My baby?

 

With Baby Sam on the way (June 19th!), and all the talk about Baby Brother, Bailey has simply decided that she is a baby too. After talking to another friend, I have learned that this is quite normal actually. Bailey wants her old binky, thinks she wants to nurse, and likes to lay down in Sam's crib. Here, she is laying down in a hammock swinger that she got from her Aunt Erin before she was born. Trying to explain to a 32 pound, nearly 3 year old child that this swing is for little babies is difficult...she says, "I am a little baby." With this "baby phase" is coming more snuggling and cuddling time, so I am not going to complain one bit.

Summer's Hope in a Wooden Box

 

This is my new cold frame. I simply love it. Jeff built it for me for my Christmas present this year, and was even able to incorporate my love for antique windows by using two of them as the lids. Just as winter was about to take my sanity away, I started planting inside. I bought a salsa garden at BiMart for $7.00 and started growing cilantro, roma tomatoes, parsley, scallions, jalapeno peppers and cayenne peppers. One cold night, pre-heating my cold frame, the temps dipped into the teens and I lost half of my salsa garden, as well as all of my impatients, and a few other items. So I started over again, AND bought a heat lamp at my local hardware store. What a difference a heat lamp makes!!! There were a few mornings, when the sun was out that I would uncover my cold frame to see the temperature in the mid 90s in there! It even reached over 100 degrees one warmer morning.

Well, after working out some kinks, I have been able to regulate the temperatures in my cold frame quite well (helps not having a job!) and have successfully started from seed all of these veggies and flowers:

Wildflower Mix
Zinnea Mix
Lavendar
Blue Delphinium
Walla Walla Sweet Onions
Scallions
Roma Tomatoes
Cayenne and Jalapeno Peppers
Parsley
Cilantro
Sweet Corn
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Lettuce (three types)

Come May 21st, I have a 90% chance of not losing them to frost, so most of these babies will wait the next month out in the cold frame (closed at night, but mostly not heated anymore, and wide open during the day to soak up the Central Oregon sun). I already have some corn that has nearly outgrown the cold frame. I will have to bribe my husband to let me bring them inside or something as it's still too early to plant those outside.

Then, once the time is right, they will be artfully planted in one of our three new Square Foot Gardening raised beds.

 

Here is a shot of the first bed that is ready to go. I will plant my sweet peas tomorrow in there, as they can withstand the cold nights. SFG is an alternative way to garden, utilizing less space, embracing organic gardening, and hopefully taking up less time. This method allows you to place your plants closer together in bunches rather than rows, and has a lot of other neat benefits to it. I recently purchased the book "The All New Square Foot Gardening" and devoured it in just a few days. After reading the book, I created a calendar of when I could start seeds and when I could plant, based upon our region's last frost date. And since then, I have been filling that cold frame with everything I can get my hands on, just to have a bountiful garden this summer. Not only less expensive than buying from the store (I love to save money!) but also better for us and our family. And Bailey LOVES playing in the garden, and watching the plants grow. It's exciting for us all!

 

Corn all planted about a week apart, and doing well.

 

Bailey loves being in the garden, and likes to help plant the seeds.

More serious savings

So the great thing about having my own blog is that I can write about whatever I want. I have this blog for many reasons. The primary one was to keep my family and friends involved with our growing family, especially seeing pictures and videos of Bailey as well as writing about some of my hobbies, like competing in triathlons. But lately, you may have noticed that a lot of my attention has been directed towards couponing and saving money.
I am shocked at how my the economy has hit our little community here in central Oregon, and have seen many of my friends go from living comfortably to selling their possessions, sharing family homes, tapping out their unemployment benefits, and home loan modifications. While this grieves me, I am also encouraged to know that many of my friends and I have really started getting REAL with what we can afford and what we can live without. That's why I am so excited about couponing, and saving my family money.
I follow a coupon of online blogs that regularly give me the 411 on sales that local stores are having, as well as direction on which coupons work with those sales. It is amazing to me that I can go to the store, and with the combination of sales and coupons, walk out with items for free, or the store actually paid me to buy from them! It happened today, as I spent the afternoon couponing and shopping in Bend (before and after my prenatal appointment).
My purchases ended up being valued at $195.71 and I paid just $55.05 total. That's a savings of $140.66! Big ticket items in here include:
2 packs of fresh pork ($9.50 each)
1 large bag of Kingsford Charcoal ($10.00)
120 total diapers in two separate packs (29.00) ***including Pampers Swaddlers, my favorite!
3 Pints(?) of Starbucks ice cream ($2.99 each)
2 new to the market Air Wick air fresheners that are awesome (about $20.00)
Plus miscellaneous cleaning supplies, groceries, beverages, etc.

Now, I will tell you...couponing is not the easiest thing in the world. It does take some work, but it's like playing a game, or starting a new hobby. I have had a few couponing snafus, but it gets easier as I go along. Each store you shop at has rules, and when you learn to play their game correctly, it's super fun. I can also tell you that not everything that I bring home is vital for me or my family to have. Did I NEED to get two new Air Wick air fresheners today at Target, or 5 cans of Mighty Dog dog food? Absolutely not. But the fact that all of those items were completely FREE after coupons (in fact, one of them, I gained $1.00 on) makes me say, "Why not?" Those Air Wicks are making my house smell awesome, and if I had tons of money and could buy whatever I wanted, I would probably get them for my house all the time.
The greatest feeling though, is getting items on sale that you know you are going to use. Like diapers. After paying more than $50.00 a month for the past 3 years, I am completely done paying full price for those things. And while it's not really possible to get diapers for free, getting them at 50% off is not bad, especially when I can get the ones I want, like Pampers Swaddlers. With sales and coupons, they are still cheaper than knock off brands, I like the way they smell, and I know that they are the softest disposable diaper I can put on my baby.
So, with all that to say (and this is much more than I usually blog about), I am happy to put in the time to save money for my family and find a new hobby that I can do with all of my friends that are in the same financial state we are in. And seriously, I am a woman and I like to go shopping. And if I am really honest with myself, I like to spend money. But to be able to spend so little to get so much...well, that makes me proud to be frugal, and thankful to God for His provision.
Our church is actually going to be holding a couponing class soon, so if you are here in Central Oregon and want to learn how to get in on this crazy maddness I call fun, let me know and I will give you the skinny on it.

I have been neglecting the camera lately

So, I get a message from my mom the other day..."I don't want pictures of your groceries! I want to see my granddaughter." So, I thought I would post a few pictures (well the only ones I have taken in about 2 weeks) of the Bug and her life.

 

This is Bailey with her good friend, Wayne. Well, Wayne is our good friend too, but Bailey particularly likes Wayne. If you have been following the blog for over a year, you might remember Wayne as the hero who hydrated Bailey during her last bout with the flu. We try to have him over for dinner from time to time, and when he came for pizza last week, he and Bailey were like peas and carrots. Wayne was just standing here, and Bailey, being the copy cat that she is, decided she wanted to look just like Wayne. So she stood next to him, crossed her feet and placed her hands in her pockets, just like her friend, Wayne. Hilarious. I also have to mention, that over a year ago, when Bailey wanted some of Wayne ice cream, Wayne asked, "What do you say Bailey?" Instead of saying "Please", she flashed Wayne by lifting up her shirt. Hmmmm.

 

And here is Bailey with her new friend. Some days, she calls him "Harry" and on other days, she calls her "Ruby" (her good friend that we have a playdate with each Thursday). She has been carrying that little lamb all over the house in an upside down plastic stool, declaring that it's her crib and that she is crying and needs to take a nap. Love it.

This is no joke.

 

Tonight, with the help of coupons and instore sales, I purchased all of these products, over 70 of them, for $27.15. Want to know how much I saved? Drumroll, please...$233.47. I am not kidding.

Included in this amazing display of goodies: 14 boxes of adult multi vitamins (all free), 16 Dove Shampoo, Conditioner, and Hair Spray ($2 total), 3 John Frieda hair care products for $.33 each, 4 Dove Deoderants for $.25 each, a free AirWick iMotion starter kit, Clean and Clear products, Comet, salt, brownies and cookie mixes, spices, and more.

Where did I get all these products? Walgreens! They have amazing Register Rewards that when you buy one product, spit back Walgreens money at you. So, what to do with that Walgreens money, but buy more things that spit back money at you. And, so it goes, on and on, back and forth, between Dove shampoo and adult multi vitamins. Then on to other coupons and sales! I was literally at the makeup counter register for 25 minutes purchasing my items.

There were so many reasons this was such an amazing shopping trip. Let me just list a few:
1. I was shopping with friends! And what better way to hang out with the girls than to go shopping and save a wad.
2. We had an AWESOME checker named Kim that not only tolerated our dozens of transactions, but encouraged them! When she saw us come in, she even instructed us on what to get, brought out more stock when we cleared the shelves, and then stayed after her shift to keep checking us out. She ROCKED!
3. Our family has more than enough haircare products to last for over a year, and they are good, quality products that I would never have been able to afford otherwise. Can you say, "John Frieda"?!?!?!
4. We also have more multi vitamins that we could ever use, so we have LOTS to give away to friends and family that need them.
5. I have been wanting to have a stocked pantry, and having pudding, spices, salt, and creamy soups is helping me get there (for super cheap!)
6. And finally, I am spending very little money on ridiculous amounts of products, that in the long run, will allow us to live off of less. This hopefulyl means that I won't have to go back to work full time in the future.

Now that I got a screaming deal, maybe my mind will be able to rest for a while and I won't dream about couponing ALL. NIGHT. LONG.