Pictures and Videos!

Okay, okay, I brought out the camera tonight to take some videos of the kids playing. Here they are:





And then Rowan wanted to hide. So, he pulled out his clean diapers from the dryer, and hopped right in. First time he's ever done that!

I haven't blogged about this in a while...

I borrowed a neighbor's car tonight and went to the grocery store to do some deals. Want to see how I did?

This store that I went to doubles coupons up to and including $1. But, only 5 at a time and you have to have a minimum purchase of $25 (after sale prices, but before coupons). So, I did 3 separate transactions to maximize my coupon doubling power.

Transaction #1:
- 2 gallons of skim milk
- 2 bags of sharp cheddar cheese (8oz)
- 18 count large eggs
- Oreo cakesters 100 calorie packs (free with coupon)
- Cascade dishwasher rinse agent (free with coupon)
- 5 bags of chocolate peanut butter chex mix (YUM!) (5 doubled $1 coupons)

Total before all sale discounts: $28.47
Total after discounts but before coupons: $20.49
Total after all discounts and coupons: $3.90

Transaction #2:

- 8 cups of yoplait yogurt ($2 after doubled $1 coupon)
- motts applesauce 6-pack
- 2 chubs ground turkey (free after coupon)
- one sharp shredded cheese (8oz)
- Boost kids multivitamin drink (free after coupon)
- 2 huge canisters of old-fashioned oatmeal (we eat this almost every day for breakfast) (doubled $1 coupon)
- 2 more bags of chex mix, 3 bags of honey nut cheerios snack mix (doubled $1 coupon, 2 doubled $.60 coupons, one $.60 coupon)

Total before discounts: $45.98
Total after sale discounts but before coupons: $35.22
Total after all discounts and coupons: $12.33

Transaction #3:

- 4 cans tomato paste
- one can kidney beans
- 2 chubs ground turkey (free after coupon)
- 2 bags spinach
- 3 lbs bananas
- Frozen shrimp scampi (this alone was $8) (doubled $1 coupon)
- 5 more bags of chocolate peanut butter chex mix (I'm telling you, this stuff is good!) (3 doubled $1 coupons, one doubled $.60 coupon)

Total before discounts: $32.89
Total after discounts but before coupons: $20.55
Total after all discounts and coupons: $9.37

Picture of everything:

Grand total before discounts: $107.34

Total after discounts and coupons: $25.60 Savings of 76%!

(And yes, I bought 12 bags of chex mix. Did I mention how good they are? That should last me a month or two)

Happy Birthday Swagbucks!

I hope this is the last post I write about swagbucks, because I don't want to be a pest (and I know most of you read this to hear about the kids). But I just have to say that today is Swagbucks birthday, and they are giving out a bunch of points today. If anyone wants to join, now is the time!

Swagbucks is a search engine that you can earn points (called swagbucks) while you search. As you collect points, you can redeem them for prizes. In the 2 months that I've been using it, I've earned $20 at amazon.com! You just use it as a normal search engine (like google). Here is the link to sign up: click here

Have fun, it's totally worth it!

Just call me "Nurse Kirsten"

Yesterday, Rowan started coughing, enough to have the humidifier going whenever he slept. He seemed to cough a lot last night, so I was a little worried to be bringing him with me today for my all-day childcare job. Little did I know, he would be the least of my problems...

Ellie started complaining that her stomach hurt after we arrived at the house of the boy I watch. I suggested she might be hungry or might need to use the bathroom. We remedied both of those situations, and she seemed fine. Until about 2 hours after eating her oatmeal, when it all came up on their rug. For those wondering, it looks pretty much the same coming out as going in :) (Are any of you ever going to eat oatmeal again?)

I thought that maybe this was a fluke and it was from all her running around, but it was not. When she threw up a couple hours after lunch, I called the mom and asked if she could plan on driving us home today instead of us taking the bus. She is wonderful, and came home an hour early and drove us home. Thank goodness, or Ellie would have been puking on the bus. As soon as she got out of the van, she knelt down on the sidewalk and threw up again. Luckily by now I have figured out it is about 2 hours after eating, so I was able to run into her room with a bowl just now and save a big mess.

The odd thing is, Ellie does not have a fever, but Rowan does (and is still miserably coughing). Wish us luck tomorrow!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hmm, what did we do to celebrate Valentine's Day? Not too much! We were supposed to watch our neighbors' children for the afternoon, but unfortunately one of them was sick. So, we had pink heart-shaped pancakes for lunch (I didn't take pictures of them like Tara did). They were pretty good; I used a new recipe that calls for whipping the egg whites separately and folding them in to make them extra-fluffy. I'd say they were the fluffiest I've been able to get them using all whole-wheat flour.

In the afternoon, I braved using our car to drive to the grocery store, walked from there to Ace Hardware, and then picked up Pizza Hut on the way home. It was a major bargain day (what day isn't?). I had a $5 rewards card to use at Ace, so the bolt for Ellie's new bike, some shelving brackets, 2 halogen light bulbs, and ziploc bags totalled $2. At the grocery store, I spent $36.90 and saved $35.20 with coupons. 50% is pretty good! Then, I picked up our pizza at Pizza Hut (the first time in about 3 weeks we have had a meal I haven't cooked), used a $15 giftcard I received at Christmas, and spent $1.20.

After the kids went to bed, I made a chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, and angel food cake as dippers. Let's just say I ate too much. After we stuffed ourselves, Jason and I played U-dance. I convinced him to let me post this video I took of the screen (and a few seconds of his feet so you can kind of see the correlation between the screen and the steps). The green footprints on the screen is the left foot, the red is the right foot. Now you can see how easy it is to get lost on what steps come first, especially when it's super fast!

U-Dance fun

Okay, Jason won't let me put up videos of him dancing (even though he is much better than I am), so here are my humiliating examples of how to use U-Dance. It's fun and exercise at the same time!

Cotton Eye Joe:



And a much harder song:



And the kids having a giggle-fest:

Swagbucks - a way to earn giftcards (or other prizes)

Less than a month ago, I registered for Swagbucks. It is a site where you can earn points by using their search engine. I use it instead of google whenever I want to look something up. The points can be redeemed for different giftcards or prizes. After less than a month, I've earned enough points to redeem a $5 amazon.com giftcard! After you register, you can either keep going to swagbucks.com to search, or you can download their swagbucks toolbar, which puts a little search space on your internet browser. I downloaded the toolbar, and have not had any problems with it, in fact it makes earning points a lot easier.

If you are interested, you can use this link to sign up: click here

There are a lot of different websites that I try out to earn money or giftcards, and this one was easy enough that I wanted to share it with everyone. If anyone has any questions about it, you can comment and I'll comment back :)

R.I.P. 1992 Buick Century

We have some sad news. Our car bit the dust this weekend. We took it into the mechanic because it had been making a really loud clanging noise, and the transmission was acting up. After looking it over and test-driving it, the mechanic called back with the bad news. It would cost more to fix our car than it is worth (over $3000). Okay, so we were planning on just driving it until it quit completely, because that is what we pretty much did with our past cars. Nope, not possible, because apparently something unrelated to the transmission, the part that was making the loud clanging noise, is breaking off and when it breaks off completely, the car will come to an instant stop. No warning, no coasting, just a dead stop. Obviously, this would be dangerous in traffic, so we will not be driving our car.

In the meantime (not sure when/if we will buy another car), we are taking the bus. Every Monday and Wednesday I work all day watching a 3-year-old boy at his house. I take both kids with me on Mondays, and Jason watches Rowan on Wednesdays, so it's just Ellie and I then. On Tuesdays I bring the kids with me to work in a church nursery. We take the bus, which is not too difficult, it's just a bit of walking and a lot of waiting. The downside? This morning it was -4, feels like -15, when Ellie and I were waiting for the bus. That is cold! At least we can bundle up and not worry about car seats and bulky coats. Luckily the kids are great ON the bus, it's just the walking and waiting that they don't like. I've dragged two screaming kids down the street to catch the next bus, and it is not fun at all. In fact, it hurts my heart to think about Ellie remembering the days that she was dragged from bus stop to bus stop as a kid, always running. Thankfully we are figuring out the best routes now so we don't have to run; we can go at Ellie's pace. This morning, even though it was freezing, there were no tears and it was actually a good, fun experience.

We also just made an exciting purchase, an electric bike! Here is a link to it: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8467095&findingMethod=rr We paid for it with a couple of walmart giftcards we had, so we only had to spend about $130 out of our bank account for it. We received it last night, put it together, and now I can't wait to try it out! It is a regular bike, and can be used as a regular bike. The difference is that when I am going uphill, or need an extra boost, I can turn the throttle and the battery-powered motor kicks in to help spin the tires. This means I can go much further than my weak legs can take me. Actually, I have ridden a bike once to the grocery store (about 1.5 miles away) and it was extremely difficult coming back for me because it's mainly up hill. Big hills. So, now I can hook up our burley trailer to the back of the bike, ride down to the grocery store, pile the groceries into the trailer, and ride back, hopefully easily. :)

Now our transformation to hippies is complete, wouldn't you say? Natural foods, check! Cloth diapers, check! Reusable grocery bags, check! Growing our own vegetables in an organic garden, check! Homeschooling (possibly) and co-op preschool, check! Bussing and biking instead of driving, check! Anything else we need to add to our list?