You can't handle the truth!!

Nikolas asked for a Tootsie Roll the other day. When he unwrapped it, it was still stuck to its little cardboard backing. He held it up and with a very stoic expression and tone (which those who know him call "Stone Face"). He spoke quietly and firmly as if he was giving whispered statements rather than asking questions.

Nikol: Mom, what is it

Me: Ummm... a Lincoln Log?

Nikol: No! It wooks wike a poop!

Me: (stifling a giggle) No it doesn't Silly, it looks like a Tootsie Roll

Nikol: No! It IS a poop! A big poop.

Now THAT is O-L-D!

Tonight I asked Eli to answer the trivia questions on the oatmeal packets. Afterwards.....

"Mom, now can you ask me more of those questions about the ooold days?"

Thankfully, my back was to him so he couldn't see me smirking.

"Umm...ok, what are you calling the OLD days?"

He pauses and thinks a moment....

"Like the 70s or something"

Go ahett! Athk me how muth it hoowt when I bit my tugg off to keep from waffing!

Fun & Affordable Gift for All!

I saw a side ad on a blog I was reading and thought it was clever enough that I checked out the site. Now this may not be what we all would automatically think is the perfect gift, but it's fun, made for adults and kids and despite it being more expensive that Walmart, it's still affordable in this day an age if you're looking for deliverable gifts. At the very least, it may give you ideas for how to do it yourself for less. Welcome to Sock Grams

Woo Hoo! Another bargain!

I had forgotten that there was a Kris Kringle fair at one of the nearby churches today and I had told Eli that I would bring him to it. It finally dawned on me at about 1pm and I quickly turned on the community access channel to find the ad again. We saw the ad, quickly headed down and got there with about 15mins to spare!

For $9 we got:

2 items that Eli picked out as gifts for G & Q (25c ea)
1 item that Eli picked out as a gift for Daddy (50c)
2 clever little items I picked up for silly tokens for friends (50c ea)
2 felt embroidered tote bags with a wooden toy in each ($2 ea)
3 Beanie Babies (3/$1)
1 item that I'll give to David for Christmas (50c)
1 6qt crockpot (50c !!)
The crockpot was clearly the biggest bargain and I'm just tickled because David and I have been saying that we really need to replace ours. Done! It didn't have a lid, but that's really no biggie; we've used plates in the past on our old one and it worked fine. I'll find out if I can get replacement either on Freecycle or direct fro Rival if I need to.
Later, I had to go to Rite Aid for children's Motrin for Nikol (didn't have any coupons and it wasn't on sale so I just bought the store brand) and as I was standing in line, I saw that there were a few Halloween costumes for 75% off and among all the long black gothic styles was one itty bitty little 2T angel costume. Yeah, it came home with me LOL I put it into the tote for next year's Halloween. To go along with the witch hat, face paint crayons and false eyelashes that I got on clearance at CVS last night. :-)

Now to go check out crock pot sites and come up with recipes for the coming week!

Start couponing off with a BANG! For my buck that is!!

Following my SIL's lead BK on a Budget I have decided that it makes mucho cents (LOL) to get my butt back in gear with coupons. I bought two newspapers on Sunday and spent at least an hour clipping coupons for all the items I know we'll use. The next day, it took another hour or two as I organized them all in conjunction with the store sales circulars for the week. I was wondering how I'd organize all the coupons when Gabbie realized that she had a small photo album with many, many sleeves for 4x6 photos. She offered it to me for separating all the coupons by category...BINGO! It's small and easy to fit into a large purse or reusable shopping bag which we have quite a few of. I bought some colored sticky tabs to add to each category page. If it doesn't work out to be a good system, I'll come up with something else and let you know.

Armed with a list (I'm a list person btw) and coupons -both store and manufacturer's, Nikolas, Kingsley and I headed for Walgreens. Truth be told, the sale ends tomorrow so I didn't expect to find much left for sale items. As it turns out, the only thing that they did not have left was the flavor of Scope that I wanted so I crossed that off my list.

I can't upload a photo yet, but here is a list of what I bought and how much I spent/saved.

16 holiday theme pencils
16 holiday color votive candles
16 holiday theme paper gift sacks
2 Hefty One Zip storage/freezer bags
2 boxes of Celestial Seasonings tea
3 bottles of Clairol Herbal Esssences shampoo
2 rolls of store brand invisible tape
2 bags of Ricola throat lozenges
2 bottles of spices
8 rolls of curling ribbon for gifts
1 bottle of Dawn dish liquid
1 Advil PM
1 Glade Flameless candle starter kit
3 Crayola Color Wonder kits (paper/markers)
1 Post Its color tags (for my coupon book)

The Crayola Color Wonder kits are something I would never buy because I can't justify the price. However, after walking around shopping for 45mins and being amazingly well behaved, I saw the sale price and treated the kids to them. They were reg. price 10.98 each and on sale 3/13.98. For that price, I COULD justify it and they don't often get unasked for goodies like that.

Grand total I paid: $51.82

Savings: 58.39 !!!

Now THAT is some serious savings. Granted, I didn't NEED the candle, but I ended up paying only $2 for it which made it ok and I may just put it into my box for things being saved for holiday gift baskets since it's not my favorite scent. Everything else was something I'd have to buy anyway. And now I can put away the holiday items and not worry about them at the last minute.
Today's mail brought more circulars for the week ahead; I hope to get more deals. We still have to pick up a few necessities at CVS tonight if we can so I'll post my bargains if they're good.

And her name shall be Mommy...and it shall be good!



Yes, I have yet another endearing "Kids Say" story to share. I know you've been waiting ;-)

It's not news to anyone who knows me well that I often mix up my children's names when I call to them. We often refer to it in the same way that my beloved grandmother of only 2 children did when she was raising them years ago. She would call out her husband, her son and my mother's names until she hit the right one if she was stressed, frazzled or such. Anyway, having 5 children still at home, this is a regular occurance at our house.
Quite some time ago, a year or more I'd say, I began for some unknown and silly reason to spontaneously and intentionally call Eli "Fred" and Nikolas "George" and they found it to be quite funny and great fun and they still do to this day. Well, the other day the following took place.....

Nikolas has become very happy that he can now say his entire name and enjoys saying it often if he can. At only 3yrs old this is excitement and accomplishment in his world I guess :-)
We were in the kitchen making lunch when out of the blue I called him George. He laughed and told me his full name and that he is not George. This continued for a few minutes and he giggled harder the more I insisted on George.
Finally he said he gave up and laughing said, "Fine! I'm George!" It was very cute.
Afterward, I told him how he actually got his real name. Do I expect him to remember at this age? Not really, he'll hear the story as he gets older, but I like to tell the kids little things like this about themselves so they always know in their hearts that I shared the stories of their lives.

I told him why we named him Nikolas is because when he was in my tummy, I had a dream that he told me his name was Nikolas. (That IS the truth btw)

Then very seriously he told me,

"Well, Mom, this is what happened to me."
(Mind you he was on my lap on the kitchen floor and very serious.)

"Mom, a wong time go when I was sweepin' and at Nana's house. And I was sweepin' in your bed. Then Uncle Kaffee and Pete came over to sweep over at Nana's house. And you were big growing in my tummy. And I sweeped and I dreamed about I named you. And I named you Mommy. And that's REALLY what happened!"

Pretty tough to argue with that logic!

Hug your babies tonight and love 'em for always!