Happy Birthday Jayden!

I'm a terrible aunt for not posting this sooner. Jay's 1st birthday was February 5th.

Here are his cakes. He loves Moose and Zee, so I made my second Moose and Zee cake. The little cake was for him to smash, his big brother Quin helped me decorate it.


His mommy and big brother helped him blow out his candle, he just wanted to touch it.


I think he liked it!

Shopping trip 2-09-10

Like I said yesterday, I'm trying to get back into couponing and stockpiling, so I thought I'd share my shopping trips with you.

Kroger














Nature Valley granola bars (50 cent coupon, doubled)
Fiber One bars (40 cent coupon, doubled)
2 Old El Paso heat and serve rice pouches (2 - 50 cent coupons, doubled)
Old El Paso Fajita seasoning
Mission tortillas (50 cent coupon, doubled)
Kroger sugar
3 cans of Rotel ($1 coupon)
4 cans Hunt's diced tomatoes ($1 coupon)
5 cans Hunt's tomato sauce ($1 coupon)
16 oz. bag Kroger shredded cheddar cheese
16 oz. bag Kroger shredded mozzarella cheese
Kroger butter (free coupon)
Softsoap hand soap (35 cent coupon, doubled)
2 20oz Cokes (free coupons for both)
2 Sister Schubert rolls (2- $1 coupons)
2 Toaster Strudels (55 cents off 2 coupon, doubled)
Healthy Choice Cafe Steamer ($1 coupon)
1 DiGiorno Pizza ($4 coupon)
Most of the items I bought were part of the Buy 10, get $5 off Mega Sale, so I saved $10 that way.
I had $15.33 worth of manufacture's coupon savings, $4.35 worth of bonus coupons (from the ones that doubled), saved 19.99 by using my Kroger card and got $10 off from the items I purchased that were part of the Mega Event sale. That made a total savings of $49.67, 67% off the original price, so I only paid $26.58 for all of those groceries.


CVS



















3 boxes Ritz crackers ($1 coupon)
2 boxes Wheat Thins ($1 coupon)
Gillette Fusion razor ($4 coupon)
Used $5 worth of Extra Care Bucks from last week, and paid $9.32 out of pocket. I also got back $7 worth of ECBs that I'll use for another transaction later this week.


Walgreens



















1st Transaction:
Dove for Men Body Wash. Used a $1.25 coupon, paid $5.16 out of pocket and got back a Register Reward coupon for $6.

2nd Transaction:
Gillette deodorant ($1 coupon)
2 Kotex products ($1 coupon)
Used the $6 RR from 1st transaction, and paid $2.69 out of pocket. Got back $4.50 in Register Rewards.















3rd Transaction:
Whitman's chocolate ($4.99 with Walgreen's coupon, stacked with a $1 Mfg. coupon)
Gillette Fusion shave gel ($1.99 with Walgreen's coupon, stacked with a $1 Mfg. coupon)
Dayquil ($2 coupon)
4 Valentine bags
Used the $4.50 in Register Rewards from 2nd transaction and paid $4.84 out of pocket.

Walgreens' policy is that you can't have more coupons than you have items, so since I stacked store coupons and manufacture coupons, and had Register Reward coupons, I got the Valentine bags as cheap "fillers" to have the same number of items as I had coupons.

Total spent for the day: $48.59
Total saved for the day: $100.75

Catching up

It's been a long time since I've posted. Again. I keep thinking that I'll start posting more often but haven't. Sigh.
I've been back and forth to my Mom's a lot this year, spending a week at home and then a week there since the year started. I've been helping her out at the tax office again this year, and it's been busy.
When I'm here, I've been working on decluttering the computer room, to make it functional again. It's kinda slow going, but we've made a lot of progress on it. I'm getting rid of my old desktop computer and using the desk space for a sewing/crafting area, and I'm really excited about that. I usually use the kitchen table for that sort of thing, so it will be nice to have a place to work on stuff whenever I want. When things get a little less busy, I've got some sewing projects I want to work on.
I've also been getting back into the couponing/deal finding again. We've mostly been using up the stuff I stockpiled last year. I also used a lot of the health and beauty items in gift baskets at Christmas, so it's time to start stockpiling again. I did a good bit of shopping today, and got some good deals, so I'll probably make a post about that for tomorrow.
The next two weeks are going to be crazy busy again. Tomorrow, and then most of next week, I'm helping the Kidzone teacher take down and redecorate her classroom for a a new unit about the human body. This will be the fifth time I've helped her do it. It's fun, but a lot of work. That reminds me that I still haven't posted the pictures of the units on the ocean and Hawaii, I'll try to do that sometime soon, if I can find the pics.
After I leave the school tomorrow, I'm planning on going back down to my Mama's to help her out at the tax office on Thursday and Friday. They're supposed to get some snowy weather down there on Friday, but hopefully I won't get stuck there and will be able to come home for the weekend.
While I'm helping out at the school next week, Mr. McHacker is going to be in Alaska, giving a lecture to a class about how he helped the FBI catch a hacker last summer. He's given the same talk a couple of times at a couple of places over the past few months, and people seem t enjoy it. I really wanted to go to Alaska with him, but it was such short notice and the tickets are SO expensive (like $1,400) that we just couldn't swing it right now. It's probably for the best since it's like 5 degrees there and I don't know how well I would do in that kind of cold.
I finallay got caught up on my Google Reader again, when I got home Sunday I had almost 800 unread blog posts! I've been kinda lax about leaving comments on y'all's blogs lately since I was so far behind, but now I'm caught up, so I'll try to start commenting more often.