Happy Free Shipping Day!

Today is Free Shipping Day, as I've discovered from some of the money saving blogs I read... over 200 merchants are included in this. You can click on the link in the title to see who is participating.

I also wanted to share our Santa pictures. I am not really a Santa fan, because I feel like he distracts people from the TRUE MAGIC AND MIRACLE of Christmas, that sweet little baby JESUS that came to die for our sins.

So I'll be honest. We went to see him only because they gave away a free Toys R Us gift card. And her response seemed so typically Annika. So our visit to Santa at State Farm...

Annika's "I don't get it" blank stare.

Checking him out again... And we're done. We're so over this Santa dude.

First Birthday Party!

Saturday was the party- we had brunch (yummy) and then cake.

Playing with her cousin Jake- Levi being cute in the background.
Noah cracks me up- the moment a camera is on him, he turns on the cheese!
Andy's parents with all their grandkidsAnnika on her new tractor!

Jake was so kind to offer her a ride...

The cake: a finger went in, and then a little deeper...
she saw it was okay, so she took a little more...

And then she dug in.
I love this girl!

And then we headed to RBHS to see Chapter 6 perform that evening... what a great day!

She's One!

As much as I tried to live in denial about it...she turned one anyway. It was just yesterday I was pregnant with her, wasn't it? I know I was told that it would fly by, but I look at her, blown away by this past year.

So much joy from our Annika Joy!

Here's how we have spent her birthday so far:

Reading magazines

Rocking her bear
Dancing with Mommy

-*-- *9e*99*9 -Helping 9Momm9y t9ype9 on her blog.....-

Snuggling and rocking her bear some more...

Ava came over for a visit- what a treat!
And any minute Daddy will come home and the celebration will continue!

Annika's New Shirt

7/2/09

11 Months Old

(Okay, that was about a week ago... playing catch up as usual.)

Some of my cousins did a post-Halloween Roanoke tour to our aunts'/moms' houses. It was fun to get together!

Annika working in the play kitchen at Grandpa's and Grandma's- it is a blanket-in-a-backpack on her back... it just makes her look so grown up, doesn't it?

She thinks she's hilarious when she has these strings tickling her face, then pulls it off for a "peek-a-boo" moment.

Must share this deal...

It's ridiculous good! Victoria's Secret online (I found this at bargainshopperlady.com.):

Purchase a $12 crewneck cotton sweater.
On your way through checkout, be sure to check that you have offer codes to use.
Offer 1: RUSH08 for a free lip gloss set ($21 value!) with sweater purchase
Offer 2 (but only if you have a VS charge): FA810189 for $10 off your purchase!

So I just got a $29 sweater and a $21 3-piece lip gloss set with shipping for $8.49!

Happy early birthday to me!

What's new here?

Oh, all kinds of things. Biggest, newest news?

I am now an Uppercase Living consultant! Never heard of it? I hadn't either, but wow! What a product. Here's the link to my website where you can look at the catalog:

http://brookefeucht.uppercaseliving.net/Home.m

So let me know if you are completely intrigued (like I was), and I can give you more information!

Halloween

She did not love the baby chick headpiece... but if distracted would forget about it. I could just eat her up.

October's Grocery Budget Status?

Were you dying to know? Well, I went over the aggressive $30 a week budget for October... but still, I did better than I thought! It was about $35 a week. And that's because I did some stocking up at CVS (as you can see in the picture below). BUT once I get reimbursements/rebates back, then I think it's a little less than that. I'm hoping to do it again- it's a fun challenge.

All this at CVS cost me about $8 out of pocket (subtracting out rebates/reimbursements), with them giving me about $20 in Extra Care Bucks to go back and do some more (almost free!) shopping.

And speaking of CVS, Andy thought he heard that CVS is coming in across Raab from Schnucks where they just cleared... anybody know if there's any truth to that? That would be SUPER great because it's just a few blocks away!

Free "Green" Tote

More and more recently, I have been feeling I need to be a better steward of the resources God has given us... money, home, and the earth. Not that I'm GOOD at it yet, but I'm trying. So anyway, I've been eyeing those "green" grocery totes they have in all the stores... but didn't want to spend extra money on them (especially since, as you may have noticed, I was trying to spend a mere $30 a week on groceries!). Here's my solution!

Target has an offer to get one for free (well, free after postage)! All you have to do is send in five Target plastic bags, and they'll send you a coupon for a free grocery tote. I can do that! You can do it too~ read here.

Deals for the week... K-Mart and make money at Meijer

Maybe I need to make a central IL version of money-saving mom... but I can't help it; I have some great deals to share!

K-Mart is offering double coupons this week through Saturday... doubling up to $2 coupons (yes, so that means a $2 coupon becomes $4 off!). If for some reason your local store is not redeeming them correctly, you can call corporate and have them remind the store that is promotion is going on. I verified this with our Bloomington store, and it's on. You can use a maximum of 75 coupons per visit. I believe I read that they may not accept Internet-printed coupons, so be warned.

Also, Meijer has some great sales that will make you money! Printing off coupons from Mealbox, I am seeing that Jell-O is on sale for $0.50 each, so with the $1.50 coupon off 2 boxes, they will pay you $0.50 to take home the Jell-O! (okay, not actually pay you, but it will pay for something else!) Also I saw:
-Taco Bell is 20% off, and they have a coupon that will work for Taco Bell salsa, taco shells, or dinner kits... the taco shells are (I think) $1.29 before the discount, so you should make money off that. **It appears these Taco Bell coupons are no longer available in Mealbox.**
-also, super deal: Steamfresh bags- on sale for $1.25 each...use Mealbox $1 off 2, combined with $0.35 coupon from a recent paper (doubles to $0.70), and it's $0.40/bag!

Those are just the few I saw at first glance... feel free to share any super deals you see!

Free Tacos... who likes tacos?!

Get a free crunchy seasoned beef taco (one per person!) at Taco Bell on Tuesday, between 2pm-6pm.

See you there. Yummy!

Sneak Peek...

Mindy, here's a peek at your cards... hope you like them! I think they turned out so cute.

Couldn't decide, so I did both styles. I think this one has a sweet vintage-y look.

Love this website

Okay, this is the end of the blogging extravaganza- I'm off to bed after this.

I know many of us have mentioned www.moneysavingmom.com on our blogs, so I know others like it as much as I do. Pretty amazing stuff!

After reading her site, I decided to set an aggressive goal to see if I could spend only $30 a week on groceries this month. Yes. $30. And that includes everything consumable. So MoneySavingMom is helping! I think I'll come pretty close (keep in mind I was stocked up on meat and most personal products though).

SO. I was wondering... how many Jell-O deals did you buy? I bought 12 boxes (6 coupons), and plan to go back and get 20 more (10 coupons), to pay for one more thing to hopefully take us through the end of the month and keep me under [my new and probably temporary] budget. What fun.

Also, I was wondering if any of you do CVS? I have gone a few times, and don't feel like a pro yet. Would love to hear what you think!

Cookout

Cute pics from a few weekends ago:

Kaylie taking good care of Annika

Kollin teaching her something important, I'm sure.

Back to P-ville

We spent the day at Great Grandpa and Grandma's house...
Annika was alternately intrigued by and then terrified by their dog Shane.

I just want to eat her up.
Quality time with Great-Grandma Joy Doesn't she look guilty of something?!Then that evening...
Annika at P-ville's Homecoming Football game... fun, fun!

Family Birthdays

We were in P-ville the other weekend for family birthdays.

Not sure who could have given him this gift? ;)

The grandkids together Fun with Grandpa JHe is so sweet with her... what a good cousin.

All the birthday boys

10 Months Old!

Oh I love shoes!

We have a winner!

Congratulations to Mindy, winner of the notecards! Mindy, I will be contacting you about the details.

Also, thanks to everyone for your input on my SF Christmas gift! I am going to select the mattress... though it will NOT be used for camping since I am not a camper! (I don't like seeing bugs, let alone sleeping with them... YUCK.)

Have a great day!

Post Number 100!

Congratulations to me! This is post #100. I can't believe I've been keeping up with this over a year. I think the proper thing to do is share some things about myself and give something away? So here goes...

What you may not know about me (but probably do because I'm pretty transparent; an open book!):

10. I am a grammar geek and spelling errors tend to drive me crazy.

9. I don't like to talk on the phone very much, and I'm guessing it's mostly because of working in a call center... and I've never felt good at it. I like face-to-face interactions most of all, and prefer that whenever possible. SO I am thankful for the inventions of e-mail and texting so I can premeditate my message and be clever and less awkward.

8. Turquoise is my favorite color (I know, you and all your kids know it too).

7. I love a bargain and the temporary high it gives you (unfortunately, the buzz wears off a bit when I come home and even when it's a $100 item for $5, my husband is not as jazzed about my deal as I am).

6. No matter how well I organize (and I do love to organize) or clean stuff up, our computer desk still ends up with a huge pile (or piles) of papers. And then it gets so huge it is just overwhelming.

5. My favorite job would still be the Juniors department at Von Maur- opening the boxes of new stock was like Christmas each day, and then getting to dress the mannequins and do displays, and then show customers the fun new clothes we got in...it's playing and getting paid for it! It also taught me more about myself than any other job.

4. I don't think I've met a musical I didn't like (some I don't LOVE, but I don't think I've seen one that I despised)... and so far, Annika is a lover of showtunes too, so that bodes well for me! From "Hello Dolly" to "All That Jazz," "OOOOOOOOOOOOOklahoma!" to "You Can't Stop the Beat," she laughs and dances along. Hooray for showtunes. [Okay, let's be honest here: she dances to EVERYTHING, from showtunes to praise songs, along with commercial jingles and sounds from toys, so that really doesn't mean a thing but that she likes to dance, which still bodes well for me because I do too.] :)

3. My love language is, without a doubt, quality time (which is why I spend most of my days off work crawling around the floor playing!).

2. I love being a mommy and wife more than I ever imagined.

1. The me before Christ would never recognize the me from today... and I continue to be in awe of that and how He really does make all things new.


And now, the giveaway part. Please include a fact about YOURself that people may not know, and you'll be entered to win a set of 20 personalized, handmade cards with envelopes. It will be something like this (but with your initial, of course):

Entries due by next Friday... winner will be picked next weekend.

Caught on Film...

so proud of her- it's exciting, but yet it's sad that it's going too fast...

I can't decide...

I need some wisdom from you, friends! And hopefully you're willing to share some.

I can't decide what to get for my Christmas present from State Farm. This is really a dilemma because I want to get something useful that I need and, well, will use. I don't want to get something that will just sit and collect dust and get put on the garage sale in a few years, you know? I have plenty of that kind of thing.

What struggles I have, right?!

So I've narrowed it down to:

-Coleman queen size air mattress (is that silly to get when I have a guest bedroom with a bed? Or is an air mattress something that you really use and are great for slumber parties, which will start in a few years?)
-Casio label printer (to help with organizing, which I enjoy! It seems like it would be helpful with all of the STUFF kids have- though a Sharpie can do almost the same thing...)
-Royal paper shredder (ours is really close to not working anymore, so we will use that, but it seems pretty boring)
-West Bend food processor (sounds cool in theory; all the cooking shows seem to use them... do you use them? And would I?!)

What are your thoughts?

Resourcefulness

A funny side effect of being a mommy: resourcefulness.

I don't think I had it before.

Today by the time I got to work my pants were stretched out and getting pretty saggy (I know Mom, I wear my pants too big). I asked my friend if she had anything like ribbon, string, something like that to help me (because I didn't want to be in our meeting with the VP today with my pants falling off!). She happened to be wearing a sweater with a tie around it (black, just like my pants), and it was the perfect emergency solution. Brilliant! She saved the day.

So... do you have some examples of a mommy's resourcefulness to share?

Nine Months Old

Nine months old... it sounds so grown up. She turned nine months on Friday, while my friend and I were having our garage sale. Such a rainy weekend, but the garage sale turned out good... good being profitable for her, and just fun for me. :) Our daughters behaved great, and it was just an enjoyable few days.

Blowing raspberries at Daddy before going to Grandma's on Monday Andy's mom made this Packers outfit (and Annika is showing off her love for that dumb fake bottle; she'd carry it around all day if we'd let her).Speed. I am speed.
(Where did that girl learn to be so goofy?!)

Other news: Andy's knee is improving slowly... he has progressed from crutches to just limping around, so that's good news!