Christmas Card Outtakes

Lest you think it is easy to get a decent photograph of two wiggly, ornery children for the annual holiday photo, here are a few outtakes from this year's photo shoot to dispel such notions.

"You can't make me stand in one spot!"

"See?! Haha! I run away from you and your silly camera!"

"Now stand still, baby, and stay here for the picture..."

"Ok. I'll stay in one spot. But I will only look at you with ONE EYE!"

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Because I Love You

I am giving you this. Behold! Shy Ronnie!



Happy, happy to you and yours!
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Love Me Some Deals

I should really start a separate blog for this kind of stuff, but since I am lazy, I'm just gonna put it here (for now?).

Here's my Vons trip from yesterday. Props to my mom who came and stayed with the girls thereby making my coupon-printing and kid-free shopping possible.

Coupon Deals

4 jars Classico Pasta Sauce, $1.99 each (if you buy more than 3)
-used 2 x $1 off 2 printable coupons
= $1.49 each

4 boxes Kleenex tissues, $1.29 each (if you buy 4)
-used $2 off 4 in-ad store coupon
-used 2 x .75 off 1 printables (first one doubled to $1)
-received $1 off my next order coupon at checkout
= .41 for 4 boxes

2 loaves Nature's Pride bread, $2.00 each
-used 2 x .75 off 1 printables (first one doubled to $1)
= $2.25 for both loaves

2.5 lbs pot roast, $1.67/lb ($4.28 total)
-used $2 off printable store coupon
= $2.28 (under $1 a pound!)

2 bags Pillsbury ready-to-bake cookies, $2.99 each
-used 2 x $1 off 1 store coupon
-used 2 x $1 off 1 printable coupon
-used 2 x $1 off 2 loadable e-coupons
=FREE! (+2 cents overage)

Non-coupon stuff that was just on sale:

2 1lb. boxes Barilla Pasta, $1 each

Ground Turkey, $1.99/lb

Raspberries, $1.50/pack

Oranges, .47/lb

Potatoes, .49/lb

Other stuff that wasn't on sale but I still needed:

1 Gallon 2% Organic Milk, $5.49 (wish I could get coupons for this!)

1/2 gallon skim milk, $1.99

2 packs frozen sausages, $2 each

Bananas, .67/lb

Carrots, .79/lb

Organic Salad Mix, $5.99

Total Before I scanned my store card: $86.20
After store card and sale prices: $54.25
After coupons: $40.75

Got back:
$1 off your next purchase (from Kleenex)
$10 off your next purchase (from Vons, for having spent way too much money with them over the past few weeks)

But look at all that stuff! For $40! I was stoked. And as much as I fall off the wagon with couponing sometimes... man, when it is good, it is SO good.
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One of Those Days

Everyone is sick today. And I'm about to lose it.

Savannah wants to sit on my lap and hear book after book after book after book. When I finally get up, she follows me around crying and wipes her snotty nose on my pants.

Since we're not going anywhere, I let Chelsea park herself in front of PBS Kids all morning. After 3 hours of preschool programming, they switched to fund-raising and she started to cry. This is a kid who usually watches about 3 hours of TV in a week, so I have no sympathy for being upset about watching only 3 hours of TV in a day.

By 11am, I needed a break. I went into my bedroom, locked the baby gate behind me, and put the covers over my head.

Then I listened to them scream at me and each other for a few minutes. And then? It got mysteriously quiet. Too quiet.

In the 5 minutes of solitude I allowed myself, they managed to create a 2012-like path of destruction through the rest of our tiny abode.

They pulled all the drawers out of two storage shelves and dumped out all the contents in another room. They upended the empty storage units and tried to climb into them.

They pulled a pile of clothes out of the laundry and another pile of clothes out of drawers, making it impossible to tell which was which.

They broke a lamp.

And left the lamp turned on, lying with the hot bulb in a pile of blankets. Surrounded by giant shards of broken glass.

So much fun to clean up!

I finally came out, did a power clean-up, and made lunch. Which Chelsea refused to eat. (Who refuses quesadillas? Made with delicious Trader Joe's homemade tortillas? I don't geddit.)

At the end of my rope, on my last nerve, I decided to console myself with a generous handful of Hershey's Kisses leftover from a baking project (peanut butter blossoms! yes, they're all gone now!). I know, I know. I watched the Biggest Loser finale last night, I'm not supposed to deal with emotional issues with food, thank you Bob and Jillian. But what else am I supposed to do?

Oh. I guess I'm doing it right now.
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