Stocking up!!!

Tuesday evening, my sis-in-law and I took off for Albertsons. We had put together a huge run. We had gone through the Albertsons ad the week before and figured out our stock up deals and then got on to ebay to find the coupons we were needing. Yes, we purchased coupons from ebay. Once we knew we were able to get the coupons we needed, we called the store and placed a special order for each of us.

We have built up a great relationship with the store manager and they do an amazing job at having everything ready for us when we arrive.

Here is what I purchased this last run...

I had two transactions and combined purchased...
70 boxes of Ronzoni Garden Delight Pasta (combination of spaghetti, rotini, and penne)...FREE!!
20 jars Peter Pan peanut butter
40 jars Ragu pasta sauce
50 bottles of Wishbone dressing, variety
6 Pop Tarts
6 Sprayway glass cleaner
2 Orbit gum (needed as a filler)
3 pints of Starbucks ice cream (not pictured)

My out of pocket was $58.53, my savings was $562.55...making the shelf cost for all of these items $621.08. That, my friends, is a 90.58% savings!!

Do you notice that some of these items are in boxes?! When you special order you get your items in cases. It actually makes storing these items easier because I can just stack them in the garage next to the shelving unit that I'm already using for my overstock.

I can't wait for our next stock up deal. It's nice that I actually have items that I can cross off of my grocery list for at least the next 6 months...probably longer!

Last Day of Preschool

Tuesday was Ethan's last day of Preschool. He has had an amazing year and absolutely loved his teachers. Ms. Karen, Ms. Gidget, Ms. Janet, and Ms. Nancy...THANK YOU!! (Sorry the picture is blurry. I don't know what happened. Too bad we can't do a re-do.)

The last day was a play day and ice cream party. It was also our day for having Wayne, Weston and Wyatt at our house and Ethan's amazing teachers invited them to join in on the fun.

We started out by playing in the gym. The boys loved the rock wall. Ethan didn't have a problem climbing this wall alone.

After some time of free play, Ms. Gidget pulled out the parachute. There were 3 of us moms there and we were all asked to participate. It was a lot of fun but I wasn't able to get any video or pictures of the action. It was neat to see Weston and Wayne interacting with all of Ethan's school friends. Wyatt, well, he just hung out in the stroller.

Once we were finished in the gym, we went back to the classroom. There, the kids sang a few of their songs that they sang throughout the year. Their favorite was the "chicken dance". We found out at the party that our son added his own little twist to part of it...a hand wave.

After their "performance" we all had ice cream with lots of fun toppings and cookies.

It was a great afternoon but very sad when we left. Ethan is the baby in our family and today was the last day of Preschool for all of us. It's hard to believe that we are officially finished with Preschool.

Farmer's Day Parade...Pool Goes Up!

Today was the Farmer's Day Parade. It was a beautiful day!! Last year, Jason was working on the day of the parade and I had some how been able to keep the kids from knowing it was parade day and we slept in.

This year, however, was different. Brenna was in the parade this year with the Middle School and High School choirs. There was no skipping the parade today. Jason, once again, had to be at work so he wasn't able to join us. We also had Brenna's BFF spend the night Friday night so that she could attend the parade with us. The kids had a blast. We had to be at the parade route early to get Brenna where she needed to be. So, we found our spot, laid out the blankets, called the rest of the family members that were going to be joining us to let them know where we were and then got Brenna to her pre-parade location.

I am so glad that Tyler and Tanya thought the 10:30 parade started at 10:00 because they arrived just 5 minutes after us and were able to help entertain Ethan before the parade.

We were right in front of the post office and liquor store. In between these two buildings, there is a nice section of grass with some shade. The boys were able to just run and get the wiggles out before the parade started.

Brenna hung out with Wyatt for a few minutes before meeting up with the choir. Brenna loves helping out with Wyatt. I mean, who wouldn't love to spend time with this adorable little guy?

Ethan's friend Connor, and his family, were walking by to find seating and the boys decided that Connor and his family needed to sit by us. It was fun to have sweet Connor with the other boys. He's not use to having cousins/family around so he had a real eye opener. They seemed to have a lot of fun though.

There were several entries in the parade and the kids had fun watching all of the different entries pass by. This was the crew of kids watching...Paige, EmmaRae (Brenna's BFF), Wyatt, Alyssa, Ethan, Wayne, and Connor.

Paige spent much of her time standing like this. Her eyes were glued to all the action. The only thing that broke her stare was the candy flying through the air.

She was so proud of her little bag of candy.

This was our favorite parade entry...

Brenna met up with us after the choir had gone through the parade route. It was fun to have her with us watching the rest of the parade. At one point, all of the kids stood up and I just couldn't pass this picture up.

There was also a Farmer's Market type area in one of the parking lots. It included some food booths as well. Lynden does such a great job putting this day together. There are activities all day downtown.

We didn't stay downtown after the parade because I was determined to get the pool set up and start filling it before Jason got home. I wanted to surprise him. Well, that didn't happen as planned. We discovered a few holes in the upper ring that I needed help with. So, once we got the holes patched, we moved forward with getting the pool filled. It was great to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather!!

Early birthday celebration

Because Ethan's birthday is during the summer and he won't be in school, his teacher allowed him to celebrate a month early with his Preschool friends. He was so excited to bring treats but so confused as to why they were singing "Happy Birthday" to him when it wasn't his real birthday.

It was a beautiful day so the kids all got to sit outside to eat their popsicles. I had found these mini popsicles at Safeway. They were the perfect size for the kiddos, especially since they had just had cupcakes for another summer birthday earlier in the day.

It was also Show and Tell day. Ethan loves Show and Tell. He usually creates something really neat with his legos to show his friends but today he wanted to take his dinosaur. They each get to share about their toy/item and then they answer three questions, asked by classmates, regarding their toy/item.

This is Ethan's Preschool buddy Connor. They are really hoping to be in the same Kindergarten class this next Fall.

My first BIG Albertsons purchase

(**Long post but totally worth reading if you are newer to couponing and wanting to know the details on how I did this.)

So my SIL and I have been working on putting together an Albertsons run. We've heard about these great "Twice the Value" (TTV) coupons that Albertsons offers every couple of weeks and we wanted to take advantage of them. So, after hard efforts of collecting enough "Twice the Value" coupons, we each put together our shopping lists, matching up our manufacturer coupons with the Twice the Value's. We knew we wanted a lot of the Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce so we actually called the manager and put in a special order. This way, we were assured enough bottles when we got there. We also ordered mfr. coupons for a very small price...this is how many couponers are able to create stockpiles and get the number of coupons needed.

The store manager was amazing. He was very helpful and ended up opening up a lane just for me. Normally, you are allowed three transactions at a time and you are allowed only three "Twice the Value" coupons per transaction. After three transactions, you have to go back and get in line again. I was prepared to go through the line 3 times. Yes, I had 8 transactions. However, I was so thankful that the manager was willing to just do my transactions himself back-to-back. It was the smoothest check-out I've had with such a large amount of items.

Here's what was included:

Transaction #1:
2 Jet Puff Marshmallows (mfr. for a b1g1)
1 6-pk Hershey Chocolate Bars (mfr for $2.00 off)
1 Honey Maid Graham Crackers
3 Nestle Drumstick ice cream treats (TTV used w/ each mfr. coupon)

OOP: $4.49
Total Savings: $19.24 (each line of savings includes store card savings & coupons combined)

Transaction #2,3,4 & 5:
10 Sweet Baby Rays BBQ Sauce (three TTV used w/ five $1/2 mfr. cpn)
(when you special order, you get the items in boxes and not bagged like the rest...that was weird!)

OOP: $0.00
Total Savings (per transaction): $27.00

Transaction #6:
4 Clorox Toilet Bowl Cleaners (2 TTV w/ mfr. cpns.)
1 Best Foods Mayo
3 Crystal Light (b2g1 mfr. cpn)
2 Oscar Meyer Turkey & Cheese Hot Dogs (TTV w/ mfr. cpn.)

OOP: $6.27
Total Savings: $29.39

Transaction #7:

2 Jet Puff Marshmallows (mfr. for b1g1)
1 6-pk Hershey Chocolate Bars (mfr. for $1.00 off)
1 Honey Maid Graham Crackers
3 Kraft Cheese Deli Deluxe Cheese (3 TTV w/ mfr. cpns.)

OOP: $6.96
Total Savings: $16.17

Transaction #8:
10 32 oz. Gatorade (10 for $5)
1 Nestle Drumstick ice cream treat ($1.00 mfr. cpn.)

OOP: $6.93
Total Savings: $17.19

Yes, that was a lot of transactions. I went with no children and I took my time. I had my coupons separated out by transaction and had a sticky note on each pile so I knew exactly what I needed to pull out of my cart for that transaction.

Here's our first special order purchase from Albertsons a week ago. We knew they were having a sale on the Ronzoni Garden Pasta...$1 a box. We also knew that we could purchase for just a couple of $$ some $1 off each box coupons. So, we ordered coupons and called the manager with our special order. Here's what I got and my SIL got the same.

10 boxes of spaghetti noodles
10 boxes of penne
10 boxes of rotini

OOP: $0.00
 Total Savings: $30.00
**This will be great for pasta salads this summer!!

Good bye training wheels!

We have been talking with Ethan for awhile now that this Spring he was going to learn to ride his bike with no training wheels. He has been very nervous about this. He really hasn't ridden his bike much because he didn't like that training wheels were uneven and it would rock a little as he rode it.

Last Friday, the 20th, was walk/ride your bike to school. As we were leaving Preschool, I brought to Ethan's attention that one of his good buddies was riding his bike with no training wheels. Of course, Ethan was quick to point out that Connor's mom let him wear knee and elbow pads...along with his helmet. So, of course, I asked Ethan if he would be willing to learn how to ride with no training wheels if he had knee and elbow pads. He took me up on my offer. So, that weekend while we were in Bellingham we picked up a set of protective pads.

This afternoon, while the girls were gone spending time with my mom, we told Ethan it was time. He was so excited to learn. I thought for sure we may have a little resistance. He jumped in to help Jason get the training wheels off. The excitement was almost too much. We got all of his gear on and went for it.

He took off riding his first attempt. Jason held on for a short bit and then just let go.

The trick now is getting Ethan to continue pedaling fast enough to keep himself balanced and going. It was a bitter sweet moment to watch my baby riding his bike. I am hoping that we will be able to get him a bigger bike this summer. He is growing like a weed and really is ready for a bigger bike size wise but learning on a bigger bike would be harder and I don't want to discourage him.

Our "little" artist

Alyssa has been taking art classes since September with Brenda Calvert. Brenda is a very talented artist and an amazing teacher. She has taught the kids so much. I'm not sure how it came about but Brenda was able to work with the library to display art work from her students for a week. Tonight was the actual Art Reception and was open to all of the students' families and friends, and anyone from the community that wanted to view the art as well.

It was fun to see all of the students showing off their art work. They were all so proud of what they had done. They each got to choose a piece that they had done at some point during the school year. Alyssa was stuck on which piece to enter so we had Ms. Brenda help make the decision.

 

We are so very proud of Alyssa and each of the art pieces she has created this year. She amazes us more with each new project. The picture below was on a bulletin board displayed with other photos of students with their most recent projects. May was "Student's Choice" month. Alyssa found this picture of dumbo on google images and decided that she wanted to paint it. So, we printed it and she drew it on the canvas, free hand, and then painted it to match the picture.

Alyssa's teacher is taking the summer off from classes, which she totally deserves! However, she put together summer art kits for the students to do over the summer. Of course, Alyssa got started the night we brought her kit home. We are having a hard time getting her to wait until school is out before diving in. I need something to help keep her busy once school is out.

If you have a child that loves to draw and paint, I would highly recommend getting them into one of Brenda's art classes this next fall. Let me know if you would like her contact information.