Superdad and Luke's Check Up

Well, first of all, I have to say that Stephen has been such an amazing dad and husband, especially this past week. I had plans Thursday night, a hair appt on Saturday, went shopping on Sunday, and went to Sipsnstrokes on Tuesday night and he watched the boys without complaining at all. (not that he would complain to watch his own children, but that's a lot to ask of him, with him working all day and being busy on the weekends as well.) On Sunday when I came home, he had cleaned up the house a good bit. That was super sweet, b/c as anyone with any kids, especially small ones, knows, it's super hard to keep the house clean for more than a min. On Tuesday, when I came home from sipsnstrokes, he had cleaned up all of the dishes, put them away, cleaned up all the toys, the kitchen, the den, did a couple loads of laundry, and even folded them! And did I mention he had chocolate chip cookies waiting for me? =) (He brought them home from work that day, but hey, they're still chocolate chip cookies!) So I wanted to give a big thank you to him for being a super dad!

Luke is officially 4 months old (this picture is a couple weeks old). We went to the Drs for his 4 mo check up and Elijah's 2 yr check up. Elijah is 50% in height and weight - completely avg! Luke is 50% in weight and head, and 25% in height. It's funny b/c Elijah was always 50% in weight, but he was always tall for his age, so Luke's a little chubbier looking b/c he's shorter - which is so cute. Everything looked great with both of the boys except the dr was a little concerned w/ Luke's head shape, so we had to go to Children's to get a skull scan. After a long morning, it turned out his skull is forming together just as it should. yeah! If you haven't seen him recently, his head kind of bulges out a little bit in the back - it's not hugely noticable, but it concerned the dr. Luke favors looking to his right and it appears that has caused his head to form a little funny. His brain is all good, but his head's shape is not quite round. Elijah's head was funny shaped for a while but his turned out round once he was able to sit up, so we hadn't been concerned. But the dr wants us to make sure his head is looking up completely straight when he's on his back for the next 2 months and hopes that will solve the problem. If not, we'll have to go to a specialist to get a special helmet for him to wear to kind of pressurize his head to fix his problem. So he's not enjoying not turning his head, but he's going to have to learn to adapt b/c we don't want to go down the helmet road, as cute as that would be. So alls well for now and hopefully we're on the path to getting his head fixed up. But he's as sweet and bubbly as a baby could be - talking a ton, rolling, smiling, sleeping great! We're really thankful for 2 great boys.

Saving Money

Okay, so since I’ve been a stay at home mom, particularly with two kids, we’ve had to watch our budget & try to save as much as possible. The Lord has provided a lot of help to us, like me teaching aerobics again and different ways we’ve been able to save money. Well, my friend Holly introduced me to www.proverbswife.blogspot.com and www.southernsavers.com and we have saved SO much money pairing up coupons with buy one get one free deals and what not - everything purchased at publix. It gets me so excited - I grew up shopping all the time for clothes and bragging to my parents how much I “saved” them, so I guess I’ve had to change from clothing shopping to grocery shopping to satisfy my craving for a good deal. But this week, I just had to share what we’ve bought…

4 pkgs of Pillsbury Simply Cookies (all natural), 3 lb bag of gala apples, 1 International Delight Creamer, 2 pkgs of Green Giant Steamers frozen veggies, 2 pkgs of Green Giant boxed frozen veggies, 1 Multi Grain Cheezitz, 1 white posterboard… 31 cents total!!!
4 pkgs of Green Giant boxed veggies, 2 pkgs of Solo heavy duty paper plates (48ct), 1 box whole wheat Mueller’s pasta, publix all natural peanut butter… 86 cents total!!!
Arnolds Honey Wheat Bread, 2 pkgs of Country Crock butter, 1 pkg of reduced fat cheezitz, 3 lb bag of gala apples, publix all natural peanut butter, publix milk….8.12 total
And we’re going back this afternoon for purchases that will probably resemble the first two listed.

All of those purchases were made w/ coupons I printed online from these websites. I try to do all of my shopping on Sun & Mon to get the publix penny item (which was peanut butter this week). We try to break up our grocery bill into 10 dollar increments (to get the penny item) and go as many times as necessary on Sun & Mon to stock up on the penny item. This week we kind of slacked on that, so we only got 2 penny items, but normally we get like 4 or so, which can be great when it’s toilet paper or tortilla chips or something really useful. This week, we made out big time w/ the $4 off 4 general mills products coupon, found in the publix circular in their store - we were paid to buy the cookies and green giant veggies, since we paired them up w/ that $4 off coupon and individual coupons.

For example, we bought 4 pkgs of Green Giant frozen veggies 3 for $5 - we used 50cents off coupons on each, which publix doubles, so we got $1 off each box. Then I had one 50cents off 2 boxes (they sometimes allow you to use more than one, which worked today), so that’s another $1 off. Then we used the $4 off GM coupon. So just for the veggies alone, we got paid nearly $2.34!
I would highly recommend checking out these websites and trying it out for yourselves. I get so excited when I get a good deal!!! Hope you do to!
FYI- These deals end after today, so if you want to get them, make sure you check out the weekly ads for whatever date through Nov 3 b/c they probably have this next weeks’ ads (wed thru tues) posted already. =)