Mama's Little Loves

I took Ambry and Piper to go and get their pics taken last week at Sears and this is what Piper wore. The poor thing just wanted to go outside and play.

I can't wait to get their pics back. The ones of Piper turned out sooo cute! But don't tell Ambry that...she said her feelings were hurt when I said Piper did such a good job. :) Poor thing. Of course, I then told her she did a good job too.

Labels: Piper pics

Good grief, it has been a while since I updated my blog! Oh well. In my defense I started watching Toby and Natallie again and it has been a little difficult waking up so early. :) Okay, so maybe 7:00 isn't all that early to most, but when you are used to sleeping in, it definitely is!

By total accident I made these "cookies" this week. Sorry about the blurriness of the pic, but if you want a yummy treat, try making these. No lie, they taste just like E.L. Fudge cookies.
All you need is 1 bag of chocolate chips, 3 tablespoons of butter, and nilla wafers. Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave and then spread it onto the wafers making a little sandwich. They will end up looking like mini hamburgers. Seriously, these things are so yummy!

Labels: recipes

On Saturday, Caleb and I took the girls up to the Gardens to check out the butterflies. It was unbelievable how many butterflies were out that day. So here are a bunch of pics from our day there in absolutely no particular order.

Ignore Caleb's funny look on his face. :) He was talking to Ambry and then looked over kind of quick when I snapped the pic.


This pic was the unbelievable. Check out how big this is! It was about the size of my hand, if not a little bit bigger. They hatch them in this big "box" and this one was resting against the side of the glass. I took this looking at it's belly. Pretty cool, huh?

So if you live around this area, this is definitely something to take the kids to and check out. :)

Labels: The Gardens

Here is what I got:

1. 1 Dove shampoo and 1 Dove conditioner
2. 2 Dove bodywashes
3. 1 Dove deoderant
4. 2 Air Wick oil refills
5. 2 Air Wick nite lights
6. 1 Maybelline lip gloss
7. 2 small 8pk Milky Ways
8. 2 bags jelly beans
9. 2 6ct large plastic eggs (we use these to make chalk)
10. 5 Lady Speed Stick 24/7
11. 2 Listerine Smart Rinse
12. 3 Johnson Buddies
13. 1 Neosporin
14. 1 25 ct Dora bandaids
15. 1 Glade wickless candle
16. 1 Bic Soleil razor
17. 4 Glade sprays
    
18. 1 Venus razor
19. 2 Nivea men's shave gel

I did this all in 6 different transactions. I won't bore you with all the details and huge list of coupons I had. But after all was said and done, I got over $110.00 worth of stuff--I just added up everything off of their sale prices--spent $9.23 in cash, used $23.97 in ECB's and got back $46.97 in ECB's! Woohoo! If they would have let me use the 3/15 beauty coupon and 5/15 regular coupon this could have been even better. Oh well. Still a sweet deal. I even got charged for an Air Wick when I wasn't supposed to be, so if when I make the trip back over there later this week I can get a whole whopping $1.79 back. But, hey, every bit helps, right?

Good deal hunting this week! If you have any questions on the transactions, let me know and I can let you know what coupons I used and how I separated the transactions to get the most for my money. :)

Check out Money Saving Mom for more incredible savings!

Labels: cvs

Although one day late, I really wanted to put up pics from your birthday dinner. This place that we have gone to for the last couple of years is so much fun. It is a Japanese place and they cook everything on a big flat grill in front of you. Below is a picture of a flaming onion. They do all kinds of tricks with knives and flip your food all over the place.
At the end of dinner, they make hats out of the napkins for the kids to wear. Ambry, of course, was all about this. :)
Okay, the next couple of pics I couldn't resist. I just love Piper's big smile! She is such a ham.







And of course, a big family pic. We were missing Jen(Gerrit's fiance) and Jordan(Kaylynn's boyfriend) but it is kind of a tradition to do a family pic by the bridge in the restaurant every year.
I hope you had an awesome birthday mom! May God bless you with many more '20th' birthdays. Love you lots!!!

Labels: birthdays

All right, as promised, here are some pics of our mini vacation. We went to an indoor water park for two days. We spent one night up there and the girls loved it! Here is Piper standing behind the "rock wall" that separated our bed from the girls' bunk beds. She was looking for Ambry in this pic. :)
We did a free craft at craft time and all of the kids got to make a crown. Check out all of the cool decorations! We have a compass, some pink poodles, feathers, and "jewels". That right there is one special crown!
Can't go on vacation without trying to get a family pic. If only Ambry had been paying better attention. :) At least Piper looks adorable though.
Here is a pic of the girls playing in the little play house they had by the check in desk. They loved playing in this thing while I got us checked into our room. I know what I will be keeping my eyeballs peeled for at garage sales this summer! :)
Thank you so much Isaac and Esther for letting us invite ourselves along on your vacation! And for letting us share you room when we had to check out of ours! And for letting us use your utensils! The list could go on and on. :) Thank you, thank you!

Labels: vacation

Oh me, oh my...I LOVE CVS and Walgreens! I hit up both stores this afternoon with the girls and left feeling oh so very happy.
Here is what I got at CVS:


I split up the order into two transactions. Transaction #1:

1. 3 Lypsyl products
2. 2 St. Ives lotions
3. 1 Garnier Fructis conditioner
4. 1 Colgate toothpaste

I used two .50 peelies from the St. Ives lotion bottles, .75 Colgate coupon, 1.00 Garnier coupon, $5.00/$15.00 CVS coupon, and 17.00 in ECB's. I paid .99 in cash and received back 18.96 in ECB's. Yeah!
Transaction #2:

1. 1 Garnier Fructis hair gel
2. 1 Venus razor
3. 2 Gillette skin care shaving gel
4. 1 Lypsyl

I used 2 1.00 Gillette shaving gel coupons (the product itself was on sale for .99 so these were free after coupons), 4.00 Venus razor coupon, 1.00 Garnier hair gel, 5 off 15 CVS coupon, and 4.99 in ECB's. I paid 1.45 in cash and received back 10.99 in ECB's!!! A very good deal.

So to conclude the CVS trip, I paid 2.44 in cash, used 21.99 ECB's, but got back 29.95 in ECB's! And got $43.48 worth of product! Excellent shopping excursion today. :)

Here is what I got at Walgreens:

1. 2 Oust odor sprays
2. 2 bags of cherries (the girls were hungry and I wanted them to have something healthy)
   
3. 4 Oral B toothbrushes
4. 2 jane coverup sticks
5. 2 jane mascaras
6. 2 Windex
7. 2 Sally Hansen nail polishes
8. 3 packs of gum ( I somehow lost 1 pack between the store and my car.)
9. 4 Russell Stover chocolate eggs
10. 1 Sunsilk hair gel
11. 2 Sunsilk conditioners
12. 2 Sunsilk shampoos
13. 1 Sunsilk hair spray

I used 2 B1G1 Oral B toothbrush, 2 1.00 Sally Hansen, 2 2.00 Oust, 3 2.00 Jane, 1 B1G1 Windex, 2 B1G1 Trident along with 2 B1G1 Trident Walgreens, 2 B1G1 Russell Stover along with buy 3 for 1.00 Walgreens, 2 Sunsilk 2.50, 3 2.00 Sunsilk, 1.00 Sunsilk coupons...I think that is all. :) I paid $8.38 in cash! I will still get 4.00 back after MIR too. It was so cool looking at the end result of savings too. Before sales and coupons? Total was 81.30! Yeah!!!

So there are my deals that I have gotten so far. Caleb was even happy with this one. He really wanted some of that Lypsyl. So my deals even made him happy this week. :) Happy deal hunting to everyone this week!

I have a bunch of pics to put up of the girls last week from a little vacation that we took. Hopefully I will be able to put them up tomorrow. :)

Labels: cvs, deals, walgreens

I did 3 separate transactions for this.

Transaction #1:

1. 4 Colgate Total
2. 3 bags of Hershey kisses
3. 1 snickers bar

used 2 $.75 off and 2 $.50 off cpns for Colgate. Used $5/$15 CVS coupon. Used $7.00 ECB's. Paid $1.22 in cash. Then received $11.96 back in ECB's.

Transaction #2:

1. 1 Mach 3 razor 3 ct.
2. 1 Oral B tooth brush
3. 1 bottle of 100 ct CVS vitamin c
4. 2 Dove chocolate bars with almonds yumm... Please ignore the half eaten one. :)
5. 1 Johnson's buddy soap

Used $.99 off Johnsons buddy soap cpn, B1G1 Dove cpn, $3.00 off Mach 3, and $5/$15 CVS coupon. Also used $2.09 off of a money card. Paid $5.42 in cash. I forgot to use ECb's before the money card. They won't let you use the ECB's after using a money card for some reason. So this order should have been less. Oh well. Then I got back $11.99 in ECB's. I also got the vitamin C for free since they didn't have the March vitamin C bottles in the store yet.

Transaction #3"

1. 2 Dawn Botanical dish soap
2. 1 Venus razor
3. 2 Febreeze candles
4. 1 Oral B toothbrush
5. 1 Johnson's buddy soap

Used $.99 cpm for Johnson's buddy soap, $2.00 Oral B cpn, 2 $3.00 off 1 Febreeze, $4/$20 CVS cpn, $5/$15 CVS cpn, $1.00 off 2 Dawn dish soap cpn, $4.00 off Venus razor cpn. Used $7.00 in ECB's and paid $2.85 in cash. Received back $14.99 in ECB's

After all of that I spent $9.49 in cash and $14.00 in ECB's. I got back $38.94 in ECB's. My total amount of product? A little over $70.00 worth of stuff! Yeah! All in all, I would say a productive trip to CVS.

Hopefully I will hit up Rite Aid, Walgreens, and Meijer tomorrow. I will let you know what deals I get there. :) Happy deal hunting!

Labels: cvs