Another fantastic Haul & Terrible Parenting on display

 Took advantage of Meijer's 10 for 10 sale & managed to get all this for $58:
4 69 oz Arm & Hammer laundry detergent (my favourite deal)
4 6 oz Chex Mix
4 cans Fancy Feast
5 bananas
6 coloured bell peppers

2 loaves bread
1 hamburger bun pack
1 french baguette
4 sm boxes Totinos Pizza Rolls
2 Kraft veggie mac & cheese boxes
1 head broccoli
6 nectarines
1 bag Marzetti croutons
1 Betty Crocker brownie mix
1 Betty Crocker carrot cake mix
2 34 oz Ajax dish soap
4 sm boxes green Giant veggies
1 pack of  8 tortillas
2 king size Reeses Cups
4 boxes Suddenly Salad
2 cans chickpeas
3 8 oz packs portabellas
8 oz feta
1 13 oz bottle Pantene

Quite a great haul. We actually got an additional $21 as well, but that was all WIC stuff, so doesn't really count. :) We stopped at Wal-Mart before heading to Meijer, & are both glad we did. We normally won't shop at them if we can help it because of their shoddy quality & deplorable business practices, but we figured that by getting stuff for free from them, it's harming the corporation slightly. Besides, I haven't been to one in over a year, so it's not like I'm part of their huge greedy machine. Anyway, while there picken up a nearly free paint sample & a great deal on Oxi-Clean spray, Joel found a 2 pack of large Nyquil bottles. He even found them in the more palatable cherry flavour. They were marked down to $7, but still bore their original tag of $15. At the register they rang up as $5. Score! All in all, a pretty great day of shopping, although we unfortunately got to witness some terrible parenting: a lady telling her 3 year old daughter to shut up multiple times & something I didn't see, but when Joel told me about made me furious. If I would have seen it, I would've marched over, Felix strapped to me, gave the lady $3 & told her not to talk to her child that way. Apparently, this Amazon of a woman was berating her son, who was about 12, holding a leaking gallon of milk. She was berating & yelling at the poor guy, calling him a worthless piece of shit, dumbass, etc. saying that because of his uselessness she was out a gallon of milk. Seriously, I would've flipped if I heard it. Joel said it didn't register what he had witnessed til we were already in the car, but yeah, terrible parenting. Poor kid.

CVS First-Timer

CVS was running a great deal this week-When you buy $20 of Schick or Playtex items, you get back $10 in Extra Care Bucks. I had a ton of Skintimate shave gel coupons, as well as some razor ones due to expire in a few days, so I thought I'd go try out this whole ECB thing. CVS is great in that your total is counted pre-coupon, so getting to $20 before you add in any discounts is quite easy. I also had 2 Ben-Gay coupons for $5 off. They were regularly priced at $5.99, so I got them for $1 each. Yay! Anyway, after adjusting for ECBs, I spent $28 & got all this. The shave gels were normally $4 a piece, & were on sale for $2.19, & I had coupons to snag each for a dollar or under. It came out to be a  savings of $65!!!! Incredible...
The Haul:
2 Bengay creams
1 Shick Intuition razor w/ moisturizers (reg. $11)
1 pkg refills for aforementioned razors (also reg $11)
3 Crest toothpastes
4 Edge shave gels
2 Skintimate shave gels
6 Skintimate shave creams
Not bad for my first go couponing at CVS.

Lucky me

I'm still waiting on a few winnings, but it appears I'm on a streak. For every 40 or so giveaways I enter, I win one. In the past couple days I won a Savvycents coupon organizer wallet & a Bee All Natural organic lip balm (I chose grapefruit.) & Bee All Natural organic baby powder-I chose natural/unscented. I'm really getting into entering these giveaways while I'm sitting watching TV. Felix is asleep in my lap, so I'm pretty much a captive audience. Kind of unrelated- I love sleeping with him & snuggling with him. I love the ease with which I can nurse while cosleeping, but I wish he would sleep in his crib at times so I can get off the couch or have his brothers hold him at night without him waking up. I need to stretch & pee at times, ya know? Anyway, can't wait til my winnings come in. Still waiting on:
scrapbook templates,(Gave up for lost-no response from sponsor)
Sip & Go, (collapsible water pouch)
Bee All Natural lip balm & baby powder,
Savvycents coupon organizer
I think that's it. I'd love to win some diapers though. I need my luck fairy to send my mojo that way. :)

Kroger Haul

Here's this week's grocery haul. Got a bunch of produce at Aldi & with the sales going on at Kroger this week, along with coupons, managed to get everything we need (as a family of 5) for a week for $75! I didn't even use WIC checks this week. Here's a pic of everything we got at Kroger. There's a few things I didn't need, like the Thermacare & Advil thrown in, because hey, it was under a buck. What we got from Kroger: 2 regular size boxes of Rice Krispies, 2 regular size boxes of Cocoa Krispies, 2 ct. box Thermacare wraps, 2 boxes 24 ct Advil, 10 oz cherry tomatoes, parsley, bok choy, Beech Nut baby juice, Beech Nut baby oatmeal, 6 pack Quilted Northern,( the only thing I paid full price for) 2 big bags of store brand marshmallows, which I won't eat because of the gelatin, but will donate or my husband will eat them or something-got them free for buying the cereal, 8 bottles of Honest Tea, 2 half gallons almond milk, 1 bottle Nivea for men body wash, 3 cubes Kleenex, 2 tubs vegan margarine, & a 50 oz bottle of Wisk. We paid $38 & saved $52! 60% savings-not too bad..

Planter Update

I know it's been a while since I wrote. I've been feeling really lethargic with it lately. I did manage to snap some pics of the progress the planters I won from The Simple Garden have made. In the lavender ones are basil, oregano, & cilantro. I rotate them every couple days since, as you can see, they start to grow towards the light. In the blue one, we have cherry tomatoes & more basil. You can see where everything got planted thanks to their included template. I'll have to thin these out once they get bigger, but for right now, they're kind of neat looking this way. I haven't had to water them all week thanks to the super dense potting soil that was included. it really has held moisture well. I can't wait to try the fruits & herbs of my labour! :) Bad pun, I know.

mail call

Got my winnings from Simple Garden in. The main planter is a cute sky blue rounded-edged square & we planted cherry tomatoes & basil in it. They sent me a lavender coloured 3 pack planter for the jr. sized planter as well, containing cilantro, more basil, & oregano. I love that the compressed soil & seeds(w/ a cool, handy template) were included in the kit. Great if you're not used to gardening or the world of botany, but fun & easy for this ex-botany major. :) I'll take pics of it & update the blog w/ its progress as soon as anything starts growing, but I'm super excited to see how these container gardens do.

Soreness

My boobs are sore! Felix has been latched on for nearly an hour. He's finally starting to get sleepy. He's drooling like mad & I hope his tooth(teeth) pop through soon. He polished off a whole small jar of sweet potatoes, so his appetite's definitely improved. Unfortunately, he's favouring the left breast, leading to the fun soreness issue. Hopefully, this doesn't continue for too long. He must be having a growth spurt in addition to his teething. As I type this, he's finally fallen asleep. Just hope the poor guys not in too much pain; his baby Tylenol's in the car.

New Family Member

Meet our newest family member. We haven't picked out a name for her yet. I like Ginger because she has peachy points, like a flame-point Siamese, but the eldest son is suck on Zelda after I suggested it. She looks like the kitten in the 'Take This. It's dangerous to go alone.' meme. She's tiny, only about 6 weeks old & has blue eyes. So far Regulus is terrified of her & Singapore is old & crotchety & therefore hates her. She has the endearing qualities of riding on shoulders, sleeping with her face lodged in the couch, & attempting to nurse alongside the baby, which I keep having to plop her back on the floor because I'm convinced the baby will get scratched. Apparently she thinks Felix is her littermate. :)

Yay! I'm a winner!

I've won a few giveaways recently. The first one I ever won was an instant flash giveaway & it was for a Green Sprouts bamboo baby spoon, fork, & bowl & a bpa free sippy cup. I recently put a couple of them to use. They seem to work well. The spoon is shaped perfectly for Felix's mouth & the bowl's a great size for his current small 'beginning to eat solids' meals & will work equally well as he gets older & eats more solids. I also won another time on a flash giveaway for some printable scrapbooking clip art, but the seller never came through, even after contacting the hostess. Oh well. I recently won a collapsible water bottle that I'm still waiting on & will probably do a review of once I've tried it out. Today I found out I won the grand prize in a giveaway from The Simple Garden & received their square planter set & the junior 3 pack set. That's about $50 worth of container gardening I just got for free! Yes! I'm super excited to plant some kitchen herbs in the 3 pack for my kitchen window. I need to have basil growing in there after the garden is done for the year. I'm not sure what all is coming in this set, but will definitely review it when it gets here. Now, if only I could win some cloth diapers, but everyone seems to enter those giveaways. I lucked out with these ones.