games that would interest my husband (Nascar 09 and World Series of Poker) are not available for the wii. However the system is for me to workout so that is not a big deal. Now if my husband would only buy me my exercise equipment that I am wanting (a nice treadmill, elliptical machine and exercise bike).

Nascar

I can not wait for Nascar season to start again. My husband has been working from 7am to 5pm Monday thru Friday and working Saturdays. He called me today to tell me that next week they will be working until 6pm and probably Saturday and Sunday. I don't mind him working that long but it takes him 45 minutes to an hour to get to work and then by the time he gets home he is grumpy and tired. His schedule will probably continue on like this until they go to Daytona. After he gets back to his regular schedule then he can get working on my honey-do list and maybe we can go on a weekend family getaway. Wouldn't that be nice!

New Deep Freezer

After Jason has been noticing how much food I have been buying he finally gave in and bought me a deep freezer. I have been asking for one for a while. So now I can go to the store and finally stock up on meats and other frozen goodies when they go on sale and not have to pay full price. Yay! Now if I can only get my new kitchen :)

Saving My Pennies!

So I have been going to this mommy forum for a little bit and have been seeing how much money these women save by clipping coupons and using VIP cards at local grocery stores so I have decided to give it a shot. I have been gone to Harris Teeter a couple of times and before I started to clip coupons I use to think that they were high priced then I heard how much stuff you can get on little money. Harris Teeter is one of the grocery stores in my area that doubles coupons upto .99 face value and occasionally triples coupons. The weekend of January 2nd I went to Harris Teeter 5 times and over a course of my trips I spent 212.82 but I saved 261.43 using a combination of coupons (which were triple coupons that weekend hence the 5 trips) and using my vic card. Today I went to Grocery Shopping and my original total was 219.?? and I left spending 152.27. Then yesterday I went to CVS and got a package of pampers (40 count) and a box of hair dye and my total before hand was 22.48 but I spent 5.42 and received 2 dollars in extra care bucks (ecb's*). Today my trip to CVS was better I purchased 2 reese whipps, 2 hair dyes, and two eye shadows my total before my cvs card and coupons was 37.74 but I left spending only 1.73 out of pocket (oop) and received 2 dollars in ecb's so an actual profit of .27 cents.

*ECB's- CVS coupon that you can spend on anything in the store except for a few select items.

Long time, no blog

Before you say anything I know it has been a while since I've posted anything to my blog. So I will update you on what has been going on in my neck of the woods.

JJ started walking about 3 days before his birthday and now he wants to walk everywhere. JJ now has 6 teeth and is working on getting some more in. Some of the words that he says and try to say are momma (not that often), dadda (all the time and is favorite), I love you (pronounces it i ya you), ya, and JJ.

Since around October we have been taking JJ to many doctors appoinments because he started to throw up for no apparent reason. After several visits and a few different doctors we were told that JJ has reflux. The weird thing about that is that children normally get reflux at around a few months not a year and they normally grow out of it. Our doctor put JJ on some medicine and has no idea when we will be able to take him off of his meds.

We also started to notice that JJ breaths really heavily and sometimes weezes he also coughs several times during the day so Friday we took JJ to the doctor again to try and figure this out we think it could possibly be asthma however they don't diagnose asthma until children are at least 2 years old the doctor did give us an inhaler to give to him if he does start to act like he is having issues breathing.