And She Scores! (At the Grocery Store)----Plus an "Award"

Maybe this is a seriously lame thing to blog about, but I'm gonna share anyway. I've been "couponing" for about 2 years now. It's a tad bit time consuming and sometimes I'm a few weeks behind in my clipping, but it's definitely worthwhile. Especially when you hit the sales/coupon combos just right and save a lot of money! I get five papers every sunday for about $16 a month. I found the deal here. I'm sure that I've saved at least that much on groceries each month, usually more, and sometimes a lot more. Here's the latest score that got me re-motivated to keep at it : )Three boxes of cereal, 10 boxes of fruit snacks, 10 boxes of granola bars, two cookie mixes, and three boxes of Dannon crush cups. I love saving on snacks especially, because they get eaten up quickly and every kid in the neighborhood helps us eat them. So here is the breakdown:

Cost before discounts: $94.65 (Sheesh!)

Manufacturer's coupons (from the paper): $23.05

InStore discounts/sales (automatic with store card): $30.27 They were running a sale where for every 10 participating items you bought, they gave a $5 discount--that helped a lot.

Savings: 57%--$53.32

I hid most of this stuff from the kids, because if they can see it all, it seems to disappear faster : )

After buying all of that stuff, I headed over to WalGreens to buy hair color. They were offering the $7 box for $6 and they had an instore coupon for $3 off. I paired that with the manufacturer's coupon for $2 off. That made them each $2. Yay!

Okay, so enough of the boring shopping news. My super cool friend Christina gave me a bloggy award:

Here are the rules for the award:
1. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.
2. Show the 7 winners names and links on your blog.
3. List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

Here we go with my "honesty" session:
1. I think I'm pretty lazy. I really enjoy sleep and I don't enjoy cleaning. I think my house is clean and basically looks ok, but there's almost always some clutter around.
2. I'd love to drop 10 pounds. I don't mind changing some eating habits to get there, but on the other hand, I don't want to be on a perpetual diet to achieve it either.
3. I love it when my kitty curls up next to me at night.
4. I think my kids are the cutest, most wonderful little people in the world. I could just stare at their faces all day long.
5. In high school my favorite bands were The Cure, Depeche Mode, and Information Society. In college, it was The Smiths/Morrissey
6. My husband totally cracks me up. I think it's one of his best qualities (among many).
7. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I feel guilty that I got a degree in Elementary Education and then realized that it didn't make me happy. Sometimes I think if I tried it again I might feel differently because it's been 9 years since I taught, but I don't know. I just don't know what my "thing" is, and the things I'd like to try would keep me away from my kids too much and I don't want that either. Oh, the confusion!
8. When I was really little, I wanted to marry a dog.
9. I would never trade back, but sometimes I miss the social life of college
10. I was always a one best friend type person---I think I was "cut out" for marriage in that way. I still miss my high school best friend (Debbie) and wish I could see her/talk to her more often.

And here are 7 blogs I love (it's ok if you don't want to play, I love you all anyway!)
1. Kellie @ Camp Run-a-Muk
2. Hollie @ The Traylor Park Blog
3. Kari @ Come What May and Love It
4. Hair Today (she just quit blogging, but if you've got girls there is a wealth of hair ideas here)
5. Tara @ Three Little Babelets
6. Sarah @ The Mundy Family
7. Karley @ The Simmons Family

Whenever I see that these people have posted, it makes me happy because I love to read what they've got to say. Thanks for entertaining me!

We hate the croup!

We've had an isolated few days at our house, thanks to a very persistent virus! It all started with DD2 getting a cough on Thursday. By Saturday, we were taking her in to the Dr. to make sure she didn't have an ear infection or something (she was running a fever). Next in line was DD1, who developed a sore throat and the croup. We went in to the Dr. two times yesterday to get the croup cleared up. The first time they gave her a steroid and the second time we went in she had a breathing treatment. Here she is modeling the little dinosaur facemask they used.Poor DS is also sick, coughing, and feeling crummy, but has apparently outgrown the breathing problems that croup can bring on. Ugh!

My friend Kari told me about some cool blogs that post cute hair-do's for little girls. They've been a lot of fun to look at and I've been inspired : ). My favorite one is posted on my sidebar (Hair Now). She has a whole list of other ones on her sidebar. Here are some of the things we have tried (we've also tried some that weren't so successful!)

Mmmmmm...Chicken Enchiladas

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com yesterday and it was so yummy that I decided to post it (I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for new recipes and I hate wasting my time on gross ones). I wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't, so I snagged their picture instead.

Cottage Cheese Chicken Enchiladas
3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 package taco seasoning mix
1/2 cup diced onions
1 can chopped green chili peppers

1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups cottage cheese

2 cups shredded cheese

12 (6 inch) corn tortillas
1 can mild red enchilada sauce

The recipe said to boil the chicken, but I put them in the crock pot instead. I put in about a 1/2 cup of water and the packet of taco seasoning and let it cook. When it was done (timing depends on which setting you use on your crock pot) I shredded it.

Put some of the juices from the crock pot in a skillet. Add the onions and chilis and cook until the onions are tender. Remove from heat and add the shredded meat and enough juices to make the mixture nice and moist.

Combine your sour cream and cottage cheese in a separate bowl.

I tore the corn tortillas into pieces and covered the bottom of a 9x13 baking pan. I would have rolled them, but they always fall apart on me anyway (does anyone know the secret to rolling corn tortillas?). I topped the tortilla layer with the meat mixture. Next put on the sour cream/cottage cheese mixture. Add about 1/2 of your cheese on top of that. Tear up the rest of your tortillas and layer over the top. Pour on the enchilada sauce and top with more cheese.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. YUM!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I had a crafting class at my house tonight and cute little DD1 wanted to participate. She said she needed some wood and some ribbon (sorry I gave her this wood Karley--I can pay you back for it). A little bit later she gave me this masterpiece. I think it's the cutest thing ever! I want to keep it forever. I guess she takes after me a little bit, huh?

Home Improvement Overload!

I have not blogged in so long--and it's because my life has been taken over by painting projects! I had ideas about how I wanted the kids' rooms to look and I didn't want to do one without the others. I wouldn't want any of the kids to feel left out. So, a full week and a half later, I am finally done with the painting portion of the project. Yay! I am soooo sore and soooo tired! I even had to paint the ceilings because the entire house (ceiling included) was originally the mocha brown color that you can still see in the last picture.

In my daughter's room (the yellow and purple), we'll be putting up a white chair-rail. In my son's room we'll be putting up white trim where the dark blue meets the light blue. In the light green room, I'll be putting up pink damask wallpaper where the brown panels are. Then we'll put white trim around each of those panels. I'm still waiting for the wallpaper to arrive at the store, but you can see it here.

Now that this much is done, I like to just stare at their rooms. Paint makes such a difference! Tommorrow I'm going to enjoy NOT painting for the first time in many days!

My mom is coming for a visit in a week! Yay! We're going up to Park City for a girl's night out. She'll only be here for the weekend, but I'm soooo looking forward to it!

More Quilty Goodness!

I just finished DD1's quilt--yay! I'm tempted to keep it for myself : ). I found this fabric and ordered it online (It's called Soiree by Lila Tuller--I got mine on Ebay). I just HAD to have it! I didn't do anything fancy as far as creating quilt blocks or anything because I didn't want to loose the beauty of the individual fabric patterns. With these 5" squares I can still enjoy them all (if you click the picture you can see it bigger). Off I go to watch TV and snuggle in this quilt before I give it to my daughter tomorrow.

Long time no blog!

I am making myself sit and blog tonight because it has been so long (for me, anyway). There hasn't really been anything exciting going on. I suggested to DD that I could help her stop sucking her thumb, and she thought that was a great idea (lucky me!). So, we wrapped it for a few days with waterproof sports tape. She seemed to kick the habit very quickly because even without the tape she hasn't been sucking it. Even when she hurts herself and would normally want the thumb. Good job DD!My other daughter has started doing her own hair. She loves coming up with new styles, some of which are quite impressive! This is what she came up with for church on Sunday:
Well, wish I had more to share, but that's it! Have a great day!