Legoland Part 2

These pictures are of a little game type ride where four teams pick a firetruck, move the truck by pumping the lever, arrive at the "fire", point the water at the fire until it goes out and then race their trucks back to the beginning. I chose to video and take pictures of the three of them. My husband was not happy afterwards because it was apparently a lot of work!! I didn't realize he would need my help so much!! I thought it was funny though and the kids loved it!!






These are just a few of the other rides. We learned to drive boats as well as cars!! I really liked the boat one!

Legoland Part 1

Here's some pics from Legoland





This one is for Sonya!!




This is Noah wearing a Lego Indiana Jones hat!











These five pics are of the driving school. Abby was too young for the big course, but she had fun anyway. She was probably the oldest in the class and her biggest obstacle was dodging the kids who didn't understand what to do. She had a stoplight to obey and did really well. She looked so cute and was so excited. Noah loved this area so much, it was what he chose to do first from the map and wanted to do it again and again. It was set up like a little town with street lights, stop signs, etc.. kind of like safety town if you've done that before. The kids were supposed to obey all the traffic laws and Noah was the only one doing them all. He even signaled his turn by sticking his thumb out and pointing it in the direction he was turning and making a clicking noise!! He is so cute!! They both got licenses for their good driving skills!!

This weeks groceries

It appears that I can post some pictures now. I'll get back to Disney trip ones later today, I just wanted to share my shopping trips for this week. I decided last week when making our new budget that our grocery allowance will be $60 per week. It used to be $125, before I started couponing. Well today I made my last two stops and my total is now right at $59. I was so happy to realize that I had done it. Now don't forget that is only a portion of the foods we will use this week in our meals, we still have lots of other things still stocked up.




This is my Kroger trip that went this way:

16 jars of peanut butter, all free, stock pile total 21 jars
5 softsoaps, 1.50 total, stock pile total 13
7 Revlon beauty tools, all free
4 one pound packages of boneless skinless chicken breasts 9.50
3 cans of Pringles 2.70
1 daisy sour cream, free, stockpile total 3
1 can of tuna, .73
2 disney gummie vitamins, 5.00 total
frosted mini wheats, .97 total, stockpile total (all cereals) 32 boxes
bob evans sausage for sandwiches 2.00
bologna 1.00
buns .70
oyster crackers 1.00

spent 22.xx, my receipt said that I saved over 100 dollars with coupons and sale prices


This is from two CVS trips one on Sunday and one today
1 Venus embrace razor
2 packages of stayfree pads
4 boxes of preparation h wipes
2 cvs acetaminophens
1 softsoap
1 tresemme hairspray

I spent 2.00 cash and 16.00 in ECB's and got back 17 ECB's, so out one dollar for all of it




This is two trips to Meijer, one on Saturday to get more of last weeks deals and one on Sunday for the new deals.

6 apple or apple mix juices 6.00, stockpile total 11
3 Sprites 2.00
4 gallons of milk, 10.00
6 cans of mighty dog, free
3 boxes of hamburger/tuna helper 2.00 total, stockpile total 16
2 boxes of betty crocker potatoes .60 total, stockpile total 17
1 jeno's pizza, free
2 chex mix, free, stockpile total 7 bags
5 pop-tarts, 1.67
2 cake frostings, .78 total, stockpile total 19
2 spring oreos, 4.00 total
2 spaghettio's 1.20 total, stockpile total 18
6 campbells character soups, 3.60 total
1 campbells soup at hand, free
1 box of dixie bathroom cups (forgot to put in picture) 1.80


My two trips to Meijer totaled around $35, so I did it! I met my budget!!

I was so excited and Friday starts the new week and I'll probably go get more pop-tarts, and vitamins then.

Beverly Hills CVS

Yay, I finally got another one to work! Here's the Beverly Hills CVS. We were just driving through and I saw it and took a quick pic!!

Here's one

I got one to work today! This is Noah and Abby with Minnie at California Adventure

Trying

Ok, I have tried three times on three different days now to post more pictures, and I just can't get it to work. So until I can get it to work, I just wanted to share something that I thought was so awesome from church yesterday. Before we take Communion someone gets up and says a little something, usually something about Jesus or something like that. Well yesterday the person got up and started and was talking about how to make Jesus and God more personal to us. About how he knows our names and knew us before we were formed in the womb, etc..but the part that really got me was when he suggested we make Bible verses more personal by putting our names in them. For instance in the verse, For God so loved the World, that he gave his only son, you replace World with your name. Just saying that out loud hit me so hard and I really felt how personal it was. So today you should say that with your name, your spouses name, your childrens name and see how much it impacts you.

For God so loved Jamie, that he gave his only son

For God so loved Sonya, that he gave his only son

For God so loved Crystal, that he gave his only son

For God so loved Carrie, that he gave his only son

For God so loved Lura, that he gave his only son

For God so loved Charity, that he gave his only son

For God so loved Amanda, that he gave his only son

Our Trip

Well here's a quick synopsis of the trip! OUr first day we arrived in LA about 10:30am and we went to Hollywood where we ate ice cream at Disney's Soda Shop on Hollywood Blvd., we then wanted to drive up to Griffith Park to get a good look at the Hollywood sign, but the park was jammed packed and we would've had to walk at least a mile up hill, so we decided to wait to do that. So we went down to Anaheim, about an hour and a half away, with traffic, checked into our hotel which was literally across the street from the gate to Disneyland. We then walked over to Downtown Disney for dinner and preview shopping (checking out what they have and what we might want to buy). The next day we got up at our usual time unfortunately that's only 6:30ish in California!! Well the parks didn't open until 9 and since it was Sunday and I brought my CVS stuff we went out and went to CVS, which was one of my best experiences in a CVS!! Sonya, they even had that scanner thingy that prints out coupons, it didn't give me any I wanted but I loved it anyway!!!! After that we had breakfast at McDonald's and then went back to the hotel. It was raining all morning, but we had brought ponchos and coats, so we were good. We were at Disneyland when it opened and the crowds were very light. We went first to Fanytasyland and rode everything that was open in under 30 minutes, plus there was someone from the Disney Dream Team handing out Dream Fastpasses there so we got those which meant for that day we had a fastpass for everyride that had the fastpass option. It was the best day ever. We ended up staying all day to wait for the fireworks (the rain ended about 1ish, but the wind was still pretty bad), but they didn't do them because of the wind. We got to do so much though including all the 3 mountains (space, splash and big thunder), plus Disneyland's fourth mountain the Matterhorn, almost all of Fantasyland, pretty much all of tomorrowland (Star Tours, Buzz ride, Autopia cars, Astro Orbiter, but not the new Nemo ride, we saved that for later,), we rode the big riverboat, pirates of the caribbean, etc...and we even hopped over to California Adventure and rode all the big rides there and went to Bugs Land. THe crowd level was so low, probably from a combination of weather and the Super Bowl, but it was awesome. I was so completely exhausted as we sat on a bench waiting to see if the fireworks were going to happen (they were only doing them twice while we were there, so we wanted to make sure they weren't going to do them that night), but I just sat there and realized that this was probably one of our best days at Disney ever, I didn't want it to end!!!

The next day we went to LegoLand which is closer down to San Diego. That park was fun but a little outdated. The crowds were very light there as well. The weather was great, it was about 60-65 and sunny, in fact the weather only got warmer as the week went on, with our last day being close to 85!! The kids loved the park, but if they were a few years older, I think they would've found it a bit boring. The rides were very kiddieish. There were a few that I enjoyed, but not worth the price of admission!! We only paid for one adult and one child, with coupons, so that was good, and I am really glad that we went because of how much Noah is into Legos, but it's not a favorite. I like Kings Island better!!! I thought the neatest part was Mini Land where they had lots of our big cities made out of Lego, that was cool.

The next four days we spent at either Disneyland or Disney's California Adventure. California Adventure is not currently as disnified as other parks, but they are beginning right now a big 3 or 4 year plan to make it much more disnified. They are putting in new stuff, changing some of the old stuff and doing lots of retheming. That was my biggest complaint of that park. It was kind of strange how little Disney was there, but hopefully with the changes it wil be much better!! With so many days at the parks, we got to do everything we wanted at least twice and some things 4 or 5 times. It was so nice. On Thursday we left the park in the middle of the day to drive out to Newport Beach. We hadn't been to that beach before, but I really, really loved it. THe water was absolutely freezing, but we rolled up our pants and jumped in it anyway!! We chased seagulls and found sea shells, that was just such a nice beach.

So on Saturday our last day, we didn't have tickts left to visit the park, so we went back up to Hollywood and got to see the sign this time, then we drove through Beverly HIlls where I saw the Beveryly Hills CVS, picture to come soon!! We had all day to waste because our plane didn't leave until 10 at night. So went back down and hung out at Downtown Disney for awhile, then went to have dinner and finally to the airport. Abby and I were on a different flight and we left at 10, STeve and Noah left at midnight. We ended up all getting to Lexington around 10:45 and we drove up to get our pup at Sonya's house, the best dog sitter ever!!! So that was pretty much the trip. It was really nice. It was a shock to the system to get on a plane in LA where it was in the 80's and stop in Detroit where it was single digits!!

I'll post more pics soon!

The Sun Wheel

This is the Sun Wheel at Disney's California Adventure, the other park at Disneyland. We rode this last time we were there and we chose the swinging gondolas which swing on a track every time the wheel moves. We were all scared to death, except Abby!! We had our eyes closed and were clinging to the sides of the car. This time we chose a stationary gondola and we did much better!! I was still a little scared, but not nearly as bad as before. I think it's such a beautiful attraction and the views from the top are just awesome. You can see the mountains out in the distance and all the different Disney attractions. It's a great ride!

How cool is that!!

This is Noah and Abby up at Griffith Park Observatory viewing the Hollywood sign. The best pictures were from the back of them, because the sun was in their face and they would only give me closed eyes or squinty eye shots, so the back ones are the best! We took Noah up there to see the sign on his first trip to California when he was two and then we skipped it on our last trip but wanted to get Abby up there to see it this time. I think it's so cool!!

Thanks Sonya

Thanks to Sonya for helping me get tonight's deals when we just got home from our trip. She clued me into the deals at Kroger that would probably expire today so I could get them tonight. I did really well thanks to her suggestions. I not only stocked up on some great deals, but got some stuff for our weekly grocery needs as well. Here's what I got, sorry no pic tonight!

1 bottle of Kroger 100% apple juice
1 2 liter of pepsi
2 boxes of fruit gushers fruit snacks
2 boxes of lego fruit snacks
2 boxes of girly fruit snacks (dora and princess)
1 6 pack of dora yoplait yogurt
1 pack of go gurt
25 boxes of pizza rolls
2 1 pound packages of tyson boneless skinless chicken breasts
2 whisker lickens cat treats (what, they were free!!)
3 tubes of grands biscuits
3 packages of pop tarts
1 manwich sauce
1 kraft chicken noodle box m eal
1 thai kitchen noodle kit
1 chef boyardee pasta
2 daisy sour creams
2 pillsbury cake mixes
3 betty crocker cake frostings
2 cans of green beans
1 can skyline chilli
6 propel waters
2 bananas
2 apples
1 barilla pasta sauce
1 barilla pasta
2 packages of hamburger buns
2 boxes of swiss miss hot chocolate
1 gallon milk
1 franks worcstechire sauce


I got $6 off from Kroger in store deals
I used a total of 50.10 in coupons and spent only $45. I was so thrilled!! Now all that added with things like frozen orange juice, canned and frozen veggies, fruit cups, cereal, oatmeal, pasta, rice, potato dishes, lean hamburger, lots of shredded cheese, tomato sauces, etc..that I have previously stocked up on and we'll have a nice week of food and then some! I just wanted to thank Sonya for her help!! Thank you!!

Tomorrow I'll post some pics from our trip!

Outta here!

Well today will most likely be the last post before our trip. We are leaving Friday afternoon to drive down to Lexington where we will be staying the night. They have an indoor pool there, so we're going early to do some swimming and then dinner. We then leave at 6am Saturday for Disneyland!! Our first day we're going to visit Hollywood, the Disney Soda Shop and maybe a beach. Then Sunday we're spending our first day at Disneyland. It's Super Bowl Sunday so we're hoping the crowds might be a bit lighter that day, plus it may rain some. We're ready for the rain with our ponchos all set to go!!! I actually like it when it rains, because the crowds do thin out a bit. Monday we're going to Legoland and then the rest of the week it's Disneyland. Saturday we'll probably do some sightseeing before heading to the airport. We don't leave until 11 at night, so we still have the whole day. We're flying overnight, actually on two different planes. I'm flying with Abby and Steve is flying with Noah. With the airline points and things, we couldn't get on the same flights. But we arrive within 30 minutes of each other on Sunday morning!! I've actually had to fly with both kids alone before, so I'm not worried about that at all. I'm just hopeful that we'll be able to get a little bit of sleep!!

Today we're going to take the kids out to lunch and then surprise them with a Nintendo DS for each of them to take on the long plane rides. We got Abby pink, and Noah black. We got them a few games to go with them too. I think they are going to be so surprised. They both have been talking about them lately. Even Abby, which surprises me, started asking for one in the last few weeks. We were going to give them to them at Christmas, but decided to keep it until now. I'm excited to see how they react.

We're also going to visit our friends this evening, that just had their fourth baby. They had their third boy last Thursday and his name is Samuel Christian. We're so excited to meet him. He apparently looks just like his two older brothers, blonde hair and blue eyes! He weighed over 9 pounds at birth! I can't wait to see him!

Well our schoolwork at least for Noah has been light this week. He finished his Lifepac in Math and Language Arts either last Friday or this Monday and just has Bible and KONOS to do. Abby still has a full workload though! Today we're going to make a watercolor picture of the solar system and watch a Magic School Bus episode. We're also talking about November, we're almost finished with the months, and adding mini footballs to the tree of all seasons. Abby has learned adding up to 8+1 and subtraction up to 9-2. She's doing really well with the Math and seems to get it right away. She's on lesson 53 of her 100 lessons to reading book. Every lesson has a "story" to read at the end and the stories keep getting longer and longer. Today's was probably 10 sentences. I was very proud of her. She only needed to sound out about 1/3 of the words and just knew the rest. Noah is is doing subtraction with borrowing, linear measuring, word problems, etc.. and I think Math is his favorite. He's doing really well in it. We only have about 12 weeks worth of lessons to finish after the trip, so hopefully done sometime in early May. Well I think that's about it for now. I hope everyone has a great week and I'll post when we get home!

Roller Skating

Here's some pictures from our skating adventure before Christmas. Noah did not like it at all. He gave it a try though and clung to the rail at first. I eventually got him to go around the rink a few times with me, but he did not enjoy it. Not his cup of tea!! Abby loved it though. My mom was there because it was her works Christmas party and my mom is and always has been a very good skater and Abby loved skating with her. My mom let Abby chase her and Abby just laughed and laughed. She really loved it. I got to skate with both kids and I was pretty happy. I didn't fall although the kids tried to trip me up a couple of times! Even Daddy got to skate and he had fun too!! The kids got to see Santa there and he gave them each $15 gift certificates to Wal-Mart which I thought was very generous. Her work paid to give each kid that came and they had two different parties, those gift certificates. I thought that was so nice. We all had a good time! Sorry the pictures are a bit dark, it was really dark in there and I had to take the pictures from the side, Daddy didn't want me to carry it out on the rink in case I fell!!!

CVS

Here's yesterdays CVS trip.

I did the Huggies deal, I got:
2 wipes used two .75 coupons
1 washcloth used 1.25 coupon
3 bodywash or lotions used three 1.25 coupons
1 pack of diapers used 1.50 coupon

The Advil/Robitussin deal:
2 50ct Advil used two .75 cent coupons and one 1.00 CVS coupon from receipt
2 big bottles of Robitussin used two 3.00 printable coupons

I got 2 Stayfree packs (only one generates ECB, but needed to get two to use the coupon I had) used $2/2 coupon
1 Tylenol used 1.00 coupon, plus this added with the Advil allowed me to use 2.50/10 pain relief CVS receipt coupon
1 Arm and Hammer toothpaste used .75 coupon
1 Colgate Kids toothpaste

2 Garnier cleansing cloths used $3/2 coupon
2 Garnier cleansing gels used $3/2 coupon

1 Fusion phenom razor used 2.00 coupon

My total was around $95, I used 10/50, 5/30 and 2/10, plus I had another 10//50 that was a receipt coupon and they let me use as well ( I got another one back!!)
I used a total of 39 ECB's, but got back 42.29 in ECB's ( 5 from Huggies deal, 10 from Advil deal, 3.29 from Stayfree, 2 from Tylenol, 1 from Arm and Hammer, 1 from Colgate, 14 from the Garnier and 6 from the razor) and I paid oop only .42

At Meijer I got NutriGrain bars for .67 cents after sale price and coupon, Daisy sour cream for free after sale and coupon, and Red Baron pizzas are on sale for 2.13 and I used 1.00/2 to get them for 1.63 each. That's pretty much all of the really good deals I got there.

Kroger has nothing really good except they are still doing the Kraft deal I think and we just got new coupons for it yesterday. So if you buy 10 packages of Kraft shredded cheese and use 5 of the .55/2, you'll also get the $6 off your order and that'll make it .90 per package of cheese. That's a great price for cheese. I stopped and got those yesterday too.

I'm going back to do another CVS deal this week since I got another 10/50 receipt coupon that can be combined with the regular 10/50 and others. I'm dying inside knowing I'm going to miss the whole week next week of deals!! Maybe my dear friend BOGO will get the papers for me if I give her the money, please, please!!!! I may take my CVS stuff to California with me since they have them there!!! I already saw the ad for next week and there's a couple of money makers!! I know I'm crazy, but how can I resist!?!?!?!?!!!!!

My weeks deals

Here's my Meijer shopping trip this week. I ended up spending a total of 17.64 for 148.67 worth of groceries. The picture only shows 8 of the 18 canisters of Quaker Oatmeal I ended up with and it also shows only 8 of the 12 Captain Crunch cereals I got.

So in all I got

18 Quaker Oatmeals
12 CaptainCrunch Cereals
4 Life Cereals
6 Boxes of Orville Redenbacher Popcorn
3 2-liters of Diet Pepsi
2 Boxes of Tyson Anytizers
7 French's Mustards (3 regular and 4 spicy brown)
2 Aunt Jemima pancake mixes
2 Aunt Jemima syrups
1 Breakstone Sour Cream
6 cans of Chef Boyardee
1 16ct Kraft Select Cheese
1 Glade Wisp Refill
2 Quaker Oatmeal Simple Harvests


And I still have four quaker oatmeal coupons so I may go today and get 4 more of those free and maybe even some more captain crunch.

At Kroger I did the Kraft deal where you buy 9 items and get $6 off your order. I did it twice in the same transaction and got 2 Kraft salad dressings, 2 bags of Lays chips and 14 packages of shredded or block Kraft cheese. After coupons and the total of $12 off, I got the cheese for around .75 a piece. That's a great deal if you have tons of coupons for the cheese or salad dressing. Also Hot Pockets are .67 after sale and coupon. Check the Old El Paso taco section, a lot of the products are on sale for 10/10 and then on some of the boxes is a coupon for .55 off two products, so you'll get two for a dollar. I actually got a package of shells and then the seasoning packet (which was only .93) for a total of .93. I did that three times. That's pretty much it.

Noah's 1st Basketball Game

Here's some pictures from Noah's first basketball game of this year. He's playing Upward at our church again. I really think that it's an awesome program and one that any of you should try out. It's all about the good things sports should be and also about Christ. They do halftime devotionals and even award kids starts for most Christlikeness (every kid gets an iron on star for their shirt every week, they have best defense, best offense, best sportsmanship, best effort, christlikeness, etc.). It's just such a positive and rewarding experience. They really take the time and effort to make sure that each kid feels special and a big part of the team, no matter how much talent they possess in the sport. I love it!




This is the first shot he made for the year!! I though I got a pretty good pic!!




Check out that defense!!





Dribbling and Passing




Going for the steal!




The halftime devotional




Running out of the tunnel when they announce the names




Running down the court.

Abby's Build a Bear Trip

Here's Abby's turn at Build a Bear. She got a gift certificate from Grammy for Christmas and we had a couple of coupons, so she was able to get the dog, a shirt, a pair of panties, a pair of socks, a pair of shoes, a brush, a bed and a carrying bag for the dog. I think the total was about 70 or 75 dollars and was all covered with coupons and gift certificates. She absolutely loves stuffed animals. She takes one with her everywhere she goes and it always changes which is her favorite for the day. She just loves them. She always gives them obvious names too, this dog's name is Hearts!




Ready to go home with Hearts!!




Giving Hearts a bath




Filling out Hearts Birth Certificate




Choosing Hearts




Stuffing Hearts

On Noah's Birthday

This was Noah's surprise on his actual Birthday. We took him to Build a Bear. Abby had gotten a gift certificate to there for Christmas and when we took her, he saw this turtle that he loved and wanted to make, so we decided to surprise him with that for his Birthday. He was very excited and had a good time. I'll post the pics of Abby's trip soon. I also still have posts of the rest of Christmas Day, our Skating Rink fun, a few New Years pictures and Noah's first basketball game. I also have a pic of this weeks deal at Meijer. It's a pretty good one! I'll try to get those all caught up in the next few days. No promises though!! Well have a good week!





Dressing Mr. T in a planet shirt




Rubbing Mr. T's heart to his head so he'll be smart!!




Cleaning Mr. T




Choosing Mr. T




Stuffing Mr. T