March for Babies!

I just registered to join a friends team for the March of Dimes, March for Babies walk! I am sure excited, it is a great cause and I am so very thankful that both our kids were extremely healthy from the get go, but there are so many who aren't and anything I can do to help in a great honor! If you would like to donate please go to: http://www.marchforbabies.org/hway

The team that I joined is a friend from schools team. Her daughter was born almost 2 months early last August and was in the hospital for several weeks before coming home. She is now very happy and health and trieving, but it is a scary thing and I am so glad for this opportunity! Thanks for the support!

Past weeks good mail

I am love, love, loving all the good snail mail lately! Last week I posted several samples and coupons I got and now I have more :) I have started getting some responses back to from the Apple a Day Project I had mentioned previously, and it is starting to help keep me motivated and looking forward to checking the mail. This is what we have received over the last several days:

Responses from Apple a Day Project:

2 Lance coupons for 1 free box of snack crackers
1 free Bryer's Yo-crunch fruit parfait, and 2 $1 off 2
2 $1 of 1 Dole fruit cups

Other great coupons and samples:

$9.50 savings booklet from P&G
$35.75 saving booklet
$28 worth of fisher price coupons, nothing I am really looking to buy but would make great gifts to buy if I run across them on sale somewhere!
2 3ct Dentek flossers

I am hoping as the week continue to get several more samples, I have lost track of how many items I have signed up for recently all of a sudden there were all kinds of things to sign up for and I DID! But I didn't keep a list of what and how long it was supposed to take to be delivered so I guess it will just continue to be nice little surprises.
Happy Tuesday!

Super Double Round up for the week

I ended up hitting HT up 4 times while out and about this past week, I kept missing the rolls that I wanted, I only actually found them once and I shoulda used all the coupons I had for them that time, oh well, the rest are good til the end of May so hopefully it will happen again. The 4th trip I didn't get anything I was near a HT this morning and just ran in to see if they had the rolls and they didn't. Here's my trips, I am pretty happy with the outcome!

Trip#1
3 strawberries (Buy 1 get 2 free! $4.99 each)
1 men's Degree
2 oral-b tooth brushes
1 Bailey's coffee creamer
1 4pk DanActive drinks
Total: $5.75!


Trip #2
5 12ct bags Rhodes dinner rolls
2 Philly cooking cremes

Total: $.16!
*Also on this trip we were on the way to the $1.50 theater to see MegaMind(much better than I expected it to be) and Robert and Christopher were hungry. When I walked in they were selling hot dogs, chips, and a drink to raise $ for MS, so I got them each a combo, can't beat that price and they were happy to eat while I ran in the store :)

Trip #3
2 Philly cooking cremes

Total: $.06!

Another cooking creme

We tried out the second Philly Cooking creme I got a couple weeks ago tonight and it was excellent too! I think I actually liked this one better. Robert wasn't home to try it, and I let my mom take the leftovers home to my bro, so he will have to try it another time. Tonight was the Italian cheese and herb, and I made Chicken pasta primavera. Also, just to toot my own horn, I would just like to mention that this is the third meal I have made in the last 2 weeks that was made from 1 chicken that I got on sale for 69cents a lb. So my chicken that cost just under $3 made chicken and gnocchi soup, chicken and dumplings, and the pasta tonight...if that's not stretching a buck I don't know what is! And there really was plenty of chicken in each meal! I have found that if I roast a chicken and then pull every little bit of chicken off the bones and separate it into even piles it really is a great deal, especially for us, because none of us really likes the dark meat by itself so this is great for making pastas, soups, casseroles, enchiladas. Anywho, I am proud of myself :)

Don't you just LOVE good mail and freebies!

First off, a big THANKS to Sara Jarnagin over at http://jarnagins.blogspot.com/ She did a giveaway w/ CSN.com a few weeks ago and I actually won! It was for a $25 credit, good on anything including shipping. As anyone who reads this knows, I love RR products and they happened to have alot of her stuff on sale at the time so I got a second set of her "lazy spoons" in green and it ended up only costing me 53 cents! I was one happy chic!


I have also been signing up for all kinds of samples and freebies, like the paint I posted the other day. I have also received coupons from Beechnut for free baby food and toddler snacks, a coupon for a free Philly cooking creme plus a $1.50 off of one cooking creme, a fresh breath dog treat(for the kids to take to Gma's dog sometime soon), and 2 free cosmetic bags w/ samples and $25 in cosmetic coupons from target(I set one to my Dad's house), I also sent these bags to my Mom, my sis, and my Aunt to surprise them-who doesn't love good mail! All of this has been within the past week.

I guess the joke is on me...

I recently discovered that Valspar is giving away paint samples on their FB page. The box includes a sample of your choice of paint, a roller, and a paint tray. I have been wanting to paint Hailey's room for a long time, but just don't want to spend the money (I realize painting is not that expensive, but I always seem to spend the money on something else first), and I don't know when I would actually get it done with Robert's crazy work schedule...not really something I want to do w/ 2 little helpers especially since there is stuff in the room. Soooo, I had the brilliant idea, what if I sent samples of the same color to several houses and then I would have the paint for free and maybe I would be more motivated to paint! So, I sent a sample to myself, my Dad, my Mom, my sis, my father-in-law, and my F-I-L's bro in law(they are neighbors), thinking from the look of the pic that I might actually be able to paint the entire room for free! Well, turns out it is only a 7oz can of paint and a mini roller and tray. So now I have lots of cans of the same color of paint but not enough to paint the whole room. Kinda wish I had sent different colors to everyone to have lots of new craft paints for the kids, but oh well. At least it is a pretty color-Plink.

Happy St. Patty's Day!

These are from Hailey's first St. Patty's Day, obvilously...I love these pictures and decided today to try to get a new version of them, easier said than done...

I did it, I did it, yeah, I did it!

That's a Dora the Explorer, just in case you aren't familiar with Dora :) It is Hailey's new fave thing to say and she even does the little dance to go with it. Hahaha.
Anyways, on to what I did...

I made my first dress, from start to finish. My mom is a very good sewer and several times I have asked her to teach me, but we never seem to get all the way threw a project, mostly because she wouldn't let me actually make something. She always just wanted me to practice with scraps, and I wanted to have an actual finished product at the end so I would get frustrated and she would get frustrated and we got nothing done, but not this time! :)


Happy Monday everyone! I think I am caught up on everything now :)

Legos and a new twist on an old fave

At the end of February, like literally the 28th, I found out that Lego stores do a free mini model build the first Tues of the month, the 1st of March was a Tues! So, being that we have never been to the Lego store, since we still only have Duplos I thought it would be a fun thing to do with the kids. We got there 10 mins after it started and the line was crazy long. Apparently just because I am slow on picking it up lots of others in the area were not! The line seemed to be mostly parents with reading books, playing on phones, ect, while their kids were spread out on every bench and seat within sight doing homework. I was not expecting this, but since we did drive the 40 mins to get there we waited in line. It took 1hr 15min, but we got our free mini models, it was a little bird, I think maybe it is supposed to be a woodpecker? The kids did extremely well waiting, especially since it was right at dinner time. I don't think we will be going back to this event anytime soon. Between the drive, the time of day, and the wait it just isn't worth it to me. I think we will just stick with our Sat morning builds at Home Depot and Lowe's!
Waiting...



The final product


One night last week I had steak and shrimp on the menu, and was trying to decide what kind of shrimp to make. I ended up making basically a scampi sauce and sauteing the shrimp in it and then to add some extra color to the plate served it on top of a pile of fresh baby spinach, it was sooo yummy! I don't know why I have never thought to do it before but I will definitely do it again. The warm shrimp and their sauce slightly wilted the spinach and it was like a wonderful light little warm shrimp and spinach salad.

Have you tried these yet?....

I picked up 2 of these new Philly Cooking Cremes a couple weeks ago(for free!) at HT. We tried the Savory Garlic the other day, I made the recipe that was on the package, Chicken Florentine. I topped it with some roasted tomatoes, fresh shredded basil, and shredded parm. I was very happy with the way it came out and would recommended it. Plus it made WAY more than the bag meals in the freezer section, which chicken Florentine is one of the few that I actually buy. There was enough left overs for me to eat it the next 2 days for lunch.

My Baby Girl is 2!....

A month ago! Uggg, slackest mommy ever here! I can't believe my sweet baby is 2 already. It really seems like just yesterday I was sitting at work in the middle of the night watching my belly bounce as she had her nightly hiccups :) We didn't do a big party, just family on her actual bday for cake and ice cream. Here are a few pics.



I had bought the tutu several months ago at Costco thinking I had plenty of time to find a "Happy Birthday" or "Birthday girl" shirt to match, turns out they are hard to come by! So, I ended up with a black leotard from Old Navy and ironed on a sparkly cupcake I found at AC Moore. I also made a new hair bow to match with cupcake and purple ribbons :)

Apple a day project

I am way behind on my postings again, but I wanted to share this idea. I saw it on another blog and it seems like a great idea. She writes to one company every day, something good or bad depending on her family's experience with each product. In return she gets lots on nice emails back and about half the time high value coupons and or free stuff! Seems like a great plan to me. So, I have decided to start doing this also, however, due to my severe lack of organization I can't seem to remember to do it everyday. I have done several though. So far I have written: Goody's Hair products, Oscar Mayer, Nestle, Vaseline lotion, Ivory, Lance, and Hefty. I have gotten a couple emails thanking me for my feedback of the products so far. I am hoping that this coming week maybe I will get some coupons or even free products in the mail. That would definitely help me keep it up!

Also, I discovered that if you "like" Valspar Paint on FB you can sign up to get a free paint sample w/ a roller brush and pan! All packaged up and sent right to your door, how cool is that! I have been wanting to paint Hailey's room, and even though it is not a super expensive thing to do we just don't seem to have the money at the end of the month to buy the paint and supplies so....I sent samples of the same color(plink) to myself, my Dad, my Mom, my Sis, my Step MIL, and her bro's house!! I am hoping maybe possibly it will be enough to paint her room and if not, at least I won't have to buy pans and rollers and such and the samples each come with coupons to buy more paint at Lowe's :) So if you are thinking about changing up a room color you might want to check it out and get your sample and coupon before you shop! The store "re-opens" everyday at 10am eastern time, and they only do 1000 samples a day. They are giving away a total of 100,000, I am not sure how long this has been going on so if interested jump on it and try to log in right at opening, the samples seem to be gone with in 2 hrs every morning.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! We have beautiful weather here :)