Knock knock!!

When I took the bread machine out of the cupboard Saturday to make pizza dough, Carter was tickled to find a new play place and I just had to share. Click on the play button to see the video...

First day of school!!

It rolled around again...that first day of a new year of learning! Em and Trev headed back to school this morning, ready to tackle fifth and third grade all spruced up in their special new outfits and backpacks full of school supplies.

Oh yeah and don't forget our Boogah! He wanted to get in on the stairway pictures too!

Lots Cookin' Around Here

I was really busy this week and wanted to sit down and do several separate blogs but I'm thinking time isn't on my side sooooo here's a post about a whole bunch of stuff. And I thought this adorable picture of Em and Carter playing "cooking a pot of trucks" was a great topper.

So DARNIT and YAY! Josh travels most weeks Monday thru Thursday. And he was supposed to come home this week on Thursday and then have next week off for vacation, but some disaster befell a site in North Dakota and he had to rush off to it's rescue which doesn't put him home til Wednesday night next week...poop :-(. The kids and I are settled into the M-Th routine, but man we miss our Big Guy when his trips end up this long. BUT I do have to give a huge thumbs up to my hubby. He is kicking some corporate behind lately and I am VERY proud of him!! His bosses are impressed and in awe and I know that GREAT things are ahead for him!

So the big monkeys have one more week off and then school starts! I can't quite believe how fast the summer has flown by but here it is again...get that new outfit all picked out and school supplies in that backpack! We meet their new 3rd and 5th grade teachers on Friday afternoon and come Monday morning--school is back in session!!

So our littlest monkey is now eating with a fork off of his own plate (as opposed to with his fingers off of his high chair tray). Emilee noticed it tonight and got all excited and then said "awww he's growing up!" Yup, that he is...

So I've been reading the Bible. Reading the Bible?? Yup THE Bible. Kinda thought it was a good idea to actually read the whole darn thing. I've studied it some, a verse here and a chapter there, but never read it cover to cover...and as Josh and I are enjoying actually being able to go to church again now that we are here in TX I wanted to put some more study into it. So I am proud to announce that I'm on day 122 of a One Year Bible! Go me!! And now this next statement is probably what will shock most of you. This 400 pages I've read is about 375 consecutive pages more than I've read from any book in the last DECADE. Yup, I just said I haven't read a real book for the sake of reading it cover to cover since Emilee was born!! Yikes, eh?! So here's to breaking my dry spell (cuz I really do LOVE to read)!!

So last but not least...surrogacy update. Things are getting exciting!! First off Gabby and Charlie were here staying with us for the past few days and we had a great time with them again!! They are such a great couple, I'm really glad we are matched for this process but I'm also glad we get to become regular friends too! I was really touched too, as Gabby's mom sent us both matching insribed keychains that say Dream, Hope, Believe, Wish. I thought it was so thoughtful coming from the Intended Grandma! So Gabby and I have been on our respective meds getting ready to get me pregnant for just about a month and today Gabby had her egg retrieval. She did an awesome job growing her eggies and they got 24 mature ones!! This coming Thursday has been set for my transfer date (YAY that Josh will just make it back into town to be there!) where we will transfer two beautiful 5 day old blastocyst embryos. That also means that tonight I started my "big" shots that I'll take each night and one more GO ME...I did it! Shot is all done (yup, all by myself) and I'm sitting on my heating pad as I type. Oh and Gabby asked if I'd wear a family heirloom necklace of hers as a good luck charm during the transfer and I readily agreed...I'll drum up any extra luck I can get!! Sooooo we are hoping to have some wonderful news to share over Labor Day weekend!!

CVS for the week of 8/10 to 8/16

What else can I say but...another fantastic week at CVS! I may not get as many items as you see on other blogs out there as I've decided to be very picky about getting only what our family needs (unless it gets me $overage$) but darn I'm having fun and continuing to get stuff for nearly FREE or MORE THAN FREE!!

So without further ado...

Alavert was $5.99
Face wash was $6.99
Sunscreen was $1.99
Beauty Magazine $0.99 (forgot to stick it in the picture)

Minus
$2/$10
$2 face wash coupon (from Beauty mag)
$2 skin care coupon (for the sunscreen from Beauty Mag)
$4 Alavert coupon
$5.79 ECB from last week

OOP = $0.17

AND~~~I came away with a new $5 ECB from the face wash and a $3 ECB from the Alavert! So once you factor in the ECBs I spent and the ECBs I earned and that cute little $0.17 in pennies I used at the register...this week I made a profit of $2.04 from "buying" the above items at CVS!!!

I just have to share that I got my favorite "nice" checker today when I went to CVS. He's always so helpful and doesn't moan when I have a couple transactions and stacks of coupons. Today he smiled and shook his head and said "You drive me nuts!" and I gasped and thought that he was upset finally by my checkout craziness. I apologized and he said said "No, I just can't figure out HOW you do that (get a $0.17 total) all the time!" I laughed and told him I could show him how to do it one day if he wanted. And then he told me that he really does like when I come in because I am an honest coupon-er and don't try to commit fraud and get him in trouble. Then he told me of a lady who's been coming in lately with "$100 off any shopping trip" or "$100 off any cigarette purchase" CVS coupons. They are obviously doctored on a program like Paint he said, and he's been refusing them, but I was just shocked! Some people!!

Anywhooo, if you want to see more crazies like me and the shopping trips they had fun with this week visit these two sites!!
MoneySavingMom
TheCenstibleSawyer
And THANK YOU to the two fellow bloggers who helped me figure out how to turn my http blah blah links into nice clickable words!! I appreciate the tutelage!!

CVS for the week of 8/3 to 8/9

GREAT WEEK at CVS...I'll do the calculation at the end, but I think it my entire trip was pretty much FREE and don't I LOVE that!!

Here's the details...
(2) chex mix at $1.50 ea
(2) dawn at 88c ea
(2) colgate at $2.99 ea
(4) kleenex on BOGOfree at $1.69 ea
advil $5.79
aspirin $1.79

minus
(2) $1 coupons for chex mix
(2) 50c coupons for dawn
(2) $1.50 coupons for colgate
50c coupon for kleenex
$1.00 coupon for advil
FREE coupon for aspirin up to $1.99 (and my cashier gave me $1.99 = 20c overage!!)
$2/$10 cvs coupon
$5.79 ECB
$2.00 ECB

OOP (out of pocket)
$2.42

AND I got a $5.79 ECB for the advil (making this a $1.00 moneymaker) and $4.00 ECB for the colgate (making this a $1.02 moneymaker)

Soooooo I got all of the pictured items, spent $2.42 OOP and came out with $2 in ECB more than I started with. So my total for the week is FORTY TWO CENTS!! Woohoo!!

What Carter has been up to...

I've caught some pics of Carter lately that I really wanted to share.

This first one is of him picking flowers in a field and I edited it a bit on picnik.com and I'm soooo pleased with how it turned out!

Brothers snuggling after waking up from his nap...

Enjoying a snack and an episode of his absolute favorite...Curious George

He snuggled himself in like this all on his own, with his bear as a pillow and blankey of course right there too.

We'd had a long day last weekend and Carter crashed right there after his last bite of dinner and I just couldn't resist taking this "classic toddler" pic.

Trevor's crustacean clan

We introduced Patrick to you guys several months ago but Trevor's hermit crab family has grown so it's time for an update.

Patrick is still with us, he's the crab that lives in the green shell...

Sharp Tooth is the crab that lives in the greyish bluish shell with a picture of a shark on it...

And Bubbles is the crab currently living in the bright salmon colored shell, but she came to us in a shell that was greenish with a picture of a fish painted on it (thus her name Bubbles)...

Trevor also wants to make sure that we mention Flag and Fin...two crabs that sadly didn't survive with us too long but sure got alot of love from Trevor while they were here.

He takes them out to play often and has them crawling all over the place. He can share with you their personalities (who likes to hide, who's friendly and comes out of their shell most often) and tell you who's been in who's shell. They really are very interesting creatures and I continue to love them as the world's most low maintenance pets!

Proud of our cheerleader monkey!

We enrolled Emilee in a summer cheerleading program. She's never done cheer before but she was interested and a summer program seemed like a great way to let her give it a try. She has gone all summer and really had fun. They have learned several cheers and many poses and jumps, as well as a cheer dance. Thursday was her final class, with a parent performance and awards. It was much anticipated as Emilee was to find out if she advanced to the next level (where she'd trade in her level 1 red pom for a level 2 teal one).



Awesome news...she advanced!!!

~Emilee holding her new teal and silver level 2 pom~

Does your tooth fairy do this?

So this story starts back several years. Emilee was our first monkey to start losing teeth. She'd place her newly lost tooth in the special little tooth box she earned in Kindergarden for knowing her letter sounds, fall asleep, and then wake up to a dollar bill. But this wasn't just any old dollar bill. Emilee's dollars were folded...in some cool shape. A paper airplane, a heart... This same thing happened when Trevor started losing teeth. He woke up to dollar bills folded in cool configurations each time he'd placed a tooth under his pillow. Well this past week Trevor lost another tooth and here's what he woke up to.

There's no way around it...THAT had better have you saying WOW!!

Trevor was excited when he woke up. He actually came downstairs saying how cool that the tooth fairy had left him a dollar bill folded in a rocket (turn your head to the side...I can see where he got the rocket idea lol). Then I turned it around and showed him it right side up and he said "oh, a shirt!!"

I sure hope the tooth fairy is continuing in her oragami classes. These monkeys have MANY more teeth to loose and I'm personally dying to see what she comes up with next!

CVS 7/27 - 8/2...more than free!

Here's my picture for the week. Looks a little sparse compared to normal? That's ok!! Know why? Cuz even tho I didn't come home with a bunch of stuff on a good deal, I came home with two items that PAID ME $1 to bring them home! The bandaids were on sale this week for $2.99...they spit out $2 ECBs and I had a $1 coupon...profit of $.01! And the Children's Advil was $5.79...it spit out $5.79 ECBs and I had a $1 coupon...profit of $1!

Sadly I missed a couple of deals this week. The picture DVDs were on ECB for free this week and I didn't have time to make one. And revlon makeup was on sale for $9.99 with $9.99 ECBs AND I had a $2 coupon which would have made a $2 profit...but...I went into CVS to do my shopping at 7:30 Saturday night cuz I'd just been so busy this week I hadn't made it in any earlier...and aparently my CVS changes their computers/registers over to next weeks deals (starts each Sunday) about 5pm Saturday evening...so my cool makeup moneymaker was already gone from the computer and I couldn't get it...*grmmph*. Oh well, lesson learned.

AND extra care card holders got emails yesterday telling us of a FREE item coupon printing off on our next receipt... I got mine tonight and it's for free aspirin. Not something that I'd normally buy, but it occurred to me that it's one of the OTC meds I take for my surrogacy so I'll pick it up and be excited that my crazy couponing is going to save my intended parents a couple of dollars!