William the Artist

I've been trying to do more craft projects with the kids lately, especially since I got a big box of projects from the Oriental Trading Co. co-op that I participated in. We got lots of craft projects and supplies!

William made the above poster using Crayola Color Wonder paints. These paints come in a tube that you push out as you paint with the brush, so they are self-contained. They also do not color anything except the Crayola paper, which is a plus. See the proud smile!





Another fun project that we did recently were construction paper scenes using stickers. Both William and Violet completed this one, and it was a lot of fun putting all the stickers on the paper to make a fun picture (although there were way too many stickers, if that's possible!). Both kids did a great job on this one, and here is William's finished picture:



So far, William's favorite project is using watercolor paints, which he is currently requesting to do several times a week. Usually he paints a rocket ship. He is actually very neat with the painting!



We're looking forward to doing many more projects out of the craft stash!


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My head is spinning from all this couponing

I went grocery shopping (Jewel) 3 times this week, but there were so many good Catalina deals going on lately that I couldn't resist. A Catalina is also known as a check-out coupon; for example, "Buy $30 in select Kraft products and get a $10 Catalina good on your next purchase." In this example, it would be a $10 coupon that prints out after you pay, which you can spend on whatever you want, on your next order/shopping trip.

So, I took the kids out yesterday morning bright and early (well, they do sometimes wake up at 5:30am! lol, we didn't get out of the house until 8:30am though). I did 2 transactions that were exactly the same. Five bottles of Wesson cooking oil, 2 Nesquik chocolate shakes, and 2 Lean Cuisine margherita pizzas (who knew microwave pizza could be so good?). My total before coupons was $20.35. Total after coupons $1.75 cash out of pocket. I left the store with 18 items, spent a little over $3, and still had over $30 in Catalinas in my pocket. I believe my savings were close to $100, but I would have to double-check on that one.

This is just one example of the types of purchases I make when I go to the grocery store, Walgreens, or Target. Of course, not every time am I able to make out this well, but I don't do too badly. You might be asking what I am going to do with 10 Wesson cooking oils, perhaps. If you're not familiar with couponing, it works best when you have accumulated a stockpile. Meaning, that you buy in bulk when the price is cheap/near free/free. Then, you never buy at full price. So, as another example, right now I have probably 20 different types of cereal in my stockpile. I continue to eat my free (or maybe it was a quarter or 50 cents per box) cereal, only buying more when it is on sale. Because I have a good supply in stock, I am able to keep this trend going, only buying when there is a good sale that I can pair with my coupons.

I've had a hot couple of weeks at the grocery store, but hopefully there will be a lull sometime soon so I can get to work eating through some of the stockpile. ;-)

William's First Kiss

Looks like our little Superman had his first kiss today! Today in tumbling class, before the class had officially started, I was playing 'Tag William's Mama' with William and a couple other kids in class. One of the little girls, who is 4, was trying to run after me, and both times William started crying. I guess he didn't want to share me. However, at the end of class, out of no where, he went up to this same little girl and gave her a kiss on the cheek! All the other moms went, "Awww!" I was really surprised. As we were getting our shoes on, he kept telling her goodbye!

At the Nature Center

Last week, we went to the Nature Center with Oma. This is a nature preserve on a river that has an outdoor area with caged animals (a skunk, fox, a couple of owls, and a bald eagle). The animals have all been injured and repaired, but they are permanently disabled, and so cannot be released back into the wild. For example, the beautiful bald eagle only has one wing. We usually run past the skunk cage first, as it is usually a bit...musty. :-)



After checking out the animals outside, we went into the building. On the left side of the building is a great area for kids, and everything is local animal/nature related. William's favorite is a fishing area, where you can fish for plastic and cardboard lake and river creatures. There is also a bald eagle's nest in a loft, with a fox den underneath. Violet likes climbing the stairs to the eagle's nest a million times. They have a cute puppet theater with birds and other wildlife, but the kids are not usually interested.




On the right side of the building are all the indoor animal exhibits. There is a black squirrel, a small hawk, an owl with one eye, two different snakes, tanks with local fish, a bee hive (which is really hopping during the summer), a tortoise, frogs, turtles, tadpoles, and a mouse. I like the squirrel the best, but he is usually asleep in his hammock. But on this visit, he was awake and running around! One of the workers said he's usually not that active, because he's an older squirrel, but he appeared spry that day!

Dress Up Day

Today we broke out the dress up box. Even though it's sort of William's claimed costume (he wears it to bed sometimes), Violet picked up the Spiderman suit with the muscles (because of course he has more than one Spiderman suit) and wouldn't let it go. She wore it for a couple of hours, repeatedly touching her muscles.




Since William had been wearing his Superman suit all day (he wears it as pajamas, but sometimes I let him wear it during the day over his regular clothes), he was already in costume. He really likes the yellow 'belt' (he usually tells me several times during the day that he's wearing a belt, heehee!).

Next, Violet changed into a Cinderella costume, which was very cute on her, although probably a little itchy with all the glitter, which is why I let her keep her clothes underneath. She liked it, but not as much as the Spiderman suit.




William put the dinosaur costume on for about 5 minutes. I think he just wasn't feeling the hood. Violet also tried it on, but she wasn't crazy about it either. After she'd had her look at herself in the mirror, she promptly asked for it to be taken off.

Snow Day

Right before the weekend, it snowed nearly a foot over here. The kids finally got to try out their new sled in the yard! William and Violet got in, with Danny pulling, but they seemed a little dubious about it. So instead, they ran around the yard throwing snow, crawling around like puppies, and jumping on Daddy.



William had a blast, and Violet more than anything just wanted to walk around (she tried to get me to walk down the block with her, she waved when she saw people coming home in their cars). I thought William was going to make a snow angel with Danny, but it seemed like he was enjoying Daddy get snow all over his jacket and jeans more.

Christmas Crafts

I know it's just about Thanksgiving, but today we got a gingerbread kit at Target and made a train. William is feeling a little under the weather with his cough, so I thought something fun would take his mind off being sick. He was a great helper, if a little impatient to frost the thing himself, and Violet watched patiently from her chair.




It was a little difficult to keep upright at first since the frosting was still warm and the sides wanted to tip over with the weight of the candy, but we managed pretty well. William is a wonderful decorator (and Violet is a good candy-eater; yep, those are her green, candy-stealing hands in the picture). He put the main train car together himself after I frosted it, and he also put on most of the candy (with Daddy's help).

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween! We went to Oma's house, and then to Grandma and Grandpa's house. William had 3 costume changes (a shark, Spider-man, and a dragon), and Violet was a tiger (rrrrwww! As she reminded everyone!). Somehow I fit into my high school cheerleading uniform! Yay! William and Violet went trick-or-treating to Chase and Taylor's house, and William also went trick-or-treating with Daddy to score some candy. It was cold, but lots of fun!!

Kohl Childrens Museum

Yesterday, I took William and Violet to the Kohl Childrens Museum in Glenview, IL (it's about an hour from where we live in Chicago). We stopped at my parents' house first so the kids could get out of the car for a little while, and it was only another 10 minutes from there. We got the yearly membership.

Wow, was it a blast! We probably only did about 10% of what there was to do. First we went into a room with car tracks, a huge car wash, and various car parts (brakes, wheels, etc.) to learn about. Since it was right near the entrance, this area was a little crowded, so we moved on.

Next, we went into an architecture room. There were large foam blocks that William and Violet built up and knocked down. William especially loved these. We sat at a light table that had geometric shapes in different colors; when you put the shapes on top of one another, the colors mixed to form one color (i.e. a red and blue square made a purple one). There was another table to draw using pencils and a ruler. They mostly just liked the blocks in this room.



We went into a special Little Builders exhibit; everything in this area was construction (pvc pipes, hammering nails and screwing screws, moving items with a pulley system, etc.). We liked this exhibit, as well as the Waterworks area, that we went to next.




But the best part of the day was the Dominick's grocery store! What a realistic little shopping area. William grabbed a shopping cart right away and started loading it up with real groceries (minus the food...for example, a Honey Bunches of Oats cereal box minus the cereal). There was a little baby area that I thought Violet would like to go inside, with baby toys and books, but she would have none of it. She climbed away immediately and started putting food in William's shopping cart. When a cart was free for her, I was surprised when she started wheeling it around and putting food in it, just like her big brother! William spent half of the time sitting at the cash register, checking kids out with their groceries. We spent a good 40 minutes in this area, and I know they both had a lot of fun.



What a great place to be able to go to, whenever we want...it definitely made the day go by quickly!

My Trip to Target

Thanks to My Frugal Adventures, my trip to Target today cost me less than $15! I used Target web coupons, coupons I had clipped, and internet manufacturer coupons. Target allows you to stack their store coupons with manufacturer coupons, so many of my items I had used 2 coupons per item. Here's what I got:

-2 bottles Wishbone salad dressing
-2 jars Ragu pasta sauce
-3 boxes Kashi cereal
-2 boxes Kashi breakfast bars
-1 box Pop Tarts
-2 Healthy Choice frozen entrees

...and my Kashi purchases earned me a $5 Target gift card, which I immediately used to buy my daughter 2 pairs of pants (regularly priced at $4 each). Thank you thrifty bloggers!

Ah, Summer

As summer is winding down, I got to thinking about one of our favorite outdoor activities: going for a bike ride. I started taking William on daily bike rides when he was 1-1/2; back then, we went around the block on his little Spider Man car that he pushed along with his feed. Despite the fact that his little legs were really getting a work out, he usually managed to make it the whole way without having to get off (and me carrying the car all the way home!).

This summer, he graduated to his bike with training wheels. Gosh can he zip around on that thing! I follow him along, with Violet in her baby carrier or in the stroller. William is very good at stopping at all the streets and alleys. Sometimes he gets a little ahead of us, but he always waits for us to catch up.

I love going for bike rides; I can't wait until next summer when Violet will be able to ride her bike, too. Then all of us can go cruising around to wherever we'd like!

Violet's First Birthday

Happy First Birthday Violet! Today Violet turned one year old...she had a birthday party with family who love her very much! Violet had lady bug cupcakes (as you can see, she enjoyed them).


Violet got a pair of Robeez shoes...purple with little white flowers on them. She also got a bunch of fall clothes, and toys from mama and daddy (William likes her toys a lot, too).

Snow Patrol - Live from Studio X

I went to a performance today by Gary Lightbody and Nathan Connolly of Snow Patrol. My husband, my parents, and I all went, with tickets I'd won thanks to 93.1 XRT. The line was wrapped around the building at the Abbey Pub; my parents were first in line, but in hindsight I'm glad we were farther back, because a car dropped off Gary and Nathan about a foot away from me! I just have to say that the show was amazing! I was right up by the stage. Gary told lots of funny stories despite being clearly and admittedly hung over. They played "Final Straw", "Chasing Cars", "Take Back the City", "Chocolate", "Crack the Shutters", etc. Everyone was screaming their heads off...I am so glad I saw them at such a small venue.

Kmart Double Coupons

So here is my swag from the Kmart double coupon event. Everything I needed to know was thanks to My Frugal Adventures! I have been following several thrifty, money-saving blogs for a couple months now, in order to save on shopping using coupons and great deals.

I know it doesn't look like I got a lot, but I don't use a lot of items that would have been free with the use of the doubled coupons (i.e. store-bought deodorant, household cleaners and deodorizers, etc.). I did have one coupon that expired yesterday (the Kmart store coupon for $5 off a $20 toy purchase), but I just checked with customer service as soon as I got there, and got the 'okay' to use it. I got three My Little Pony toys for Violet for Christmas (retailed at $6.99 each), two Reese's king size (free after 2 coupons), two packs of Trident gum (free after coupon), a Rimmel mascara (free after coupon), and a Cover Girl tinted lip balm ($1 after coupon).

I spent $16.56 for all this, saving me about $30!

Thank goodness for Thursday

Thursday is the best day of the week for me. We go to my grandparents house, about 45-60 minutes away in the suburbs. We leave early (around 8am), and don't leave their house sometimes until 6:30pm.

My grandpa (Opa) runs outside as soon as he sees our car pull up, and grabs DD or DS. We go inside and he pulls out the huge collection of toys they have collected from friends/neighbors, for my kiddos.

My grandma (Oma) usually has lunch already going on the stove, but I always eat breakfast while we're there (saying that DS didn't eat much, but it's really for me). My grandpa takes DD in the stroller, or takes DS for a bike ride.

My kids have the best time; we go for walks, play in the yard, pick fruit from their trees, Oma sets the little inflatable pool up. I spend tons of time eating (because I hardly get a chance any other time), talking to my grandma, reading a small portion of the paper from Sunday (since I never get to otherwise).

I am there taking care of the kids the whole day, but somehow I always feel like Thursday is my day off. :-)

The Love Dare - Day 6

I wasn't quite sure what this day meant exactly:

6 - Patience

Choose today to react to tough circumstances in your marriage in loving ways instead of with irritation. Begin by making a list below of areas where you need to add margin to your schedule. Then list any wrong motivations that you need to release from your life.

Sometimes, especially when things are hectic with the kids, I lose my cool. Or I think about having some free time to myself. But I don't think that's what I really want. I want to be with my children and with my husband, because I love them, and who cares about the other stuff? It's sort of like the laundry that's sitting on our couch, waiting to be folded and put away...yes, it needs to be done, but it's more important to have a fun day with the kids. Laundry can wait.

William's First Movie

Danny and I took William to see his first movie a few weeks ago. We went to see "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaur." We did not see the 3D version (I thought it would be too much for him all at once). Oma and Opa watched Violet for us, and we got some popcorn and brought in some drinks. When we first walked in, the previews were already playing, and William said that it was dark. I was worried he wouldn't want to stay, but as soon as we sat down, his eyes never came unglued from the screen. :-) He sat on Danny's lap for half of the movie, and my lap for the other half. He loved it. I thought it was a great movie...the characters were cute, the dinosaurs were a little bit scary (but not too scary), and the story was entertaining, even for adults. Too bad he's too young to see Harry Potter (now THAT'S a movie I want to see!).

The Love Dare - Days 4 & 5

Day 4 of the dare I unfortunately have to pass on; I can't really contact Danny at work unless it's an emergency. But here it is in case you were wondering:

4 - Thoughtfulness

Contact your spouse sometime during the business of the day. Have no agenda other than asking how he or she is doing and if there is anything you could do for them.

So today, instead, I went on to day 5:

5 - Politeness

Ask your spouse to tell you three things that cause him or her to be uncomfortable or irritated with you. You must do so without attacking them or justifying your behavior. This is from their perspective only.

I asked Danny this; I think he thought there was some kind of catch. He wanted to know how I arrived at the number 3 ("why not 5 or 6?"). He also wanted me to tell him 3 things about him. Because I am supposed to be doing this dare in secret, I had to try to come up with a reason why I was asking ("just because"), and also had to get out of telling him 3 things about him, because I felt like that wouldn't be fair.

So, his 3 things were, in order: 1) When I am vague about things with him 2) When I don't tell him everything that is going on with me or with the kids 3) That I have an account on meetup.com.

The whole purpose of the exercise was not to get defensive, but just to listen to what he said. I am not going to defend myself on here, as I don't think that would be fair to what I was supposed to be doing either. I will say, though, that I got a meetup.com account about a month ago, in order to meet other moms and their kids. I have not met anyone, nor gone to any meet-ups. Because it was one of the 3 things he mentioned, as of 5 minutes ago, I logged on and deleted my account. I feel better having done this, because if it really did bother him that much, it wasn't worth it to me.

Outcome: I'm glad he was honest with me, and I didn't end up having to give up the dare. :-) It is sort of strange, but I felt proud of our relationship that the 3 things that bothered him about me were such small things (I don't mean I am belittling how he felt; I actually mean that these are easy things to fix; for example, he didn't say, "We fight too much," or "We don't spend any time together." :-)

The Love Dare - Day 3

Okay, I will be honest: I had to skip yesterday. I didn't start off the day being very nice. We went to the beach, and I was unnecessarily grouchy and negative. I knew right away my Day 3 wasn't going to work, so I decided to put it off for a day.

3 - Selflessness

Whatever you put your time, energy, and money into will become more important to you. It’s hard to care for something you are not investing in. Along with restraining from negative comments, buy your spouse something that says, “I was thinking of you today.”

Today, the kids and I spent the day at my grandparents' house. I bought a half-baked Lou Malnati's pizza (I don't know if I could live anywhere else besides Chicago, for all the great pizza) while we were out there, to surprise Danny with when we got home. He was very hungry, and very surprised. :-) We also got to watch the newest episode of 'True Blood' after the kids were in bed.

Outcome: Pizza was a success!

The Love Dare - Day 2

2 - Kindness

In addition to saying nothing negative to your spouse again today, do at least one unexpected gesture as an act of kindness.

I successfully refrained from making any negative remarks toward Danny (well, I only saw him for a couple hours today after he got home from work, lol). For my act of kindness, I went down to the kitchen after the kids fell asleep and baked some brownies. Three nights a week, Danny is on the computer playing Warcraft, so he was already in the other room. I took them fresh from the oven and immediately topped them with ice cream and hot fudge. He was really happy about it, as he stopped at the keyboard/microphone for a second. :-)

Outcome: I am really liking this dare, being in a better mood really makes everything that much nicer.