Halloween, Christmas and Disney Stockings 75-80% off

Bed time is always fun at my house.  The kids and I will sit in their bedroom and chat about things.  Random things. Mostly we talk about how their day at school went or what activity they want to do that weekend.

I enjoy our talks.  It’s interesting to hear the children talk about what’s important to them.  And helpful too.  However, our topics of late are quite premature.  Not only are we already discussing Halloween but they have already started a Christmas list.  Oie! 

Kids: Can we just focus on roller blading in the park this weekend?  I mean, Halloween is 9 weeks away and Christmas is even further away.

But, I digress.  We’ve been browsing the DisneyStore.com watching for deals to pop up and discovering different costumes for them to at least dress up in their dreams for the next nine weeks.  I happened to find this Woody costume at a garage sale so I’m hoping to talk the middle child into wearing it while I search for deals for the other two. 

And speaking of deals.  Here’s a Christmas deal to grab now and stock away.  Three of their Disney character stockings are priced as low as $3.99 down from their regular price of $24.50!  Just type Stocking in the search box.

I was excited to see this deal because all of the kids have plain stockings and I’m sure they would be excited to have these fun holiday stockings.   And they are all characters that my kids love. 

Cute, huh?

How many of you are already having to shop for Halloween costumes or write Christmas lists?

Disney Princess Kitchen, Cookware & Dress for only $99

Look at this awesome set of Disney stuff that I put together for my daughter’s Christmas for only $99!

She’s is such a girly girl and she will love this.  She always requests to put on a “Princess” dress and she is always my kitchen helper so this is perfect!

Here is the links for each of the items:

Disney Princess Deluxe Talking Kitchen $79.95
Disney Princess Tiana Cooking Set $19.50
Disney Princess Holiday Dress $24.99

It totaled to $124.44 plus S&H but I only paid $99!

How did I do this?

The Disney.com store on Amazon has a promotional code for today only for a 20% discount off a purchase of $100 or more.  Then I combined that with their free shipping offer on purchases of $89 or more.

Total: $124.44
Minus: $24.88 (20% discount using code DISNEYBL)
Total: $99.56

My daughter is going to be so super happy with Santa Claus come next month!  I can’t wait for the smiles!

Free Baby Frog Bath Toy Gift Set with Johnson’s purchase

Here’s a cute little baby frog bath set to request by mail.  Plus, it should arrive just in time for the holidays if you send it out now.

Receive a FREE baby frog bath toy gift set ($10 value) when you mail in a receipt from any Johnson's bath or lotion product dated 9/28/09 to 12/1/09. Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.

Send Receipts,name & mailing address to:
Johnson & Johnson/Parents GWP
375 Lexington Ave 10th Floor
New York, NY 10017

Need coupons for Johnson's products? Print them here & here.  Thanks Mom Saves Money!

Freebie: Potty Training DVD

For those of you who are still enjoying those potty training days…

Request your FREE Big Kids Central Potty Training Success DVD.

Me?  I’m done.  All three of mine were trained shortly after they turned one.  Thanks goodness!  How’d I do it? 

A Timer, Sippy, Wood Floors and a Strong Floor Cleaner!

Striped them down stark naked (not even panties) and pushed the fluids constantly.  Set the timer for increasing increments and encouraged them by saying “Let’s go Potty!” each time the timer went off.

I praised them at each potty visit with a “Potty Song” that I made up and started pushing the fluids again saying, “Good job, lets get our sippy”.

I started every 10 minutes and increased to 15, 20, and 30 as we continued to have success. 

ONLY took two days and we were fully trained on #1 AND #2!  :)  Best of luck to the rest of you!

Freebie: Kid's Healthy Habits Activity Book from Lysol

Freebie: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Postcard

These are the kind of freebies that I order under my kids name.  You know, cause they *love* getting mail with their name on the envelope.

GO HERE and choose from 4 different backgrounds.

Upload a photo if you like (the Kids will love this)

Then they will mail you the 3-D postcard for FREE.

Thanks Mojo Savings!

Ready to lose a little weight? Join me!

I told my granny recently that I wanted to lose a little weight and asked if she’d walk with me to keep me motivated.  She agreed but I have to admit that it was mostly to help keep her high blood pressure in check. 

Being that we live in the country and on a family farm we have several places to walk.  We’ve walked into the back fields with my kiddos picking blackberries and down the road to throw rocks off of a bridge into a creek.  The kids are really enjoy our nature walks.

We’ve built up our routine to walking first thing in the morning and at suppertime which is super for her!  On average we’re probably up to about 3-4 miles per day.

We both also decided to watch what we eat more carefully & have lost 10 lbs each in the last 2 weeks.

At this rate we’ll be walking out of out “fat clothes” soon into some of our “skinny clothes” that we have stashed in the back of our closet somewhere.  LOL.

Since I’m totally addicted to walking and losing weight right now I thought I’d point out a few helpful links.

DinnerTool.com to help with menu planning.  (something I rarely did before but is a new goal!) Thanks Katie

I also saw this offer pop up today that peaked my interest a bit:  The New-U 10 Step Turnaround Program.  I haven’t checked it out entirely but there is no credit card required which is cool.

School is also just around the corner so granny and I are looking forward to having some more peaceful walks to enjoy the scenery a little more quietly.  Three kids in the woods calls for some hollering ya know!

Oh how pitifully cute they are when they are sick

I will be a little scarce on deal searching while I take care of my kids and hopefully avoid catching the dreaded sickness in the meantime.  Crossing my fingers!!

I’ve had a slightly sick child for a few days now and it has developed into a bad cold overnight.  So, I schedule a doctor appointment only to find my daughter wake up this morning sick as well.  Aww… 

They are actually sitting in their room right now arguing over who is more sick.  How adorable the conversation is!

Bubba: “Mimi, I’m sick”
Mimi: “No Bubba, I’m sick” 
Bubba: “I’m coughing”
Mimi: “Yeah, I’m coughing too”
Bubba: “Well, I’m more sick because I have snot”
Mimi: “Yeah, I have snot too.”
Bubba: “But I’m more sick”
Mimi: “Yeah, me too”

And boy are they milking it with all the whining too.  Mom this, Mom that.  Poor Mom!

Do you sing Potty songs with your kids?

The joys of being a mother sometimes involve singing made-up songs, right?

And, I’m sure if you’re like me you even had a potty song for your kids too, right?  :) 

Here is my little song that was my daughter’s favorite!

Tee tee, pee pee, and poo poo
I go potty, how ‘bout you?

Oh what fun it is to sing about poo poo!

Wanna hear Elmo’s dad sing a potty song?  Go here.

It’s a bird, It’s a plane, No, It’s a quail! hehe

My daughter loves telling stories so I’ll tell you a story about what happened when we got home from school and why I love living in the country. 

Once upon a time…we lived in the woods. 

One day after school we drove up our long driveway to the house.

As we got out of the car we saw something. 

We looked and looked and we saw a bird.

We started to run toward the bird and Daddy stopped us. 

Daddy told us not to run but to walk.

Because if we walk we might get close enough to see the bird. 

So, we walked real slow.  Real slow.

All the way to the side of the house.

We walked closer and closer to the bird.

…and WE CAUGHT THE BIRD!  The end.

 

LOL, did you see that ending coming?  We get to enjoy so much of what Nature has to offer.

Today, for example.  We enjoyed having a bird lesson with a friendly quail. 

 

“I was in the kitchen. I crack eggs.” End Quote…

I was just getting ready to blog this and as I showed my daughter the picture, I asked her what happened.  Her response, “I was in the kitchen.  I crack eggs{smile}.”    Aww…

And now the story as mom remembers it.

I had cooked Mimi 4 eggs and fed them to her for breakfast.  I normally make 2-3 but she insisted “I eat four eggs” and I agreed.  She loves counting and you can’t fool her either so, four it was.  After I fed her I began to do my laundry as she played with her dolls.  About mid-way through laundry I decided to check on her and found she had disappeared.  I walked into the kitchen and found her.  I composed myself at the site and said…

ME: “Mimi, what are you doing?”
MIMI: “I crack eggs.”
ME: “I know you’re cracking eggs, are you supposed to do that without Mommie’s help?”
MIMI: “I was hungry. I helping.”  (Mind you she just ate four eggs!)

At this point I lectured her how she can be a big help to Mommie but only if Mommie helps and so forth.  Then I sent her to her room for time out while I cleaned up her mess and she obeyed. 

However, as I was cleaning up the mess she walked into the kitchen and before I could say anything she looks at me, lets out a big humph! and says, “I have to clean my mess, Mommie.  I sawwy.” 

Awww…Now, she’s my little sweet Princess again!  Cracked eggs incident and all!

My Daughter’s Take on Stockpiling Clearance Items

See my daughter (and her cousin Caleb) just two days ago – so sweet and innocent.

See my Betty Crocker Icing which I bought on clearance for $.69 with a $1/1 coupon.  I have quite a stash of this in the cabinet stockpiled away.

Now, this is what happened while Mommie was folding laundry and Mimi was left to play nicely with her tea set.  She found Mommie’s stockpile stash and raided it!

Apparently she thought her pretend cookies needed some real cookie icing. And what better way to eat it than straight from the cap?

Pulling Teeth…a Tooth a Week

As if my son needed to lose another tooth already…the bottom tooth happened on accident last night. 

His bottom two, which he just pulled within the last year, have grown in fairly nicely.

His top two happened a week apart from each other and then this week…another one!

See how excited he was to have yet another tooth fairy deposit within this last three weeks. 

And guess what!  He’s working on the next loose one.  Oh my goodness!  Tooth fairy is going to break the Coupon Mommie bank!

Bologna, Peanut Butter & Hot Dog Sandwich

Yuck!  My oldest son is weird.  When I offer up a free for all quick dinner he always asks for this.  ~Bologna, Peanut Butter & Hotdog Sandwich ~ Double yuck.

I can even remember the first time he asked for it.  He wanted a “Peanut Butter” sandwich, then he said “no, make it Bologna”, then he said “no, make it Hot Dog”.  Then I said the worst thing possible, “Well, how about all three honey?”.  And the eyes light up with a big “Yeah, yeah, yeah!  All three!”

I never imagined him going for it when I mentioned it the first time but I’ve been serving it up ever since when we have a free for all dinner.

Isn’t this too weird or what?!  And, No, I’ve not tried this Bologna, Peanut Butter & Hotdog Sandwich either…ewww.  I’ll stick to Ham & Cheese or PB&J.

my daughter has 5th disease

Well, the post about the Flinstone vitamins causing an allergic reaction in my daughter just happened to be awful timing. Thank goodness!

Good thing is that she is not allergic to Red Dye 40 but…she caught the 5th disease. The rash was visible starting Friday. After visiting with the pediatrician today she was diagnosed with 5th disease. Apparently it is going around right now like a flu bug. Nothing to prevent it, nothing to cure it! Good thing is the only side effect is…A RASH! So, a few weeks and she’ll be better.

Below is the only good picture that I took on Friday. The rash is more severe on her upper arms that you can’t see, her face and thighs. (Pudgy, isn’t she!?)

Flinstones Gummies Vitamins was a complete bomb

 I was so excited when I saw the Gummies were included in the vitamin deal at Walgreens. I scooped up a load to do my three kids for awhile and was so excited I showed my youngest daughter in the truck.

She insisted on having one in the truck as soon as I showed them to her. Shortly after as soon as we stopped at a store we noticed she was covered in welts. We had used an older car seat that was on the front porch because hubby had our good one with him at work. So, my mother and I thought there might be mold on the car seat that she was allergic to.

Well, this morning I gave her a Gummie and lo an behold if she didn't break out again...this time in welts. I called the pharmacist when I had a chance to get to a phone to ask if anyone else was complaining about this and how alarmed I should be to call my pediatrician. The pharmacist was very perplexed by my question and said to treat her with dye-free benedryl and watch for the welts to go away.

She said for me to follow-up with the pediatrician to see if she was allergic to Red Dye 40. Oh great, I thought. It's just Saturday and I have to wait days to talk to my doctor.

This is such a strange incident and I am not happy about my frugal purchase. Looks like I'll be going back to no vitamins for my kids and probably alot of other stuff if she turns out to really be allergic to Red Dye 40. Geez!

Indoor Oatmeal sandbox

No, I’m not crazy.  I ran across a post the other night which intrigued me, an indoor sandbox.  It has poored the rain for the past two days and this has given my children great enjoyment and I’m so happy we tried it.

Recipe to create your own:

1 shallow pan

1 or 2 cans of oatmeal (or cornmeal)

A variety of plastic toys

 

Instructions for how to use:

Lecture the kids to keep their toys in the box

Watch the kids play nicely with their little toys

Sit back and sigh when they love it so much the box can no longer contain the oatmeal because they are slinging it around with excited laughter.

Use dustpan to cleanup and pour back in oatmeal container now appropriately labeled SANDBOX so as not to be eaten.  Ewww.

I’m not kidding about this deal, it provided hours of fun for my kids while it rained outside.

Lice anyone? Here's my savings story!

Lice and a savings story? Doesn't sound right together but I did it! I saved $73.50 during our recent bought with lice!

Yuck! I hate to even hear the stinking word right now. It's became a curse for almost a month between my three kids and my sister-in-law's three.

So where did it come from? Who knows! The only thing we can think is one of them brought it home from school before Christmas break and it kept going round and round. Uggh!

Anyways, I wanted to point out something that me and my frugal self lucked upon. She started out with a more expensive name brand and the kids claimed it burned? Not sure it did or not but we're talking 4 year old's. Well, apparently it didn't work because rounds 2 and 3 stepped back up to the plate for us.

But guess what? Me and my frugal self found clearance tags on the shelf at Kroger for various brands and this particular brand caught my eye because it is so child friendly!

Pronto Plus is a mousse shampoo that has a no-drip fun blue foam and leaves no chemical residue. The best part is it's fruity watermelon smell (and they didn't complain of any burning this time!) Awesome!

No coupons for this stuff to be found, or was there? You're right. I needed six boxes so I peeked inside to find none other than a $1.50 COUPON! It was already marked on clearance from $10ish to $5.67.

So, here's my math with six separate transactions so I could pluck the coupon from the previous box. :)

1 box at $5.67 - $3 OYNO from last week = $2.67

1 box at $5.67 - $1.50 Q - $3 OYNO from last week = $1.17

1 box at $5.67 - $1.50 Q - $3 OYNO from last week = $1.17

1 box at $5.67 - $1.50 Q - $3 OYNO from last week = $1.17

1 box at $5.67 - $1.50 Q = $4.17

1 box at $5.67 - $1.50 Q = $4.17

Grand Total: $14.52 for SIX boxes for the price of what one competitor box retails for!

Seriously...there was a box selling for $14.67, one box! Times that by six and I would have spent $88.02! Gasp! I saved $73.50 by being frugal! Ka-ching!

Each box was able to treat each kid and we still have some left. The boys hair didn't need that much so we made one bottle go pretty far!

Hopefully we're all cleared up because I do not want this stuff going around anymore.

CVS & my new camera

To start out I want to say I am somewhat of a newbie but have became so addicted so fast.  I have been dying to post something in the $5 challenge but it took me a little bit to really get my blog up and going.  I am still learning but I felt like I wanted to graduate today because I actually have pictures to go with my post!

 

Transaction 1:

1 Prescription transferred from Kroger

$4 generic medicine

used Target coupon to earn $10 Gift Card (which CVS honored)

Paid $4 OOP and earned $10 gift card = $6 profit

 

Transaction 2:

1 Prescription transferred from Kroger

$4 generic medicine

used K-Mart coupon to earn $10 Gift Card (which CVS honored)

Paid $4 OOP and earned $10 gift card = $6 profit

 

* I know these are doofy transactions that aren't really applicable to alot of people but it falls within the $5 challenge and I couldn't resist letting you know what I did with my two gift cards below...

 

OK, this wasn't a very good week at CVS except for my new camera. :)  I've been dying to get one since I started blogging and couldn't take pictures of my stuff.  So I decided to take a week off of CVS and flush out my ECB's on something I wanted badly.

Here is how it went:

• I transferred two $4 generic prescriptions to CVS and acquired two $10 gift cards!   These were prescriptions I need to pick up anyway so I'm not really counting that OOP.
• I had $11.37 left on a $25 gift card from MyPoints which I had been using for what little OOP I was needing for my transactions.
• And finally I had $29.23 in ECB's from previous weeks which I normally wouldn't blow on ONE transaction but today was my exception.
• So, I purchased a Kodak camera for $99.99 - $29.23 ECB's - $31.37 GC + tax = $45.94 OOP

I got a camera for less than 1/2 price which I don't feel too bad about putting out of pocket since I did the Dimetapp moneymaker at Walgreens twice with my hubby and I bought countless Glades with BOGO coupons to practically offset all the out of pocket on the camera.

I AM SO HAPPY with my ECB purchase! Now, here are a few pics of the kiddos for you to enjoy until I can start some new ECB's.  :)

  Taylor was a happy sport to have his picture taken when I caught him playing a new game on his gameboy in the toy closet.  He does this sometimes which I'm totally cool with because he has to hide from the little ones to get some alone time.  With the three of them there is always action going on so they normally don't even notice him missing for awhile.

  Well, should I say he tried to hide today but...Brooklyn found him and made herself at home in the closet with him too.  And when I found the two of them she had made her way to the top of a changing table that we use for toys, had pushed most of the toys in the floor at that point and was just sitting there so sweetly I couldn't get mad at her.  Awww..how cute!

  And the mischief didn't stop there because I found Eli pretending to destroy our Fall decorations like a mad man.  And I say mad man because of the look on his face which I think was awesome.  And it wouldn't have been so bad at the fact that he was playing with them because there's not much harm in handling corn except...

  When I find his sister has made her way out of the closet to see what Eli is doing and decides to investigate the corn with him. And investigation for a two year old includes turning it inside out or at least plucking off what you can to see what's underneath.

So, I hope you like the pictures of my kiddos and all the pictures I get to post from now on! YEAH~