Frugal Birthday

So yesterday was my best buddy Joye's birthday and so she and I had a plan to spend the day shopping then go to an early movie and off to a fun dinner after that. Well as you know Joye and I do our best to spend the least amount of money while we are shopping. So we ended up having a fun day getting carried away finding good deals. You know you have a good friend when you can take her out for her birthday and spend as little as possible and she has a good time! :) So here is some of the stuff we got.Here is a picture of my loot:

I got 4 new t-shirts for Matt, 2 new pairs of flip flops for Ty, 1 new Razor for Matt (retail: 8.99) 2 things of Degree Deodorant, Gillette Body wash, a pair of pants, and a pair of shorts for Lyla, and a snickers bar.
For all of this I paid $14.58!! Plus I got a $5 target gift card back for buying the razor & body wash! So if you think about it I only paid $9.58!! The only problem with this picture is that all I got was the snickers bar!
Joye did pretty good too! She got all this stuff for $0.60!!!

So after our frugal shopping trip we went off to see The Proposal at the movie theater. Oh but that was a frugal deal too because I had some free movie tickets that I earned by buying some Axe shower gel at Walgreen's! So we got into the movie for FREE! And after the movie we went out to dinner. No coupons or good deals there though, just good food and friends. It was a great day!! Here is a picture of Ty laying in front of the restaurant. He has been spending a lot of time at the pool, so he has been so tired in the evenings! Not hard to put him to bed right now!

and here is me and my frugal companion:HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOYE!

34 Week Update

Today we spent most of the day in Dr.'s offices. My favorite! Especially when it comes to Saltzer Medical Group...we tend to not get along. Ty has been battling a bad cold and thought he would get through it and fully planned on going to work this morning, and taking him with me but when I went to wake him up he rolled over and his eyes were crusted shut. Which is just wonderful! Yellow goopy crusted shut eyes means 1 thing...PINK EYE! I called his Dr, and he was not available but there was a Nurse practitioner available who I know and has helped us out before. So after a crazy wait at Saltzer we got in and out with Antibiotics and he has been doing much better tonight. As a matter of fact he just finally gave into the dinner fight that we decided to have tonight. (he wouldn't eat during dinner, so I saved it on the counter knowing at bed time he was going to say he was hungry...yup he wasn't very happy about that)

I also had a Dr's apt today for me and Lyla. Matt got off early and got to go with us. So he and Ty got to listen to her heart beat. Ty thought that was pretty cool. Just to give you an example of the small town life we are experiencing here. When my Dr. walked in Ty said "I've seen her before" Julie (the Dr) looked at me and said "we taught Sunday school on Sunday." She and her husband go to our church and have a son that is the same age as Ty. It's crazy but there is some kind of comfort in just being around people you know in a manner like that. So anyway, everything is still looking good with Lyla. Still measuring 2 weeks ahead, she gave me registration papers for the hospital and the next time I see her will be July 9th. I was supposed to start going every week now but she said it would be fine to skip another. Then the next time I go in she will check to see if I have dilated at all. So I will let you all know.

Oh did you think you were going to get away without a Thrifty Update?? Joye and I are still at it! Even though our trips have been hindered by Juan being in Orlando. I put together a sweet deal at Walgreen's this week, getting 2 tubes of free Aquafresh, and a gallon of milk for .49! But also today I worked out a deal that I was pretty proud of. I didn't use any coupons! Our local store called Paul's does this point system and when you rack up points you can redeem them for cheaper prices. So today I got:
3 dozen Eggs, 3 Totino's Pizzas, and 3 cans of baked beans...for $5. The eggs were only .68 each dozen! I just couldn't believe that! Anyway there you have it saving money one shopping trip at a time! :) Hope all is well with everyone.

Summer is here!!

Even though Ty has been out of school for almost a month, it has not really felt like summer. We have had a lot of rain and cloudy skies over the last couple of weeks. Which being as pregnant as I am I have welcomed. The boys not so much, they have been dying for it to be sunny so that they could finally enjoy the one amenity that we bought this house for...

The POOL is OPEN for the summer!!

We went out tonight to enjoy it and Ty had a blast! He jumped right in and freaked himself out a little bit becuase he jumped into the deep end, and must not have remembered that feeling. But he recovered quickly and is just picking up where he left off. As you know last summer he finally ditched the life jacket he was using and started to swim in the deep end without it. Sorry the picture is not that great, I think we had an 8 O'clock shadow going, and then came the fun part. Convincing him to get out and go to bed. The joys of parenting. :)

OPEN THE DOOR Smarty Pants!

So tonight we were bringing in groceries from the car and Matt went in ahead of me and so the door from the house to the garage closed behind him. My hands were of course full of groceries, I knew that Ty was sitting right inside the door so I shouted to him Ty open the door for me. So this very smart child of ours goes to the door...Does he open it??? NO he shouts back at me "What, I can't hear you" So I shout again open the door. Does he open it now??? NO he again shouts "What" (Keep in mind by now he is literally standing right on the other side of the door, so the only thing sepereating us is a door.) So finally Matt shouts to Ty (from the kitchen) Open the door for Mommy. And finally he opens the door. By then Matt and I were hysterically laughing! Smarty pants couldn't figure out that if he just opened the door he could hear me. I might have to strip him of his title of Smarty Pants for a few days!

Lyla's Room

Here by popular demand...Pictures of Lyla's Room! We have just a couple of other things to do, but for the most part we are done. Also my two cents is that the picture just do not do the colors justice, they are so beautiful in person, so come on over and visit us and check it out.

Curse Words, and Cheap Gas

Curse Words:
So as you all know Ty is coming to my work this summer and he is involved in their school aged program. Well they are doing all kinds of field trips this summer, the zoo, parks, gyms, and also movies. They will often times take the kids to the cheap theater. Recently Miss Holly, the teacher came back from a movie with Ty and came into my room and said "we were sitting in the theater waiting for the movie to start and Ty said "Bitch", Holly said she said to him Ty, what did you say?" Ty said, look it says "Bitch,...and pointed to the back of the seat in front of him...someone had nicely carved the word on the seat in front of him. :) Yes they take the kids to a very fine establishment located here in Nampa. But what can you do the movies are only $1. The drawback of having you kid be a good reader early in life. She didn't say anything about him having to sound it out :)

Cheap Gas:
So in my new frugal ways today I was able to save over $6 off a tank of gas. When Joye and I do our crazy coupon shopping at Albertsons, they do a thing where you get .05 off per gallon of gas for every $50 you spend. And you can build it up to $1.50 off per gallon. The great part is they count your total BEFORE coupons and sales. So when we did that deal for $92.00 that was almost .10 per gallon. So over the last month I racked it up to .50 per gallon. We used it on Matt's car since he is driving soooo much for work. Gas was $2.61 a gallon today, but we got it for $2.11 saving over $6 on his whole tank of gas!!! Not a bad deal huh? Just thought I would share, I was pretty proud of that one. Any little bit we can save on Matt's gas helps he is all over the treasure valley right now.

Thrifty Strikes Again & A Lyla Update

So first things first: I went to the Dr. today and Lyla is still doing great! But she is getting bigger, ...Like by 2 weeks. I am at 32 weeks and she is measuring at 34 weeks. She is sitting really low (which makes for one uncomfortable pregnancy) Her head is still down and I am having lots of braxton hicks contractions. I just happened to have one while I was in the Dr.'s office and I said to her, I think I am having a contraction. She felt my stomach and said yup, how offten are you doing that? I said that's the 3rd one today. The Dr. didn't act worried at all but she is also very laid back. Which is just what I need. She still wouldn't say anything about her coming early, so I said what if I go into labor before the scheduled C-section, and she said just wait for me at the hospital and I'll get her out :)

So I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens. :) So just please be praying with the three of us as this time draws near. My wonderful buddy Joye is throwing me a baby shower this weekend so that should be fun! (I am so excited about it) And after that we will get her room all ready for her arrival. We have her crib up but we just need to put a couple finishing touches on the room. Then stay tuned for picture of her room. :) It is going to be AWESOME!

HERE IS MY THRIFTY STRIKE FOR THE WEEK:
So the last two nights Joye and I have been at it again looking for bargins and making the most of our money. We went to Albertsons on Tuesday night where I was able to save over 74% on my purchase of groceries! Not bad huh?

I bought:
5 Sobe Life water bottles, 2 tubs of cool whip, 1 bottle of honey mustard, 1 bag of hostess doughnuts, 4 California Pizza Kitchen Pizzas, 10 Lunchables (Ty loves em'), 3 lbs of bananas, and 2lbs of grapes. All this would have cost me $69.64...But I only paid $17.48. On a regular shopping trip alone the lunchables would have cost me $14!

Last night we went to Walgreens because I have been on the look out for good Diaper deals since we are about to be hit in the face with that expense. Well I worked out a deal at Walgreens where I could get a jumbo pack of diapers for only $5...even on sale they are $9.99. While we were there we figured out some other great deals on stuff we were in need of at home. Here is a picture of what I got. All this would have cost me $53.54.....

But I only paid $19.46!

That is: 3 bottles of All detergent (which even on sale would have cost $13.47), 2 boxes of 100ct zip locks, 2 packs of Peanutbutter M&M's, 1 jumbo pack of Huggies,1 bottle of Panteen Shampoo, and 1 bottle of Panteen Conditioner, and 1 trial pack of walgreens brand diapers

So I know I said I needed all this stuff, and let me just say that M&M's are a need when you are pregnant :)

Graduation and Snow Cones

So smarty pants graduated from College...I mean Kindergarten last week! There was a really wonderful ceremony at the school. The kids sang song and got awarded certificates. The songs were so cute! And if you know me I am not a person who cries easy so I will have to chalk it up to the fact that I am pregnant, that I nearly lost it when the kids started singing about growing up! It was all I could do to hold it together! His school has been so wonderful to us this year, there could not have been a better place for him. They have made sure to challenge him in every aspect, and his principle totally believes in helping not only the children who need help, but also keeping the ones who don't need help moving forward! It was a great year for him. I know he is looking forward to summer though!

Here is a picture of him from graduation

So since graduation is over summer is in full effect! If you have ever been to Nampa you know that during the summer months they set up snow cone shacks all over town. The other day we went to the snow cone shack and for the three of us to get snow cones we paid $6.25! I thought that was NUTS! Especially with my new frugal state of mind. So I went to Wal-mart and purchased my own snow cone machine for $18 and I got 3 different kinds of syrup for $9. So if we make 4 snow cones each it pays for itself! (FYI: we each had 3 snow cones the first day I got it) So we are snow cone loving fools! Right in the comfort of our own home! Now that is Thrifty if you ask me :)

Here is a picture of Ty enjoying a Sour apple snow cone after school today!

Schools out for SUMMER!

Today was Ty kids last day of Kindergarten! I took a picture of him this morning as we were leaving for school. It has been quite the year for him! He has spent almost the entire year on a split schedule doing 1st grade in the morning and kindergarten in the afternoon.

We got a "Developmental Reading Assessment" back from the school a couple of days ago. To give you an idea of what is going on with him the kindergarten benchmark goal is LEVEL 3....Ty scored a LEVEL 16! Graduation ceremonies are tomorrow...so more to come then! Until then enjoy this picture of smarty pants on his last day of school.