Church Picnic

Richwoods Christian Church had their annual church picnic today at Three Sisters Park. It was a awesome time and so great to see everyone from all 3 services together for one family style worship service & meal. The food was delicious and the service was awesome! Of course the children had a wonderful time too! They loved the face painting (well Emily didnt really care for it too much!) and the big bouncy house and slide! Luke & mommy really liked the cupcake making station as well! Actually so did Luke & daddy!! We had a scare in the beginning of the meal though- Luke got ahold of something that made him break out and start to swell up. As most of you know he is serverly allergic to peanuts, and he must have gotten ahold of something containing them. Thankfully he only broke out slightly and after about 15 minutes his hives had gone down in size and he had stopped coughing. He never turned blue like the time before & his face never swelled up as severly as the time before. We are still not sure what he got ahold of. The only thing we can thing of is that the bread we had for communion may have contained trace amounts of peanut....but we will never know for sure.

Here is my CVS trip for today. After a few weeks of pretty lame deals this week rocked! I was a bit nervous walking in today as I only had $2.00 in Extra Care Bucks and .77 cents left on my gift card. I did have a coupon for $4.00 off of $20.00 purchase (which I forgot to use in the end though!). I scanned my card at their coupon scanner when I walked into CVS and it printed out a coupon for $10.00 off a $50.00 purchase and also one for $3.00 off of a skin care purchase. The sun screen I bought counted towards that! Rock on!!! So my total before coupons and discounts was $57.52 & after my coupons and discounts my out of pocket was $30.37. Diffently not my best, but I did leave with $18.00 in Extra Care Bucks for next time! My total savings was still about 50%, so I can't complain too much and if I had remembered to use my $4 off of $20 coupon it would have been even better!

Playing is such hard work....

Here are Luke and Em this morning...Luke was being a "giant" and Emily played so hard she just passed out!

One more of hard work

As I said in my post below- this is what Luke was doing while I was playing with Emily...."hard work"

Big girl and hard work

Emily is old enough to be in the Jumperoo now! She looks so small in it, but she loves it! Right now she is still to small to bounce in it, but Luke helps her out with that! LOL. She is growing up so fast and her little personality is starting to develop and shine thru so much more! She is smiling more and loves to watch her big brother play and run thru the house.

While I was snapping some pictures of Em, Luke took off to his room. I went to check on him and the pictures of him are what I found. He was wearing his painting smock, with his head thru an arm hole and he had on one work glove and was doing "hard work". He was concentrating so hard! He was working with his tools and fixing stuff. He had dumped out all of his toy baskets and was just having fun. It was too sweet!

Oh and he has 2 stickers on his sticker chart for keeping his underwear dry all morning and going on the potty each time we tried today. Once he gets 2 rows of stickers (about 2 and a half days worth) he gets to go to the pet store and pick out a fish. He is pretty pumped about it! Wish us luck!

I think we are stocked up part 2

Here is the picture that goes with the post below....I couldnt get the picture to load on the first post....Guess I will have to call some sexy computer guy to come over and take a look! LOL (For those that do not know, my hubby is the computer guy I am talking about)

I think we are stocked up....

Had yet another very productive trip to CVS tonight after dropping off a meal for a friend that just had a baby boy. (Congrats Lauren!)

Again I spent nothing out of pocket, but that will be ending soon ;0( as my gift card only has .77 cents left on it. Oh well, now I know what to ask Santa for! LOL I did 2 transactions today so that I could use my Extra Care Bucks that I earned on transaction #1 to help lower my total for transaction #2. So here is what I bought:
Transaction # 1:
2 packages of Charmin Ultra
1 pkg Bounty Basic
1 pkg Duracell Batteries
My total was $22.98 (or something like that) Minus my coupons for $4/20.00, and $13.49 in ECB's my total was down to $5.13 which I put on my gift card. I earned $10.00 Extra Care Bucks for buying $20 worth of Charmin, Bounty and/ Duracell products.

Transaction # 2
CVS brand bleach cleaner
Colgate
2 bottles of Suave body wash
Centrium Vitamins
My total before coupons was $20 something. Minus 2 manf. coupons for the vitamins $2.00(one was a tear off on the box, which is why I was able to use 2), .50 cents off toothpaste, $10.00 in Extra Care Bucks from last transaction (and I also had a buy one get free coupon for the Suave, but it doesnt look like that cashier rang it up correctly as I do not see it on the receipt) . So my total was down to $7.47 which again I put on the gift card. This time I only earned $2.00 in ECB's though.

My receipt shows that my year to date savings is $417.24 and that my spending is $68.41 (mind you $50.00 of that is on free gift cards!) So if you think about it I have spent $18.41 and gotten $417.24 worth of products that we use everyday so far since I started CVSing a little more than a month ago! Not too bad!!

Here is Mick with his 2 babies on Father's Day! Happy Father's Day Sweetie! You are such an awesome daddy and Luke and Emily love you more than you can ever imagine! They are so blessed to have you as their daddy and as they grow older they will learn so many incredible things from you. You are such an awesome husband and I thank God for you and our children every day! I love you!
Saturday morning Luke was in a parade in Metamora with my mom and one of her friends. He is on the far right in the first picture! He rode his bike so well all morning and was even able to wave at everyone and throw lots of candy to the kids! He loved it and took his duty so serious! Afterwards we went to the park in Metamora where they had a little carnival, but we got there too early as it didnt start until noon-so there were no ride open. Luke was great about just going home and fell asleep in the car in about 30 seconds! He was so tired from riding his bike along the parade route and spending the night at Grandma's the night before!
Emily experienced her first girl's night last night, since daddy and Luke were gone. We went to dinner with Danell and Janelle and watched chick flicks! It was so fun-Emily slept thru most of it, but I was able to snap a good picture of her during the parade! Isn't she just the cutest thing ever??!!

Weekend Fun

We started our weekend with a trip to Emo's for some yummy ice cream before heading over to the lightening bug show at the nature center. We got there about 15 minutes late and missed the PowerPoint in the beginning. Did you know that lightening bugs are actually called lightening beetles- something we missed in the PowerPoint, but some friends caught us up on the correct lingo! After the presentation we went outside for a walk on the trails in the dark, it was really neat! Our guide tried calling for the owls, but they ignored us and wouldn't hoot back. The prairie was about a 5 minute walk up the trail and was filled with lightening beetles. Did you know that the females just hang out in the grass and the males fly around flashing for the females (hahaha, that was funny!) Luke had a wonderful time and Emily slept in her sling the whole time-I think she will participate more next year ;0)
Saturday afternoon we bought Luke a baseball glove since he has wanted one for a long time! He and Mick spent the rest of the evening playing ball outside and I must say that Little Luke is pretty good! Luke was pretty excited that he found a glove with Lightening McQueen on it and it even came with a matching ball!
Mick had a wonderful Father's Day on Sunday, which consisted of more baseball and pretty cool shirt made for Mick by his 2 darling children! I will post a picture of it soon! Marty even made a comment about it in the middle of church while he was speaking!
Now onto more exciting things (at least for the money conscious consumer!) CVS was pretty slow this week for good deals, but I was able to find a few! I bought what you see pictured (2 family size bottles of shampoo, 2 electric toothbrushes, and a bottle of Tylenol). My total before coupons and deals was $29 something and afterwards it was down to $1.00-yes that is right- a buck! It would have been less (free) but my gift card would not scan for the cashier so I had to use actual cash ;0( Oh well- At least I left with another $10.00 in Extra Care Bucks and I can use my gift card next time! I am really starting to stockpile a lot of items and am planning on using some of the toothbrushes and soaps and stuff this Christmas in the shoebox gifts that we put together for Operation Christmas Child.

Thank you...

CVS!!! Today this is what I bought. The total before coupons was $23 something. After coupons it was down to $11.63, which I put on my $25.00 CVS giftcard (that I got for free for transferring a prescription to them) and I earned $13.49 back for my next trip!!! Can't wait to see next weeks ad!!! We are all stocked up on cereal and mouthwash for quite awhile after the last 2 trips!

Emergency Expo

We took the kids to the Emergency Expo yesterday afternoon and it was pretty neat! Luke loved seeing all of the police cars and sitting on the motorcycle and ATV! He really thought climbing up in the fire trucks was neat, but his favorite thing to do was watch the bomb robot! He and Mick watched it for like 10 minutes and then he kept wanting to go back and check it out again! The last picture is the bomb robot-it was pretty cool. The life flight helicopter was not there this year (it was last year), but they were putting little helicopter tatoo's on the kids hands so that was neat! Luke was sad when his washed away in the bath tub this morning ;0( So for this being a free event I think it was really cool and we will diffently go to it again next year! And as you can probably guess little Emily slept right thru it!

After the expo we went to life group for about a 1/2 hour. Our group was having a cook-out and Luke was pretty excited to play with Kenzi for a bit. Unfourtenatly we had to leave early to go meet with my family as my Aunt Lynn passed away yesterday afternoon and the family was getting together for dinner. The good news is that she is no longer suffering, the sad news is that we will not see her here on eath again and she will be missed.

Oh and in case you are wondering- Luke went down great last night with his new paci. It is funny because he doesnt like the blue one that came in the 2 pack-he says that one is acky, but he likes the green one just fine! Two year olds are funny!

Paci drama and fun at the park

I was washing Luke's pacifier yesterday (yes, I know he is 2 and should be done with it- I'm trying here) and decided to take the scissors to it-Jenny P told me to cut a little hole in it and that will stop the suction he is used to...well I took the scissors to it like Edwar Scissorhands! The thing was slit from left to right! Needless to say that yesterday at nap time Luke told me he didnt like his paci- it tasted acky! (That was my goal) He finally fell asleep after an hour of talking to himself. I never realised how much that paci helped calm him down. Fast forward to last night (after an hour of upset little Luke and him asking me to get him a new one at the store) and I was on my way to the grocery store to buy a new one. But guess what??!! They no longer make the kind that he had (at least at Cubs or Walgreens!) so I bought a new kind and I get home and he was asleep. This morning he comes into my room and says "no like new paci- I bite it." "It tastes acky too" So- looks like he doesnt like the new type I bought him ..I just checked on him-he should be asleep for his nap now, but he is wide awake in his bed with his new paci in his mouth...I think I created a new problem! Any advice?

At least we had fun at the park yesterday and today. Luke is quite the little dare devil though, I think he is enjoying watching me have a heart attack everytime he tries something new! Today we came home from the park with a bright red cheek, he told me he hit it on the slide....I bet it swells and turns black and blue! At least Emily still just sleeps the day away in her sling-I do not think I could handle 2 dare devils right now!

Just can't stay away....

Went back to CVS tonight- I just can't stay away from a great deal! Especially since it is stuff we use every day! Tonight I bought what you see above (4 boxes of cereal and 3 boxes of Fiber One bars and a pack of M&M's) after the deals, coupons and my ECB's from my last trip I spent $1.11!! Would have been zero, but I had to get Luke some candy for being such a good boy while shopping! He even got Emily to stop crying for me at one point! The kids and I went to Sam's afterwards and it was pretty hard to pay full price for something, but I gotta have my Soy milk and our chicken breasts, and with the way I have been saving at CVS it is hardly making a dent in the grocery budget.

Weekend fun and more CVS!

Went to the outdoor concert Friday night (actually tried to call the Sandberg's, but realised they no longer live in town!) LOL....We figured the kids would of had fun together though! Janelle met us there and Luke had a blast playing with her! Luke also loved the concert and dancing and playing with all the kids there. Emily slept thru most of it, but that was her first concert! (Unless you count church!) Oh and we just found out that Friday night we are going to try and get Luke to the Lightening Bug show-should be fun, he is loving seeing them for the 1st time this year and trying to catch them.

Went to CVS yesterday afternoon and again spent very little and got a ton! This time I walked in with $5.00 on ECB and left with $10!! Gotta love that!

I am also signed up to teach the 2 year old Sunday school class starting next week so I observed in there yesterday morning. Pam you rock! You have those kids learning so many things and enjoying it so much! I kinda feel bad for whatever kids end up with me next week as I do not hold a candle to Miss Pam! Oh and Pam (if you read this) Luke prayed for you again last night and then informed me that you made him and not God when we asked him "who made Luke?"....had to laugh at that one!

We're going to the chapel....

And we're gonna get married.....Well not me (as you know I already am) but my sister Jamie!!!!!!! (Congrats Jamie and Mat!) Went wedding dress shopping last night and she found one that she LOVES and looks beautiful in! It made me cry to see my little sister looking so grown up and becoming a woman. Mat is a wonderful guy-plays football for Eureka college and is a personal trainer for the summer at a gym my sister works out at. (And he is great with my children!) Mat proposed on Saturday night at the top of the Peoria Heights Tower! They are planning a Summer of 2010 wedding (both were told they had to finish their degree's first), so they will busy finishing up college and planning a wedding and I am the maid of honor!!! Luke will be their ring bearer and little Emily will be their flower girl-to precious!