Happy 3rd Birthday, Reid!!

We headed to Freeport this weekend to celebrate my nephew, Reid's 3rd birthday!

 

 

This Hot Wheels track was the hit of the night. I don't think he was quite as excited when he opened a long sleeve t-shirt from us. :-) We also got him a subscription to Highlights High Five magazine. My sister and I used to get Highlights from our grandparents when we were younger and loved it.

The party was pirate themed and the lady did a great job matching the cake to the invitation my sister sent out! (And, it was delicious, too!)

Drake thoroughly enjoyed every bite of his cake and ice cream...can you tell? :-)

Here's pictures from his Birth Day, 1st Birthday, and 2nd Birthday. So fun to compare how much he has grown!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Reid!!

The Great Grocery Challenge

Target: OOP $4.96, Saved $28.25!

Walgreens: OOP $7.91, Saved $32.47!

Meijer: OOP $34.99, Saved $60.38!

CVS: OOP $2.50, Saved $20.15!

Weekly Totals: OOP $50.36, Saved $141.25! (74% savings!)

This is my best week in quite a while, and I stayed right at my budget (if you count going over by 36 cents...and I do. ;-)).

New Adventure!

I started my blog back in August of 2007 to update family and friends with things going on in our lives. It quickly turned into an outlet while Jason and I were going through infertility treatments and that's when I "met" Carol. Carol is now the mom to adorable boy/girl twins living on the west coast and the author of the deal blog - Mommy Wants Freebies!

In mid-January, she sent me a message on Facebook asking if I ever thought of starting my own deal/couponing blog. Honestly, I had never thought about it.  I have been posting our weekly grocery shopping/budget for just over a year now and even though there isn't a real "challenge" anymore, it has kept me accountable. That's all the farther I figured it would go. We exchanged a little information, and I just think it was a little overwhelming, especially considering that I have a full-time job.

Fast forward a couple weeks and she offered me the opportunity to start sharing deals on her website! To me, this was the perfect balance. So...here we are today ... on a new adventure!

So, check out Mommy Wants Freebies and follow her on Facebook if you are looking for ways to save money on things you already purchase.

Gymnastics!

When I was 10 years old, I began a tumbling class....kind of old to start something like this, but it worked for me. I did pretty well and ended up teaching classes in my home town throughout high school and when I attended my community college. When I moved away to college, I found a gym and got a part-time job teaching gymnastics, tumbling, and trampoline.  I coached pretty much everything at the beginning - recreation classes and team - four nights a week. After getting married, I continued to coach the tumbling and trampoline teams while Jason was finishing his bachelor's degree. The last couple years I was coaching only one night a week until I ultimately ended my coaching "career". That was in 2007.

For the past year, I've asked my family to get Drake a class at my "old" gym for his birthday or Christmas. He got the class for his birthday this year and I was really excited! It's only four weeks and I'm not sure that he's learning a whole lot, but it has been great for him to be able to burn off some energy when we can't get outside. It is definitely different to be on the student end of the class, but it's good. The class is 45 minutes long and goes by so quickly.

I got a few pictures from last night's class, but he moves so quickly that a bunch of them were blurry.

26 Weeks!

Things are still going well. I had an OB appointment last week and baby was moving all around. He actually kicked the doppler when she was listening to the heartbeat which was in the 150s/160s.

I had my glucose tolerance test this morning. It was different from the test with Drake. This time I had to fast and was poked three times - the initial blood draw, at one-hour and at two-hours!  I guess they were missing some cases of gestational diabetes because people were passing the one hour test so they have changed to this one. Hopefully I passed because if I didn't, there is no three-hour test option.

The Great Grocery Challenge

 

CVS: OOP $.46, Saved $3.55

Aldi: $5.25

I haven't been to Aldi in a while, but I have been watching their ads...especially for produce. I got strawberries for $1.50/lb, red grapes for $.79/lb, bananas for $.44/lb and bread for $.89. Some of their items are definitely more than I can get them for with a sale and/or coupon at my other stores so you have to be careful. 

Meijer: OOP $55.85, Saved $58.81!

Weekly Totals: $61.56, Saved $62.36! (50% savings!)

A little over budget, but not bad considering it was another dog food week...that stuff's expensive! :-) I was also able to score some great deals on a few fall clothing items for Drake and the new baby - paid $29, saved $80! 

Small Group

We've been part of a small group through our church for a while now, but I don't think we have ever all gone out to eat together. Valentine's Day fell on our normal group night so we took the opportunity to go out! Since reservations seemed to be booked up two weeks ago, we had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. :-)

Happy Valentine's Day!

  

Happy Valentine's Day from Drake!

Transitions

My plan was to leave Drake in his crib until he started climbing out of it.

That plan changed this weekend.

Jason and I were discussing the items we need to buy for the new baby's bed - mattress, crib sheet, and mattress pad - while changing the sheet on Drake's bed. Sometime during the conversation, it lead to "if we transition Drake into the full-size bed, we can use his mattress, sheets, etc. on the new baby's bed." It just seemed to make sense - he's been sleeping on a cot during his nap at the babysitter's since Christmas and hasn't had any problems.

So, before we left for church yesterday, Jason took the front of his crib off.

 Before

 Drake "helping" daddy!

 So excited!

 After

The plan is for him to sleep in it as a toddler bed until probably April or May when we'll buy a full-size bed for him and move this mattress into the baby's room.

During nap on Sunday, he spent a lot of time talking and then fell out (our guess is that he was playing around). After that little incident, he slept for two hours! 

Bedtime went much better -- he went right to sleep.

He woke up twice (once when his teddy bear fell out of the bed and not sure what was wrong the other time), but he stayed in his bed! :-)

I cannot believe how big he is getting. Love this boy so much!!

The Great Grocery Challenge

 

I spent $0 out of our grocery budget this week!

A couple weeks ago the sermon challenged us to go one week (or longer) without spending any money. I had heard of this before and wanted to try it, but I didn't want to miss when there were "good deals."  But, I thought we would try it this week. I can't say that I didn't spend any money - I went out to eat a couple times, we went to a fundraiser on Friday night, and Jason bought some insulation for the basement project.

Even though we didn't really make the challenge, I am still pretty happy with how we did. It really makes you think about how you spend your money and how dependent we see to be on it.

I'll definitely try it again sometime, and I challenge you to try it as well!

2 Year Pictures

We had Drake's 2 year pictures taken on Saturday, and I already got the disc! Thank you, Barbie, for capturing some great pics of a toddler who does not sit still! Here are my favorites:

24 weeks!

I love this point in pregnancy...viability!! This pregnancy seems to have gone so much quicker than Drake's (of course, I reserve the right to change my mind as we get further along ;-)). I started feeling movement much sooner, too. It's so nice to know that we've made it to this point and chances are that we'll deliver a healthy baby boy come May.

I'm still feeling great and feeling baby move more and more. In fact, so much that I loaned out the doppler to another girl in my neighborhood. (Thanks for letting me share, Betsy!) She's about six weeks behind me and has a boy just a little older than Drake. I feel baby move at least once a day, if not more, and Jason even felt it for the first time this morning.

Now that Drake's birthday is over, I need to get focused on this little guy's room - planning out what we'll do to decorate, moving the current furniture out, and getting the new furniture up once it gets here. We had a friend recommend a robot theme and I have found some cute stuff on Etsy so I think we may go with it. (Drake's room is sports themed so I didn't want to do that again.)

My next appointment is next Tuesday, and I'll have my Glucose Tolerance Test.

The Great Grocery Challenge

 

CVS: OOP $6.05, Saved $16.66! 

Can I just say how excited I was to see another CVS gift card deal this week? If you haven't done this before, it is SO worth it if you're going to be shopping there anyway. Check out Living Social's deal here. Hopefully it is still available, but I can't guarantee it. (Now, if I would just remember to print it out and take it to the store! ;-) Totally forgot before my 2nd trip this week.)

Walgreens: OOP $7.04, Saved $10.48!

Meijer: OOP $74.90, Saved $42.86!

Weekly Totals: OOP $87.99, Saved $70.00! (44% Savings!)

Another week over budget, but I had a good excuse...we celebrated a special little guy's birthday this weekend!

Drake's 2nd Birthday Party!

Yesterday, we celebrated two years of Drake with family and friends!!

It was a Dr. Suess theme with a "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" invite and "Green Eggs and Ham" on the menu. Thank you pinterest! :-)

He had such a great time, and I was totally impressed that he was able to blow out the candles!  Thank you to everyone who joined us in celebrating this special boy!

You can go here to see what his invite looked like, and I got his shirt here. Our friend, Kate, made his cupcakes...aren't they the cutest?!