Filed under: Publix Deals
I went to Publix today and got some great deals! I spent a bit more than normal, but I needed to get a few convience items for our upcoming road trip and a few pounds of meat!
Here’s what I got:
- 5 packages Ziploc Freezer Bags ($2.29 each) = $14.95, less ($3 coupons), less ($5 Publix coupon, good for any 5 SC Johnson products) = .69 each (WOW – and I was in need of some freezer bags!)
- 2 packages Croutons BOGOF = $1.49, less (2 coupons for .55 each) = .20 each
- 3 boxes Bisquick BOGOF = $4.95, less (3 coupons for .60 each) = $1.05 each (another item I was in need of!)
- 4 Del Monte Canned Veggies BOGOF = $2.60, less (.50, doubled) = .40 each
- 4 Campbel’s Creamed Soups 4/$3, less (.25, doubled) = .63 each
- Bertolli Pasta Sauce 2/$4, less (.60 coupon) = $1.40 (not the best price, but I was in need of pasta sauce)
- 2 boxes Betty Crocker Potatoes BOGOF = $1.60, less (.25, doubled) and (.35, doubled) = .20 each
- 2 boxes Keebler Crackers BOGOF = $3.79, less ($1 coupon) = $1.40 each
- Betty Crocker Brownie Mix BOGOF = $1.35, less (.50, doubled) = .35
- Hormel Bacon $2.50
- Celery .89
- Trash Bags $7.99, less ($1 coupon) = $6.99 (again, not the best deal, but we needed them)
- Apple slices $3.29
- Grapes $1.49/lb
- Ground Beef $2.99/lb
- Cubed Steak $5.24
- Bread $2.59
- Deli Turkey Meat $4.32
- Domino Sugar $1.99
- Coles Garlic Bread BOGOF = $1.40
Total Before Savings $109.55
- Less Ad savings $32.41
- Less Coupons $17.20
- Total Savings $49.61
Total Spent $59.94
Filed under: Craft Ideas
On Friday, Brad had his Christmas Party at school. Being the room mom, it was my responsibility to plan the party.
The teacher asked for a birthday cake for Jesus. I was so happy that she asked for this, we normally have a birthday party for Jesus at my friend Angie’s house every year in Texas. But this year I had been wondering what we would do here in Georgia, I realize that we could have done the birthday party at our house with just our family, but it was fun to do it with Brad’s friends at his school!
The kids all brought a wrapped book to do a book exchange. This was fun and everyone got to go home with a new book!
I used this idea from Family Fun to create these snowman ornaments.
These were easy for the kids to do. I had pre-assembled the actual snowmen and the kids added the buttons, nose, mouth, eyes and scarf. The kids also wrote their names and year on the back. I found some awesome glue pens at Hobby Lobby that were super easy for the kids to use and did not create a huge glue mess! The glue pens were on the foam aisle at our local Hobby Lobby and they are glue pens that you simply squeeze to get the glue to come out and the glue dries clear!
We also played a game similar to musical chairs, but instead of the kids moving around, they passed a box around. I wrapped a small shoe box in Christmas paper and added a pretty bow. I filled the box with enough candy canes for each child in the class. The kids all sat in a circle and passed the box around while we played Christmas music. When the music stopped, whoever was holding the box got to open it up and take a candy cane out! We played until all the kids had received a candy cane!
It was a fun day and everyone is super excited to be out of school for Christmas!
Filed under: Uncategorized
One day last week when the kids and I pulled into our driveway, we were greeted by our neighbor and her 2 children. They had come over to bring some of these adorable cookies!
Aren’t they cute?!
The “cookie” part is actually a graham cracker with icing on top, m&m’s for the eyes, a gum drop for the nose and marshmellows for the beard. I’m going to save this idea for next year, it would be a fun cookie to make with the kids!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve spent much of this past week baking cookies, A LOT of cookies! In an effort to keep our Christmas gift budget in check this year, I chose to bake cookies and mini bread loafs for teachers, the school secretary, a few neighbors and all of hubby’s employees!
Leigh Ann hosted a cookie exchange a couple of weeks ago and all of the recipes sounded so good, that I decided to try a few of them.
I made these Chocolate Mountains and they were awesome! These were Nick’s favorite, although he called them “chocolate rocks.” I could eat a few dozen of these all by myself!
I also made these White Chocolate Dipped Gingersnaps these were delicious but I preferred them without the white chocolate.
I’ve been waiting for a chance to make Leigh Ann’s Almond Sugar Cookie Recipe (I love a good sugar cookie) and then I stumbled upon this icing for the sugar cookies. These are amazing sugar cookies, especially when they are still warm! So easy to make, these are the cookies I’m going to make when my neighbor comes over to decorate cookies next week!
What kind of cookies have you been baking?
Filed under: Craft Ideas
This morning we enjoyed the Christmas performance by all the preschool kids at Nick’s school! After the performance we enjoyed a little party in Nick’s classroom and I have to say, he has an awesome teacher! Ms Nancy showered the kids with tons of fun gifts, you know the kind that all the parents will keep forever!
Here’s a picture of all the stuff Nick made and received:
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Nick wrote his own name inside the wreath card! The fabric on the bottom is a pillowcase that Ms. Nancy made! She shared that when her own son (who is graduating high school this year) was in preschool, he received a Christmas pillow and still puts it on his pillow every Christmas! The card attached to the pillowcase said the following:
“After you set out the cookies for Santa and the carrots for Rudolph, it will be time to go to bed. It’s going to be so hard to fall asleep. Put this special pillowcase on your favorite pillow and you will fall fast asleep and have sweet dreams. When you wake in the morning you will see that Santa has been to your house. Have sweet dreams! Love, Ms. Nancy”
The green page at the bottom of the picture is a laminated place mat that reads:
“Dear Santa: Here’s some milk and cookies that I left for you. There is enough for Rudolph, I hope he likes them too. I hope you know I love you, I would tell you if I could. Please leave me a little something because I’ve been really good.”
The picture in the back is one of the whole class dressed as a manger scene, here’s a closeup:
Super Cute!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I declared today “baking day.” I knew I would be spending most of the day baking up our Christmas treats to share with others and that means that at 5:00pm the last thing I would want to do is prepare dinner. I also knew that I probably couldn’t do the pizza thing again tonight, although I’m sure the kids wouldn’t mind!
Of course the most logically thing to do in this case is to pull out the crock pot! While I baked cookies all day, the crock pot was cooking our dinner.
I used the following recipe that I originally got from Sheri at The Loopy Ewe. This is one of those great recipes that has great flavor, uses simple ingredients that you probably have on hand all the time and since the chicken can be put in the crock pot frozen, it requires no pre planning!
Ingredients:
- 6 Chicken Breasts (can be thawed or frozen)
- 1 package of onion soup mix
- 1 stick of butter
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 1 can of Cream of Mushroom soup
Dump all ingredients into the crock pot. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Serve over rice or noodles. Enjoy!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I thought that I had been doing pretty well about keeping the holiday activities in check and not overdoing our family . . . until today. I am trying to prepare for all the kids activities at school next week, bake all my holiday cookies, finish the Christmas shopping (I’m almost done) and I invited my neighbor and her kiddos over to decorate cookies next week . . . cookies that I still have to bake!
Because of all this activity, I made a Home Executive decision this morning – hubby will be picking up a pizza on his way home from work AND we will be eating the pizza on PAPER PLATES! Isn’t it amazing how a simple thing like picking up a pizza and not having to do dishes can ease your stress load AND give you more time in the day?!
Filed under: Uncategorized
It’s been raining here for almost 24 hours straight and is expected to continue into most of Thursday! I’m not complaining, we need the rain. Here’s the view of the creek behind our house! Pretty, don’t you think?
Filed under: Uncategorized
After 14 years of having a cell phone, I experienced my first water damage incident. On Wednesday, I dropped my cell phone into a glass of ice tea – don’t ask how, it just happened!
The phone was in the glass no more than 5 seconds and I quickly took the battery out and tried to get it dried off. But to no avail, my phone was fried!
I was extremely irritated with myself on several different levels. First, I had just replaced the battery in my cell phone no less than 2 weeks ago! I know I’m not eligible for an upgrade on the phone til May ‘09 so I started thinking that I was going to have to buy a new cell phone – yuck – at full retail price – double yuck!
On Thursday morning I headed to my local Verizon Wireless store, prepared to be told that I would need to buy a new phone at full price. The nice guy in the tech service area took my phone and a toothbrush and some cleaner and attempted to get it working for me again, but he was unsuccessful. He then asked me if I had an old cell phone lying around. I said yes, and he told me to bring it in and he would see about transferring my number back to my old phone!
I returned Friday morning and the same guy was there to help me. I showed him my old phone and within 2 minutes he had my number transfered and my “new” phone working! Not only that, he was able to transfer all of my contacts from my water damaged phone to my “new” working phone! YEAH!
I then asked him if he could test the battery on my “new” phone because, if I remembered correctly, it wasn’t holding a charge. Sure enough, the battery was bad. He then said that the extended batteries for that phone were currently on clearance for about $10!!! You can just imagine how happy that made me!!!
I went from thinking that I was going to have to pay a couple hundred bucks for a new phone to walking out of the Verizon store with a working phone for $10 AND getting to keep all my contacts!! Did I mention that I heart Verizon?
Filed under: Uncategorized
Our Black Friday deals actually started on Thursday, after we were done eating! I decided to go to CVS and see what things they had left. I ended up driving a loop around our town and hit 3 CVS stores and got everything on my list! I spent $4.74 and received about $32 in ECB’s back! Here’s a picture of what I got:
Hubby lives for Black Friday! He starts searching the web for the Black Friday ads in early August! In the past, he has done the shopping while I’ve stayed at home with the kids; however, this year I got to go too since my mom was visiting from Texas and offered to stay with the kids!
We had great plans to leave the house by 5am . . . but we didn’t hear the alarm so we didn’t get up til 7am! Hubby was very disappointed that we overslept but was still hopeful that we would grab some decent deals.
Our first stop was Wal Mart. As we were walking through the parking lot, we passed a man walking out of the store on his cell phone saying “Forget this, I will pay full price . . . these crowds are ridiculous” I turned to hubby and said “Oh, he just doesn’t have the right spirit about Black Friday shopping!” About 20 minutes later as we were walking out of the store, I could be overheard saying “Why do I come to Wal Mart? That is the most disorganized place . . . “ Just about everything on our list for Wal Mart was gone, a very disappointing start.
Our next stop was to be Old Navy; however, Staples is next door to Old Navy and they had an early bird deal that hubby really wanted but was sure that they had run out of at about 5:05am. I noticed that the Staples parking lot was empty so we decided to go in and see if they still had it. We walked right in and snagged the early bird special we wanted! We were in and out in 5 minutes!
We then headed over to Old Navy. Hubby needs some new jeans and Old Navy had them for $14.99. While looking at the huge display of jeans on the wall, hubby turned to me and asked “Don’t they have any NEW jeans?” Yes, we are officially getting older when all the jeans at Old Navy look “used”! We didn’t buy any!
After Old Navy, we headed to Lowe’s for some free light timers (after rebate) and $1.49 poinsettias! Who can turn down $1.49 poinsettias? Lots of helpful folks at Lowe’s and again we were in and out in no time.
Our last stop was Toys R Us. They were out of carts and the place was packed, but they did a good job of restocking the shelves. The line to check out wrapped around the entire store, but it moved fairly quickly. We got tons of great deals there and even stood in line TWICE!
How did you do on Black Friday?
