I told you he was sweet...

Just cuz......

Why coupon?

Back in March I started couponing because we were spending a fortune on groceries and I was tired of it. I heard about a website called 'The Krazy Coupon Lady.' They sell a really good book about the ins and outs of couponing. There were so many things I didn't know. I always looked at the $.25 and $.50 coupons and thought it wasn't worth my time. The book points out so many different things, for example at Target.com there are target coupons. Usually at most stores you can only use one coupon per item, but at Target you can use a regular coupon (manufacturer coupon) and a target coupon together and if the item is already on sale it's even better. You can do this at Safeway too and Safeway doubles manufacturer coupons up to $1.

Several people I've talked to recently have said that it's too time consuming, or they can't find coupons for the things they use or they just can't make it work for some reason.

Here are a couple of examples of things I found at target recently. This first one is the Welch's juice that I would always pay full price for at Walmart, this is what my family drinks. It was on clearance for $2.08, regularly $2.99. At Target I always check the end caps for their clearance things and see what coupons I have to go on top. Well this week they had about 20-25 of these on clearance. Now to most people a difference of $0.91 is not that big a deal. Well when I add my $1 off coupon to it, it makes them a steal. I bought 14 of these bad boys for a total of $15.12. Now full price it would've cost me $41.86. This is at least a 2 month supply of juice for my family and I won't buy it again until I find another steal, which I've seen every few months but it's usually at Safeway.

The trick is to stock up on an item when it's at a low price like this so that you aren't paying full price ever if you can help it. This is a great way to build up a food storage and coupons and sales are always rotating so you are constantly buying different things for your food storage.

A lot of times when a manufactuer is promoting an item and they send out coupons, the store is also trying to promote it by putting it on sale, which makes for very cheap and a lot of times free items. There are several things that I have gotten for free such as:

toothpaste (colgate, crest, etc)
toothbrushes (Colgate, Reach)
deoderant (Secret, Right Guard...)
scotch tape
bbq sauce (Jack Daniels, Kraft, KC Masterpiece)
ketchup (heinz)
pasta (Healthy Harvest)
soap (Nivea, Olay)
shampoo (Finesse...)
conditioner (Finesse...)
reams of HP printer paper
Excedrin and so many different kinds of medication!
bandaids (Curad, bandaid brand)
pens (papermate)
Revlon tweezers
dish soap (Gain)
worchestershire sauce (French's)
Glade, Febreze, and Air wick candles and sprays

I could go on and on. These things aren't just the cheap, off brand either, all name brand things that I used to pay full price for, and everything I just listed I easily have a year supply of. Some examples of some really cheap items are:

Glad trash bags
Hefty/ziploc bags
Clorox cleanup ($.49 a bottle at Walgreens)
Laundry detergent (Wisk, Arm&Hammer, All, Gain)
Duracell/Energizer batteries (got these from Amazon.com)
peanut butter (Skippy, Planters)
jelly (Welch's, Smuckers)
Huggies diapers and wipes
Puffs tissue
Target shower curtains and pillows
HP ink
Gillette razors
shaving cream
Banana Boat aloe vera
Nivea shaving conditioner for electric razors
Cereal (try not to pay more than a $1 a box) (Kelloggs, General Mills, Post...)

Seriously, I've never even had close to a year supply of any of these things but now I do and it's all due to couponing. If I had to pay full price for all of this to try to get a year supply I couldn't afford it.

The other day Wes was saying that we needed some supplements around the house, that day I went looking at Target to see what I could find. Here is what I found:

These are $11.99 each full price, which I would never pay! But I had a $5 manufacturer coupon per each item and a $2 Target coupon per item (these I got from the Target pharmacy coupon booklets-just ask for them at the pharmacy). Already that brings them down to $4.99 each, but that still wasn't going to be good enough, then I noticed that they were on an end cap and if you buy 2 of them you will get a $5 Target gift card. So, I decided to get 4 of them which will give me 2-$5 gift cards and after factoring the gift cards in that brings them down to $2.49 each. But wait, I also had a coupon for $5 off a $50 purchase, I am very close to $50 so I threw in $2 item that I was already buying and dividing that $5 between the 5 items it makes my Centrum $1.49. That's a price I can afford and so I did 2 separate transactions. I bought these first, got the 2 gift cards and then used them on my next transaction for the other items I was buying. I LOVE Target, they are the best! Full price these would've cost $47.96+tax, but I only paid $4.96+tax for all 4 of them. This is why I coupon! It is so fun getting deals like this.

Ok one more example and this was actually back in Sept. Back in May or June I got a $2 off coupon for the Off! fans (mosquito repellent). These are usually about $8.49 each and even with a $2 coupon it would not be good enough and I really wanted to try it but was not going to pay $6.49 for just one. So I held on to these coupons throughout the summer all the way until Sept and they expired about the middle of the month. About a week before they expired Target had these clearanced out to $2.12! So I bought 6 of them at $0.12 each = $0.72+tax for 6 of them! I will hold on to these until next summer!

One other thing I have learned though is that you can't be brand loyal. For example, I used to love Tide and that's all I would buy. Tide is really expensive and very rarely have I seen it for a good deal and I would see really good deals on the ones I listed above. You know what? I think they work just as well as Tide does and I'm saving money.

Always stock up on seasonal items after the season/holiday is over for the next year. I already have all of my kids Halloween costumes for next year and I paid $1 per costume (as opposed to $15-$20 per costume) the Saturday after Halloween.

I could go on and on with examples of different deals but it would take forever. Just know that couponing is worth it and we have saved so much money and it is really fun!

10 years ago..............

I have always thought that Wes was just the cutest thing. We were always really good friends in high school and we hung out together often. He was hilarious back then, wearing his latest find at the arc or just walking down the hall in a wife beater (I think that's what those white tank tops were called). We lived across the street from each other all during high school and we were in the same sunday school class all through those years too.

Wes has always been very sweet, when we were 16 I went to stay with my dad for a few weeks during the summer out in Ohio. He thought I was staying there permanately so he sent me flowers and a letter telling me that he wanted me to come back and that he wanted to take me on a date. I had no idea that he wanted any sort of realtionship beyond friendship. When I returned home, we did go on our first date, although the second date didn't come until much later. I was a difficult teenager, not always seeking after the best things and I felt that Wes was just a really good friend. He was more like a brother type to me then and I always felt somewhat protective of him.


A few days before Wes went into the MTC, my cousin Karen told me that he was leaving and that we should go see him before he leaves. I had not seen him for a while and I think he was a little surprised that we had come. It was really good to see him but even then I didn' realize that this would be my eternal companion someday.

A few months after Wes came home from his mission,  I had just moved back from Cincinnati, it was the beginning of December and I was coming out of my mom's house and walking to my car when he pulled up behind me. I heard he was home from his mission but I had not seen him yet. He walked up to me and gave me a big hug. He looked so different to me, I had always thought that he was cute (how can you not?) but it was the first time that I really thought he was HOT!. We visited for a minute and then he left and I could not stop thinking about him. I didn't think that he would want any sort of realtionship with me because surely he had girls waiting in line for him. But, a few days later he called and asked if I wanted to go to the luminarias at Berg Park. Um, YEAH! That was our first date 10 years ago...and everything fell into to place after that. I am so grateful for him. He works so hard for us and I just love him. I truly feel blessed to have him as my eternal companion.

Can't wait!

Know your shapes!

The other day I was helping Easten with his homework and we were going over shapes. He's really good and knows all of them, apparently better than I do. When we got to a diamond, he paused for a second and said, "that's a rhombus!" Well if you know me I hated Geometry and I don't even remember what a rhombus is so I had to look it up and I found out that he was right because "a rhombus is a type of parallelogram, and what distinguishes its shape is that all four of its sides are congruent, which a diamond is and a diamond is not technically a mathematical shape whereas a rhombus is." I hate it when my kids are smarter than me!

This is what happens when daddy leaves town....

Something big seems to happen every time Wes goes hunting. Last time a pipe broke that was coming off the hot water heater. Had he been home, he could've fixed it because he is handy that way. I, on the other hand, am not quite that handy so I had to call the plumber. The time before that, I was up at the kid's soccer practice and my car battery died, good thing Jonathan is handy and could help me replace it. Well this time my little Bella was running, tripped and fell, hitting a kitchen chair at Grandma's house. It bled pretty good for a few minutes and since it was so late all of the urgent cares were closed so we had to go to the ever so exciting ER. They did a great job, although her screaming was probably a little unsettling. They numbed her pretty good but what really made her mad was being restrained. They wrapped her body up real tight in two sheets so she couldn't move and then they put drapes all around the cut so that all we could see of her was the cut. This did not go over well, she couldn't see anything, and she screamed. But she is doing better now and I hope no one gets grossed out easily cuz it's a pretty good split. Thanks to Audrie who watched my kids and did my dishes while we were gone and thanks to Gwen for coming to the hospital and supporting us through.

Before:

After:

Almost 24 hours later: (It's really swollen)

The annual Trunk or Treat

Noah is always happy and up for anything!

 Easten and his usual happy face!

 Bella Bee!

 Katelynn was helping me get them ready. Thanks Katie-lynn!

 That's a little better!

The kids had a great time trunk or treating. They always do, and this year my husband was able to join us. He is usually working every year, don't think he has joined us since before Easten was born. The kids all looked so cute. I love being able to be at home and do fun things with them. Grateful to have a husband who works so hard for us so I can be at home.

Picture day!

First day of preschool

Noah has been wating for this day for a long time. Every time Easten would get on the bus to go to preschool last year, Noah would ask when it would be his turn. Today he finally gets to go and he is thrilled. The preschool here is really an awesome deal. First of all it's free, can't beat that! The bus stops right in front of our house and it's only preschool kids, they feed the kids lunch, keep them for about 4 hours and they get to socialize with kids their age. So glad Easten got to go, they really worked on his speech with him and he needed that interaction before starting kindergarten.

The first day of school

School has finally started! I'm not sure who was more excited, probably me. I love my kiddos and we had a good summer but I also love to wave to them as they get on the bus. : ) Abbie is a busy girl and she is in constant need of something to do, so school is perfect for her. Easten was excited to get to go to Abbie's school this year and ride on her bus. Abbie is in third grade with Ms. Franklin and Easten is in kindergarten and has Ms. Greenwade. They both love school and are doing really well.

Baseball/Softball

Abbie played baseball this year and was the only girl on her team. She had the option of playing on a girl's team but she wanted to play with her cousins. She did really well, she's a good batter and she's fast. She even tripped and fell once while running the bases and she still got up and made it home. Her team was really good this year and they got second place in the tournament. It's always fun to get a trophy!

Abbie's baptism

 Katie and Abbie

 Katelynn and Bella

 Colton and Noah

I can't believe I have a child old enough to be baptized, time is really flying. Abbie was baptized with her good friend Katie Parsons (Noel Bloomfield's daughter) and her cousin Kristoffer. It was really a special day for her. Her dress was so pretty, she loved it. She's been looking foward to this day for a long time. So grateful for the gospel in our lives and a worthy priesthood holder in our home.