We actually got a project done w/o my Dad!

So, I have to admit, neither me or Robert are all that handy. I have a tendency to start a project thinking I can do it myself and end up needing help most of the time. Like ripping up carpet and such...this time it was the chandelier in our dinning area. Generally my Dad is my go to for any kind of handy work help, but he was out of town this past week so I thought I could do it myself but then got a little freaked out (cause I didn't turn off the breaker and the wires started sparking) and had to have Robert come help me. 45 mins and 2 broken light bulbs later we have a new light! :)

The old one is down


And the new one is up :)

Super Doubles again!

I still prefer triple coupons, but super doubles have been pretty good the last couple times. This time I even managed to knock a "thing" off my 101 things this trip and saved $100+ in one trip!!



Coupons tendered = $101.95
VIC savings = $23.47
Total savings = 125.42!
Total = $47.55

Needless to say I was VERY happy with myself on the way home that day :)

Mail roundup!

This week was a great week for good mail! None of it was reference the apple a day project, but still lots of goodies :)



This week included:
1-1 load packet of Tide
1-3 load box of Tide plus Bleach
5-$1 off ANY Tide!! That means I can use them in the travel section and get free Tide, perfect for all our summer trips coming up!
2 boxes of Playtex Tampons, each included 3 tampons and a $1 off coupon
$32 P&G coupon booklet
Jeffy cookbook
Sample of Vaseline repairing moisture lotion w/ $1 off coupon
1 Orville Redenbacher's Pop Up Bowl, this came w/ $1 off coupon for the popcorn, it also had a B1G1 coupon for Chef Boyardee! And $1 off Peter Pan peanut butter
16 mini red Sharpie Markers

*I realized as I am typing this, that I never posted about my "House Party"! I will post about it tomorrow, which is where the markers come in...they are replacements for the pens I got last week in my goodie box.

Today's eats

*Quick side note, Hailey woke up with high fever, which she had all day and throwing up so my day completely revolved around her today. Thankfully she seems to be finally feeling better tonight and hopefully by morning will be fine!

Breakfast:
peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwich on white wheat
.5 C applesauce

Lunch:
(more like afternoon snack, didn't eat til after 3pm)
6 Sweet Sixteen frosted donuts-horrible for me, but ooo so yummy and I needed a donut or 6 :)
1/2 C Sprite

Dinner:
1 serving Stroganoff Hamburger helper
7 brussell sprouts
2 pieces garlic texas toast

Exercise:
25 mins on the Wii, cycling and bowling

Today's eats

Breakfast:
2 buttermilk biscuits w/ butter, blueberry jam, small piece sausage on each

Lunch:
Peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwich
several strawberries

Dinner:
A WHOLE FREAKING pizza!! I have no self control! :( Spinach, mushrooms, bacon, and pepperoni
I completely intended to save at least half of this for tomorrow, however that did not happen, I was starving by the time we ate dinner after not eating a whole lot today and spending several hrs on the beach(at the lake) with the kids and friends this morning.




Snacks:
strawberry shortcake

Exercise:
40 mins on the WII, playing basketball 3-point shoot, bowling, and sword fighting

Weekly mail round up

This week there was no feedback from the "apple a day project", but I have also really slacked off on contacting companies.

This weeks samples included:
1 individual tide detergent
10 pack of tide stain release packs
1 Degree women's deodorant w/ $1 off coupon
1 can Ocean Spray Sparkling Cranberry juice w/ $1 off coupon

2 days eats

Yesterday:
Breakfast:
fiber one bar

Lunch:
peanutbutter and chocolate chip sandwich on wheat
individual Frito's
snicker's egg

Dinner:
Chicken parm
2 pieces garlic toast

Exercise:
just a quick walk to the mailbox, about 12 mins total, not much but still better than nothing

Todays:
We got a late start so we had brunch today, I got lots of goodies at the Farmer's Market last week and have been wanting to do a big breakfast ever since, so thats what we did today.

Brunch:
3 buttermilk biscuits, 2 with sausage and a little bit of egg, all with butter and blueberry jam
several strawberries

Dinner:
Cube steak w/ mashed potatoes
several small yeast rolls

Snack:
2 scoops mint chocolate chip ice cream

Exercise:
walked to the mailbox

Today's eat

Breakfast:
Strawberry shortcake

Lunch:
bowl of Ancho chicken soup

Dinner:
Super Scampi
3 bread sticks

Snacks:
snickers w/ almonds
I plan to eat another strawberry shortcake later after the kids go to bed :)

Exercise:
I spent 3 hrs emptying and rearranging/filling out storage building this morning. Then walked to "The Candy store", Dollar General, with the kids, about 1.5 miles round trip. We also made a stop at Grandpa's on the way home to play for a little while.

2 more RR recipes

Ancho chicken tortilla soup
This one came out spicier than I expected it to, but we both really liked it!

The second one was Super Scampi, this one was just ok. We both prefer my usual method of making scampi, but we tired it. It wasn't bad, but the sauce came out much thinner than mine usually does and didn't really stick as well.

Sat. eats

Breakfast:
bowl of strawberries w/ 1 banana cut up in it
2 slices toast w/ butter and blueberry jam

Lunch:
Bowl of brown rice w/ keilbasa and yellow mustard
sweet tea

Dinner:
Ancho chicken tortilla soup
3 mini chocolate chip cookies

Snacks:
2 Sneckers easter eggs
strawberry shortcake(3 super then slices of pound cake, a mountain of fresh strawberries, ff Redi whip)

Its strawberry time!

Christopher has been asking when we can go to the farm for a couple weeks now, and it opened mid-week this week, so yesterday morning we hit the farm first thing! Christopher loves to go to the farm and pick anything in season, but makes me crazy cause he refuses to eat any of it! We picked almost 8lbs of strawberries, and ate a few in the field :) We were alittle concerned about the crop this year, as we had a pretty rough winter, but they have all been excellent so far! Big, beautiful, red, juicy berries. Everyone had a great time picking and eating(except C of course)!

Whats better than a freebie...

A YUMMY freebie!

Have any $1 off 2 Mars Easter candies? Check out the candy isle for individual candies! These were .50 each so they were free, just paid tax on them :)

Todays eats

Breakfast:
None

Lunch:
WAY too much pizza, bread sticks, and salad at Pizza Hut's lunch buffet

Dinner:
1 Chicken enchilada, yellow rice, about 2 handfuls of tortilla chips

Snacks:
about half a carton of Minute Maid lite lemonade, I was crazy trusty this afternoon and water just wasn't getting it.
Lots of strawberries, we picked almost 8lbs this morning at the farm :)

Exercise:
20-25 min walk in my mom's hilly neighorhood, pushing Hailey in the stroller

Today's eats

Breakfast:
none- I know not good, but we just couldn't seem to get it together this morning

Lunch:
3 slices of ham and pineapple pizza
1 slice pepperoni pizza
1 glass sweet tea

Dinner:
3 slices french toast
4 slices bacon
maple syrup

Not a great day for eating, but I didn't snack so that is good. We (my Dad and I) finally planted the garden today! And we walked to the mailbox and back, about 15 min round trip, part of which I pulled both my heavy kids up a hill in the wagon.

Today's eats

Breakfast:
banana
fiber one bar

Lunch:
Chinese chick salad wrap(in flour tortilla w/ Swiss)
Doritos

Dinner:
Brandy Apple Fondue w/ dippers
2 glasses sweet tea

Exercise
I took the kids to a friends house today and we hiked in the woods for about 40 mins. The kids had a great time, and we will definitely have to start doing it more often!

Working through my list

This month I have taken on 2 of the longer items on my 101 things list(http://www.dayzeroproject.com/user/hway). #1 no fast food for a month, so far so good. We are on day 13, almost 14 and no fast food, I am pretty sure I can stick with it for another 16 days! #2 is to cook 30 different meals in 30 nights. I didn't actually start this on the first of the month so it will run into the begining of May, but I am on day 10 of this. This month I am again making several new recipes out of Rachael Ray's look and cook cookbook, which is the book I have decided to make every recipe out of(also on my list). I think I have 7 recipes from the book on the menu for this 30 period so hopefully most will be successful :)

I was really looking forward to this dinner...

Fondue w/ Apple Brandy

The dippers
baguette
asparagus
cherry tomatoes
homemade potato chips
pretzel rods
bacon wrapped chicken w/ spinach

It looks very yummy and delicious right!?!? It was a big disappointment :( The cheese and alcohol didn't blend together well and it separated as soon as I took it off the stove. I was pretty bummed. The cheese was expensive(Gruyere $16/lb) and I couldn't find the second cheese Emmentaler so I subbed Swiss for it. Next time I will do my usual cheddar/Colby and beer, it always comes out great! The cheese was also VERY salty, I could feel my feet swelling by the time I got up from the table, not a good thing. The bacon wrapped chicken was a new to us dipper, but we both really liked it and will definitely be adding it to our usual dipper list.

I am not sure how much she actually ate, but Hailey really enjoyed this dinner. We gave her a plate with a few of all the dippers and a small bowl of cheese, so she wouldn't dump over the pot and she just went to town. She really liked the pretzels and the tomatoes, towards the end she started eating the chips. She put as much in her bowl as she could and was "cooking", it was hilarious! Christopher of course wouldn't even try it, so he had a hot dog.

Mail round up for the week

I am not sure why I have choosen Tuesdays to be the "start" of the mail week, but anywho....

1 mens Dove deoderant
1 men's Dove body wash
1 $1 off coupon for each of the Dove products
$2 Subway giftcard, this was from Shamrock farms milk company. They had a promotion on FB for free milk, however it isn't sold in stores near me, so they sent me the SW card because they carry indivial Shamrock milks in the restuarants :)
1 free coupon Temptations by Jello
1 $1 off coupon for Temptations by Jello

200 under 200

So, way back when, I was all excited when I got the Hungry Girl 200 under 200 cookbook, however I haven't actually made anything from it til this week. Heres the first 2 recipes:

Scoopable Chinese chicken salad

Obviosously I ate this as a sandwich, which I am sure blew the under 200 cal out of the water, but it was good. I also don't think I got a full serving on the sandwich, so maybe it evens out?? I altered the recipe slightly, but I was happy with the out come. Robert hasn't tried it yet, so not sure what he is going to say yet, it does have a lot of veggies for him.

Bacon-bundled bbq shrimp

This one I have made twice in less than a week! Does that tell you something :) I made it for Bunco Friday night and then again for a appietizer theme lunch party Monday. Both times it was a hit and my hubby complained that I wasn't feed them all to him :)

Todays eats

Breakfast:
Banana
Cinnamon toast crunch cereal bar

Lunch:
1/2 serving of cream or wheat w/ butter, sugar, and a little blueberry jam
2 thin slices toasted Itilan bread w/ blueberry jam

Dinner:
Scoopable chinese chicken salad sandwich w/ swiss
cool ranch doritos

Snacks:
1/2 a 100 cal bag of popcorn(Hailey ate atleast 1/2!)
2 handfuls of mini Robin Eggs

New Challenge

The whole reason I started this blog was to be an accountable place for me to track my weight loss. Weather anyone is actually reading or not, if I have to own up to what I have eaten and how much I have moved everyday I do better! That being said, its time I get back to it. Last time I lost 19 lbs in 10 weeks. A friend from school has challenge me and several others to lose 10 lbs in the next 30 days. I am not sure if I can do it, but I am going to try. I REALLY need to lose some serious weight! Maybe I will be able to get into a routine and stay with it this go around. So starting today I will be posting daily eats again.

So proud of my boy!

This is the letter Christopher wrote(traced) to his friend Ryleigh who lives in Canada! He did a very good job and I am hoping having a pin pal will encourage him to write more, right now it gets pretty hairy when we are working on his actual letter writting practice. We met Ryleigh while in FL back in November visiting my aunt. She was down with her mom visiting her Gma and we actually ran into them 2 out of 3 days on the beach and they played soo well. Christopher talks about her several times a week still, and asks when he will get to see her again :) Such a sweet boy! He told us not to long ago he wanted to go visit her and when I said it would take us probably 2 days to drive there he said "that's ok Mommy, me and Hailey will sleep in the car for you!" I love that kid!

Mail round up for the week

This week wasn't quite as good as last week and actually all this stuff came the same day so it was a great mail day for the one day!


Apple a day response:
2 $0.40 off Luzianne tea products

Other good stuff:
A whole patch of Gerber coupons
a free pack of Stride gum
a free pyrex pot holder(I have no idea how I got this :))

Did anyone else get good mail this week?