Cute Quote of the Day

We were driving in the car, having no conversation to speak of, and I hear this from the backseat:

"Momma, when I am 67 years old I will be a great basketball player. I will be able to shoot it in the hoop really far away."

Hmmmm....thought provoking :-)

Trip to Grammy's

This past weekend, Josie and I decided to brave the snowy, cold conditions and make a trip to grammy's in PA. Even though it was still snowing and drifting our seven hour trip was pretty uneventful (if you consider a semi in a ditch on an exit ramp and a car literally buried in the snow in an interstate's median uneventful). Josie had a wonderful time visiting with her grammy and great-grandma. Eager playmates were able to entertain her for hours (and left me some quiet time to work on some grad school assignments!).

On Friday, Aunt Bobbi and the cousins made their appearance. Josie was further indulged and spoiled and loved it. After a big family dinner at great-grandma's Saturday night, we stayed our final evening in a hotel where Josie spent hours in the swimming pool with her aunt and cousins.

Being a bad mommy, I didn't even take my camera out of my bag the entire trip. So much for cataloging the fun, huh?

As an aside: Remember Josie's love affair with Frosty? Well, she continues to sing Frosty the Snowman......the entire song, almost everyday. And, since I haven't gotten around to recording her doing it (because, it really is so darn cute!), Aunt Bobbi took matters into her own hands. See for yourselves:

Case In Point.....

In my last post I mentioned that my frugal ways are rubbing off on Josie already. Case in point: Today, we are snowed in (again!) and playing all kinds of games. We recently switched to playing store and cash register. I am the customer and Josie is the cashier. I attempted to "purchase" a pen and Josie told me it cost, "a ten, two fives, and a one". The teacher in me decided to turn this into a math lesson, so we were adding up the total. When she found out that the pen was $21 she said to me, "That's a lot! I'll call you when it goes on sale." And simply proceeded to try to sell me something less expensive.

Frugalista

My intent for this blog was to catalog our everyday adventures - the exciting, as well as the mundane. Therefore, I would be remiss if I didn't devote at least one post to my attempts at frugal shopping. I have always been a stickler for studying local grocery stores' weekly ads and matching the sales up with coupons to get the best savings. This is often how I plan dinner for the week, too. Over the last year, prior to staying home, I was beginning to fail at my thrifty-ness. Working full-time, parenting full-time, taking grad classes, keeping the house up.......well, you get it, there just wasn't enough time to keep up with the ads, couponing, and shopping at multiple grocery stores.

Since I have been home with Josie, however, I have been able to get back to my old ways. Every week I clip coupons, study the ads, read a few frugal blogs, and make my plan to get to all of the stores with the best deals during the week. Josie has really picked up on this habit, too. She cuts pictures out of ads and pretends they are coupons, she begs to go grocery shopping with me, and every time she sees something at the store that she wants she asks me if it is on sale or not!

Recently I have had a few good shopping trips, purchasing many stock-up items for very little money out of pocket. One of my favorite trips netted me the purchases below, for a mere $9.27.


Seriously. By just working the deals - maybe an hour of prep time per week - and I saved 84% on this trip! It makes me excited that such a small time commitment can create such great monetary savings for my family.