My Coupon Adventure

Okay, so I started the whole coupon thing this week with very high expectations. A friend has shown me the ins and outs of CVS and coupons. She showed me an example of her savings, she had a total purchase price of 30+ dollars and her actual out of pocket expense was 1 dollar and change. Now I'm thinking, I can do that!

I don't think I'm a crazy spender. On the contrary, I think I'm more of a tight spender, so coupon cutting should be right up my ally. I love the whole organizing and filing thing and I love, love, love saving money, it makes me feel so good about my purchases (kinda like my own little "high")! Their are two things that detract from the positive image I have of coupon cutting; one, how time consuming it can be and two, having my kids with me when I go to the store. If I can control my time obsessing about the coupons and the websites and try to go to the store when Brett's home this will work!

I began yesterday by going through all the coupons I already have. I cut, separated and filed all of them. I'm still trying to find a system that works for me, I'm not quite their yet. I guess it will be trial and error. Their are a few web sites that were recommended; they are, coupons.com, moneysavingmom.com and iheartcvs.com. After visiting those sites I printed, cut and organized the coupons I was going to use today at CVS. I have to admit that being on the computer and putting together a money saving plan was great, I loved that part.

This morning I woke up ready for the task at hand, saving money! Coupons and children in hand I headed to CVS. We arrived, and as I was unloading the kids I realized I did not grab my wallet, NICE!! So, back in the car we all went and I drove back home to get my forgotten wallet. I am pretty sure I did not look like the pro I wanted to look like. I had coupons falling out of the envelope I had put them in, Brayden and Mikayla fighting over who was going to drive the car portion of the cart we choose (you know the carts that have the car attached to the front, love them)! Oh, and did I mention Brayden was barefoot. Yes, in all my excitement I ran out the door without putting shoes on him. I did manage to make it through the shopping experience without too many bruises. Even with the little frustrations I felt it was a positive experience. I will continue my coupon adventures, hopefully with even greater savings then I had today!

So here it is my big savings, I spent 33 dollars and saved 22 dollars. Not bad for my first time. Now that I have some CVS "bucks" it can only get better, go me!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's day to everyone!

We were visited by leprechauns this year! The morning started out normal, well as normal as possible I should say. Mikayla had preschool to get ready for and was quite excited because the class was going to go on a leprechaun hunt. After we were dressed in our green, I headed down stairs to start on breakfast. The girls and Brayden stayed up stairs to finish getting ready and clean up. When breakfast was ready they came down stairs and started telling me about something trivial that had happen while they were up stairs. When we turned our attention to the breakfast that had been prepared, the food was green!!

We were all shocked, Haley was full of questions and finally just decided that the leprechauns, being as quick as they are, had made it past us while we were talking, and zapped our food green. She opened the refrigerator to get the milk out and discovered 2 cups of green milk waiting for her. She was so excited, she could not stop talking about it. All day that was her conversation of choice.

Mikayla got scared and just wanted to leave. It took her a while to warm up to the idea, but she eventually did and ate the green food and drank the green milk! She liked the milk the best because it had leprechaun "poop" at the bottom, this is her story and she is stickin to it!!

Throughout the day Mikayla was leery of our home and would not go into a room by herself. She did not want to run into any leprechauns! She did get to go on her leprechaun hunt at school. They didn't find any leprechauns; however, upon their return to the classroom they discovered a mess, paper shamrocks covered the floor and chairs were on top of tables!

We know that leprechauns only come out and wander around on St. Patrick's day, so the next day Mikayla was good, except for the jokes I played on her!!

Brayden will eat anything and was just happy to be eating breakfast!

The Henderson St. Patrick's Day Festival

We went to Henderson's annual St. Patrick's day festival for a fun family day. If it weren't for the length of the lines it would have been a perfect day. Even with all the waiting it was fun. The girls and I went on the scrambler and laughed so much my side hurt.









Here is what daddy and Brayden did while the girls and I had fun riding crazy rides and laughing our sides off! They had some father/son bonding time, sharing the kettle corn. Brayden loves his dad very much and is so excited when he is home. He loves riding in "daddy's truck" and laying on the couch with daddy. So, it was no surprise to me that he just sat in his stroller without even squirming once and listened to daddy's every word! He can't get out of the stroller fast enough when he is with me, he won't even sit still for a second!!


Haley and Mikayla went on the bumpy slide. Haley gave herself a big shove and enjoyed the ride. Mikayla on the other hand had to really concentrate on this one! It was like, after watching all the other riders the entire time we were in line, she still was not sure what was going to happen to her at the next bump!

We even let the kids pick one "carnival game" to play. They chose the duck game, each of them had to pick a duck out of the pond to see what prize they would win! They all won the same thing, obviously every duck was a winner, good thing for our family!!

And of course a festival is not a festival without good food and good music to listen and dance to! Boy did we find the good food, we had kettle corn, chocolate covered strawberries and bananas, and really good strawberry lemonade! Their was a band that played danceable (is that even a word!?!) music, just ask Brayden, he just about danced his pants off!!


This was a fun and tiring day. We love our little city of Henderson and all the fun events it puts on. We can't wait for the Art Fair now, Haley and Mikayla will be dancing at that one, on the main stage, yea!!!