Arts Cow Photo Site

Arts Cow, is a new photo site similar to Snapfish or Shutterfly.

There is a nice deal available to new members who create a free account (this offer is until 5/31/08, so act now it will take you less than 5 minutes to create your free account). I'm going to assume that their shipping costs are reasonable enough to really make these free prints and photo books worth ordering.

What you get for signing up:

400 Free Prints (50 4x6 and 50 5x7 each month for the next 4 months)

* 8x8 Photo Book (20 pages) available starting May 31 and expiring Dec. 31

Check it out - I know I have a TON of pics still in digital format that I can get printed on the cheap - WOO HOO!

Tuesday Tell All: A Few of My Favorite Things

grab lunch: Rosa's Cafe - especially Taco Tuesdays for $3.33 (I like chicken on soft corn tortillas with lots of jalapenos)
go for Date night: Dinner and a movie - we frequent the Cinemark $ Theatre for a cheap night out

pick up some creative goodies: we don't have a GREAT place here in TX so I guess Hobby Lobby or Close to My Heart products

keep the kids busy: a trip to the Grandparents House will usually do it

get wet: Keller Point or any puddle for a matter of fact, my kids LOVE to get wet

a treat: Sheridan's for Frozen Custard

shop for fun: Once Upon a Child, Gymboree, Gap - I love buying clothes for the kiddos

get some fresh air: the creative playground in Colleyville is our fave park

splurge: Scrapbooking stuff and Electronics

drive for a weekend away: San Antonio

What's Going On?

I woke this morning before the alarm went off somewhat disoriented from a BAD DREAM. Android like paratroopers were descending from the sky amongst all unholy chaos around me. I was within a large group of people, none of which I was related or familiar with, at some sort of Museum like structure in a downtown like area. It was the end of the world. We scrambled to get AWAY only to find a wounded soldier. I tried to carry him whilst a WILD LION attacked us from below.

Then I woke up.
I've been watching too many doomsday movies...i.e. I Am Legend.

I've also been watching Glenn Beck...He had an End of the World Expert on the other day - SCARY STUFF!

The economy seems to be heading down the toilet and I don't think that sending out a so-called "Economic Stimulus" checks will do much to fix it. Gas prices are Sky High and everything else is undoubtedly going to go right up with it. Our Government isn't going to do anything to help...they only get involved with stupid things like mandating Ethanol being added to Gasoline and muck things up worse! Did you know that it uses more energy and costs more money to produce Ethanol and it is helping to create worldwide food shortages?

Read about it here

I can only wonder where the bad dreams are coming from...hmmm.....I wonder. I worry about the safety and well being of my family. We've been stockpiling food (on the cheap) - crazy like 12 boxes of cereal stashed in my son's closet and thinking of where I can store more, more, more. I buy, buy, buy when I can get it for near nothing and use coupons, coupons, coupons! I'm going to stop watching those scary movies but I'll keep watching Glenn Beck...I love that guy! I'll keep trying to make good things come from bad situations that I don't have a whole lot of control of and let go of the feelings of inadequacy that tend to loom. I know that Heavenly Father has a great plan for each of us if we live in such a way to make it so.

I am confident in my Faith I know that we are richly blessed to know His truths. My family is striving to be prepared...but I worry can we really be prepared enough? It's just a lot to think about....

New CVS Deals

FYI...I just posted new

MONEY MAKING

CVS DEALS

on my savings blog.

Send me a note if you still need access!

Little Buddies

My Caiden hasn't been feeling so well this week. He's suffering from yet another Staph infection (right on his cute little bum cheeck) which results from his itchy Eczema which results from his yucky food allergies! We've changed Pediatricians and have him set up with an Allergist FINALLY to get to the bottom (pun intended) of all of it. It is just heartbreaking to witness your child suffer so much pain. He's such a trooper; his strength through all the torturous drainings simply amazes me, he is a blessing and an example to me as his mother. I caught a little glimpse of Heaven on Earth when I stumbled upon this scene. He made this whole little pallet on the floor, propped Rowan up with pillows and Raistlyn's stuffed animals (genius idea huh?) all by himself! It's a nice break from his two-year-old "NO" fits. He does have a sweet side afterall.

Money Saving Blog

My sister told me that she didn't want to have to sort through a bunch of posts about bargains I scored in order to see new pictures of her little lovies aka...my children. So.....I started a new blog to document my adventures in saving money because

Getting great deals is my FAVORITE THING EVER !

The blog is private for now so if you are interested in being "in the know" you'll need to post a comment and leave me your information for an invite.

Just know it's a work in progress and get prepared for some amazing deal scenarios for places like CVS, Target, Kroger, Walmart to name just a few.

Easy Digital Scrapbooking

This just might make a good Mother's Day gift.....

Picaboo.com is offering a free photo book that is similar to a digital scrapbook, except all the layouts are done, you just add the pictures - how easy is that?? Lots of themes to choose from.

If you are a new user, you can get a free Medium 20-page book, valued at $9.99

Use coupon code 1PFMDB-WE, expires Dec 31, 2008.

How fun!

I think I'll go make myself a book!

Rewind...Easter 2008

Just playing catch up here. We had a lot of great Easter activities this year and I didn't want to miss documenting some of them here.

Pictures with the Easter Bunny and a train ride at the Celebration put on by the city.The Easter Bunny visited and left a trail of eggs from the front door to a grand pile of loot for the kids. Caide was hoping that they eggs actually had a treat inside them....no such luck...they were empty. However, he was the first to taste test the marshmallow ropes. Rowan liked them too. Yummy, candy before church at the crack of unholy dawn! We have recycled the bunny ears each year...Raistlyn's look a little drab after 6 Easter's - Rowan looks stunning in hers doesn't she?

We lunched with the Grandparents and Aunts after church - this is the best family picture we got...at least everyone was facing forward....the little ones didn't want to cooperate and it was WAY TOO SUNNY! Our outfits all coordinated, too bad the shot wasn't better. I'm Bummed.
The kids loved playing with the bubble machine the Easter Bunny left them.
Raistlyn colored a dozen or so eggs for us.

She's such the little artist.
These next pictures are from an event that we have attended for the past several years at a church in Colleyville. They have a petting zoo, pony rides, live music, food, cotton candy and egg scrambles for the kids. Huge crowds as you can see. In this first picture towards the middle is a lone GOLDEN EGG. This is the PRIZE EGG that each child desperately wants to get their hands on. Raistlyn was victorious yet again (She Got One Last Year Too!) She is such a competitive little bug. Some of those boys she was up against were twice her size.



Caide was funny during his egg hunt because he didn't care about filling up his bucket - he wanted to open them up individually and eat the candy right then.
Raistlyn is definitely the Animal Lover.

She stayed to pet and feed as long as she could.

Caiden's first ride on a horse.

He was so brave up there all by himself!

The only picture of poor little Rowan at the Easter faire....she wasn't real happy about being in the stroller.

She soon fell asleep for the rest of the afternoon.

The next pictures are from Raistlyn's school Easter Party.

Caide found a few leftovers out in the field after the 1st grade egg hunt.

Tomorrow would be a good day to do any shopping at Walgreens. This is a great coupon! It works out to be 25% off. Combine it with some manufacturer coupons and save even more!! I'll see if I can come up with a money making scenario...I'll let you know what I come up with!

Cereal Freebie at Walmart

Certain flavors of Malt-O-Meal cereal are on rollback this week 2 for $2.
Use this coupon for $1.50 off to make $.50 per bag!
Plus, go ahead and get some more for free using this $1 off coupon!
Depending on your cashier and your Wal-Mart, they may or may not give you the overage, but you can still get the cereal for free. I've never had any problem getting overage at my Wal-Mart.

7 months

She's crawling!

Rowan loves chasing after her big brother and sister and getting in to their stuff. You turn around and *boom* there she is - she'll find us by following our voices from the other room. She has 6 teeth, the two front lowers and the four front ones across the top. (She doesn't much like us messing with her trying to get a look at them though.) This last week she started pulling up to stand - why do babies have to grow up so quickly? She'll be walking before we know it. I'm SO not ready!

I'm going to frame this one with the caption: "These are the hands you used to hold when I was a wee seven months old."

Freebie

Free Scotch-Brite Toilet Scrubber Starter Kit
Get a free Scotch-Brite Disposable Toilet Scrubber with Bleach Starter Kit
get the coupon here.

A CVS Money Maker for this Week

The Baby Sale is going on this week - Spend $25 on select baby products - Earn $10 ExtracareBucks.

Here's a money maker to get you started:

Buy 5 pkgs of Excedrin (24 count) on sale for $1.99 each

Buy 1 Febreze Spray on sale for $3.99

Buy 1 Febreze Candle on sale for $6.99

Total $20.93

Use $4 off $20 CVS Coupon print it here

Use (5) $2 off Excedrin coupons - print them here

Use $2 off Febreze Candle from 4/6 Sunday paper

Use $.50 off Febreze Spray from 4/6 Sunday paper

Spend $4.43 Out of Pocket (OOP)

Earn $10. ExtracareBucks

If you have a kiddo in diapers you could turn around and purchase 3 packages of Huggies at $8.99 each - use your $10. EB's from the previous transaction

Spend $16.97 OOP and you'll earn another $10 EB for next time! If you have any manufacturer coupons for Huggies it would make an even sweeter deal.

Total of $21.40 OOP - it's less than the original price of the diapers and you still have $10. to go towards a great deal next week.

If you are 30 or older you might appreciate this

(I didn't write this - just something fun to share)

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking 25 miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways …yadda, yadda, yadda.And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in h#ll I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! They just don't know how good they've got it!)

When I was a kid we didn't have The Internet.
If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter ... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napster!
You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and screw it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting!
If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either!
When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances mister!

We didn't have any Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3­D graphics!
We had the Atari 2600! With games like “Space Invaders” and “Asteroids” and the graphics were horrible! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating!
All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with big hair or a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu!
You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!And there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!

And we didn't have microwaves…
If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a fire...imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing or a pan with HOT oil and Real popcorn kernels and shake it all over the stove forever like an idiot.

When we were on the phone with our friends and our parents walked-in…
we were stuck to the wall with a cord, a 7-foot cord that ran to the phone - not to the phone base, the actual phone. We barely had enough length to sit on the floor and still be able to twirl the phone cord in our fingers. If you suddenly had to go to the bathroom - guess what we had to do.....hang up and talk to them later.
(I totally remember this one....I would use our kitchen phone and lay on the floor talking ALL night when no one else was around!)

Geez...our kids sure have it easy don't they?

CVS Diaper Deal for Saturday Evening

If your local CVS loads next weeks deals on Saturday evening (mine does) you will be able to make this deal work tonight for the least amount out of pocket (OOP). Otherwise, it's still great for next week because you'll get $10. Extracarebucks after you spend $25. on baby care items.

*Updated:
Buy 1 pack of Huggies Supreme & 2 packs of regular Huggies diapers@ $8.99 = $26.97
Use CVS $4/$20 coupon here
Use $2 off Huggies Supreme coupon or you can print here
Use any other Huggies manufacturer coupons you might have
Pay $16-19.97 depending on your coupons for 3 packs of diapers.
You'll get $10 in ECBs back, so turn around, go back and get another pack of diapers and some baby wipes and for $16-19 you'll have 4 packs of diapers and a pack of wipes!

Excedrin is also on sale next week for $1.99 (limit 5)
Sign up here at (coolsavings) and there is a coupon to print for $2.00 off - print and use 5 coupons that makes 5 bottles of Excedrin for FREE!
I just love FREE - don't you?

A Treat for the Kids

Hot dogs and french fries for dinner last night

April Fool's !

This was actually a yummy dessert

The kids thought this dinner was the 'sweetest' thing ever!

How I did it....

Hot Dogs: Twinkies cut down the middle make up the hot dog bun

a large Tootsie Roll is used for the weirner -

I put it in the microwave for about 10 seconds to soften then molded it in to shape

the ketchup is a piece of a Twizzler - the kind you peel & eat

the relish is Green Sour Straw candy minced into small bits

the fries are Lady Finger Cookies cut in thin strips

I used the hard cookie kind

then coated them with a little melted butter and cinnamon & sugar