Killer Deals

I must write about my killer deals from the last week:

Albertsons: Major cereal sale, plus a bunch of other participating items: Spend $30 and get $15 back. Plus, they matched your manufacturers coupons (up to $6.00 per transaction) I went through the line 3 times (ridiculous I know), but my reciepts were like this each time: total - $23.00, albertsons savings - $93.00. My sunday paper coupons paid off and now my food storage is built up!


Old Navy: take an additional 50% off all clearance! Spent $90.00 and got Cameron about 12 size 8 shirts (short and long sleeved), a pair of pants, got Braden 5 shirts for next fall, got my sister 3 baby outfits, sister-in-law 2 pj's and a dress for her new baby, got Jane 3 new PJ sets, got myself a sweater and a blouse. Seriously?



Gap: Take an additional 25% off clearance! Got Cameron 5 long-sleeved shirts, 2 pants, a sweater (all for next year) for $40.00. I also got Tom 2 sweaters for $15 each that look really nice on him! He never wears sweaters but these thin one's he likes!



Mariposa: Store Closing! Everything must go! I needed a formal for the cruise and was TOTALLY stressing about spending money on anything I won't ever wear again! I was at the mall (for the other sales) and decided to go in. I found a long lavendar chiffon skirt that is high waisted and bells out and goes to the floor (really cute) and a short sleeved fitted stretchy sparkly top (exact color) and miraculously they had my size! I go to buy it and find out I would get a better deal if I bought two. So I got a blue set too! Plus a skirt. Price? Skirts: 2 for $10. Tops $3 for 10 (2 tops and a shorter casual skirt). Total: $23.00! I couldn't believe it! (original price for the skirt plus top was over $120.00).

Target: 75% off clearance. Found some silver ballet shoes for the dress for $4.97

That's it! No more spending!

Nikon 210

So why am I blogging when I should be packing? I got a new camera and wanted to post a few pictures of our morning. Braden lost his second tooth (after dangling in his mouth for a week), and Cameron reading Jane a book. Cute, huh? She loves books and grabs them and asks anyone to read to her (with her grunts and points, you know). I love this picture!

We leave tomorrow morning! I can't wait! I'm all packed and just cleaning my house. You know, the kind of cleaning you have to do when you realize someone else will be opening your cupboards, getting your kids clothes out of their drawers, sleeping in your bed and looking under your bathroom sink for a band-aid. The kind of cleaning that takes ALL WEEK and by the end of the week, from the outside it looks like you did nothing at all!

YOU MUST READ THIS!!!

Sorry for the dramatic headline, but I really want all of my friends to learn about the greatest "mommy" help in the world! It is our babysitting co-op, and it has saved my life, and the lives of many other women here in Coeur d'Alene who participate. Please read about it, and then you will definately want to start one in your area.

It goes like this:

10 shifts a week, 10 ladies involved.

Each person takes a day, Monday through Friday, and a shift, either 9-12 or 12-3 (we did those times b/c it works perfect with 8:50 school drop off and 3:15 school pick-up).

It works on a ticket system. Each kid and each hour is one, 1-hour ticket. So I have Wednesday mornings from 9-12. Today I had 3 kids from 9-10:00am (3 tickets), and 2 kids from 9-12 (6 tickets). I just earned 9 tickets. I can drop off Jane Monday morning while I go to the office (3), thursday morning while I go to the gym (2), and drop off Braden and Jane for 2 hours Friday afternoon while I get my house ready to leave on the cruise (4 tickets) and I break even.

It works because it's totally fair. If you babysit, you have tickets, if you run out, you run out. We all did start with 20 hours of tickets to begin with which works really well.

There are rules, like:
-call at least 30 minutes before (preferably the night before)
-no sick kids
-kids must be at least 10 months old
-NO being late
-you decide how many kids you want, you can always say you are full
-if you can't do it, switch with someone or email as soon as you know
-everyone needs to try to use it at least once/week to keep tickets distributed

We made up our own rules and you could too. whatever works for everyone in the group.

We do have a few girls who haven't been using it hardly at all and people keep using them to babysit. So they have tons of tickets and just don't have as much of a need to use it, however they want the option to use it if they need to. So we just switched around a few people and gave this girl a less popular afternoon that we found rarely gets used and gave another girl (who uses it all the time) the Tuesday morning she had that seems to be used a lot.

I hope it's all making sense.
I wish I had this in Seattle during dental school, and in Salt Lake when I had so many wonderful friends I would have loved and trusted to do this with!

A few random things: If you only have 6 or 8 girls that want to do it, you can still do it. Pick the times you want to have it available and schedule those times! Also, you may have weeks that you don't need it at all, and weeks you need it 3 or 4 times (like me this week!) You may have times you have 10 kids at your house (if you choose to have that many) and weeks you have 1 or even none!

I promise, if you participate, you'll love it. You'll never need to find someone to watch your kids again when you have a doctors appointment, want to volunteer at the school, go to the gym, or just want to clean your house without a 2 year old helper! I even have a friend who has a 2-month-old who sometimes uses it to take a nap!

If you have any questions, leave a comment and i'll answer it!

finally, some pictures

Finally, some Christmas pictures! Unfortunately, I don't have very many. My camera is totally not working right and most of my pictures are blurry or funky colors. It's totally making me mad. I'm going to remedy that by buying a new camera this week. Why this week? Well, because in 5 days tom and I are leaving for our CRUISE!!!

That's right, we are leaving our kiddos and cruising the Caribean! I can't wait.

I am slightly freaking out about leaving Jane. She's still my baby, even though she's almost 15 months old!

FYI: We are going on a cruise with the group in Utah Tom worked for the last few years. Yes, they are SO nice! Not only did they let us come and work for them while we were in transition all that time, but they are now including us on their cruise for their office! Happy for me!!! I can't wait!

The holidays are over, but the vacation isn't. After returning to school on Monday, the schools decided to close Tuesday and Wednesday b/c of the weather. It's been a wild winter. We got so much snow, which then turned to rain this week.The schools closed to remove snow from roofs of schools and to clear sidewalks since kids were walking in the streets due to the 3 1/2 feet covering the sidewalks. I'm SO glad to have the kids back in school! Not that I don't love my children, it's just that after 2 1/2 weeks of vacation (yes, we got a few extra days before the vacation due to snow as well), I'm ready to be back in normal "mom" mode.

Recap on the holidays... (I'll be posting pictures soon)

Christmas at home. It was great! I will admit, our first Christmas at home with NO other family around was quiet and a tad lonely. Tom called his family who were all partying together and I could tell he was a tid bit jealous they were all together.

It was all fine though, because the next day they drove over here to go skiing up at Schweitzer for a few days with us! It was a real blast. We stayed in a condo on the mountain and just enjoyed being together and playing and skiing. Cameron and Braden were in heaven with cousins Dallin and Anne Marie and especially uncles and aunts! (They worship Uncle Jonny & Jacob!)

After that fun party, we decided we hadn't had enough family time so we drove back with the Dance's to Seattle and spent New Years with everyone there. It was great to see extended family as well. We don't ever see them all except holidays or weddings (which there was a double wedding reception on the night of the 2nd as well, Congrats Amanda & Megan!)

Tom flew home the night of the 1st to work the 2nd, and I drove home by myself (in between snow storms over the pass) on the 3rd. It was a really quick trip (sorry all you Seattle friends I didn't get to see!!! I swear, next time i come I'm planning a few extra days so we can go to some museums with the kids, or just an adults night out!)

This last monday at the office we got 31 new patients! It was amazing! Not every day is like that, but I think with the new year and kids back in school parents were thinking about it. We'll see how the week adds up but as of wednesday we're at 52 for the week. We hired another assistant full time (so we're at 1 front office and 2 assistants) and we're thinking of another front office/assistant to come on soon. It's been really exciting. Every month is better than the month before. We feel so blessed!

Well, enough of my blabbering. I've decided to print my blogs every year into a book. It's going to be our family "journal" of sorts as to the comings and goings of our lives. So my new years goal is to be better about posting!