Aleigh Band 2010

End of the year activities fill our calendar. Here is Aleigh's band concert. They played three songs, /Athens fight song, La Cucaracha and Born to be Wild. Aleigh played the flute this year and plans to next year. The 6th grade and won a first place trophy this year at UIL, this is a first at Athens Middle School. Way to Go!

Mom Day

Well no pics for this but I had a great mother's day on sunday, so great I did not even live the house. The girls made me breakfast in bed. They made a menu and I got to pick what I wanted. I picked waffles, I think that was a good idea because eggs and bacon was a choice and I know they dont know how to cook bacon. Then I laid in bed all morning watching Superman (the original) with the girls trying to explain why it was so slow and the things people were wearing in the movie. It was made the year I was born 1978, I did not realize it was so old. Then Alex made me a grill cheese sandwich with chips for lunch. After that I laid in bed watching Julie and Juliet, it was cute but long. Kinda makes me want to learn to cook french food but I have enough irons in the fire right now. My kids tried to convince me that we all needed to go out for supper so that someone else could cook for me on mothers day.......oddly I (mother) would have had to pay so I cooked supper and invited my mother over. Madalyn was in town so she came also. We had a good ole discussion about being mothers and how since Madalyn is going to school she is no longer a fan of spanking kids. Curious to know why .......I love to hear people with no kids tell me how to raise kids or how people should raise their children.......She would make her points which I have heard before and I made mine from experience. My mother even stated she tried the no spanking with me at first. So after about one hour of this we started to fight...........we got mad.......we gripped to others..........we made up. We agree to disagree about spanking I just hope Madalyn lives fairly close to me when she does have children, Haha. Gotta love family.

Alex baseball

This is Alex's last year to play for this baseball league. Team name is the Tigers, colors purple and yellow. There are several kids still on the team from last year but most kids were to old to play again this year. This is the first game and we won. The top picture is Alex batting first. The first ball came his way and he hit it almost out of the field and the other team caught it making out 1. The rest of the game the other team would not even allow Alex to bat they just sent him to first base. I am sure there is a name for that but I dont know it. Anyhow he was mad cause he really wanted to bat more but the other team was scared.....Go Tigers!

Alex basketball

Crazy me thinking that all I would have to do right now is watch baseball. Alex has signed up for a short term basketball team. They have no practices and only games. The games are tues and thurs for three weeks. A little weird if you ask me but I am just a mom what do I know?

Well as you can tell I do not know a thing about gardening. I planted entirely too much in my little raised garden. The tomato plants are on the left and growing like crazy. I have 4 tomato plants and little yellow flowers are starting to bloom (I am told that a tomato will grow there). The cucumbers on the right growing up the white latus are growing like crazy (this pic does not show that growth as good as it is. We will have cucumbers out the wazoo. The lettuce and pepper plants are slowly growing. Pole beans are growing behind the tomato plants. The two blue buckets: one is strawberries, Aleigh counted 7 strawberries growing, the other bucket is squash. This is fun and I check the garden daily. Cant wait til something grows. It will be great this summer to walk out cut lettuce, get cucumber, squash, peppers and tomatoes right out of the garden, Yum!!

Casey

This is Casey he is one of three dogs we have. Dont let that sad look fool you he is spoiled rotten. Casey loves it inside the house. He loves the kids too. Casey will follow the kids around and go wherever they go. He is loyal, smart and a big teddy bear.

Money Pit

This is David my boyfriend working on his project the boat "Money Pit" as we named it last year. He has lots of projects that I give him but this is his own project. He is redoing all the interior and flooring. He has been changing out the gauges and other boat stuff that I do not know about already. He is replacing the seat also. We had a blast with the boat last year, I even went tubing. The kids are already ready to go out on the boat now. Having a boat is fun but a lot of money as we have found out. BOAT bust out another thousand.

CVS and Walgreens

Here are a few tips when shopping:
CVS: you must get a CVS care card (this is free and gives you the discounts)
you need to buy one green bag tag (this is $1 but every time you shop they scan and every fourth time you get $1 CVS money, you can use over and over)
they have a coupon spitter (an area in store you scan your CVS card and it will spit out coupons about 2-3 per day)
Staff is usually very friendly and helpful with couponers
Better to go sunday or monday the deals go fast
Limited to best deals due to card usage

Walgreens: no card needed
staff not helpful and most do not like couponers
can not use Register Rewards on same item you already got RR on
must have more items at checkout then coupons
can make multiple purchases on deals just remember not to use RR on same item

Walgreens 5-2-2010

I did really great at Walgreens today it could have been better but Walgreens is more complicated than CVS and I am still learning. Walgreens gives money back like CVS it is called Register Rewards. I have learned, the hard way, that you can not use a RR for the same product you got it for, example: you buy crest toothpaste for 2.99 and get 2.99 in RR, you can not use the 2.99RR on crest toothpaste. You must also have the same amount of items per coupon. This gets really confusing at times. Walgreens puts out a monthly coupon book (you can find at the front of the store) and coupons in their weekly ad. You can use those with manufacturer coupons to score some awesome deals. The bad thing is that if you are buying one item example razor for 4.99 with walgreens coupon for 2.00 off and manufacturer coupon for 3.00 (which makes it free) you have 1 item and 2 coupons. You have to buy a "filler item" something cheap about .25 to make the register except both your coupons. This is where I messed up this week I had more coupons than items, oh by the way RR count as coupons. I started with 30.00 in RR from last week. I did 2 checkouts, due to previous RR I wanted to get credit for everything. My first transaction was 33.30 worth of stuff and I paid .84. Woo Hoo!!! My second was 95.17 before coupons, after was 21.98 out of pocket. This is great but I still had 11.00 in RR that the register would not take, this would have made my out of pocket even better, like 9.00. Anyhow I am still happy and I have 21.00 RR for next week. I bought a lot of stuff that did not give RR but was real cheap. Here are some of the deals, pert plus shampoo on sale 1.99, I had 1.50 coupons: made them only .49 (I bought 4). Bic male and female razors on sale 3.99, coupon for 3.00 made them .99 (I bought 6, 3 of each). I know this is a lot but they make great stocking stuffers, presents in gift baskets and I can donate them. Sure deo on sale for 1.50, I had 1.50 coupons made them FREE (I bought 4). With sale and coupons I got mentos gum for .50. Kotex pads for girls 1.00, Nivea body wash .88 and cereal .50 box. All and all very good.

CVS 5-2-2010

I went to CVS today and had the best shopping experience with couponing yet. CVS has extra care bucks (cvs money), these are given when certain items are bought and you can use them later on almost anything in the store. The idea is to spend a little money out of pocket one week buying only things that give you money back and hopefully you have coupons for. Then with the money you get back turn and use the next week only buying stuff you get money back on. Over time you get lots free and little money out of your pocket. So this is what I did today.
I had $18 in CVS money from last week. I also had a $5 off coupon when you spend $30 that cvs emailed me (join their website and advisory panel, they will send these all the time. I bought two bottles of sobe water, cvs has on sale buy one get one free and I had a buy one get free coupon which made both free. I bought bengay, cvs has on sale for 5.99, you get back 2.00 ECB and I had a 2.00 coupon (making it like 1.99). I bought depends 6.99, now i dont no anyone who uses these but I get 6.99 ECB and i had 2.00 coupon ( so I made 2.00) plus I will donate them to a patient (fell good). I bought dawn for 0.97 I had 1.00 coupon, made it FREE. They have always pads on sale for 2.97, I had 2.00, made them .97. This is something I am stocking up on, my girls dont need this yet but they will so why not get them for .97 or free (which I have gotten in the past). Same deal above for tampax .97. Colgate toothpaste 2.99, you get 2.00 ECB, I have .75 coupon so it was .25. We used to only use crest but we are learning to use others esp. when .25 or free. I have a ton of toothpaste I just did this for the ECB. Venus razor 9.99, you get 6.00ECB, I had 2.00 coupon, made it 1.99. I also bought nine warm delights, on sale for 1.00 I had nine .75 coupons, making them .25 each. We all love these and they add to my food stockpile. After all my coupons and 18ECB that I started with I only owed $1.28 and they gave me back $17.00 ECB that I can use next week. This is so great cant wait to see next weeks ad!

Getting coupons ready

The weekends are my favorite for many reasons but mostly that is coupon time!!!! This is my bed where i sit and clip. You can get coupons from many places: newspaper (you want to get several sunday papers, so if you find a good deal you can get it several times to add to your stockpile), the internet ( there is coupons.com, redplum and smartsource...most internet coupons can be printed twice per printer, once one prints hit the back arrow three times and it will print again), there are also many people who blog about couponing.......my favs: hip2save.com, wildforwags, iheartwags, and iheartcvs. You can go to and subscribe to these and many more for free, you will get an email daily with deals, coupons and freebies. I get about 50 emails plus daily a lot have the same deals but everyonce in a while you will find new ones. The large black book is my coupon binder it is gold!!! It is full of baseball card holders that I fit my coupons in nicely. It is divided into various groups like: beauty, medicine, frozen, candy, breakfast, animals and so on. This great book zips up and I always carry scissors, pen, paper and ads in it. It always goes with me shopping just in case I find a good deal or something is clearanced. A few weeks ago I was at walgreens and they had large bottles of Johnson and Johnson baby wash on clearance for 1.12, I had a coupon for 1.00 off so I got it for only .12. SWEET. The smaller pink lined binder is for coupons I know I plan on using. I make a plan before going shopping and have it divided for stores: CVS, walgreens, walmart and so on. Well time for me to start clipping!

Baby Blue

This is Baby Blue. Baby blue was my dad's truck and he always wanted his grandson Alex to have it. Alex however would like something better, who can blame a teenager. So now baby blue will remain as the Smith truck. Note how small it is. Lots of work to be done but it does run.

My best deal yet!

CVS this week. I got two body was, two lip balm (although I already took one out of the pkg), 5 cans tuna, 2therma care, pkg hand sanitizing wipes, toothpaste, shaving cream and 3 paper towels..............are you ready...........I paid $2.96 and got $20.00 back in CVS money to use next week. I cant wait til next week and the one after and the one after and the one after well you get it.

Stockpilng

This is what I do with all my great savings.....stock pile so that I never have to paid full price again. All of these items I have gotten really cheap and even free. As you can see we are stocked on lots. I also have a spot in the kitchen with cleaning supplies. My kids think I am crazy but I know better because well I am the mom! I am working on my food supply now.

Why I am addicted to couponing!

I went to Walgreens to get some sales. Look at what I got for $25.00. I only bought deals and used coupons. 6 boxes of cereal, 2 razors with 6 blades each. 1 package of four razors. I only paid .99 for each pkg of razors. 1 toothpaste, 2 boxes of band aids, first aid kit (that was free for buying the band aids and has $15 worth of coupons in it) 1 box tampons, 4 cans beef broth, 2 body washes, 2 windex and 2 scrub n bubbles. It's deals like this that love couponing. Just wish I had learned this years ago I could be close to rich by now!!

How does your garden grow?

I wanted to try growing my own garden. However this has become a whole family project, well I have made it that way! The pleasure of being the mom!! We started out small with a raised garden since my ground is sand and nothing grows but stickers(not sure if that is how you spell that). We planted onions, cucumbers, pole beans, lettuce, bell peppers, jal. peppers, okra, squash, strawberries and in the small pots, herbs. We will see if anything grows other than that strawberry.

Chance

Chance is my boyfriend's son. He is seven and in first grade. He plays soccer and does some boy scouts. Chance loves animals and video games. He enjoys playing with my kids and just adores Alex. Chance is silly, right!!

Aleigh

Aleigh is my baby that is not a baby anymore. Aleigh is 11. She is in sixth grade. She is excited about next year and playing volleyball. 3 years of competitive cheer was enough cheer for her for a while she choose to not tryout this year. She is in band and plays the flute. She is a mommy's girl and I like that.

Gabriela

Gabriela is my daughter and she is 13. She will not like this picture but I can use a better one later. She does however sport that look at me a lot. She is in eight grade. She has been a cheerleader the past two years for junior high and has made the JV cheer squad for next year. Yeah!! She is also in choir and journalism. She was awarded stundent of the month for eight grade this month. I am so proud.

Alex

Alex is my son. He is already 15 and soon to be 16. He is currently taking drivers ed. He is a freshman in high school and collge. Thats right I said college. He was accepted into a program where he spends half the day at the college and the other half at the high school. So in four years he will not only graduate from high school but also a two year college. Super awesome. He still gets to enjoy high school including playing basketball and baseball this year. He also plays baseball for the county. He is very active and is all about his friends.

Family

I am mother to three kids Alex 15, Gabriela 13 and Aleigh 11.
I am daughter to Liz and James.
I am sister to Amber, Madalyn and Shelby.
I have lots of extended family all over the place.
I have three dogs, two cats and fish.
I love them all.

My first blog

Well here I go, my first blog....My sister Amber lives in Cali and misses out on so much so she has convinced me to blog so that she can keep up with me and the family. I am a single mother with three kids one son, 15, two daughters 13 and 11. I have a boyfriend and he has a son 7. We stay pretty busy. I am a hospice nurse full time and I love to give FREE jewelry to others. I have become addicted to couponing and am so excited to share with others. I am trying to learn to quilt and scrapbook. I also just bought a great camera and cant wait to take tons of pictures. I am just taking things day by day trying to be the best mom I can be. Also of course trying to keep enough money to give to these kids!!