Who cares if the calendar says it's the second day of spring? Obviously Mother Nature doesn't care because there is 5 inches of snow outside my window! It's the most snow I have seen on the valley floor in quite some time and the kids are loving it!
Building another snowman.
Now it's time for hot chocolate!!We spread K's birthday out over a couple of days this year due to illness and church activities. On Friday we took the girls down to the church so K could break her dinosaur pinata she helped daddy make. She had a hard time busting through the tough reptilian-like skin. and generously allowed her sister to take a few swings too. They broke off the head first and then went to town beating the bum. Eventually they got it pretty well open and had a lot of fun in the process.
We picked up a Little Caesar's pizza on the way home to eat since L wasn't feeling so well yet. After dinner we had donut cake, opened gifts and watched a movie. K loved her gifts, especially the dinosaur box we got her. We found it on craigslist last fall for cheap and it came filled with all these dinosaurs. She has played with it every day so far! My cute little paleontologist:)
On Monday night we took K to Red Robin for her free birthday meal. She really liked it when the waiters sang to her and brought her a hot fudge sundae to eat.
K is in first grade this year and loving it! She is in the accelerated reading group, which isn't surprising given her love of books. Her teacher is impressed by her ability to read large words; she says dinosaur names just roll off of K's tongue. She also is a great speller and story writer.K was sad that she didn't get a chance to hit the pinata at her school Valentine's Day party so M thought it would be fun to have her make one. He blew up two balloons and had K paper mache them. He attached the two balloons after she was done and started making it look like a t-Rex. K had no idea at first what it was they were doing but once we told her it was a pinata she was very excited.
M spent one weekend making the spine, tail, face, and feet. He did a wonderful job, I was very impressed with how it was coming along. On another weekend he put the girls in the garage to paint it green.
Once it was all dried, M added stripes and eyes. He did a great job and the dino looks pretty realistic, it even stands on it's own.
I think he is a very ferocious looking dinosaur and can't wait until K takes a bat to him! M stuffed him with lots of fun goodies for K's birthday. When we told her she was going to break it she was very excited about it.
During Dr. Seuss week K's school rented out the local skate rink for all the kids to use. K went with her dad and used her new skates she got from Bahmah. She had a really good time but needs to practice some more. I remember when my best friend and I went skating almost every weekend when we were kids. It was so much fun and great exercise too!
A good friend of mine got me into couponing about nine months ago. It is very time consuming and we don't always get the good coupons that they get up in Portland, but sometimes it is so worth the effort.
This week I was able to get all this for $4.25 plus I got a $2 off a purchase of $2 or more catalina and a free baked cookies with my next purchase catalina from Albertson's. How did I do this you ask? I will tell you.
Sunday's paper had doubler coupons in it. I had five doublers which I combined with coupons I printed off line or cut out of the paper. Doing this I got the paper towels for free and the deodorant for 59 cents each. The cereal was two for five dollars but I had coupons for those and paid only $5.25 for all four boxes. I was supposed to get a catalina for a free milk and $2 off my next purchase of $2 or more but the catalinas didn't print out. I went to the customer service desk where they gave me $4.40 for the price of their most expensive milk and pulled a $2 catalina out of their coupon bag. I used the cash to buy the Albertson's brand milk and made $1.11 off of the purchase.
I hear that once upon a time couponers could get fab deals like this every week but with the coupon craze going on now many stores have had to change their policies. I do save a lot of money couponing though. I do most of my shopping at Winco, which already has good prices so adding in the coupons makes it great. I also go to Target (which have their own store coupons you can combine with manufacture coupons), Wal-Mart (though now that our Target is turning into a super Target I won't go there as often), and occasionally Albertson's when they have really good deals on cereal and such.
One of my other friends, Sue, finds great deals at Grocery Outlet. I still haven't made it to ours yet. It isn't on this side of town and I hate traveling very far for a good deal. I don't shop at Costco near as much as I used to. They have great food, especially their produce, but their prices aren't nearly as good as I thought they were. Now we do a lot of bulk shopping at Cash n' Carry which is on our side of town, so that's a plus.
I have made a goal of only spending $200 a month on groceries and household items. This website has a budget challenge going on where you keep track of what you spend and save then you are entered each week into a drawing for a free gift card. I already won a $20 gift card to Amazon! They also have an excel spread sheet you can download to keep track of your spending. It is great and has helped keep me on task for the budget I set for this year.
If you haven't done couponing, I suggest you start. It's a great way to save money on the things you already buy. It can be a little overwhelming at first but there are lots of great websites that can help you figure it out. Here are the ones I love to go to:
Frugal Living NW
Thrifty and Thriving
Fabulously Frugal
You can also go to these websites for printable coupons:
Coupons.com
RedPlum.com
SmartSource.com
FreeCoupons.com
Last week we had a FHE lesson on Love and how we can demonstrate it to each other. After the lesson I pulled out this pretty box of chocolates. I told the girls we could only have a chocolate after writing a nice note about someone in the family and putting it in the chocolates place. After our Valentine's dinner we read the notes that were left in the box. The girls left a lot of cute notes in the box. I got the idea from this website.
I made the girls some heart shaped pancakes
L had a fun party at preschool on Monday. They played games, made crafts, and exchanged valentines. For snack they had hot cocoa, heart shaped frosted cookies, and gold fish. She had a really good time and was so excited to show me all candy she received.
I was able to go help out at K's Valentine's Day party on Tuesday. There was a heart-shaped pinata filled with candy and the kids took turns trying to break open. It only took four swipes before all the candy came plummeting out. It was a free for all trying to get their cups full of the sweet innards. They exchanged valentines and ate a snack consisting of gold fish, pretzels, popcorn and, of course, candy. K only ate two pieces and saved the rest for later. I have taught her well:)
After dinner at Five Guys Burgers and Fries, our favorite, we stopped in at Star Bucks to buy some dessert with our $2 bills. Some anti-gun group organized a boy-cot of Star Bucks across America on February 14th because Star Bucks allows people to conceal carry in their stores. Because of this many gun owners went out of their way to purchase something at Star Bucks and to use $2 bills in honor of the second amendment. We bought some tasty little cream cakes and brownies. The girls loved their cream cakes.
We exchanged gifts with each other. The girls made valentines for all of us and we gave the girls chocolate filled hearts. M made me some metal paper holders for my awesome memo board he made me before Christmas. I should really make a post about that.
We had a wonderful Valentine's Day together. The girls got a ton of candy which they will nibble on here and there for the next week or so. Then they will forget it even exists and I will donate it to the girls at church. I love that my girls aren't candy hounds. They would prefer veggies or fruit to candy. Their teeth will thank me later.
L celebrated her fourth birthday this weekend in style. On Friday she awoke to crepe paper hanging from her bedroom door and the ceiling in the kitchen. At preschool they sang to her and enjoyed some cookies with juice.
In the afternoon we invited over some of her friends for a Lego birthday party. We played games, decorated cookies, and ate pizza and cake. She received some pretty cool presents from her friends and had a really good time.
L wanted her Lego cake to be rainbow in the inside,
L with all her friends eating pizza.
Blowing out her candles.
All the kids building stuff with the Lego's.
Today Daddy made her eggs and toast for breakfast, as per her request. Then we played with her huge set of Lego's we gave her for her birthday. Daddy made an awesome castle zoo but Larkin destroyed it in seconds, as is her personality. She really enjoys tearing things apart.
We watched the movie Rio and then went out to Road House for her birthday dinner. They sang and gave her an ice cream sundae. We came home where she opened the rest of her gifts from bahmah, auntie, and us.
K wanted to buy her a gift so Daddy took her to the store
The tumultuous threes have reined in our house over the last year. L has become more and more willful, pushing way past boundaries and fighting for control. It's been hard since both of us are stubborn and fight to get what we want. She is a formidable foe:) I am hoping that this year things will improve, not just on her end but mine as well.A week before Christmas I had my gall bladder removed. I had been having pain below my shoulder blade and under my rib cage on and off for about a year. Around August I started having pain when I ate certain foods and by Thanksgiving I had pain when I exercised or sat for long. I went to the doctor who did an ultra-sound and found several gall stones.
Ten days before Christmas I met with the surgeon who said my gall bladder needed to come out. I could either do it a week before Christmas or two days before. I opted for a week before hoping I would be in good shape for the holiday season. I spent the following week getting everything done before my surgery. I wrapped gifts, made and mailed Christmas cards, baked 12 loaves of dill bread and delivered them to our friends, cleaned the house from top to bottom, did the laundry, bought food for the family and my post-operation, and packed bags for myself and our girls who went to bahmah's for a few days during the surgery.
The surgery was scheduled for 1pm on a Friday, not my ideal choice but what I had to do. We arrived at the hospital at 11am for check-in and blood work. I had to do it at the hospital instead of the out-patient clinic because our family has a history of bad reactions to anesthesia. My grandmother died on the operating table at 35 due to anesthesia and my mom's heart stopped beating the first time she had anesthesia. Every since then she always has a hard time waking up and throws up for hours after.
The surgery went well and the doctor told M I had a large healthy liver. He also said my fascia was very strong and didn't look at all like he would expect for someone diagnosed with Marfan's. I was supposed to be awake 30 minutes later but it took over two hours for me to wake up from the anesthesia and when I did I was VERY nauseous. We finally were able to leave the hospital about 9pm.
The surgery was done laparoscopically. They went in through my belly button and made three other incisions on my belly. I was in a lot of pain and had a hard time moving after the surgery so I took the pain meds they gave me for a few days. My aunt picked up our girls from bahmah on day two after my surgery and brought them down. She stayed with us for five days which was an amazing help. She played with the girls, made crafts with them, fed me and entertained me when I was up for it. M was a great help too, except for when he was making me laugh, which was very painful!
By the time a week went by, I was feeling good enough to go to Bahmah's for Christmas. We had a wonderful time visiting and I got to spend most of it on the couch putting puzzles together. My mom-in-law made a wonderful dinner Christmas Eve and my sis-in-law made a tasty dinner on Christmas Day. We all got lots of great gifts and the boys helped Bahmah move the wood stove from her old shop into her new wood-working shop. Ignore the face my hubby is making in this picture. It's the only one that had everyone all together in it.
The day after Christmas we headed to my aunts house to have Christmas with them. We had a wonderful time and got great gifts. I don't have a picture of all of us together so here is a picture of what M made for my cousin. It was so cool. I bet you wish you had one, right?
Then we came home to celebrate our own Christmas. The girls loved their gifts from Santa Claus and from us. I will have to post a video of K with her gift from Santa, it's very cute.
I recently went in for my post-op appointment with the doctor who said all looks good. He took off my steri-strips and the incisions look really good. I am guessing in a couple more weeks you won't even know I had surgery. He told me I only have 6 more weeks of a low-fat diet and no lifting over 15 pounds or exercising. Eating low-fat has been hard and annoying. All tasty food has fat in it and I get none, so sad. But I did get back a couple of the gall stones that were removed.
These were the small ones he took out; I had much larger ones. He said I should be proud. I received the hospital bill this past week and it was a doozie! Makes me glad we have medical insurance, though we still will have to pay 30% of it. I haven't even gotten the bill for the surgeon yet; I'm sure it won't be cheap. I definitely don't like how much they charge for medical procedures but it beats Obama-care. I'd still be on the waiting list if we had that kind of system.
