Off to an Early Start

Happy Sunday everyone! Somebody is excited it's Spring! Ben looks pretty pumped about this precious House of Hatten outfit that I got for him at the Little Sprouts sale this past February. For those of you who love to dress your babies like babies (at least on Sundays) like me, this sale is for you! If you have not heard of it, the Little Sprouts sale is held twice a year in Franklin (location changes), and it prides itself on being a "boutique only" sale. I love to volunteer at this sale, and I am usually one of the people checking in clothing items; we make sure that there are no holes, stains, missing buttons, or just general icki-ness. Clothes must be certain brands as well, which ensures nice clothing items at a very fair price. I highly recommend your checking this out for the fall! I was able to purchase all of Ben's nicer wardrobe (Sunday clothes, Easter, etc.) at the Spring sale.
On another note, this weekend was a great one; we were able to spend time with my parents Friday night as they were kind enough to come and entertain Ben while "we" packed for our trip. By "we," I mean I packed MY stuff for the cruise and Brad stayed up until some wee hour of the morning playing Tiger Woods golf on Wii with my dad. Oh well, he'll be stressing, and I'll be ready to go!:) Speaking of my dad, he is awesome, and he let me use his phone upgrade (since I used mine already on a terrible phone) to get an iphone; I suddenly feel so modern! I don't really use the internet much, or at least I haven't yet, but it is cool to be able to check email, etc. wherever I am...can't wait to try out "facetime" calls; let me know if you have an iphone too!
After the great iphone purchase of '11, we headed up to Pump it Up at Cool Springs for a birthday party. I have literally never seen a child have so much fun as Ben has there. He is so independent and loves to climb, slide, run, fall on his face, and he never once fusses! That's my big boy! After that, Brad and I headed up to Cool Springs for a little shopping (aka, walking around and really buying nothing). It was fun, however, and Ben was the best boy in the world as always; as sleepy as he must have been with no afternoon nap, he rode in the mall stroller (bless his heart; we forgot his) for 2-3 hours and never complained...we are truly blessed!
Today, we had a great worship time at church, we watched a little golf, Brad got busy outside, so I went ahead and did my couponing/shopping for the week! If you have a Kroger nearby and like to coupon, you should go this week. I only got things we really use, and since we are going out of town, I didn't have to buy produce, etc. Pictured right are the food items I got on my trip today and below that are the baby/cleaning items I got. As you can see, the food items are all great brands, and I got some really yummy stuff (Blue Bell ice cream, sister shubert rolls, nestle toll house cookies, streamfresh veggies, etc). Also, as you can see, I stocked up on diapers, which I am still pretty excited about! I had several Huggies coupons that were about to expire during our trip because they haven't been on sale lately; I figured I would make sure they didn't go on sale this week before giving them away...They did!!! Go figure! I used all 5 of my coupons combined with the store sale to get $55.66 (before tax) worth of diapers/wipes for $41.95 (saved $13.71). I am starting to buy a pack of Pull-Ups here and there since that time is getting close! Kroger also has a General Mills cereal promotion going on where you instantly get a $5 Kroger gift card when you buy 4 participating cereal/bar items (on sale for $2.79), so I checked out with those first, used coupons, spent $8.42, got a $5 gift card (which I then used on the rest of my groceries), so each of the 4 cereal items came out to about .85 a piece (regularly about $4 a piece). So...if I add up the large chunk of money that was spent on diapers (Spent $91.47 total; about $60 (if they were regular priced) diapers; that means everything else averages about .95 a piece). A good week since I would have to buy the diapers regardless of price. This past week, I read "Learn to Coupon" on the Southern Savers website. This was so helpful (ie, I will no longer simply cut out all my coupons on Sunday; I will leave them in their inserts and file them in order. That way, there is no huge mass of coupons to sort/look through). This website gives me all of the sale/promotion items and the location or link to the coupon; you can't beat that! I am learning so much, and really only use this website; my feelings are "the simpler, the better." If I can do this every week, so can you. Give this info a read, and start saving a little more each week; it's quite fun. Happy and blessed week to all!