Happy Birthday to Brad's Dad

here is a slide-show movie i made for brad's dad on his birthday. Thanks to the help of Windows Movie maker, http://www.picnik.com/ (thanks jamie for the link), brad's friend jeremy for getting it burned to a dvd format so father in law can watch it on his dvd player, and of course to Valley, for coming up with the idea first for our dad, I never would've thought of it, had you not done one first. It took me a week straight of bedtime no earlier than 2:30 am but I got 'er done. I think brad's dad really appreicated it, so it was worth the time. I also made one of the boys, it follows below...thanks for watching!

Stocking up the deep freeze and Latest pics of our happenings

So here is my latest...stocking up the pantry and freezer. We have been saving up food storage money for quite some time, of course i used mostly grocery money, but for all the meats, cheese, tomoatoe soup and condiments, I used food storage money. All of the snacky items were just too hard to resist. I know, i know, i am terrible. They are right though, this is addicting. We are officially stocked up on snack items, cereal, and sauces for the next 8 months probably. So, no more buying of those. Now just items for REAL food storage, and weekly meals. (hee hee, we will see).

Anyway, not everything is pictured here, because one, it wouldn't fit and two, it was a lot of meat. Brad did not get a deer or an elk this year, so i am having to restock the meat supply for our freezer.

Total for shopping trip, $496.46.....................................I got it for $223.56!
Total SAVINGS - $272.90

Things not pictured but also included with the price are: 30 lbs boneless skinless ckn breast, 24-pk bottled water, 8 lbs breaded chicken breasts, hot sauce, 2lb baby carrots, 1 lb deli lunch meat and 1 lb deli cheese slices.

My best "deals" in my opinion are: nabisco crackers .67/each, bbq sauce .25/each, 2lb block cheese 4.99/each, groung pork sausage 1.20/lb, boneless skinless ckn breast 1.77/lb, puffs tissue with lotion 80ct .64/each, kraft salad dressings .50/each and then daisy sour cream pint .50/each.

So, there you have it. My totally awesome savings to stock up the deep freeze and pantry!


We had such a nice day last week, i think monday, that the boys wanted to picnic on the front lawn for lunch. IT was fun and felt soooooo good to be out in the sun. The kids actually asked to take their hoodies off cause they said it was hot.



We don't even have a tree in our yard, but our neighbors tree DUMPS on our lawn. He was kind enough to let us use this awesome leaf sucker upper/mulcher machine. It was awesome. Coleman loved playing in it.

he would start at the other end of the drive way and run to jump in the pile, it was really cute.

Coleman'd work of art...Dalton's pic (below) was quite impressive, so he came to us with this so that we could "oooo and aaaahhhh" over him too. It was funny.

Here is dalton's temple with trees and flowers and bushes. Also to the left right next to temple, there is a Brad (spikey hair) ;) and then a tree and then dalton on the far left. He did a really good job, we thought for a five year old.

The proud artist and his masterpiece!

Jeric also had his birthday acouple weeks ago, so i will get a slide show done of that and post soon. He turned 1, I just can't believe it!

Saving Money is Fun

So, shopping again. I promise i won't post these all the time. I am just doing it so that i can keep track this first month, to see my total monthly savings. I would've gotten more last night, things like tomatoe soup and canned soups, for food storage, but i left half my coupons home. It's been a long few days.

Brad has been home sick with flu, coleman hasn't been able to make it to the bathroom in time, so i finally started putting pull ups on him since i can't handle cleaning up that kind of stuff. After four times, it gets kind of old. And then yesterday i started feeling yucky. and today, worse. My ears are throbbing like crazy. Me, it is mostly the ears are just killing me.

so, my totals on this trip: Price before sales/coupons $112.83
Price after sales/coupons $ 32.71!!!!!

pretty exciting stuff. Once i start getting the hang of when the sales switch over and a good organization I think the time i spend preparing to go shopping will cut back a lot. Anyway, it is fun and i hope there are some sales on more food storage items instead of cereal. We have enough cereal to last us a year probably! anyway, but when it's .25-.50 a box, how can you resist? If the world ends, we will have cereal to live on!

Let me know your sweet coupon buys too! Or any tricks you may have along the way. When the best time to hit the stores are, etc.