My Albertsons Trip

I made a grocery run to Albertsons yesterday and scored some great deals. I don't have any photos of all that I got, sorry, but here is the lowdown of what I got.

Transaction #1:
30 Powerade: $.50 each
Sour cream: $1.00
4 Oscar Myer hot dogs: FREE

Used 2 $1 off 2 hot dog coupons and two double the value coupons to make all four packages FREE.

Total: $16.46
Saved: $40.63


Transaction #2
2 Gallons of milk: $.17 each

Used the $.75 coupons I told you about last week and two double the value coupons.

Total: $.40
Saved: $3.64

*The double the value coupons were in last weeks ad and in Sunday's paper (if you get it).

FREE Rootbeer Floats @ A&W...

...tomorrow June 19, 2009.

You can get a free small Root Beer Float at all A&W Restaurant locations from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. in celebration of their 90th anniversary.

I called this afternoon and the store here in town is participating. You can bet you know where the kids and I are headed tomorrow after our hike. Can't beat a FREE treat after a good ole' hike!

"HOT" Dairy coupons for UT and ID

Hurry and go here to print off these coupons:

$.75 off Milk
$1.00 off Cheese
$.75 off yougurt

I just printed these off and they are in fact only for UT and ID residents and the coupons say for any, no store or specific brand. At Wal-mart milk is usaully only $1.69, use the milk coupon and get a gallon of milk for $.94 or so. That is a GREAT deal! Did you know that you can freeze milk? I do it all the time, just make sure that you drink a little out if it before you freeze it, so the carton won't burst when it freezes.

*Also at the same coupon site there is a coupon for $1.00 Keebler Sandies and this week at Smiths, when you buy 3 you get them for $1.69 each, use 2 of the cookie coupons and you get all three for $3.07. Now that is a SCREAMING deal for those cookies!

*Remember you can print two coupons off of each!*

Slave Driver

That is what James called me this morning when I was having all the kids do chores. And when I say all the kids, I mean all the kids, my kids and the ones that I watch. See I expect my kids to do chores everyday during the summer. They are home all day and help make the mess, so why not help clean it up, right?

So a few years ago I came up with a different way to do chores, its a chore jar, with the chores written on popsicle sticks. Every day they have to pick 2-4, depending on what really needs to be done. This is very random and they are the ones responsible for the chores that they choose, so I don't hear a lot of whining that they didn't want this chore or that chore. Too bad so sad, you picked it, you do it. There are a few blank popsicles sticks in the jar and if they pick those, then they don't have a chore to do, sometimes you may get lucky and pick all three blank ones and have NO chores whatsoever for that day. Although when that happens, the other kids are upset that there are no more blank sticks. They LOVE those blank sticks!

Anyways since I have an extra 5-7 kids M-Thur. I decided to make sure that everyone gets to help with chores before they all get to playing for the day, this way I don't hear that it's not fair that so and so don't have to do chores and we do, it's all even. So around 9 or so, we pull out the chore jar and everyone get a turn picking their chores. At first I had to show my extra kids what they needed to do for certain chores, but now they know some chores. Some chores get picked every day and that's okay, like the chairs, yes they do need to be wiped down everyday and that's okay with me, if you picked it yesterday too.

Our summer is going smoothly, even with my extra kids. I try to keep a schedule, so everyone knows what is expected everyday. We have quiet time every afternoon for 11/2 hours and we all have to read, or lay down. This is when I get a free minute and get on the computer. I have every Friday off and that is the day that we get to play and do something fun. Last Friday the kids and I headed off to St. George and did a little bit of school shopping and then went to Sand Hollow Aquatic Center. Boy that was fun! If you haven't ever been there, it is great for little kids and older kids. It is all inside and they have a kiddie area, a hydrotube, little frog slide (for little ones), water spraying things, a little lazy river and more pool to swim in. It was SO fun, we had a blast and hope to go again this summer. I will remember to take my camera if we go, I was mad that I forgot it!

Carpet Photos

I Have been meaning to get these up for awhile now, so after a few people wanting too see I took some after photos. Here are some before and after photos of our carpet experience!

Empty house
Front yard with all of our furniture
Back patio with boxes full of things. Tanner getting caught looking for something.


Carpet being installed

Carpet all in and done.I decided to go with the darker sample and I am glad that I did. I was not able to get the best photos of the carpet, but I hope you can tell what color it is. If you want to go here for the color samples, you can see the color that I ended up picking was #3. If you want an up close and personal look, come on over and have a visit. I would love to show it off!
I am still getting used to having this plush, soft carpet under my feet, even though I went with a firmer pad because of the little ones that I watch, it is still really soft. I am loving it!! The kids are getting used to taking off their shoes when they come it, although I doubt that it will last very long!

FREE Geo Trax DVD

If you have little boys at home, you gotta get this. Go here to request your FREE DVD. I have done this a few times for different DVD's and they come free of charge and sooner than the 12 weeks that the site says. I haven't been disappointed!

Look what I got for $2.40

I made a quick trip to Albertsons last night to take advantage of their double coupons, they seem to be having these every few weeks, if not every week. Well after I browsed the ad and found coupons for everything I decided it was worth my time to make a trip in to town.

Here's the breakdown of what I got:

Transaction #1
1-Shredded Kraft cheese: FREE
1-Chunk Kraft cheese: FREE
2-Country time Lemonade: $1.00 each
1-Jell-o: $.70
2 Quaker Granola bars: $.74 each

Grand total after all coupons and sales: $.96
Total saved: $25.50

Transaction #2
1-California Pizza: FREE
1- Bagelful: FREE
2- Pudding packs: $.50 each
1-Oscar Meyer Hot dogs: FREE

Grand total: $1.44
Total saved: $18.55

*They have a deal going on now, if you spend $10 in certain products (mostly Kraft) you get $3 off at checkout automatically, thus making me be able to get things for free.

**I have two more transactions to do later this week to get some more things and the totals will be very close to what I spent last night. I love to make my money go farther and get the best deals on things that my family eats. It is such a GREAT feeling to save money!

Austin again

I know I seem to be bragging about Austin a lot lately, it's just that he is such a good kid, a parent can't resist. I got a call from his 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Chatfield, today and was told that he had received the "Hope Of America Award". This is an award that each 5th grade teacher is supposed to pick one outstanding boy and girl who does well in school, is friendly and accepting of others, and is well-rounded, from their class to receive this award. Then the Kiwainis Club is supposed to contact the students parents and let them know about the assembly that their student is supposed to receive their award. Well the day of the assembly, Mrs. Chatfield realized that NONE of the parents of these students were there, the Kiwainis club didn't call them! So she needed to give the award to him and came by this afternoon to give it to him. I am so PROUD of my boy and all the goodness that he exemplifies. I Love You Austin!

*Just a side note, the last day of school, when they held this assembly my kids were gone. Both Austin and Tanner received an award for not missing any school, until the last two days. I thought that it was pretty funny!

It's DONE!

This past week had been VERY busy and hectic and I have gotten on the computer a few times, but haven't gotten around to posting anything new. So here I am back but without any photos, I need to clean off my camera from James' Moab trip so I don't put them on my computer again and then I will take a few photos of the new carpet.

We spent our Memorial day moving everything out of the house and I mean everything! I had spent the last week or so boxing all the little things up and moving the boxes out to the back patio. Monday my sisters, brother and brother-in-law came over and helped move out the furniture. That all went to the front patio and yard, boy did it look wonderful out there! Then came the fun part, ripping out the old carpet! That was an experience I would love to never repeat! Once all the carpet was out in the kids rooms, the dining rm and the living rm, I feed the horde of people that was here. I seem to have to bribe my help with food any time I need them, oh well it sure makes a job go by faster when there are all there helping. The only room we didn't do was my room, James and I wanted to sleep in our bed that night, so we decided we would move out our bed and carpet the morning the carpet would be here. Once everyone was feed and left, James and I went about securing the floor with screws. We had some really bad squecks in the floor, in manufactured homes they STAPLE the floor to the joists, years later resulting in squecks and squacks in the floor. So we really wanted to stop that and screwed EVERY joist down throughout the house. That was quiet the chore! We were quite wiped out that night and slept very well.

The next morning we were expecting the carpet installer to be here around 9 or 10. Well 9 came and went, 10 came and went, 10:30 came and I decided to call my salesman and see when the installer had left Lindon. Knowing that they had a 4 hour drive, you think that he would have left early and got here when he said they would be here, but NO, the installer didn't leave until 10:00 or so, making him not get here until 2:30! Really that is my only complaint about the whole thing, is that he was really late getting here thus making everything else late. I had wanted to move most everything back in that day, but I wasn't able to until that night, when he left at 8 pm! Oh well, that carpet was in and I was HAPPY with that way it looked! I am so glad that I went with a darker shade, than I originally planned. This color will blend spots and everything else so much better. In fact I haven't vacuumed for 3 days! I could have never done that with my old carpet!

I have spent the rest of the week getting everything that was in boxes back into the house and put away. James has two boxes that are still outside, that he needs to go through and put away, but other than that it is all done. Now I just need to decide what to do with all the empty boxes.

Next on my to do list is, paint my kitchen, kids bathroom and my dining room. The dining room is two tone with a chair rail and the tan bottom color doesn't go the best with the new carpet and I want to paint it a dark brown or something like that. Don't know when I will get to this projects, hopefully before summer is over, but we will see.