Can we take one home? Please??!?

Today we FINALLY made it over to the Humane Society and dropped off our pet food donation. And you know what? I remembered the camera! Go me!

Here are the kiddos in the car


Here is the Animal Shelter

Here is Jakers excited to see puppies

Here are the cute puppies


Here is happy Steven


Here is Jakers overcoming his fear of dogs. We were REALLY proud of him. I think having strong daddy there helped him to be brave.


Here are my unhappy children. They were unhappy because we were in the car. Going home. With no puppy.


Can you believe this face? Its like his Christmas was cancelled or something.


Then mom and dad decided some ice cream was in order. We had to do something to lift the gloomy mood in the car.


Worked like a charm...



We had a lot of fun and the employees where SHOCKED at the amount of food we donated. Which made me a little sad. Then I saw all the depressed animals. Which made me even more sad. We will continue to make donations there and help those poor animals out.

Grandpa and Grandma Trowbridge!

Here are some pics of Kathy and Barry visiting us earlier this week! Enjoy!

Cheese!

Grandma Trowbridge made Steven a blanket!

Jake got school supplies! Awesome!

Kathy and Barry opening our gift to them

The kiddos going down their new slide!

The aftermath.

Jake and Grandma T frosting cookies

He was very proud of his frosting job

Jake in his iron man getup

More slide time!

And finally Steven collapsing on the floor form all the excitement!

The End.

Shopping Trips

Ok, so I'm a bit behind on blogging. I've been so busy wrapping gifts, shopping and cleaning my house I haven't had time for much else.

On Sunday Kathy, Barry and Matt came down for a visit!! We had SO MUCH fun! Seriously, my kids were in heaven. Grandpa and Grandma Trowbridge = toys, candy, hugs, kisses and more toys! They are professional spoilers for sure!

I will post some pictures of their visit in a bit, but for now I will show you my shopping trips from last week. I don't think I will be doing any shopping this week since everyone down here seems to be a last minute shopper and the stores are NUTS!

Ok, first CVS



Trans #1
5 excedrin with $10 ECB after $20 spent
Total $26.65
-19.39 in coupons and ECB
= $7.26 OFP AND I got $10 RR back!
Saved $14.00!

Trans #2
2 HUggieS 260 count wipes
2 nutcracker treats as fillers
Total $14.52
- $14 in coupons and ECB
= $0.52 OFB for over 500 wipes! Awesome!
Saved $17.00!

And I would also like to mention that this trip put my savings at CVS this year over $2,000 dollars!! That is kind of nuts considering I started shopping there only this summer! I'm excited to see how much I can save next year!!

Ok now Walgreens!

Walgreens has pretty great stocking stuffers!



The Hershey chocolate boxes were on sale 2/$9 with $3 RR! And I had the $1/1 coupon! Two of the Hershey chocolates are our mail man and UPS man. They are always so nice to us. Even when the kids try to attack them from excitement of someone at the door (we don't get many visitors).

Trans #1
2 Hershey chocolates
2 pencils as fillers for the RR
-7 in RR and $2 in coupons
= $0.84 OFP with $3 RR back! So I actually made a profit of $2.16 for buying chocolate!
Saved $19.98!

Trans #2
2 Hershey Chocolate boxes
1 pencil as a filler
-$7 in coupons and RR
= $2.59 OFP with another $3 RR printed!
Saved $17.98!

Trans #3
LOTS of stocking stuffer candy!
- 6 in RR
= $10.44 OFP (I didn't realize those m&m candies were $2.99ea! Oh well, the kids will love them)
Saved $7.49

Then I went to Target twice last week



Trip #1
11 Airwicks (on sale for $2.99 ea until January!)used the $3/1 airwick coupon
10 hungry hippos travel size (2 of them were already in the clutches of my children)
These are $5 each in the stocking stuffer section of Target and you can use the $5/1 hungry hippos game coupon making them free!
Fun Soccer net and ball for Christmas
= $14.01 (I also got a bag of M&Ms that were already in the treat jar before I had time to take a pic)
Saved $92.98! Works for me!

Trip #2




20 boxes of Betty Crocker potatoes
These were a great deal! 13 of them were $0.99 ea 7 @ $0.89ea and I had a $1/2 coupon! Which made them $0.49-0.44 a piece! But I also had a $5 target gift card so I paid 4.91 for 20 boxes of potatoes! Awesome!
Saved $50.18!!
Oh, and the candles were free with the $3/1 coupon.

Well that's all I have for now!
-Leah

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas

Did Bing Crosby totally just start singing to you in your head? I adore that song!

I'm totally dreaming of a White Christmas right now. It's hard for me to find Christmas spirit living in South Texas when I grew up in a place that had snow. Or seasons for that matter...

I think I associate so much of Christmas with that white stuff being on the ground. But there is NO CHANCE of that happening down here. Its 75 degrees and SUNNY! Palm Trees swaying in the breeze and all! So I guess the title of this post should have been; Feliz Navidad is the thing to saaay on a brrriight South Texas Christmas Day! La La La!

Ok, enough of that. I will stop ruining your favorite Christmas songs.

But seriously, I am having a hard time believing Christmas is NEXT WEEK!!! It's madness! Madness I tell you!

How can Christmas be next week when we are still wearing shorts and flip flops?
Or doing this...

GRILLING! Grilling the WEEK BEFORE Christmas!


Shish Kabob anyone? Or as Jake likes to call em' "Sheesh Bobs".

The End.

Update

December has been BUSY BUSY BUSY BUSY! Last week I did a LOT of shopping (I didn't take any pictures though. Sorry. Lazy.) I've been wrapping presents, shipping pkgs, putting up Christmas decorations and all that fun stuff!
This morning I went to the Women's Shelter and dropped off the donation I've been working on for the past few months. I felt really good about making the donation. I feel like I helped and I know they could certainly use all the baby food.


The value of this donation was over $350.00!(I know it doesn't look like much, but keep in mind that bayer contour alone was $65 and the baby formulas were over $6 each)
And I paid a whopping $14.72 for everything in the picture. (Sorry you can't see everything. I was half way through boxing up everything when I realized I didn't take a pic yet).

I have also been working on a donation to the Humane Society


We haven't dropped off this donation yet because they don't open until 12pm so we are going to stop by this Friday when daddy doesn't have to work.


Jakers was very sweet to help me. I know he is young, but I really want him to realize the holidays are about helping others, and not just about Pillow Pets. Or helicopters. Or the awesome super cool Megatron in the Target ad. I could go on, but I won't.

The value of this donation is $137.74 and I paid only for the coupons from Ebay which was a grand total of $19.13!

I am happy with what we were able to give. I know even the smallest bit helps, and I'm excited to challenge myself and see how much more I can get for next year!


And what have the boys been up to you ask? Only driving me nuts! Observe....

Making a complete disaster of their room! (it seriously takes me forever to clean up their room when they do this)

And I know you're probably thinking that Jake did this, but no. There is only one culprit to this heinous crime....

This guy! He has a strict "search and destroy" policy programmed in his DNA. I swear if he sees something clean and orderly, he has the compulsive need to make it messy in any way he can!
Look......



Not 5 minutes after I get him out of the tubby he found a marker and decided to color himself! UGH!


Here is Jakers making a HUGE bubble mess in the bathroom. Because apparently when momma says "go wash your hands for dinner", it's code for "Make a giant bubble mess in the sink".


And here are the boys from earlier today. Its absolutely beautiful outside, so they had a little snack in the backyard. (And yes, they are using Tupperware as bowls. Because their little bowls are no where to be found. Or maybe they are just under the couch. Don't ask)



Why couldn't they smile like this when we were shooting Christmas pictures? Huh?


-Leah