Halloween 2009

Our Halloween this year was the same (and a lot different) than last year. We continued the tradition of heading to the Dillards for a yummy Halloween dinner, and we headed out, just like last year, with all three kids in tow for the trick-or-treating, but this year all THREE of my kids WALKED up to each house and got candy.Halloween turned out to be a beautiful day weather wise, so after a super-fun morning birthday party for our good friend Holden, we headed home to have a picnic in the front yard. Holden got his balloon (or as he says, boon) at his buddy Holden's party. It was tied to his belt loop all day!
For my children, juice box is synonymous with picnic, so each kid got their own... After they drank them, Cash went around to make sure they were all empty! Way to use up your resources buddy!We got to eat outside again for dinner. Super yummy! So yummy, in fact, that Holden had to enjoy the meal with two sombreros on his cabeza.

This is the boys' dinner date, Shoshi the amazing Kangaroo!

After dinner, we all headed out for some trick-or-treating. The three amigos had a blast!
They rang every door bell to get candy... and loved every minute!

Stone added a wig to his ensemble. Very striking!

We tried to take a photo of all of the kids together, it failed, but at least we tried!

Let's Go Krogering - 10/28/09

I did awesome at Kroger this week with my new hobby, couponing! (don't laugh, it's a hobby, I had a good, unbiased friend verify - thank you Christie) Here's my loot for the week... all for a grand total of $45! But wait, there's more... I got $7 in rebates, so that's really $38! Wow!

Here's the rundown:

The big bucks were spent on five pounds of ground beef ($9.76), but using Kroger's new "meal deal," this purchase got me free diced onions, free taco mix, free tomato sauce, a free box of rice and a free baguette. My other large ticket item was the six bags of Steamfresh meals. Normally priced at $7.65, I scooped these up for $2.50 each ($15 total). These are great to have on-hand for the nights when you forget to defrost your meat.

The rest of my purchase was: four boxes of Ziplock bags (two quart, two gallon), a box of Taquitos, two bags of frozen veggies, Kotex pads, nine cans of chili, Hormel natural turkey slices, two containers of fresh-made salsa, a box of fruit snacks (Scooby Doo if you must know), turkey peperoni, Dole fruit cups, Carnation evaporated milk, a can of pineapple, a bag of Chex mix and a pouch of Albacore tuna. If you take out the bigger ticket items, that means all of the above was purchased for less than $14. Good days at Kroger!

My Walgreens and CVS lists for this week aren't panning out to be great, but I'm still going to make a run to Walgreens tomorrow to purchase a few good deals and use my register rewards before they expire. You can find your lists too, just go here and scroll through to find the stores that interest you, then start collecting your coupons. Even if you don't plan to use them, collect your coupons... and hand them to me!

Hot off the presses...

You can find the Dallas Child article about our family here!

I haven't seen the actual print version yet, but am sure it looks great as well. They happened to mix Cash and Holden up in the about us section, so if you know us, that might look a bit weird. No biggie, I mix them up all the time!

Also, I have an awesome trip planned to Kroger this week with my coupons. Can't wait to show you what I get, so stay tuned!

Pumpkin Patch '09

The annual pumpkin patch trip with our neighbors happened over the weekend. I say annual, we went when Stone was a baby, skipped last year, and went this year. I know the neighbors forgive us for last year's skip (three babies and constant nursing earned me a pass), so we'll still call it annual, knowing we're headed back next year!

Holden and Cash enjoyed a hay ride with Daddy. There was a long line and the little boys did great waiting their turn!

Three matching cuties watching the wildlife... pigs, a huge turtle, horses, what fun! There was actually another little boy at the patch that day wearing the same sweater. I warned his mom to watch him close because he was at high risk of getting stolen. I always look for what the boys are wearing in a crowd, I could have easily taken the wrong one home with me!

Cash had a super day...

He frolicked in the pumpkin rows...

Drove a tractor...

And entered himself into a pumpkin rolling competition. He was the only contestant, and naturally, won.

Holden tried his hand at lots of new things...

Tree climbing...

Tree licking...

And being so darn cute that his Mommy melts (okay, so he's been good at this for a while!)

Note: there are so few pictures of Stone because he was much more interested in the jump house action than the pumpkins this year, we'll hope for better shots next year!

Three little boys, dressed in blue...

... I can't think of a better birthday present, can you?

What's for dinner?

Earlier I mentioned a new peanut butter recipe, turned out it was so close to the Thai Chicken that I make that it's not worth taking the extra steps. Sorry for the downer!

But, I won't leave you empty handed... I bet you could even make this for dinner tonight, the ingredients are things I typically have on-hand:

Three C's Chicken

Chicken breast

Cinnamon

Cumin

Chili powder

Olive oil

(don't ask me measurements, measuring utensils are used solely for baking around here - I just throw stuff in until it looks right)

Mix the three C spices together with the olive oil to form a paste, coat chicken and cook in crock pot all day on low, or in oven at 350 for 30-45 minutes. I tend to go the crock pot route to maximize nap time, and because I have a love affair with my crock pot. If you too love this little gadget, you might just head here to download a cookbook with some new recipes. Yum!

People always ask how I get things done with three little ones, my short reply is that I run them ragged. My boys are always hard at play, so when they fall (naps, bedtime), they fall hard. The last two days have been great nap days, so my house is clean, I'm caught up on laundry and dinner is ready to go as soon as Heath walks in the door. Speaking of Heath, having a loving, supporting husband who doesn't mind helping around the house is my ultimate secret weapon!

Stone's new favorite way to burn off the energy is pulling his brothers in the wagon. The kid can go for miles, literally, and he loves every minute of it! Recently, we put the little boys to work at the art fair. They chipped and chipped this block until they had nothing left. The whole time they were working on hand-eye coordination, learning life skills like sharing and having fun. Activities like this are a great win-win!

If you want to know more about what our daily schedule looks like, be on the look-out for the November issue of Dallas Child. They are running a story on our family, complete with our full daily schedule. Want a spoiler? I save time doing laundry by washing at least a load a day consisting of all of the clothes we wore the day before. I don't sort by color and I've never had a problem. Whatever works, right?

Last but not least, congratulations to Amanda! She guessed correctly, Jam Pack Jam is an amazingly fun game, to which she will now be the owner... it pays to hang out with us, people!

Jam Pack Jam

This weekend was totally jammed full of fun. We had a great birthday party Saturday morning and then rounded the day out with a trip to the Circus that afternoon. The boys had a blast and, considering it was our first stay-in-your-seat event, it went great!

We left the house Saturday morning at 9:30 for the party, went to a friends house for lunch, then all loaded up in the car to head to the circus (about an hour away.) All of the boys napped in the car, we had a great time at the circus, we stopped for dinner and returned home at 7:30 to throw the boys in bed. Whew!

The elephants were the main attraction on Saturday and we were able to convince Stone and Cash to stay in their seats, because you see, elephants are scared of little boys who aren't in their seats, so they won't come out if your bottom isn't in your seat. I know, it's a lesser known lie, ahem fact, but it worked like a charm! Holden had absolutely no problem staying in his seat, he was enthralled with all that the circus had to offer!

Saturday night, I went with a friend to learn to coupon. Let me tell you, I'm hooked! We did great and I'm happy to report that after another quick trip today, I am now the proud owner of:
- Two Starbucks Frappachino drinks
- Two Men's Sure sticks
- A 30 ct. box of Zantac
- Two jars of olives
-Two boxes of Rice Krispie Treats
- 9 rolls of Quilted Northern
- Two packs of Trident Gum
- Two bottles of Pert Plus

All purchased for the low, low price of NOTHING! I actually MADE money, $5 in register rewards to spend on my next purchases. Pretty cool, huh?

Since I just started couponing, I didn't have a good backlog of past fliers, so I did miss out on some good stuff - the biggest was a deal to get 4 cans of Ragu and 4 jars of Jiffy for less than a dollar total. I'm sad about that one, but Jill and Jennie assure me it will come back around.

I have a trip planned to CVS as well to purchase Halls throat drops, a Glade diffuser and make-up. I'm not sure my total because of the makeup (which should be close to nothing, but varies in price depending on your purchase), but do know that the diffuser and Halls will be free with my coupons. Jill and Jennie have this blog post to get you started on coupons. Check it out for yourself!

Finally, just because I had a great weekend and want to make your day special, this little post just might be a give-away in disguise. Any guesses as to what the title alludes to?

And, I promise, my next post will have photos - I know I've been slacking!

Busy, but good!

Things have been busy, but good around here. We've fallen into routine with school and naps and the boys seem happy with the way that it's all shaken out. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that it took close to nine weeks to hit our "routine," but we're here and it's working well. Naps are lining up, so I'm getting a bit of time to get dinner made, pick up and clean a little bit.

This past week, I had a chance to do more than my regular chores. I've finished the new Dan Brown book! I love reading and hate that I don't get the chance to read as much as I used to. Generally, after I play with the kids all day, I sit down to read and wind up falling asleep. The new book was so good, that I would happily forgo sleep to finish, so I devoured it and loved every minute!

Today, we had Stone's nine-week evaluation and parent/teacher conference. He's doing great at school and both his teacher and speech therapist feel that he's making great progress. We feel so blessed for him to be in such a nurturing environment. He loves going to "his"school and by all reports he's playing well with his friends and making everyone laugh, which is his speciality.

This week has been particularly busy in the evenings, so busy, in fact, that I forgot a commitment last night! Tonight I have a fun dinner with the girls from my MOPS group, which I totally didn't forget about until a got an e-mail from my discussion group leader reminding me. Like I said, it's been busy!

So, dinner for the boys is a new peanut butter recipe that we're trying. Don't worry, I'll share if it's good... that is, if I have time!