you better not pout, you better not scream@thebigman's arrival, fa la la la la, la la kA CHING

busy day today, armed with my shopping lists, coupons, news paper ads and wallet I slowly made my way to work stopping at 6 count them SIX Walgreens stores.
I worked, slowly, is it Christmas yet?
Stopped at Fry's, CVS, CVS, came home, visited with Mr. and Mrs. Clause - (more below)
After taking home my patron saint of babysitters, Courtenay, we stopped at one more CVS. Not because it's fun - heavens no! but because they were all out of their one day advertised specials. but I still think we did pretty good.
below is my loot: street value of $330.37 I spent $68 cash - minus my Walgreens reward money of $20 and my CvS Bucks of $19 = (which means all of this cost me)..... $29.45!!! Yes it did suck up a good portion of my ride to and from work, not to mention planning at home, but today it all feels worth it.
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as for our Nightmare before Christmas/It's a wonderful LifeThe Clause's were wonderful! Santa was at least 6'3 if not taller, as for Jessica (that's the Missis's name) she was maybe 5'5, with a beautiful dress - she was PERFECT! (Santa obviously was tired of the flash in his eyes I guess)

Any whoo, when Jocie saw them at the door she ran off screaming "NO" at the top of her lungs, while Harry settled in for a good cuddle with the most beautiful Mrs. Clause ever!

Thank you to them for the reindeer food and company, you made our night. It's true Jojo might need therapy in the future, but you can't blame yourself. blame her mother, she will.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

go google yourself!

so I totally am stealing this game from MM, it's pretty fun for those of you that are a little narcissistic.... you know who you are.

go to google and type in: your name needs (for example, I typed Jennifer needs). so here are my top 7, leave me a comment as to YOUR NEEDS!

1. a smack daddy (I guess this is Dave's new nick name?)

2. to play by the rules

3. a smack daddy (seriously it said it AGAIN)

4. to give birth in the next week

5. help (heckyes i do)

6. a mortician (EWWW, you can't even make this stuff up! turns out I can get hooked up with one through Costco.... good to know)

7. a cold shower

coupon me this, coupon me that

thanks to Ashley, Megan and her mentor Jaime

my latest $$ saving obsession is coupons... i heart saving money!!

the high that others seek when doing drugs is the high i get when the cashier hands me the receipt and says "you saved $75 today" (she is not enthused, but i'm beaming like i just won the third grad spilling bee)

which brings me to the reason of this post. I have recently found through some other blogs like bargain mom, that there is more out there than waiting for a coupon to fall from the sky.

#1) load up your grocery store club card here, here, or here with virtual coupons - no clippy just save-y

#2) sign up to receive the red plum mailer at your home if you don't already click here

#3) fry's will take competitors coupons which is awesome so you can use this and get $6 of free stuff

#4) speaking of free stuff she just listed more stuff on her site like free holiday music downloads, deodorant, hot dogs and toilet paper! there you go.... that takes care of your sounds, smell and hunger and pooper for FREE!

how will you possibly repay me for this insight into the underground world of couponing???

i'm confident you will think of something.

homework: leave a comment about what you are doing to save money in this beautifully tragic economy. the winner will be picked randomly and sent all my expired coupons.... LUCKY!

you know you were wondering

I could survive for 57 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

Created by Bunk Beds.net

I am thankful for miracles!

a little public service announcement

a couple things.

first is fun and easy:

this year when addressing your Christmas cards send an extra one to this address:

Holiday Mail for Heroes PO Box 5456 Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

the cards will be sent to soldiers, veterans and military families. to read more about the program click the picture above. (also a fun service project for a group of kids or adults)____________________________________________

#2 Housing market and Foreclosures

I hope that none of you reading this will even need this information but it looks as if there are some advocate programs out there that will try and help you restructure your mortgage if you are having difficulty making payments. I have not personally used this group (yet) but it looks as if they are moving in the right direction.

off their website http://www.hopenow.com/ "HOPE NOW is an alliance between HUD approved counseling agents, servicers, investors and other mortgage market participants that provides free foreclosure prevention assistance."

____________________________________

stay safe out there ya'll, it's getting scary. There is no time like now to remember what this holiday season is about ... I'll give you a hint, it's Jesus, NOT shopping.

ok so that wasn't really a hint.

halloween

be careful, she could love you to death!

don't you love picture posts that you don't have to read?

the difference a month makes

ok, maybe I'm the only one that can see the difference, but this is our little guy on 10/2 and this is him on 10/28

either way, he's stinkin cute!!! Thanks Nathalie and Bill for the awesome halloween costume!

BOO!

i can't even stand the beauty!

Kate you are amazing!!!!!!

Kate wrote a beautiful post about our family picture session called Generations in the Groves. It was so heartfelt, and I'm glad her experience was as beautiful of a memory as ours was!

Thank you Kirk and Kate!!!

sneak peek

my fabulous cousin-in-law that did our family pics today sent me ONE little peek!
I'm in love!!!

they are FINISHED!!!!

(the 2 on the left are my DNA!)

Rainforest before - can you see the trees in there? How are they getting any sunlight??

Left side before, right side TREES!!! (HAPPY TREES!)

OH now I see why they are SO SORE and physically exhausted!

RAINFOREST AFTER! Can you believe the difference? This is only ONE of the several buildings (see here).

(scary! standing over the rainforest)

I don't know who should be prouder, the crew that did this, or the biosphere itself!!!

congrats guys!

Hey AZ east valley locals..... you know you need your windows cleaned - now that they are back they need to stay busy or their muscles will atrophy! click here an make an appointment (or when your family visits for the holidays they will see your ugly windows, sorry - the truth hurts!)

I hate to brag on my bros..... but

(they are working their way down - can you tell the before from the after? AMAZING)

they are almost done. I'm not going to jinx anything else by mentioning safety (end of post and Austin's comment about FALLING OFF the Biosphere, thank the Lord he only fell 6 feet when he caught himself... we don't talk about what it could have been) or weather conditions, but they are almost done.



oh ya and other people notice too like UA News and this gentleman.

there was a story on the news about it last night, but alas the internets will not show it to me. stupid internets, why did al gore bother inventing you if you don't give me what i want??

sneak peek...

Trim Time will be offering this at the concert tonight, see you there!

join me!

This Saturday I will be here, come join me and spend some money honey!!!

It's that time again!

Fall break, mountains, borrowed cabin.... if you don't know what I'm talking about you can refer to here, or here.

any whooo, there has been a glitch in the "no kids or husbands" portion of GIRLS WEEKEND (in fact there has been a glitch in the weekend portion also)

so there will in fact be kids, husbands and there will be weekdays.

My sister Megan told me I needed to get a better attitude about kids at the cabin. so after much thought and consideration, I have realized "it would be better if I wore them out before they wear ME out!"

following is the email I sent my siblings:

I am announcing "KID CLUB" (not like LA fitness kids club, where they lock your kid in the bathroom or let them walk out the front door but), a club (in the cabin laundry room) were the kids can make lots of projects, and were they can play fun activities that Aunt Rachel is already on top of!

each child will need to bring with them:

• a smock/work shirt that can get really messy. I just got one of Dave' old shirts for Jojo.
  
• each child needs a good sized shoe box to store their projects, I have 4 but we need 3 more. Does each mom have 1?


• a sock (or as many as they want to make) for sock puppets


• if they have some of their favorite craft supplies they want to bring, please make sure they are marked (like scissors) so they don't loose them.

that should be it. I have lots of projects planned and ready to go. If it's OK with you, Rachel and I will divide up the activities and each of us will be in charge of the kids for a couple hours a day. This way you MAY get to work on your own projects, and or take naps! Of course this schedule is not set in stone, but it makes me feel better.

Tues, Wed and Thursday schedules:
Breakfast - Mom and Dad
9:00 Jennifer
11:00 (ish): Rachel
Lunch - Jennifer
naps for napping children
non napping after lunch kids: Grandma
2:00 Megan
4:00 Rhonda
5:30 ish Dinner: (If you are in charge of dinner, feel free to exchange times so that it will be more convenient for you)
6:30 Story time with Papa, and Puppet Show Productions
7 or 7:30 ready for BED!!!!

8:00 wooo hoo! kids in bed!

__________________________________
on another note:

to my beloved brothers who will not be with us because they will be washing all the windows on the Biosphere2 for the next month with Curt's awesome business 5 Star Window Care:



PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BE CAREFUL!!! I LOVE YOU!

(can you see Curt's ladders scaling up the different sections? I'm scared just looking at them. He said last week was so windy they had to quit early one day because it was too dangerous! )

a gift for me and you!

I'm so excited! I just booked an appt for a photo shoot on location at Grandma's farm with

i'm going anorexic now to be ready in a month!
guess what you are getting for Christmas???

all my readers in AZ need to call Kate at Red Feather immediately - if you don't, your Christmas cards won't look as good as ours, and that would be sad!

we are alive and well

you can't make this stuff up: on Friday I saw "my sylvia" accross the street. I asked her if she could babysit tonight for Jojo, so we (dave, me, and harrison) could go see the movie we didn't get to last week. (what movie is that you askk? the one playing when we get there - don't care just want to see something). anywho (as meg says) we get dressed, get in the car (yes this car) and it will not start.

after a little, pushing, grunting, jumping and hair pulling (the car, what were you thinking?) the guy at Auto Zone told us the alternator needs to be replaced, and NO they don't do that for free.

silver lining..... wait for it...... i was ASLEEP by 10:30 for 5 hours straight! that's called getting lucky at the end of a bad date!

(totally stole this from Janie)

2nd anywho: i'm just too tired to find the camera AND the cord that makes the pictures magically appear on my computer. so you will just have to trust we that the kids are cute, the house is a mess, and that people who insist that "breastfeeding makes you skinny" because you put out so many calories a day - are liars, who are not addicted (and I MEAN AMY WHINEHOUSE ADDICTED) to SUGAR! - like it's not hard enough already without DELICIOUS CANDY CORNS at every turn!

in the words of SJP in SATC "hello lov-ahhhh"

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that is actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or somethg

my father has analogies for EVERYTHING, so today I have decided to share with you my feelings on the presidential candidates we have to choose from.

I am ambidextrous. I write with my left hand, but I throw, cut and put on mascara with my right hand. Got it, I really need both. I prefer having both.

Picking a candidate this election is like choosing which arm I prefer to have cut off.

God bless this country, we are in big trouble.

note: this is my idea of election coverage (click here)
don't get it? click here

pps. also a must read for choosing a candidate (click here)

HOT date!

we kid swapped with the neighbors this weekend so everyone could get a date night, we got to go out Friday.

It was Macaroni Grill and then off to a movie... so we thought. after dinner we got in the car and when you should have heard a "vroom vroom" sound, there was silence....

after establishing, yes I did have jumper cables in the car - but no other car to hook them to we decided that since the battery had to be changed anyway we would hoof it over to Walmart. (thank goodness I brought the sling for the baby.... oh ya - and the baby)

the following is my documentary photos from my cell phone:



When I noticed that the battery he was holding was heavy I asked him if he wanted me to put it in the sling, he got a good laugh out of that. Thank goodness because after a long day of work my feet and back were killing me. Not killing me as much as our big night out ending at Walmart though!


self checkout - that's hot!

self installation - even hotter

(did I mention it's stinking hot here still at night? and I HATE bugs!)
note: baby wipes were helpful in cleaning off the "corrosion" and Dave's hands, see I was helpful besides taking pictures of him working.

between quoting movie lines, and coming up with ridiculous situations (we love to play the "what if" game - we are weirder than you think) we really had a good time. Besides at a movie we wouldn't have gotten any exercise, or been able to crack each other up the whole time!

My dearest Husband, thank you for a funky time (see I can quote stuff all day), till next weekend, lets try this again!

the end.

walk like an egyptian (in payless shoes)

thank you to my friend David for yet another fabulous Halloween hand-me-down! this beaded hat has been a hit here now that she found matching shoes!