Thursday, March 5, 2009

Halloween

It know its late but we are still in our catch up phase of posting so here are the Halloween pics.

Halloween is always a fun time for the kidos. This year we had a Power Ranger, Princess Belle and Princess Snow White. I always plan to make the childrens' costumes. I have these wonderful ideas for family themed costumes that never quite seem to work out. Oh well, there is always next year.

We seem to have made a tradition of attending the Hallelujah Hoedown at Trinity Chapel. They always do a wonderful job of having lots of food and fun for the kids.


After the Hoedown when we were already home and in our PJ's our favorite scarecrow showed up. It was our Aunt Debbie!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Let it Snow!

A few weeks ago we got to enjoy a rare treat in East Tennessee, SNOW!! I bundled the kidos up in as many layers as I could get on them and sent them out with thier Daddy to build a snowman. Who knows, with the way the weather is here, it could be the only one they ever get to build.

What began as a simple trip outside to build the snowman quickly turned into screeches and screams as someone started a snowball fight. Nothing says love from Daddy like a face full of snow!

Of course, it didnt take the children long to join in. Even a 3 year old can manage to form a pretty decent snowball.


Finally, all of the hard work paid off and we had a snowman in the yard. Many thanks again to Ms. Faye for sending us all the wonderful hats. We got to use one on the snowman.










Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Side Buns

I didn't realize that children in the 3 to 5 age category even noticed the fashion around them or set and noticed styles and trends. Believe me, they do. There is a beautiful little girl at our homeschool co-op named Emma. She is older than our 3 year old screecher but we pass her in the halls and say hello. This past weekend as we were getting ready to go out with our kids to a birthday party our youngest daughter announced that she needed a different hair do. When I asked her how she would like her hair done she replied "Like Emma's hair mommy, you know, in those side buns!" We all busted out laughing. In her tiniest three year old voice this sounded much like sideburns. So, for all of those who can't get the mental picture, here are the "side buns".
Isn't that just the cutest thing!

CVSing

For many in our country, whether by choice or necessity, frugality has become a way of life in this present economy. I could not believe it when my freshman grammar class had never even heard the word frugal. We got a nice vocabulary lesson that day :) Anyway, its true, we are all pinching pennies a bit more these days. Many of my friends have asked me how we seem to stretch our food and necessity dollars so well with so many in the home and one still in diapers. My oft repeated reply is cooking at home, clipping coupons and CVSing 101 as taught on moneysavingmom.com (see link on my blogroll). The first two are self explanatory, time consuming and worth it! The last is a bit of a puzzle for some.
Though I have directed many friends to the MSM site, they seem to come away either confused or in disbelief. I have promised for a while to show the CVSing in action so, here is my first post.
On Sunday after church, I stopped by the local CVS on the way home to pick up a newspaper and the new monthly Extra Care Bucks (ECBs) book. This is always available on the first of every month and should be tucked away as reference for the entire month of CVSing. I admit, the planning of such shopping takes some time. In fact, I had not been CVSing in a while so, I was nearly starting from scratch with my ECBs.
So here is the concept, you invest a little money in the beginning to get lots of ECBs, combine those with coupons in the following weeks and keep rolling them over. Essentially, you turn an original $20 out of pocket purchase into free toilet paper, paper towels, toiletries and other necessities for months.
Here is how I got started again. I pulled all of my coupons from my Sunday paper, printed all available coupons online (including the ones emailed from CVS) and began scouring the CVS circular and monthly ECB book. I found the items that I could use that I had coupons for and offered ECBs. This usually makes for the best purchases! I had a $5 off of $15 purchase and a $4 off of $20 from CVS to start with. I also had a $2 off of playskool wipes from the CVS website. So, there was $11 off of my first $20 before any other coupons or ECBs. Playskool wipes and Pampers were on sale at CVS this week offering ECBs as well (buy $20 of these combined and get $5 ECBs). There were also coupons in the paper for pampers. You see the deal coming together?? There were several other items on sale that I could use that offered ECBs and for which there were also coupons available. Here was the result of this week's CVSing:

This is a 6 pack of Charmin, 8 roll pack of Bounty, 2 Jumbo packs of Pampers, 2 large tubes of Crest, 2 bottles of Tylenol PM, 1 Secret deodorant, 2 bags of playskool wipes and a 16 pack of duracell AAA batteries.

We got all of this for about $30 out of pocket with $18.99 in ECBs to start out with next week. I know that $30 may seem like a lot but when you consider that two jumbo bags of pampers cost at least that much, you see the savings. Plus we got a lot more! Also, we will not have to spend that much again unless I fall behind and quit turning over my ECBs again. A typical weekly CVS shopping trip costs me anywhere from $4 to $8 out of pocket and we come home with at least this much. I will keep posting these shopping excursions for a few weeks until those interested parties get the hang of it. Happy shopping this week!

Blog Safety

It never occurred to me that I would need to protect my childrens' names on my blog. However, just the other day I read a blog by a mom who nicknamed her kids online. As I was thinking about how cute that was, it dawned on me that it was for safety as well. Now for me, being on of those people constantly preaching about those stickers in the back windows of cars with the kids names and sports numbers and how that gives predators way too much info about our kids, I felt like a complete idiot for posting so much about them on our blog!! I first considered deleting our blog all together or just not including the kidos. However, I know we would have several readers that would be terribly disappointed with us so, here is our answer. We are carefully going through our archives interchanging our kids names for some nicknames. Those of you who know the kids know they fit.

First, there is the Monkey Man:

He is 7 years old and all monkey. At any given point in the day you can find him hanging from something. I don't think I even notice it so much anymore. In fact, I think he practices his memorization each week while swinging from his top bunk!
Next, there is the Tater:
While some may argue that our 6 year old could only be labeled the "Princess", I respectfully disagree. She is the house trickster, instigator, aggravator, agitator ...you know, a Tater! She and her daddy have even started their own "Tater Club". It is a very special members only kind of club to which only the most skilled Taters are invited.
Next, the Screecher:

All who know our third child know that she is absolutely tiny in body but HUGE in vocal ability! Her one offensive and defensive weapon is her ear piercing screech! This is heard daily around the Langford home, most always when the baby has just drifted off to sleep. After a sleep deprived night, I threaten the worst of consequences on anyone who would make her screech.
Last, but not least, there is our Little Man:


As he grows, I am sure he will show us a better nickname but for now, the only other thing that would fit would be the "Spewer" and that just isn't a pretty thought :)
So there you have it, our newly named crew!