Kiss My Lipstick...

Actually Kiss Sarah Palin's lipstick! One of the many buttons I read last night at a rally in my town! I wasn't sure all day that I wanted to fight through fifteen to twenty thousand people and thirty-five windy degrees to see her and say I was there, but I did! If you know me, you know it takes something special to bring me out in the cold and a crowd to do anything!

I decided I liked this lady in the first couple of minutes of hearing her speak at the republican convention. She is well spoken, extremely poised, and smart. Read all about her on the biography page of her website.

Her conservative stand and Christian worldview is enough for me to get excited about, but I love the fact that she is a breastfeeding, baby wearing, mother of five! I told Tommy, "It is ridiculous how excited I am" waiting for her to come on stage last night. Here are a few pictures from last night....

CVS Deals

It was a good week at CVS! The end of the month is always a squeeze on the grocery/household budget. The baby items in particular will be very helpful this final week of October. The Just For Men hair color was free after extra care bucks and I had a $2.00 off coupon and I will receive a 7.99 rebate. This item will be donated, but will end up a $9.99 profit for us. We don't celebrate Halloween, but the little girls are dragging around their dolly stuff in their "punkin' heads". When they tire of them we will donate them as well.

In summary: 12 ECB's to start, three transactions, $5.83 in cash out of pocket, end with 10 ECB's for next week. Abby uploaded pictures and threw in one of Rose;) since she always tags along to CVS with us.

Check out Money Saving Mom for other great deals!

October News

October has been a busy eventful month in our house. I am terribly behind on posting, so I thought I would catch up on things in one post.

October has been a good month of schooling for us. Everyone is doing very well and our schedule seems to be working well. In a nutshell, we are up by 8, chores and breakfast are done by 9, most are done with lessons by lunch time. Jacob has to work for a while after lunch usually. But he has some big books to work through. Tommy has taken on the responsibility of teaching grammar to the kids in the evenings. He is doing a great job too! Jacob has started Algebra this year and is doing very well. Samuel is learning to be more disciplined with his time and is completing his work most days by lunch time! Abigail does more than all of us pretty much everyday. She and Anna have started preschool curriculum with Wendy and Lily and Wendy is loving every minute of it. Wendy is a sponge right now! Abby is also practicing for a December recital for piano. She will be playing "We Three Kings". Anna has become quite the reader. We are very proud of her progress and is learning cursive and has nice hand writing.

In sports news, we had a month filled with soccer games and a baseball tournament. Samuel's travel baseball team had an excellent showing in the AAU state tournament. They took second in the tournament which made them 9th in the state! We really enjoyed watching Jacob and Samuel play soccer for the first time since they were age 4 and 6! They played their hearts out, and enjoyed it even though they only won one game. In other news.....Anna's soccer team, coached by her Daddy, has not lost a game and is playing for the Championship on Saturday, weather permitting. Go Fighters!!

October has been great, but not without some stress too. Little Wendy had a terrible fall on the playground....scared this Mama really bad! She fell from the top of a rock climbing wall, and pushed her two top teeth into her gums. We thought they were knocked out completely, but x-rays showed them pushed up in between her permanent teeth. So sad and painful for Wendy, but she is unbelievably tough. We are just waiting for her to heal and are not sure what will happen with her four top baby teeth. Wendy is trusting God to bring down her teeth. We are so thankful that God protected her from other serious injuries because she fell eight feet. Praise God for protection. The very same weekend of Wendy's accident, Jacob had his new bike stolen out of our garage. Obviously this was very concerning to think someone would come into our garage and steal something. The great news is that Jacob's bike was replaced by friends of ours that are in a community group called the Jaycee's...another blessing!

In baby news, Rose is nine months old! She loves food and is currently cutting teeth number six and seven! Her tooth filled grin is almost as cute as her gummy grin was! She is really getting around, by army crawl, our second to crawl this way! She definitely makes her presence known with lots of baby talk, squeals, and giggles. She is such a joy!

I cant' finish this "newsletter" without introducing the newest member of our family. Her name is Josie and she is a sweet heart with a face that is so ugly it's cute! She's a boxer and is full of playful energy and seems to need all of our attention, which we are happy to give!

Cute Therapy

click on me if you wanna see my new teeth, I am working very, very hard on my teeth!

Making Caramel Apples

This was fun and easy and not nearly as messy as you might think! And they were delicious! We prepared these before dinner and popped them in the refrigerator. After dinner we went to the library and came home to enjoy our apples. Lily and Wendy could hardly wait!

Here's how we did them...

Anna washed and dried eight golden delicious apples

Anna and Lily unwrapped the caramels and put them in a glass dish.

I had planned to melt the candy in the crock pot, but she was busy baking potatoes for dinner! So I microwaved the caramel a minute at a time stirring after each minute. It took about three and a half minutes.

While the girls unwrapped candy, I put the sticks into the apples. The bag of Kraft caramels came with five sticks, and we saved some sticks from popsicles to use on the rest.

I chopped peanuts and made a pile of sprinkles.

We rolled the apples in the caramel, and scraped the excess caramel off the bottom of the apple with the edge of a knife. Then roll in the nuts and sprinkles. Some wanted only one topping, some did half nuts and half sprinkles.

It was best to tilt the bowl and roll the apple against the side to evenly cover the apple with caramel. We had to melt the caramel a couple of times for 10 seconds between apples.

I sprayed the glass dish lightly with cooking spray so they wouldn't stick.

Lily ate the WHOLE THING! I had more fun watching these two eat than eating my own!

Menu Plan

A little later than usual, but not too late! The fall weather calls for more cooking don't you agree. We continue to enjoy buying and cooking food from local farmer's at the farmer's market. Here's our fall inspired menu, though partially eaten:)

Monday
B-Cereal, toast
L-ham and cheese, leftovers
D-chili dogs, tater tots

Tuesday
B-biscuits with gravy
L-scrambled egg burritos, apples
D-broccoli, rice, and cheese casserole, grilled trout

Wednesday
B-blueberry muffins, hot tea
L-boiled eggs, leftovers, apples
D-baked potato bar...butter, sour cream, steamed broccoli, cheese
desert...crock pot caramel apples

Thursday
B-scrambled eggs, oatmeal
L-pbj, bananas
D-baked chicken, rolls, sweet potato casserole

Friday
B-apple scones
L-pbj, boiled eggs, leftovers
D- spagetti, veggies

New foods for Baby Rose...butternut squash, sweet potatoes.

CVS

We shopped CVS for the first time in several weeks because all of our ECB's were to expire on Tuesday. I decided to try a store in town that I had only been in once before. I checked with the manager first to make sure he accepted internet printable coupons and he did! I had several coupons I had printed for the post it note deal. Also an FYI for fellow shoppers, I called customer service last week to ask about store policy concerning expired ECB's. It is CVS policy to accept expired ECB's up to two weeks past expiration; however the final decision is up to the individual store managers. I had a customer reward ECB that had expired and I had thrown away. Customer service renewed it for me and it printed at this last trip! Thanks CVS!
In summary, I went in with a non-detailed list and a fist full of manufacurers coupons and did four transactions to roll my ECB's. I spent around $5 out of pocket!

I got these groceris at Wal-mart this week for $1.96! You can use links for Kashi and vlassic pickles and tons of great coupon matches for Wal-mart at The Centsible Sawyer.

The Centsible Sawyer and Money Saving Mom have all the details you'll need to shop CVS and Wal-mart every week!